#character png of the day is also one you really want and when you finally got to 30 sq you got spooked and are at 0 sq for nothing

[dailyfatefigures]

DesQ - Romani Archaman by Re-Ment

[vex-cti]

[LONGPOST] I just finished... Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth

I wanna write down all my thoughts before I delve into more in-depth online opinions. I'm writing this on the same day as having done the last two chapters of the game, so I may have not had time to process the story completely. However, I've been playing this game for the entire month and I got a lot to say. Obvious spoilers ahead, but I'll still try to keep some things vague enough.

Okay Square Enix, you win, I'll use photo mode

Graphics in video games are like how attractive a dessert looks, it doesn't dictate how it will taste, but it makes you want to try it. Rebirth feels like one of those games that is finally showing what the PS5 is capable of, with environments extremely rich in detail, superb lightning that's both colorful and conveys the right emotion for each scene, this is the prettiest Final Fantasy has ever looked, even compared to 16 which had some optimization issues and dull lightning in some areas, specially towards endgame. No single location in Rebirth feels half-baked, what used to be single screens and flat textures in the original have been completely re-imagined to have their own identity. I will talk about more about the open environments when I talk about gameplay and exploration.

Reliving the moments: Going above and beyond

The cutscene direction for this game is absolutely phenomenal, I love that they have amped up the campiness of the original 7, while also being faithful to the serious and emotional moments. What shines even more in Remake is the excellent writing when it comes to the characters, their performances are full of charisma, and it made it clear to me why the cast of seven ended up becoming so iconic to gaming as a whole. Every scene with these characters interacting, no matter if it was the dullest of sidequests, made everything entertaining. But the best part of Rebirth, like its predecessor, it's when it brings back the iconic moments we all wanted to see. The Junon Parade, Costa del Sol, Red XIII and Cosmo Canyon, Barret and Corel, and many more of these moments have barely altered from how they happened originally, reliving these moments feels like watching a high production TV Series based on a book you loved as a kid. If you love the original FFVII but have no intentions of playing the remake due to how things change, I at least recommend you look up the scenes that do stay faithful.

Some things left me wanting

Still, Rebirth only covers up to the end of Disc 1 section of the story, and has some blatant teases from trailers and the game itself that left me wanting. The Planet's weapons are mentioned and different versions appear, but there's no Diamond or Ruby weapon superboss yet. Both Cid and Vincent make their debuts near the final chapters, but are not playable for now, which left me a little disappointed. And this lets me segway perfectly into the other best part of Rebirth...

Can I just say I love the portraits in this game? Love me some PNGs

When I first played Part 1 of the Remake saga, I felt like I had no idea of what I was doing with the combat, I found the action-hybrid system too complicated and visually cluttered I felt like I was brute forcing every fight and not really enjoying myself. I finished the game and didn't come back to it until early this year where I decided to do Hard Mode for the Platinum, and this time I had a way better time, now understanding the combat system and each fight better. It makes for a flashy, semi tactical game with very visceral and satisfying animations, powers, character building thanks to materia, the importance of positioning, blocking, switching aggro, it felt like the realization of what games like FF12 and 13 aimed to be.

So imagine my surprise when Rebirth made it even better. Fundamentals are still the same, new skills were to be expected, but my favorite new addition are synergy skills. Not only do you get special commands you can perform with your partners in the party with extremely satisfying animations, you also have synergy real time action commands which reward you for being more reactive and agressive, now adding perfect blocks and counters, now every time you play with a different team composition you're gonna feel the difference of having Barret or Red or Yuffie as your partner, as you get access to different skills.

They also help you build ATB for characters not actively controlled at any given time, which is an excellent quality of life improvement. My only nitpick is that despite the menus allowing you to have 3 different party compositions and even allowing you to set the leader for each, Cloud is mandatory. Cloud is of course good at everything, so it's not the worst thing, but it does suck that I can't play as a team of Barret, Red, and Yuffie at any time in the open world. Though you can do that at virtual combat challenges or the colliseum. This feels like an oversight.

Fortunately, this meant I was playing around different characters all the time, because they're all great, and it feels super satisfying to set the right materia for each one according to what you envision them to be and complement their abbilities. Some are obvious: give Yuffie the steal materia, give Aerith healing materia. But who gets to be the mage, the debuffer, the buffer, the tank, that's up to you. I found Red XIII + Darkside materia works extremely well thanks to his Reaper Claw abbility and his health regeneration, sort of like a bestial Dark Knight, great crowd control and support all around. Cait Sith takes some work to get used to, and requires lots of setup, but his luck based gameplay can have some serious benefits, I'm sure he will come in handy in hard mode. Yuffie plays almost identically to her DLC, and she is excellent for handling boss fights with multiple parts or different weaknesses.

Exploring will either be fun or tedious, depends on who you ask

I feel like the other primary component of the gameplay, which is the exploration and traversal, will be a bit more divisive. It takes tropes from standard open world games like towers, points of interest, fast travel, loot locations, hunts, there is nothing new or original about it. However, that doesn't mean it can't be fun. Completing areas feels like I'm playing a collect-a-thon akin to Sonic Frontiers, where while it may not be the most exciting thing in the world, it is very relaxing for me, as I take in the sights and look for ways to get to new areas and find the next rare fiend. What I enjoy about the world design is that areas are not large, but are very packed and designed in such a way where you can't get everywhere by just looking at markers on the map, sometimes you do have to look for clues on the environment to get to where you need to, meaning you're looking at where you're going more than your tracker, which is great, but you still get the benefits of one. So it's a nice compromise, not as open ended as BoTW or Elden Ring, but not as braindead as a Ubisoft game. However, completing these areas can take a while, and if you're like me and plan to do all of them, don't be surprised when each area can take you up to 10 hours if you want to do everything.

"No seriously Cloud, I'm still waiting!" -Sephiroth, 100 hours into your game file

If you remember FF16 (I love that game too btw), you might remember how universally hated the sidequests were, not so much for their stories, but for their large amount and lack of variety. It seems like Rebirth is an active effort to avoid those same mistakes. Most sidequests in this game has you doing something different, have an entertaining story or character development attached to them, or even have you doing something dumb like bringing chickens back to their sweet innocent mother, or following an Ex Shinra employee in some brutal gold saucer challenges. I won't say every sidequest is a winner, at the end of the day, they're still busywork, and never will a game make you feel good saying "Congratulations on your progress, you have unlocked even more sidequests to do!". Still, I have to commend them, they do not bombard you with them, you can do a few at a time and be good for the next area, and the rewards allow your party to access more skills.

They have some of the most fun music too

The sidequest also introduce an excuse to have you do more of the minigames and take on their harder difficulties. And BOY did they add soooo many minigames, I could not believe I was encountering a new one what feels like every hour. There's something both horrifying and admirable about the devs commitment to bring back the spirit of a ps1 classic in this way. Have you noticed that triple AAA games basicly don't do minigames anymore? Yea fishing games are still around I guess, but Rebirth is not ashamed to harken to those videogamey roots and sheer goofiness. Red football, Fort Condor (love the reinterpretation), Super Dolphin Sunshine, and so many more. Enjoy youself with these minigames, and pick your least favorites too because there will be at least one that will make you want to break your controller. Contenders for me are Glide de Chocobo for it's terrible camera, and Gears & Gambits for having an overwhelming amount of Gambits for such a simple minigame (even FF12 had you start with a small amount). Still, there is more bad than good here. What I was not expecting was a brand new card game, akin to Triple Triad in 8 and 14: Queen's Blood.

*Insert Yugioh abridged reference here*

Not only did I not expect a new card game 2 hours into the game, I did not expect it to be so good, and have me thinking about different deck builds, deck synergy, strategies, and ways to one up your opponent with some smart plays. Queen's Blood is an extremely fun time sink and nice break from all the combat and normal exploration. It can be overwhelming at first, and having so many different cards with effects each is a hassle I've seen many not even wanting to bother with, finding some of its rules to be too confusing. I will say that if you're not constantly updating your deck with better cards you won't be making much progress, but you also won't know what cards are better if you don't play enough to get what your objective is, so it's best to start getting into it the sooner you start the game. Do make sure you take note of some of the later puzzles and challenges, as they can teach you strategies to make comebacks on hard duels.Screw the survival challenges, though.

But the journey isn't quite the same, after all

Perhaps the stuff I have the least things to say about, are the new elements to the story, which are more prevalent during the beginning and ending sequences of the game. I was honestly intrigued at the start, the tension and anxiety felt in this unknown timeline Zack has walked into, and the mystery surrounding the true fate of our protagonists, as it shows you bits and pieces of more information the further you progress, I was curious to where things were going. Unfortunately, the ending provided even more questions than answers, and I still feel like it's not as emotionally impactful as perhaps it intends to be, maybe due to the lack of clear information. I understand it wants to keep itself vague with the idea of multiple timelines and universes colliding, or what Sephirot's actual plan is. But it does make things like the Whispers feel even more pointless than when they showed up in Remake, but at least their presence has been reduced, as expected. Areas where changes to the story were most effective were when they were not pointed out to be a product of a split timeline, like the conclusion to the Junon festival, or the Gongaga reactor sections.

But of course, what most people were more curious about, was how was the ending going to change, we all knew it was going to be different no matter what. And while I feel like these convoluted elements do take off some of the emotion of the original scene, there is one element which does seem to align these new events with the emotions of the original: Cloud himself. For he experiences the events of the ending differently from the rest, and it's left unclear how reliable is his perspective. Add Sephiroth's manipulation of Cloud's emotions and he becomes this genuinely creepy and ruthless shell of himself. This new problem does not completely go away by the end, as Cloud is not fully aware of it yet. But with how the new version of the ending has unfolded, it left me with these feeling of doubt and... hollowness, confusion, not sure if to be sad, or hopeful. Which I feel is exactly how Cloud feels as well, as his human nature is questioned.

Despite thinking a faithful story remake would have been more satisfying, I can't deny these new events had me thinking about the story of FInal Fantasy 7 in ways I could connect emotionally to it even more. Perhaps, what this game truly achieved for me, is remind me just how much I love this franchise, for its extremely creative worlds and creatures, to its unique stories and unforgettable characters. Rebirth is a celebration of Final Fantasy, a joy to look and play, to relive and to guess. It's got one more part to prove if these changes to the narrative were really worth it, nonetheless. And honestly, I hope they don't keep relying on vagueness as much.

But when they are not being vague, I promise you, every moment, old or new, will feel exciting.

[strapstreams]

A big announcement

So to start things off, this arrived yesterday to my immense surprise. It's actually real (I might have been so confused about getting this that I reached out to Twitch Support to just verify they hadn't made some kind of mistake), and I still really can't believe I reached this point, even a full day later. I should have posted about it here when it happened instead of my personal account, but I didn't really know what to say at the time. I still don't. But I did also want to share some important information that I already put over on the Twitter side of things:

Okay so plans for the channel and things moving forward:

I *need* to try to figure out a two-monitor set up with only the equipment I have at this time (laptop and PC) because I want to be able to not have to just watch the OBS screen when I'm using the Elgato. I have to manage this with what I currently have because I cannot afford to try and get a second PC monitor or upgrade my tech. Also the streaming room is not my personal room and in fact is in the shared extra room of the house, so I can't just plop a second monitor onto it and take up all that space even if I could afford another monitor.

This ties directly into the 2nd part which is to finally get a set of PNGs to actually have "Strap" on screen and learn how to correctly use reactive images. This requires the figuring out of the 1st part before anything else as when I use the Elgato, I'm only able to see the things you see, and I don't want to struggle with the games because I have my PNG slapped on the screen.

3rd, saving up of funds from here on out so that I can afford to commission the people I have already decided on for any emotes and graphics, including the PNG if I'm still unable to use my old tablet.

4th, I want to get things further planned for the 100 follower celebration (which is now also tied in with the Affiliate one), but for that to happen I will need to stick with the hiatus and pour all my abilities into my education first, as I'm pretty far behind in one of the courses.

Once I have everything under control, I'll be reaching out to the three people I wanted to join me to start actually planning a day that might work for everyone as well as getting them all introduced to each other so that when it all happens, no one is left feeling too uncomfortable.

I'm really sorry that it's been taking so long already, and it currently looks like I won't be able to meet my original plan of trying to have it this month. It's a really big thing for me and with the Affiliate goal added in, I want to make this something really memorable, not just for me but also for all of you, new and old, who have helped me to get to a goal that I was starting to view as impossible for me to achieve, and for helping me get there far sooner than I ever anticipated.

5th, I need to learn how to create, run and manage a Discord server so that I can have announcements like this be seen the right way and not by having to make multiple posts on either Twitter or Tumblr to get something across to the people that are genuinely interested in things.

And last, but not least (to me), I want to find the time to get a proper profile icon designed for both here and on the stream and archive side of things. I have a few ideas in mind, but I need to iron them out, and it's something that I want to do (at least the initial drawing phase) myself. Right now, I'm the guy with the shiny Umbreon icon, but it's not fully indicative of what my channel or even "Strap" is like. Just like I made the current one myself, I want to make the next one too, even if it means needing to have someone polish up and finish my rough work.

It's something meaningful to me, and hopefully, I can find a way to still include an homage to the original icon in a fitting way. I have so much planned and so much work to do, and I'd be here all day making just a massive wall of text that would likely start to test Tumblr's character limit on blog posts. So I'll just wrap it all up with this:

Big things are coming and I hope that you all enjoy them when they come. Thank you all so much for your patience and support, I would not be at this stage without it, and I do apologize for all the waits.

I've got a lot to learn and I hope you all stick with me through all this! I really hope that I can live up to everyone's expectations. Thank you all once again.

This is StrapStreams, signing off. Catch you guys later!

[cwispydev]

28/11/2022 NaNoRenMo word count: 10,255

Long time, no write! Hey, at least I accomplished a lot since you last heard from me.

Most of those things was just a lot of the writing. As you can see, I've pretty much doubled the word count since my last post. That's the biggest reason I haven't updated really.

I don't want to talk much about the different stuff I've been writing. I just wanna focus on my code.

The reason I finally decided to update here is becos I figured some coding stuff out that had me asking not one but two people for help for and it took us like two days to figure the bullshit out.

In fairness to the people I asked for help from, though; they didn't know anything about Ren'py or how to code visual novels. But, they code other things so I thought might as well.

So, the first easier thing I figured out was how to do a blink animation for when you want to do a first person point-of-view blink. Basically, I used this topic but, instead, I added more stuff and made it more complicated LOL.

My reply is that last one by nyeowmi so you can just read that. I also included like the images I used and stuff! Nice!

Here's what it looks like.

The second thing that I had the hardest time figuring out was the layered image stuff for character images.

I don't know if it's just becos I'm the worst researcher known to man but there was literally no documentation for the layered image that my two brain cells could understand?

The easiest one was the guide by BáiYù where they make a whole game out of it. Unfortunately, as of Ren'py 8.0.3, the game doesn't play anymore.

At least, not for me. It says something along the lines of 'file' not defined? I'm not sure but, in the comments of their itch.io, someone also had the same problem and BáiYù said they'd figure it out as soon as they could.

So, maybe, this journey will be much easier for you, dear reader in the future, than I, a poor unfortunate soul.

Either way, I couldn't figure out the layered image thing through the tutorial. BáiYù suggested just getting familiar with the layered images through browsing the code of the game (which you can access, even if the game doesn't work).

However, I'm illiterate when it comes to reading code so none of it made a lick of sense to me. Honestly, that one's truly on me becos, unfortunately yet again, Ren'py's coding language (or rather, whatever you use to code Ren'py) is like the only coding language I know well enough to recognize some of.

Anyway, I tried it out despite not knowing what the hell I was doing.

I renamed all my images the same exact way you're supposed to when you use layered images. Which is, of course:

[charactername]_[facepart]_[emotion].png

I also stored all of the files in like a lot of folders. The file path looked something like:

images/felix/[emotion]/[imagefile].png

Anyway, I think that was my downfall. I don't know if it truly is? But I did browse through some of the LemmaSoft forums and some people mentioned that nested images (images stored in folder after folder instead of just in the images folder) got fucked up and it didn't work properly.

That being the exact problem or not didn't matter becos my character image just wouldn't work. I don't remember what exactly was the errors I was getting at this point but I know like some of the parts wouldn't come up or the game just wasn't able to find the files, etc, etc.

Another problem that I was trying to figure out at the same time was how to make the character speak while their character sprite was showing.

I saw a forum post by zmook (not linked becos I absolutely can't find it) where they were directed to the Ren'py cookbook where it wrote about the config.speaking_attribute.

Basically, it's an attribute that gets shown when the character is talking and then stops getting shown when the character stops talking.

Then, in another forum post, zmook asks about the speaking attribute being combined with the layered image stuff.

However, at this point, despite knowing all of this stuff, I was still struggling with getting the image to show properly at all, much less having it show up speaking and then not speaking.

Did I stop and try to figure out the basics first before trying to figure out the talking? Absolutely not.

So, I continued seeking out knowledge. Eventually, I figured out that you have to animate the mouth using Ren'py and not a gif. I figured that out through this post by Argent Games.

I tried coding my character image exactly like that but, unlike that, my character had a lot of expressions and my code ended up looking cluttered while still not working completely.

At this point, what was happening was that everything was showing up properly except the mouth.

In the end, my special friend's brother cleaned up the code for me. It was honestly trial and error at that point where we all didn't know what we were doing, we were just moving stuff around.

My code ended up being something along the lines of:

default felixemote = "smile"

image felixmouth: "images/felix/[felixemote]/felix_mouth_[felixemote].png" 0.2 "images/felix/[felixemote]/felix_mouth_[felixemote]_half.png" 0.2 "images/felix/[felixemote]/felix_mouth[felixemote]_open.png" 0.2 "images/felix/[felixemote]/felix_mouth[felixemote]_half.png" 0.2 repeat

group mouth if_any "speaking" auto: attribute smile default: "felixmouth"

group mouth if_not "speaking" auto: attribute smile default: "felix_mouth_smile"

That code has like a lot of code in between but that's pretty much the gist of it all. After we did that for the mouth and then exactly like what we're supposed to for the rest (basically copied from the layered image documentation from the Ren'py cookbook).

It worked! Of course, it didn't follow the words exactly? The character would just keep speaking even if the words were completely loaded.

However, a victory is a victory and, becos I'm not even gunna think about the voice acting yet, I don't care. I was so tired and annoyed by this entire thing that I just figured this is good enough.

Then, of course, when I went and stress tested the code (as in, showing off the characters numerous expressions), nothing happened.

The expressions didn't change. That was when I screamed and then screamed and then rewrote my code.

This time, I removed all of the auto stuff on the layered image codes. Instead of just having the layered images going through all of my images, I would just force feed it my images.

So, I declared each image with a specific file path that had variables in it I could change based on what emotion I wanted them to display.

For example, instead of just letting layered images figure out what eyebrows I wanted, I wrote out:

image felixeyebrows: "images/felix/[felixeyemotebrow]/felix_eyebrows_[felixeyemotebrow].png"

I did that for the base, for blush (except that one was just blush and a blank png named noblush), glasses (same as blush), the closed version of the mouth, etc.

For the eyes, I wanted to have a blinking animation so I declared the image like this instead:

image felixeyes: "images/felix/[felixeyemote]/felix_eyes_[felixeyemote].png" choice: #choice is so that ren'py can randomly choose between the three cus blinking tends to be random and not in the same intervals 4.5 choice: 4.5 choice: 4.5 "images/felix/felix_eyes_closed.png"

I specifically made all of the variables different so that I could control each variable to be different. Like, for example, if I wanted the angry eyebrows but the sad mouth.

My variables ended up being the following:

default felixemote = "smile" #this is to control the mouth default felixeyemote = "smile" #this is to control the eyes default felixeyemotebrow = "smile" #this is to control the eyebrows default felixbased = "regular01" #this is to control the body/base default felixblushed = "noblush" #this is to control the blush default felix_glasses = True #this is to control the glasses

The glasses variable is different becos the code for that one ended up being:

if felix_glasses: "images/felix/felix_glasses_glasses.png" else: "images/felix/felix_glasses_noglasses.png"

The full layered image code ended up looking exactly like this:

layeredimage felix: zoom 0.85 #i needed to do this becos my character images weren't the right size group base: attribute regular01 default: "felixbase" group blush: attribute noblush default: "felixblush" group eyes: attribute smile default: "felixeyes" group eyebrows: attribute smile default: "felixeyebrows" group mouth if_any "speaking" auto: attribute smile default: "felixmouth" group mouth if_not "speaking" auto: attribute smile default: "felixmouthstop" #remember that this should be a declared image with the file path but the variables should be the same as the variables you use with the file path in the speaking animation if felix_glasses: "images/felix/felix_glasses_glasses.png" else: "images/felix/felix_glasses_noglasses.png"

Convoluted? Pretty much.

Each of the images underneath each attribute is it's own declared image with the variable-riddled image paths.

I've already tested it and it works, both fortunately and unfortunately.

I'll put some example gifs down below so that you can see it in action. I'll also put a screenshot of the script where I call all of that stuff so you can see what that looks like too.

I tried to show off the fact that the dialogue would stop loading but they'd continue talking and the fact that you can interrupt mid open mouth and they'd still transition to the closed mouth.

Thank god this long ass post is finally fucking done. Thanks for sticking with me til the end and hopefully this helps making your game a little bit easier.

If you have any questions about this at all, send me a message on discord at nyeowmi#6969 or send an anon/ask here on tumblr! I'll do my best to help

[seb-owns-these-tatas]

7th Dimension (Chapter 3.1)

7TH DIMENSION SYNOPSIS/MASTERLIST

PREVIOUSLY ON CHAPTER 3

WATTPAD LINK FOR 7TH DIMENSION

Characters: Gojo Satoru x Small!Naive!Fem!Foreign!Reader | THIS IS A MULTI-CHAPTER FIC. THIS IS AN X READER FANFIC WHO HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO THE DIMENSION OF JUJUTSU KAISEN | (Trust me, you'll live. I hope?)

Summary: (PART 2) It has been three days that you were unconscious and on bedrest. Gojo Satoru was restless due to the fact of the relics you own---the manga panels you had on hand while surviving a car-crash in the middle of the Hanami incident. He was impatient for information and Satoru was not one to keep himself out of the subject matter especially that these artifacts you acquired had memories of the one and only bestfriend he had and also sketches of a future that left him clueless for whatever lays ahead for him.

Warnings: Brief mention of Riko Amanai. Please don't hate Satoru on this one and with the way he was thinking. Megumi, Yuji and Kugisaki moments.

Tell me if you want to be tagged whenever I publish chapters for 7th Dimension! Send an ask or message me!

A/N: I'm sorry I keep publishing chapters with part 1, part 2 and so on. I tend to be descriptive, so I've been cutting it into different parts so y'all won't get too overwhelmed by it. 😅😂😥 (My cat keeps walking on my lap for the tenth time today while I'm trying to edit this---I apologize the typos and grammatical errors!)

COMMENTS AND REBLOGS ARE SUPER-DUPER HIGHLY APPRECIATED! IT GIVES ME SUCH MOTIVATION AND INSPO!

Words: 2.5k words. (Kinda short! This was the next part for chapter 3. I just had to cut it into two because if I did include this on chapter 3 then I would've reached 9k words for one chapter? Hehehe)

Disclaimer: PNG's or pictures used in edits are not mine even the GIF's too. I only own the plot of this whole fanfic. But, not Jujutsu Kaisen's storyline. I apologize for the typos or grammatical errors by the way! English isn't my first language so I'm so sorry in advance! Character development and personalities are based from my understanding and how I want them to be. This has no connection towards the anime or manga as this is a FANFIC.

KUGISAKI NOBARA, A FEMALE FIRST YEAR STUDENT OF GOJO SATORU, a classmate of Yuji Itadori and Fushiguro Megumi who had high reserves of cursed energy and is an expert on manipulating it, wasn't known to be a very patient woman especially when she was ecstatic upon going to places she hardly knew of. She was definitely infuriated over the fact that their Sensei was taking too long than what he promised. It has been twenty minutes already and her anticipation and enthusiasm over experiencing to dine in another known Sushi Restaurant around Tokyo was starting to die down because of their time being bided.

To a great degree of the fact that it was on Gojo's call for the sudden gift of treat.

"Adults are really annoying---," Nobara mumbled beneath her breath, growling through gritted teeth as she crossed her arms in disdain and also glaring at their teacher from where she stood beneath outside. The first year student acknowledged your presence who stood thunderstruck and petrified beside Gojo, painstakingly the contrary of him who wore the brightest smile while sending down a big wave to his students. She was dressed in her typical Jujutsu school uniform, A dark-blue button-down jacket and a long matching skirt that reaches just above her knees.

"--They take long in everything."

"Not all adults. Probably just, Gojo-Sensei." Megumi took his time upon descending the stairs with feathered foot steps, his scowl from the first experience he had with you and Gojo left a lasting impression that you were bound to be chaotic with the Sensei when you finally warm up to him more.

Though, if he were in your shoes, waking up and remembering nothing nor knowing who they were is surely not a problem to take lightly, right? It was like taking a baby out of a woman's womb when it was simply not the right time yet.

"Entirely irresponsible. Tch." The female student continued to grouch, tapping her foot impatiently, watching you and Gojo be engrossed in a conversation that only he endeavored because you still appeared to be lost in space, "---He promised to treat us out after the Tree incident because of the effort we put,"

"The effort we put." Megumi emphasized phlegmatically, taking an impassive gander at the woman.

She loudly huffed in return, disbelief filling her emotions as it reached her mouth. His words being taken to heart as if she was offended, "What do you mean by that, Fushiguro?"

"You were knocked out by Mai-senpai."

"---and you were brought out of the scene by Panda in the middle of it all, Fushiguro!" Nobara barked back, snarling in the process of their raillery.

Banters that spread across the place from left to right was considered as a customary for the trio. A habitual disposition between the first year students, following the additional repartees that their Sensei constantly includes every now and then. Megumi, being thoroughly accustomed by her aggressive attitude blinked languidly back at her, "If we were talking about the sweat under one's brow then Itadori, Todo-Senpai, Gojo-Sensei and the others get to be the people praised for the incident,"

"Sensei!" Yuji Itadori began to holler out loud,  waving back a big one as Gojo managed to give them a glance.

"He's been stalling all this time for chit-chat!" Nobara complained for the fifth time under twenty minutes of her time being partially wasted, she could hear Yuji chuckling beside her for no reason why, sending out a beam to the man who was intentionally being late for their treat-out.

She had no reason why but hearing Yuji's guffaws made her temples twitch in which he earned a glare from her.

"Kugisaki, you're being impatient, Gojo-Sensei's busy interrogating the girl who called Fushiguro, a 'Sea Urchin,' "

Megumi was quick off the mark with what Yuji declared. The cheerful, pink haired student blinked back at him that lacked of guile. His features quickly turning into a depiction of irritability from the wrinkles on his forehead.

There was no need for Fushiguro to mutter a word because his antagonizing silence was immediately understood by him.

"I needed to grab my phone back in my room and I happen to overhear some of the conversation?" Yuji tried to lessen his vexation by being honest, constantly scratching his head as he does so.

Megumi's frown deepened, he responded with a disgruntled hum. Yuji's teasing forever being a plague of peeve that he surely won't get over with every once in a while, "I like her then." Nobara took the mickey out of him, simmering his tea-pot a little more than it can ever take.

"Tch."

Fushiguro was left to his own aggravation as they were already used to his outwardly stoic expression and personality. The possessor of the Ten Shadows Technique, an inherited technique passed down in the Zenin Family---stifled his thoughts to himself and chose not to interact to their personalized taunts. He quietly listened to their continuous discussion, hearing Itadori ask Nobara a simpleminded question that was ought to be answered with no graveness considering that he was asking the female first year student.

"What would you think she would name me?" Yuji innocently mumbled, ignorant that Nobara coherently understood the subconscious spout of his tongue.

"Idiot, probably." she impassively mooted single-mindedly.

"Eh?" The possibility of not hearing her clearly passed by Yuji's subconsciousness, till he realized that she was giggling in the background from how he nodded back at her like he completely agreed to what she professed. All of a sudden, he turned downright taken aback, expression entirely flabbergasted, "---EH!"

The Land of the Rising Sun. Japan, the eleventh-most populous country in the world, as well as one of the most densely populated and urbanized.

At the time, it was beyond your capacity to comprehend what was happening around. Biting Gales swept passed your matted hair, the indignity of your once bedridden state came to your consciousness as you stood wonderstruck beside the guy named Gojo Satoru, wishing that everything was just a dream and that you hoped to finally wake up on.

Being in an overwrought state brought such intense humiliation that you were finally on your senses, with each retaliation from the moment you woke up in Megumi's room until you were behaving mad as a March Hare struck your senses that you actually existed and this was a reality that you were bound to believe in.

Perhaps, did you feel humiliated because everyone looked beautiful enough to be considered make-believe dolls and you appeared unprepossessing to their standard of appeal?

You had no idea, but an absolute feeling of mortification was punching you in the guts when Satoru began to pipe up a mocking question, presumably a slap to the face.

"Still don't believe me?" he motioned out onto the unlatched windows where fresh air began tousling your hair in different angles, "---We're in Tokyo Jujutsu High." Gojo retracted his hand away from your head, rather stunned that he would have the audacity to do so. Yet, he did not give you the benefit of seeing that he was somehow a little bit bewildered from his choice of gestures.

"To-kyo-Ju-jutsu-High." you've heard him repeat more with emphasis and with a lesser bit of an accent. He inserted his hands inside his pockets, leaning a lot more on the edges of the casement as you felt him slyly keeping you under his observation.

Despite of his bandaged eyesight, you could technically feel that he was trying to monitor your every move.

Was it making you uncomfortable? Yes. It was. Confining to the point that his mere presence was enough to make you breathless.

"I already graduated college, why am I even here?" was the only question you could muster, focusing on the three, young students right below the building who seemed to be making fun of each other.

Gojo meekly waited for any indication---signals that can tell him that you were capable of using any amount of Jujutsu. Was he anticipating it? he was taking in such pride towards his postulated convictions, expectant to be of liberty over another omission that transpired in the past. Having said that, Satoru did not want another Riko Amanai in the midst of what was happening around the Jujutsu Society today. He was trying to see through you, why you were capable of providing him grounds for whatever was drawn on such pieces of papers. To others, it was probably zilch but he trusted that it conveyed something out of a simple sketch.

Even showing signs of the bare minimum that you could be trained as a sorcerer, the ability to see cursed spirits was thrown out of the window specially that he could not see nor feel any ounce of cursed energy nor born with any innate talent.

None.

This woman who stood beside him, you---you were another substandard being. Weak, to be more frank.

He didn't need to escort another girl who he deemed as a puny human.

From the moment of your intervention alongside the trespassing of those Special Grade Cursed Spirit during the Kyoto-Sister-School-Good Will Event, up to the time you were being on the mend by Shoko, Gojo knew then and there that you were futile. Nevertheless, confiscating fragments of occurrence that involved him, a bestfriend he knew very well and the Jujutsu Society optimized him that you were teleported to their dimension for a cause.

But, for what reason?

You were unaware of how his smile went minimal upon his own dwelling, never knowing what he was thinking nor recognizing or being accustomed to his habits on how he actually lived as a human since this was the first time you met him, "You seem young, probably a few years younger than me." he nonchalantly stated, claiming his guesses like it was the truth and he had no idea that he was right.

"I'm taking an airplane and I'm leaving here to go back to my country," you firmly avowed, stepping back from the unhatched windows with a determined expression on your face, the way you nodded to yourself with clenched fists says that your decision was final.

Gojo couldn't help but laugh at that, his large palm being placed over his chest as he chuckled back.

"Ha! You sure about that?" he snickered, raising a brow underneath his blindfolds. His response made you give him a double take of your surprised glances, suddenly noticing the slight peek of Ivory-tinted brows that slipped from his bandages in which you tried to ignore, thinking that he had it bleached for whatever reason he wanted, "---Any form of transportation requires money, correct?"

Upon hearing his mockery, your clenched fists began to unfurl from the unforeseen apprehension. There was nothing. It didn't go unnoticed by Gojo but he saw you were stealthily trying to be sensible for any wallet or cellphone upon a clothing that Shoko has dressed you in. It was basically just a plain set of jogger pants and a white tee that was certainly unidentified because as much as you remembered, the clothing you wore back before you were moved to Japan were a set of working clothes adored.

You tried to ignore the smirk on his face and looked away, the heat from your toes coming through your veins and growing till the apples of your cheeks and forehead, knowing he got you there when you couldn't feel your own possessions with you, not even your cellphone.

"Are you saying you've been fondling my pockets when I was asleep and saw no wallet?"

He was keeping it. You knew it was with Satoru. Everything felt like you were being held hostage and you wanted to scream out loud for the conflicted emotions you were currently feeling.

"Yes." the elephant in the room crowed for his early conquer, crossing his arms over his chest as he heard you grumble here and there for his interminable confidence and nonchalance.

"This blindfolded creep,"

There was definitely a consuming equanimity flowing in his blood. It was driving you to distraction. The exasperation of his absolute self-confidence with an arresting poise and stature ending up as being the fracas of your heart and mind. Your level of conscience and sensations plucking the strings to your heart turning a discordant of fueled emotions.

"Correction. A handsome, great, blindfolded teacher." Gojo was candid as he declared so.

Your aggravation was short-lived as Satoru stooped down to your level, bending over to your height as if you were face-to-face, taking you aback from the prompt movement and from the lack of juxtaposition he offered which made your breath hitch.

He lifted two of his fingers, the middle and the pointer one. The latter oddly aimed the tips of his hefty fingers in between your forehead, lightly flicking you off which gained him a scowl from your point of view.

"Hey! My head's still throbbing! Are you trying to hurt my head for the second time?"

What was he trying to do? Make your amnesia go bye-bye like was some kind of god?

"Huh?" Satoru audibly muttered out loud, unable to process what just happened.

The fruitless result knocking him sideways as he expected you to go hit the hay with one flick to the forehead. He was definitely caught on the hop. Satoru had to repeat the gesture for the second time around to double-check again which had you backing away, much to his disappointment. The strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer was incredulous over the disenchanting conclusion of it all, he just couldn't believe it.

Maybe, you existed for a certain reason after all.

"Interesting. I can't believe I'm not exempted in this and here I thought..." he went back to his soaring height and shrugged to himself, sticking his hands inside his pockets again before he shrugged to himself.

"Eh, There's no use then." Gojo Satoru began to walk past you. His distinct, odoriferous perfume brushing past, making you feel giddy for some undivulged reason that you couldn't comprehend. "---Come with us for a while, you can plan an escape route along the way,"

He paused, chuckling in the midst of his statement and actually ceased wending one's way across the hallway dorms of Tokyo Jujutsu High, pretending to act like he forgot something essential to say which can actually help you make a break for it. Satoru turned to see you take a dim view of his words, knowing that he was far from giving you the desire to leave.

This man was beyond buoyant that you could even think of leaving.

"That is, if you could run away from us, Jujutsu Sorcerers, Tiny-Chan!"

Chapter 3.1 has now ended. Next chapter has 5k+ words. Hope y'all are excited!

FEEDBACKS ARE VERY MUCH APPRECIATED! I WOULD LOVE IT SO MUCH! THANK YOU! HEEHEE!

[sandibullock]

I was wondering if you could do a tutorial on this gifset that you did i really like ittt

Thank you for sending this in, anon! I’m glad you liked it and wondered how it was made :) Fun fact: the day before you sent this, I had just started working on my next set in that “Select Filmography” series. I hope you like that one too when it’s ready!

I think I should start by saying I’m pretty new to giffing myself and there might be more efficient ways of getting to the same result. However, the point here is to show you the process I went through to make this gifset and hopefully help you understand how to make a similar one.

To follow this tutorial, you will need some version of Photoshop and some giffing knowledge. I know there are multiple ways of making gifs so I’m just letting you know I’m using the timeline and the “Convert for Smart Filters” option (I don’t really know how else to call it).

Now let’s get started!

STEP 1 - CHOOSE THE SCENES

It might sound obvious but, in my opinion, this is the most crucial step. It’s also the one that takes the longest (along with step 7, aka the coloring).

At this stage, you need to have a general idea on how you want your set to look like so you can choose the scenes accordingly. In my case, I knew I needed two types of shots for each movie: one close-up for the main gif and one mid shot for the shape. I also needed to take two other criteria into consideration: the movement (because of the shape) and the lighting (because darker scenes are such a pain to color). Last but not least, I didn’t want the characters to be talking (but that’s just a personal preference).

With all of that in mind, you can start saving a few screenshots of scenes that meet your criteria (or at least some of them). In the end, there won’t be that many to choose from so be prepared to make compromises.

STEP 2 - MAKE A DRAFT

Now that you’ve preselected a few scenes, you can make a first draft. This will help you turn your general idea into something more concrete.

Basically, this is your opportunity to organize your thoughts. What size do you want your gifs to be? What shape are you going to use? On which side do you want the close-ups to be? Do you want all of them to be on the same side or do you want to alternate from one gif to the other? Do the scenes you chose work together (gif-wise but also set-wise)? Are you happy with the way it looks, overall?

By answering all of the questions you might have now, you’ll save yourself a lot of time, trust me. Of course, you can totally skip this step if you already know exactly which scenes you’re going to use and how you’re going to present them together.

To give you an idea, this is what my draft looked like for Atomic Blonde.

STEP 3 - PREPARE YOUR GIFS

Once you have a clearer view on how you want your set to look like, you can finally start giffing like you usually would (i.e. importing, cropping, resizing, etc.).

It should then look something like this.

The important thing to mention here is that you want both of your gifs to be the same number of frames (32, in my case).

Ideally, you should also aim for the ~same~ coloring (especially for the skin tone, since both gifs will be so close to each other). This bit is particularly difficult when you chose scenes which have opposite lighting (see my two uncolored gifs below). Remember how I insisted on steps 1 and 2? It was to help you avoid this. So my advice would be not to choose these types of contrasted scenes, unless you can’t do otherwise and you’re ready to suffer!

STEP 4 - MAKE YOUR SHAPE

To make your shape, you can click right on the Shape Tool (U) and select the last one, Custom Shape Tool. From the Shape menu appearing on top, you will be able to choose the shape you want from the drop down list and start drawing on your gif.

To be more precise with the dimensions, you can manually adapt the length and height from the Shape menu itself. I decided to go with the same ones as my gif.

Once your shape is positioned like you want it to be, you can drag and drop the shape layer under your gif. Next, you will have to click right on the gif layer/smart filter and select Create Clipping Mask. The result is as below. Note that if the size of your shape was smaller than your gif, you would still be able to reposition your gif with the Move Tool (V).

You can now export your shape gif, reopen it in Photoshop and convert it again to the video timeline and to a smart filter. This is where I’m not sure it’s the most efficient way of doing things but it’s the only way I found to keep the coloring of each gif separate. I also find it easier to work with a smart filter.

STEP 5 - COMBINE YOUR GIFS

To add your shape gif to your main gif, you can simply click right on the shape gif you just reopened and select Duplicate Layer. You can then choose the project which contains your main gif to duplicate it in there. Now go to your main gif and reposition your shape gif where you want it to be (how many times did I say gif here?). Finally, you can draw a new shape, using the same dimensions as in step 4, reposition it and choose any color you want from the Shape menu.

Since you will be repeating this process with your following gifs, I suggest you add a few guides so you know exactly where you should place everything to make all of your final gifs look the same.

(In case you’re wondering, the “Base” folder contains my adjustment layers/basic coloring for the main gif.)

STEP 6 - ADD THE TITLE

This step is pretty simple: go on the web and type “[name of the movie] title”. Download the png you like most, open it in Photoshop and resize it to a length of about 150-200 pixels. Next, duplicate the layer to your main gif and reposition it. In case you need to resize it again, select the title layer and go to Edit > Free Transform (Ctrl+T).

This is optional but in case you want to change the way it looks, know you can always duplicate the title layer and play with the blending options (see below). The good thing with a png is that you can also add some effects by clicking on the “fx” button.

STEP 7 - ADD COLORING (OPTIONAL)

To be honest, I had not planned on coloring my gifs. But I had already spent so much time on them and I was still unhappy with the way they looked. I mean, see how grey-ish they are? Not great...

So the only thing left for me to do was to add some colors. Now, since coloring is worth a tutorial on its own and it already exists, I suggest you read through becca’s mega coloring tutorial (and especially steps 3 & 5). Seriously, shoutout to her for making this incredibly useful tutorial. She is so talented and I love everything she makes!

My Atomic Blonde gif barely even needed coloring so I’ll show you what I did for my Tully and The Old Guard gifs.

For the first one, once I had found which colors to use with which blending option and opacity level, I only had to remove the colors from the left side of the gif because there was barely any movement in that scene (phew!). For the second one, on the other hand, I decided to color frame by frame because there was way more movement, in comparison. This is quite a tedious process, which is why you want to limit yourself to a certain amount of frames.

I’ll conclude by saying there are so many things you can do with coloring and what works with one scene might not work with another. So experiment with it: try different colors, play with the blending options and opacity levels, add some gradients and/or gradient maps, etc. Just know it will take some time to get to a somewhat satisfying result!

And that’s it... I hope this tutorial made sense and was somehow helpful. Of course, don’t hesitate if you have any questions! Also, if you do end up making a similar edit, pleeease send me the link or tag me in the replies or something ‘cause I would definitely love to see it!!

[bitchassbucky]

.zip

Word Count: 2k

Warning/s: toxic/abusive relationship dynamics, gaslighting and manipulation, abduction, injuries were mentioned, stalking, dark!bucky x dark!reader, emotionally/mentally unstable!reader, dismemberment (not gore-y but still), three very special character mentions, shady corporate stuff, career sabotage?, food mention, sedation/drugging, f-words.

A/N: oh my god, this is the final chapter of CTRL. to all who read from the start, thank y'all so fucking much - from the bottom of my big-ass heart, thank you so much for coming along with this journey. this is my first FINISHED series, oh my god. to @babyboibucky (CTRL's number one fan), @sarge-barnes-sir, and @borikenlove thank you so much for indulging my inner degenerate GHJSDFG and for screaming (affectionately) at me when i first let y'all read the finished draft.

BUT THIS IS NOT THE END (just yet), i will be uploading TWO epilogues very soon: the explicit version and the not-so-explicit version. stay tuned!

follow the CTRL series:

i - .exe

ii - .avi

iii - .raw

iv - .png

v - .zip

epilogue:

.eps (explicit)

.eps (cut)

CTRL playlist CTRL moodboard

Your demeanor, character, even tone, changed.

Calculated, cold, unnerving.

But you sat there like a housewife in front of her husband, eating spaghetti and meatballs. Acting all dandy like there isn’t a man strapped onto the chair four feet away from you.

“C’mon, darling, eat! I made your favorite,” your eyes twinkled as Bucky helplessly tugged on his restraints, “oh, sorry, you’re tied up.”

Hm, sick in the head, bad for the heart.

“What do you want?” Oh, wow, even talking hurts for him. His throat is all dried up, he tasted something bitter under his tongue.

You chuckled, moving half a meatball around your mostly empty plate, “for you to stop treating me like I’m stupid.” You spear the meat with your fork, swirling it in the sauce, “I know you’ve been… checking in on me, Bucky.”

Oh, fuck.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I was-- I mean, look at you--” He’s making it worse. You’re mad. You’re angry because he was being a good friend.

He only did that because you were lonely and he’s right: you are lonely.

So lonely that you’re willing to kidnap a grown man to keep you company, “I’m so sad for you.”

“You’re aware you’re the one’s been tied up, right?” You’re curt as you should be, scooting over near Bucky to feed him.

“I can’t eat that—” If he wasn’t sitting down and tied, Bucky would’ve vaulted over you and called the neighbors, she’s fucking crazy!

You giggled, rolling your eyes as if he had the freedom to make a choice right now, “if you’re thinking of screaming… More than half of my neighbors are felons or on parole, I doubt that they’ll call 911.”

Jutting forward the fork, you let the prongs gently touch Bucky’s lips, “now, eat! We have so much to talk about.”

“No. I don’t-- I’m not hungry.” He shakes his head, the fork hitting his chin and clanking down the floor.

“Just eat the fucking food, Steve!”

Bucky flinched at your sudden outburst. The words—the name—seeping in a moment later. Steve? Who the hell is Steve? Was he your husband? Boyfriend? His head throbbed again, his mouth filling with saliva like he’s about to throw up.

You kneel down, pulling a napkin from the table to wipe the meat and the sauce from the floor.

“This better not stain.”

—

He promised thrice.

Once over pasta and meatballs, once over dessert, and once when you were clearing the table.

You relented, of course. Half because you love him and half because it’s getting annoying.

“As long as you don’t leave me, okay?”

“Yes, I promise. I won’t leave you.”

Bucky’s still seating on the dinner chair, slightly slumped without the ropes holding him up, “look, I’m really sorry about the anesthetic, I went overboard with it.” You look over to him—at least he’s regaining his fingers and arms again.

“It’s okay, babe, I wouldn’t trust me either.” If he could stand up, he’d go over and hug you. Helping with the dishes, peppering you with sweet kisses.

A genuine laugh slips out of your lips, “ugh, still… I’m really sorry.”

The last of the plates were neatly stacked, cups and cutleries were placed gently on a drying rack. It was getting late, you could tell.

“I’m not mad, by the way.” You muse, prompting Bucky to lean forward, listening to you.

“What do you mean?” He takes your hand into his, ever so gently.

“You did that,” you squeeze his hand back, gazing into his soulful eyes, “because you love me.”

Did you know that some people could read microexpressions well? Bucky went through a whole lot of them before answering, “of course, I do.”

Contemplating whether you call him out on it or not, you hum, placing a gentle hand on his jaw, “it’s okay, you’ll learn how to love me.”

He has to. He has no other choice.

Bucky clears his throat, “have you seen my phone?” His tone was hopeful, upbeat, maybe he can reach out to someone, anyone, before you can do any more damage.

“Yeah, ‘s on the couch.”

He tried to move, he really did. Bucky’s fairly strong, he can bench an easy 140 on a good day. But even the beefiest motherfuckers have no match for Propofol.

“Don’t worry about your friends, they’re not worried about you, Buck.” The coolness of your tone sends Bucky into a panic—again. “D’you wanna check your messages though? There’s a lot of ‘em.”

Grabbing his phone, you asked Siri to read him his latest notifications.

Urgent: Notice of Immediate Termination

From Joaquin: Where are you, man?

From John W.: Do you have copies?

Urgent: Notice of Immediate Termination

Urgent: Gross Misconduct

From Joaquin: Bucky, what the fuck?

From Samuel Wilson: Pick up the phone, Barnes. You’re fired.

17 missed calls from an unknown number

From John W.: I knew you were a freak but holy shit, dude!

72 text messages from an unknown number

Bucky never really liked horror movies. It made him jumpy and anxious. Too paranoid, even. But now? Now he’s sure that people have never experienced sheer fright before.

His toes cramped inside his boots, his feet were cold, sweating. The little hairs on his legs stood up, goosebumps littering the entirety of his body. If he held his breath, he’s sure he could hear his heart hammering out of his chest. The blood rushes past his ears and onto the base of his skull—he’s gonna be sick.

“What,” he gulped back the saliva pooling in his mouth, “what did you do?”

You’re irritatingly calm, “well, I mean… We’re already together, what do you need those for, right?”

Putting a warm hand over his forehead, you cooed, “poor thing, you look sick.”

—

Bucky thinks it’s well past midnight when the anesthetic wore off.

His limbs were heavy, he had to lean on the wall every couple of steps to regain his balance. Helpless. He’s helpless and you both know it. As if it’s a bear trap, Bucky carefully took his phone from the coffee table.

Why would you leave it unattended?

The screen lights up as soon as he picked up, his lock screen littered with ‘fuck yous’, ‘sicko’, and his personal favorite, ‘motherfucker.’

Ignoring the glaring messages, he went straight for the emergency dialler and—you took out his SIM card, snapping it into two neat pieces, placing it beside the phone.

Bitch.

The golden surface of the card was scratched too, he can’t do anything, use it as a toothpick, maybe? His phone was just as good as a paperweight.

He looks out of the window, limping towards it. Even if he could climb over, it would take him forever to get onto the street. Your neighbors would probably think that he’s just on a bad trip.

“It’s bolted shut. Perks of living alone as a single female.” Your voice made him flinch back, like a kid whose hand was halfway down the cookie jar.

Bucky plays it off with a cough, he can’t be weak now, “no, babe, I was checking out a noise. You ready for bed?”

You smiled softly, taking his hand and draping his arm on your shoulders as you prop him against you, “almost, big guy. Gotta get you settled in bed first. Are you tired?”

Nodding, Bucky kisses your temple, “yeah.” He just needs to play with your sick little games until he regains his strength.

Where would he go? His reputation and his job are besmirched, his apartment is probably crawling with forensics too.

“You fell down and banged your head earlier. Nasty cut on your head too. I told you to not tire yourself much.”

You hit and drugged me but I digress, “Yes, darling. ‘M sorry.”

“You scared me, Buck. I thought you were dead.” Are these tears forming in your eyes?

“I’m not leaving you, not by any chance. I promise.”

He promises a fourth time.

—

Your bedroom was bigger than he thought. But of course, he only saw your desk and your bed through the webcam.

Save from the Ted Bundy-esque corkboard you have in front of your workspace, he feels weirdly at home. You tucked him in, reminding him to wake up every two hours for the painkillers.

“You’re not going to bed?” He muses from behind you, all cocooned in your blankets.

“Just need to take this phone call real quick, babe.” Your back was turned from him as you work on your company laptop. He noticed that the webcam is covered with white tape.

The sound of an incoming call filled the room before you quickly answer it, your voice turning hoarse and raspy as if you’ve been crying.

Hi, Mr. Wilson. I’m so sorry for the late call. Do I- do I need to come in tomorrow? I just... I don’t feel comfortable facing everyone—I used all my home hours this week and—

Miss L/N, I’m glad you reached out to me. Is it okay if I record this call for security purposes? It’s just for you, me, and the HR department.

You turned to Bucky, your face is stone-cold but your voice belonged to someone so utterly helpless.

No, you don’t have to call into work tomorrow… Or any other day.

A dainty gasp and a fucking sob comes out of your mouth, your eyes were telling a different story.

Am I fired?

God, no. Please, Miss L/N, don’t worry about that. We want you with us through this entire debacle. We want you to take some time off—paid. We’ll also grant you… a grievance package.

You could almost hear what he would say next.

As long as you don’t talk to any members of the press or any journalists until our friends in the PR department can clean this up.

A triumphant smile creeps on your bare features, putting a finger in front of your lips, you mimic a ‘shh’ gesture to Bucky.

You round up another mirthless sob as the CEO drones on about the bureaucracy of this whole thing.

He was really nice to me, you know? He took me out on dinners and lunches. He even brought me to his place and I– nothing happened but I can’t stop thinking about it.

I’m really sorry, Miss L/N. I thought he was…

A good guy? I really thought so too.

Please stay offline for a bit, just for the weekend, alright? Someone from the HR department will be in touch with you for the process. We don’t wanna be a hassle more than what Barnes is. On our behalf, please accept our deepest apologies.

Jesus, this guy had the PR department cook up an apology letter.

Thank you—thank you so much, Mr. Wilson. I’ll keep in touch.

You burst out in laughter a second after the call ended. Hearty laughter, the one where you can feel your belly tightening.

“Did you hear how good I was, baby? Oh my god, we had them fooled.”

We? Fuck your ‘we.’

You slide over the covers, propping up yourself with your elbow as you turn to face Bucky, “don’t worry, you don’t need them anymore. You have me, yeah? We have each other.”

—

Out of the most bizarre things that happened to him last week, finding dismembered fingers in the fridge was the least of his concerns.

“Honey!” Bucky calls out, holding the ziplock bag with a pair of tongs.

You bound down the stairs, your laptop in hand as you squint, “what am I looking at?”

Bucky hesitated, maybe he’s going insane too, “fingers. Dismembered fingers—are these yours?”

Setting down the laptop onto the table, you peck him on the cheek, smiling as if him holding a baggie with human remains is just your Sunday normal, “god, I hope not. I need my hands to do things.”

As soon as you look back at him, you dropped the facade: “those are Steve’s. Well, used to be.”

Bucky’s afraid to ask the question where’s the rest of him?

“You know the term pinky promise, right? Well, it has a dark origin.”

Just as fast as a bustling train, Bucky rakes his brain for all the times he promised you something. Hoping that he won’t end up with a stump for a hand.

One vividly bright memory is seared into his brain though, the days blurred together with sharp edges and mismatched colors: we love how we were taught to love.

So, who taught you how to love like this?

[hopes-peak-postal-company]

hello mod tsumugi! i love love love your letter writing, it's such a fun idea and you're really great at it! can i please get a letter from chiaki? (i would also like to know how you do the line breaks in between the "author's notes" and "a letter has arrived at your doorstep" sections. thank you!) <3 <3

why, thank you, anon! you flatter me. i needed to hear those words today, to be honest with you. writing the letter requests has been a great de-stresser and creative challenge for me these past few days. i'm so glad your letter was one of the first i'll publish after getting through my writer's block.

on the topic of how i do my line breaks, i just use a .png file as a divider between my author's notes, the letter description, and the letter itself! i hope that helps, haha. here's your letter:

you're awakened by the sound of chiaki opening the door. flopping down beside you with a yawn, she hands over to you a light pink envelope sealed with an adorable sticker of a character from a game she recently started playing. you raise an eyebrow at her in confusion as to why she's handing it over to you.

"miss yukizome wanted us to write letters of gratitude earlier during lunch break. i wanted to write one for you."

how sweet, you've received a letter from chiaki!

carefully removing the sticker seal, you take out the letter from the envelope and read it with her half-awake beside you...

Hey hey.

I can't believe we're graduating soon. Time's something I've never noticed while playing games, but the realization of my years at Hope's Peak coming to an end finally hit me. There is so much to thank you for, and I don't even know where to start.

Ever since we all met, you've never left me alone and inquired after my health. It was strange at first, but spending time with you has become the highlight of my day. All of you in 77-B are the best reason I can ever think of to pick up my controller in the morning and to stop at the end of the day. No amount of words can express my gratefulness, but I hope you can feel it with this letter.

Thank you for understanding my peculiar habits. Thank you for reminding me to take care of myself. Thank you for being a great person to be with. Thank you for making every day not seem so bland anymore. Thank you There are much more I'd want to specifically thank you for, but I'd probably never be able to give this letter to you.

How long will it be until we look back at all the memories we've made? What will we think about them in the future? We may go on to our separate paths soon, but it still scares me when I wonder if we'll ever see each other again. Pretty out of character for someone like me, don't you think? Let's go out at least once a month after we graduate and catch up, or even once a year if we get too busy once we enter the workforce. Though on second thought, let's wait and see how this situation will work out for us.

And for one last time: thank you. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to take the next step of our lives with you. I don't think anything else would make me any happier.

Sincerely, Chiaki Nanami

[emmys-grimoire]

Lesson 58 analysis + 59 predictions

I expected this lesson to drop tomorrow! It was a pleasant surprise. Sort of.

tl;dr Summary

When we last left our heroes, they were about to be decked by the bogeyman. We get saved, though! And it scampers off into a nearby room. The lesson is then just each brother tagging along with MC as they enter the room and one by one they get scared off, or do damage to the bogeyman.

Asmo’s greatest fear is just an uglier version of himself, which really does not lend any depth or credibility to the theory that he isn’t entirely self-involved. Belphie is frightened of a particular alarm clock that Satan once got him and possibly the dark (?).

Beelzebub at least gets an illusionary scene change with scary music + animated flame overlay, and his scene involves him accidentally hitting Belphegor with one of his attacks (bogeyman takes the form of Belphegor). The illusion backdrop is the Celestial Realm, so it’s clearly trying to draw a parellel between what is occurring in the illusion and what happened to Lilith.

Satan gets a similar treatment, only it’s a flaming coliseum and he’s being taunted by angel Lucifer about just being a budget Lucifer. Real Lucifer talks him out of it by pointing out their differences, but I found the things he brings up pretty surface level (he likes music while Satan prefers reading, Satan likes cats while he prefers dogs, etc.)

It seems like Satan’s wrath powers are enough to finally vanquish the bogeyman and everyone breathes a sigh of relief… UNTIL IT COMES BACK for one last round. You guessed it: it’s Lucifer’s turn.

A familiar shard of light appears in the corner of the screen, but Simeon seems to react more to it than Lucifer does. Lucifer tells him to calm down and claims it’s “his” light (spoiler: it’s not), and effortlessly banishes it once and for all. It’s very anti-climatic… because this isn’t the real climax.

Simeon, however, doesn’t recover right away. Or at all, really. We get interrupted when he’s ready to finally tell us (or later, Lucifer) what’s bothering him, so we’re kept in the dark. We receive our last star and celebrate becoming a full fledged sorcerer.

Only Luke has heard a rumor about a three-headed wolf prowling around that he informs us of via text. Guess what’s going to be the real climax?

EDIT: @obey-mes-treasure has a better explanation about Lucy's and Belphie's fears in the comments.

Analysis

Luke’s power

If we needed any confirmation that Luke has great potential, we got it in this lesson. The bogeyman’s powers don’t affect us because Luke’s blessing is still in effect and protecting us. He may be a smol angel, but his power rivals many of the high-ranking angels already. It explains why Michael has taken an interest in him, probably, but you’d think an angel like him would have been ranked already… unless Michael is deliberately refusing to rank him for some reason. Maybe he doesn’t want to train more archangels/soldiers given the three realms seem to be moving towards peace?

It does put Mammon mocking him by suggesting one day he could be a seraphim earlier in the season in a different light, though. Michael might be grooming him to be his heir, or something akin to that. It also explains why he didn’t worry about sending Luke into the Devildom in the first place, in spite of his youth. The kid could handle himself even if he isn’t aware of it.

Figure in the light

Lucifer and Simeon fear the same thing, but Lucifer handled facing whoever it was much better. I think this is probably daddy. The reason why Lucifer was capable of withstanding it is because he was preparing for his stand-off with their father for centuries before he finally rebelled, is my guess.

It could be Michael, but I expect Simeon interacts with him frequently, and he’s already made it pretty clear that he has a cavalier attitude about angering the guy in Season 2. Simeon could fear having to watch Michael and Lucifer fight again, though, if all three of them were close before the Great Celestial War. Can’t imagine that was a fun time for him.

But, if how the Celestial Realm as a whole functions is any indicator, all three of them probably fear Father the most. That fear kept them in line until it didn’t.

This also lends some credibility to the “empty throne” theory that posits Father has been absent for a prolonged period of time for some reason, if it is him.

This is the second time this season that Simeon has expressed these sort of doubts. I think someone is suffering from insecurities and regrets more and more these days, and it seems like associations with the Celestial Realm trigger them. I doubt he’s going to fall – like I’ve said before, he actually seems to enjoy partaking in the standard angel duties – but it is noteworthy. He might have a complicated relationship with Father, too.

The three-headed wolf

This is going to be the actual climax, which is kind of dumb considering it literally was introduced this lesson. Just dropped in there.

I don’t think Cerberus is a wolf, though? He looked more like a hound in his art. Looking up “three headed wolf” on Google gets you Cerberus, though.

Predictions

We’re going to deal with the wolf thing next lesson and then have a rushed season ending or end it on a cliffhanger. It’s going to make a mess of things and we’ll have to tame it, and/or a certain SOMEONE in the Celestial Realm will need to step in to keep collateral damage to a minimum. Still confident he’s showing up in some capacity.

HOPEFULLY we’ll finally get confirmation about the identity of the celestial light person that the bogeyman tried to emulate. But we don’t get that closure in this lesson.

Not sure if this is going exceed Season 1 or Season 2’s quality, though. The ring of light suddenly being introduced at least gave us more insight into Simeon’s character and the telepathic conversation with Michael. Suddenly introducing a new beastie to fight in the second to last lesson of the season seems way too heavy-handed, and I’m not sure it’s at all related to whatever Michael’s plot is.

I guess we’re saving the answer to that question for season 4?

[alllovegoddess]

hiiiii i wanna hear about your little guys mithos and genis i miss them

HECK YES i miss them too so bad

describe their canon relationship/dynamic

they're sort of like each other's manic pixie dream girl which i think is a really funny thing to have done with a pair of middle school aged kids in a jrpg from the early 2000s. genis has always felt constrained and restricted by the fact that he has to lie about his half-elven heritage, even to the people he loves very dearly, because if he doesn't then he will basically without exception be put in Extreme Danger. he bottles up everything inside himself to support others, tries not to complain, tries to play everything off as a-okay even when it's not. so naturally, when he meets mithos, someone who is Just Like Him, he finally has someone he can express himself genuinely to!

mithos, of course, has lived through...some of the most traumatic stuff a kid can live through. he knows he's hated, he knows the world is against him, and when he decided to try infiltrating lloyd's group, he'd also weathered about 4000 years of immortality spent pretending to be someone he's not. so when he meets genis, someone who is Just Like Him, he finally has someone he can express himself sincerely to.

all it took, for both of them, was a single act of kindness, a person who they both felt could understand them without having to do all that icky explaining stuff. and...considering that, all the way to the end, no matter what mithos did, genis still wanted to believe in him and have faith in him and not hurt him no matter what, genis did understand, even as mithos lied and lied about how he'd hated all of them the whole time

it's a tragedy born of love and understanding and one of them deciding that a villain like them shouldn't get to be happy and the other vehemently disagreeing. i am owned every single day

your ideal/headcanon version of it? how does it differ from how it is in canon & why is this your favorite version? any other alternate versions of it you enjoy?

well i LOVE a good tragedy (as you all know...) but god i want them to both live and get to be together so bad . shoutout to the like 30k words i wrote of them set in the phantasia timeline that was still unfortunately a tragedy because mithos is STILL a villain who did very bad things and genis is still stubbornly always wanting to be with him against the wishes of others

...but i'm also a huge fan of genis trying to bring mithos back from the dead. ahaha <3

what do you like about their relationship, why is it interesting or enjoyable to you?

i like... relationships that are tragedies. for some god dang unknown reason. the fact that it's doomed from the start is appealing to me. the fact that it's pure and sincere on both sides? also appealing. the fact that genis's kindness and affection was what made mithos realize what a horrible person he's been? absolutely freaking excellent

what about the individual characters involved? what does this relationship mean to them, what makes it unique among their relationships?

I KINDA. ALREADY WENT OVER THIS BUT both of them have to pretend to be someone they're not All The Time. genis bottles up all of his negative emotions so he doesn't make things harder on his sister and lloyd and colette, not to mention the whole pretending to be an elf rather than a half-elf thing, and mithos has been forced into playing an Ideal Villainous Leader for 4000 years when that's not even really him. he even freaking says so himself in the game that acting as yggdrasill is the only way to be taken seriously

...not to mention that, well, all it took for mithos to realize that what he's done is Freaking Awful is to go down and see what's happened, and for just one person to be kind to him. which means he'd been isolated and stuck up there for 4000 years, and no one was ever just...kind. to him. ugh. augh

favorite interaction they have in canon

I WISH WE COULD STAY TOGETHER FOREVER DOT PNG

favorite interaction they have in your head/a situation you want to put them in

i wwant them to cook together since genis is super good at it and since mithos is an angel he has no sense of taste i think it would be funny

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #29 - The One Where Everyone Gets Super Shiny

Our issue opens up with Swerve laying down the Story So Far in the Exposition Dimension.

Fantastic, you funky little man.

If Swerve looks like he’s been tossed through the car wash a few dozen times, it’s because this is where our new colorist comes in! Everyone, please say hello to Joana Lafuente- known for her love of gradients and attention to light sources, this actually isn’t the first time we’ve run into her. Lafuente worked on colors for several issues of The Transformers (2009), Last Stand of the Wreckers #3, and a few issues of MTMTE Season 1. However, she was matching the styles of her co-colorists on a majority of these, so we haven’t seen her style properly until now.

Getting into the story proper, Cyclonus is busying himself with staring out the window at a PNG of space, as he is wont to do, when he hears the tell-tale sound of tires squealing down the hall towards his room. Oh, goodness, whoever could that be?

Nearly forgot about him, didn’t you? Yeah, it’s a little difficult to follow up on things like a character’s recovery from a horrific disease when you’ve got comic event contract obligations to deal with.

After getting tackled by Tailgate, who reminds us all about the time he stuck his dirty little fingers into a dude’s brain meat, Cyclonus takes the little nerd on a walk through the ship.

You’re not going to convince me to reread “Dark Cybertron”. I don’t care how much of a marshmallow you are, it’s not happening.

They’re passed by Megatron and a bunch of crew members carrying that coffin we saw at the end of last issue down the corridor, Tailgate has a moment, and we get a taste of Cyclonus’ distaste for the Autobots as a whole. Tailgate is mildly offended by this, as he gropes his chest in distain, showing off his shiny new Autobot badge- a gift for not dying a terrible, gruesome death.

Good job, Tailgate. Proud of you.

They’re also passed by an absolutely blitzed Jackpot and Mainframe, the former singing Tailgate’s Tyrest-stopping praises as the latter carts him over to the Medibay to deal with the almost alcohol poisoning he’s got going on. Cyclonus remarks that Tailgate was missed, though Tailgate can’t help but wonder if that’s really true.

Y’all like slowburn romance, right? Because these two dumbasses have been roommates for two years, and we’ve just gotten to the point where physical contact can happen without one of them needing to be dying.

Anyway, it’s been a good day for Tailgate so far. Let’s hope it stays that way for the little dude.

...And that’s a series wrap on Tailgate! Let’s give him a hand, folks!

Hopping back in time to Megatron’s trial, things get underway, as Optimus Prime takes a nap in the judge’s bench as Gripper- whose name you don’t need to remember, as he’s not actually important- tells everyone about how brutal the Decepticon Justice Division is, even to Autobots. Which isn’t really supposed to be their deal, given their, y’know, name, but I suppose nobody’s perfect.

Up in the stands, in an… opera box, I guess? Rodimus is watching the proceedings, when Atomizer walks in. Which I guess you can just do in a Cybertronian court case. Sure.

Atomizer, in case you forgot, is the dude who has a bow and arrow, and used to be an interior designer.

Say, didn’t Whirl has a bow and arrow in the last issue when he attacked Megatron? Mighty curious, that.

Rodimus and Atomizer briefly reflect on the DJD, recalling the horror that was Vos- not that Vos, the other one. Rodimus would really just rather this all be over with so the Lost Light can get back to finding the Knights of Cybertron, and it’s at this point that Atomizer breaks out a thing he really ought not have- the count for the vote on whether or not Rodimus should stay on as captain. Rodimus doesn’t want to look at it, because it was supposed to be anonymous for a reason, and tells Atomizer to destroy the list entirely.

Hm, that’s not a terribly determined face there, Rodimus.

Back in the present, specifically in Swerve’s, Groove is threatening to break Streetwise’s arm, as we get the downlow on just what exactly our Legislator buddy’s deal is. Turn’s out, Swerve got one of the things reprogrammed, so that he follows not the Autobot Code, but something else entirely.

Hey, Swerve?

I don’t expect you to know this, because I don’t think you were present when they revealed this information to the readers, but… your new bouncer is made of people. He’s a dude made of other dudes, namely the Circle of Light. There’s a chance that you reprogrammed a sentient being, my good bitch.

Anyway, Swerve’s in a fucking mood because his shoulder hurts, someone’s stealing his shit, and Megatron has joined the narrative. Over at a nearby table, Skids, Nautica, and Riptide take a gander at the tabloids. Trailcutter, who is positively smashed, to the point where he’s just leaking booze out of his face like it’s his job, isn’t terribly interested in that, however.

What an astute observation, Riptide. And people say you’re stupid!

Trailcutter wants to drink some more, because it’s very likely he’s got a problem, but the mention of “Megatron’s super fuel” makes him feel like it’s time to stop hounding Swerve and start performing crimes.

Back during the trial, we get to Starscream’s testimony. He’s wearing his crown. He’s acting like a self-righteous asshole, as he defends Megatron.

Well, “defend” in the technical, legal sense, I suppose.

But really it’s more about him insulting Megatron’s intelligence, strength, and courage, in front of a LOT of people, while also trying to make himself look better in the war crime department. Megatron doesn’t appreciate this very much, if his murder-face is anything to go by.

Megatron lets Ultra Magnus (his defender, if you’ll recall) know that he wants a private word, and court goes into a brief recess.

Back in the present, Nightbeat’s busy looking at a pin-up of Rung’s alt-mode, when someone knocks on his door. That someone is Chromedome, who’s trying to solve the mystery of The Missing Declaration of Love. Not that he says that specifically out loud.

You two were married, why- okay. No point in yelling at this digital copy of a comic book.

Anyway.

So, the whole screaming thing only happened the one time, and everything was back to normal on subsequent plays of Rewind’s message. Nightbeat seems to be leaning towards the depressive isolating getting to Chromedome, which Chromedome responds to by telling him to get the fuck out. Alas, someone’s blocking the door!

YO WHAT THE FUCK-

Back with Trailcutter’s subplot, our drunken friend is in the middle of breaking into the Medibay. Our trio of cool-colored pals watch him from back at the bar, by way of a laptop that looks like it was built the same year I was born.

As Trailcutter attempts to commit a crime, Megatron, Ultra Magnus, and Ratchet pass by, trying to figure out how to handle the whole coffin situation. Trailcutter’s about to punch the locks off a door, and Nautica decides that this is where she’s going to draw the line today, leaving the gaggle of fools to their shenanigans. Then Tailgate glomps Skids, throwing the computer to the ground and breaking it, as Trailcutter finds the door to the Medibay magically open.

If you don’t know what glomping is, there’s a 60% chance that you’re not old enough to vote in the US.

Trailcutter sneaks into the Medibay, we get a reminder that Ambulon is super dead, and Trailcutter commits theft from a food bank. What a guy.

This is the point where security shows up, armed with a great deal of guns, one of which is Megatron himself. Trailcutter, instead of feeling super powerful, actually feels positively awful after consuming Megatron’s rations of “super fuel”. Because he, as an Autobot, doesn’t want to be within 50 yards of Megatron, Trailcutter breaks out the forcefields the moment the guy approaches him. And oh, what a doozy this one is.

Trailcutter’s gotten himself a fancy new trick- this forcefield he’s broken out lasts for a solid half-hour, and he can’t turn it off. I’m sure that won’t bite him in the ass at any point in the near future, no-siree!

Back in the past, Rattrap is commending Starscream on playing the field and getting the public slightly more on his side, but Starscream’s too busy patting himself on the back to really pay attention. He knew damn well that Megatron wouldn’t like what he had to say on the stand, and now things are finally looking up for ol’ Screamer.

Over with Optimus Prime, Slamdance is showing off how the general public is really into this whole “folks being held accountable for their actions” thing.

In the present, Chromedome and Nightbeat seem to have remembered they have alt-modes and are driving down the hall back to Nightbeat’s room- wonder what the speed limit for the Lost Light is?- and discuss just what the hell happened. The current theory is that the Rewind they saw was a Data Ghost- a collection of information so dense, it had a not-quite-physical presence that wasn’t 100% removed when he died.

Which is a little fucked up, but let’s see where this goes.

Nightbeat undoes the 40,000 locks on his door while Chromedome bleeds guilt all over the shag carpet over the fact that he hasn’t been looking for Dominus Ambus like he said he would.

C’mon James, gimme that Chromedominus endgame.

Nightbeat finally opens the door to find a small problem.

Hm. That’s… not normal.

Over in the Medibay, Trailcutter’s bubble has burst, allowing Megatron to slap him in the back of the head. This head-slapping induces his FIM chip permanently, making it so that he can never get drunk again.

Weird party trick, Megatron. Kinda shitty, really.

Megatron then gives Trailcutter the job of director of security, because he needs direction in his life. Trailcutter just sort of takes what he’s given, because I suppose you can’t really argue with a guy who can literally slap you sober, and also threatens to destroy you if you fuck up even once. Nice, Megs. Nice.

MEGATRON THAT’S BEEN SITTING LIKE THAT FOR OVER HALF AN HOUR YOU FUCKING WET NOODLE

So, since there’s mystery juice all over the floor and no one’s died, Megatron assumes that the coffin ought to be fine to crack open.

Please note that Megatron is not a medical professional, and his views are now peer reviewed by medical professionals. Megatron is in no way endorsed by the WHO.

Anyway, Rodimus is in there.

Pretty fucked up.

Back in the past, recess is over, and Ultra Magnus comes bearing bad news- Megatron wants to change his plea to “innocent.” This gets about the reaction one would expect from just about anyone.

Well, except Rodimus, who’s too busy reading that list that he wanted destroyed. He’s very sad about it.

I know, what a bummer!

[toooldforfandom-liveblogs]

RWBY V08E05 - Amity

Amity! A return to the adventures of RWB? With no Penny sadly. I doubt we'll get so many visual puns again but who knows, maybe they'll make friends with Whitley or at least have a cordial chat with him without killing each other. I have no idea, so let's do this!

Wow, great start. Poor Pietro, got copypasted there with no regard for his feelings.

I'm very glad I was wrong about no Penny.. Even if every second she's on screen increases the chances of something bad happening to her.

Why does the HUD look like someone used the wand from photoshop to extract it from a white background?

Wait, are they going to blow up the Dust to launch amity into space?

Penny is right, that doesn't seem like a good idea but it's also incredibly in-character for the show. Now even caves are a gun.

Someone at Rooster Teeth really likes the idea of little old ladies riding huge robots, and honestly? Can't disagree.

hmmmmmmmm not a big fan of pietro at the moment

oof, my heart

Maria continues to be the voice of wisdom. Sadly, I doubt Pietro is going to listen to her.

In the original tale Pinocchio ends up learning by making bad choice after bad choice. Penny doesn't seem to have that much in common with her inspiration but if she hasn't ever been able to make a choice at all, would it be surprising if the first time she makes a choice it ends up being a bad one? It wouldn't surprise me if this is setting her up to fly away from Amity (against Pietro's wishes) once she notices something went wrong with everyone else (making her vulnerable)

Welp.

look at that poor girl

Aaaa, that's the same expression she used when Ruby said Penny was still the Protector of Mantle. "my feelings don't matter, conceal, don't feel, don't let them kn— wait, never mind

but yeah, she's used to putting everyone ahead of her (because as a robot she supposedly doesn't know better, there's a reason that was her first thought when she was talking with Winter in last season)

aw poop

Cinder was moving so fast she left her shadow behind.

Great deranged expression and voice though. Did she bring both Neo and Emerald or just the latter?

Penny yes

Hey, 9 blades! For a second I thought they wouldn't remember that she lost one.

no, no, no, time for what? aaaaa

Now that we have more context, Cinder using her own experiences to know where to hurt people is * chef kiss *

Intentional reference to the PvP fight?

okay, I didn't expect badass Maria to actually fight using her robot but I blame my own lack of imagination

now I'm hyped, it also gives something the other two something to do.

I think the main problem here for the good guys is that if Pietro gets threatened there's no way Penny is not going to surrender. Although, maybe he gets kidnapped? That'd make him get "swallowed" by a whale... hm. Another possibility is that they threaten Pietro and Penny gets hacked "just in time"

you can't lie to me, subtitles, I know she was going to say bitch

lol at crashing the entire ship into maria to get her out of the way

bad mistake to hurt one of Penny's friends in front of her

Did anyone give a job to poor Emerald? I can almost see Cinder telling Neo to distract people while in the ship with Emerald sitting in the back seat trying to get noticed.

C'mon Neo, leave the old lady alone

…of course she wouldn't leave her alone, she's Neo, she likes playing with her victims

I wonder if Neo has a deeper plan than "killing this old lady while looking like her protege would be incredibly cruel and extra and therefore worth doing"

If the drifting was an accident, where did Emerald go?

waiting for the RWBY shmup

I understand why she's leaving Amity (to prevent their fight from destroying it by accident) but leaving Pietro alone feels like a bad idea.

…this HUD is a lot cleaner, I don't get it, it should be the same png overlay

anyway, took the screenshot to write "wow, Cinder is actually capable of thinking through her rage these days, good for her" but now that I think about it, I'm not sure if she's ever been fooled.

booo

I wanted more evil Ruby

Also, I'm literally loling at Maria yoda-ing Neo.

ah yes, neo, so graceful

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

mmmmmmm

mmm

oof, looks like that was a direct hit. And the worst part is that the second James hacks into Penny, I assume it'll will work that way. Probably her worst nightmare.

Yeah, no, this worked for spiderman because his nemesis wasn't right in front of him.

I like the idea of this shot but for some reason the execution looks weird. Maybe it's just awkward positioning, it's hard to tell the angles.

lmao

* cough *

I mean, yeah, saw that coming.

For a second I thought she was melting her face but then I remembered the one reason Cinder has that arm.

I'm going to need a diagram to know what Emerald was doing.

Yessss, no need for swords if you can make your own

I really need to know what she was doing inside because right now it feels like that was the worst excuse ever to get her out of the fight until the last possible second (and maybe make it another reference to PvP when Ruby exits the corridor?)

Did she finally see Pietro?

Emerald has so much faith in Cinder, sigh

I wonder if before the end of the show Neo will get to stab someone with her umbrella. Maybe it could even be Cinder

First time she gets knocked out?

Cinder with a long spear only means one thing. Someone is getting stabbed

Huh.

I hadn't thought about this until now but before this second I'd have said Emerald's semblance shouldn't work on Penny. Like, what part is she affecting to make Penny see the duplicates? But I guess it does work, somehow. Maybe reality gets processed through Aura.

Fire spear vs laser, who wins?

Giant laser wins

Glad that Penny is confirmed as the most powerful character in the show.

Poor Emerald, two lines this episode and they are both "CINDER"

Damn, she looks done with their crap.

And now she looks absolutely feral. Loving this.

I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop. If she gets hacked now, Cinder still wins. She wouldn't get the maiden powers but at least she'd stop the transmission.

aaaaa

Emerald breaks my heart. So much love for someone who couldn't give a hoot about her.

At least Cinder seems to know her place with Salem, but I can't tell if she started like Emerald and got her love beaten down or if she just had different priorities after getting saved from what seemed similar circumstances.

Ah, Neo. Now to add to her resume that she beat a granny only because she got distracted.

oh, shut up, Pietro

Is this it? Is this where Penny "rebels"?

Even after all that fight, I think this is the best animation of the episode so far. It conveys so much resignation and annoyance.

I think this is the first time this season RWBY makes me teary-eyed. She finally said it!

This is too cute for this world.

Remember when I said that hug with Ruby felt like a goodbye? Well, this is much worse.

Wooo, she succeeded! (I hope, they did mention the message was a couple of minutes long)

But I'm also even more worried now because it feels like the one last thing she had to do.

They are back!

I wonder if the one character I miss the most will also get a shot.

Pensive Whitley? more likely than you think

He has a lot of potential, especially now that Salem -> Cinder -> Emerald are a thing, making cyclical abuse more of an explicit theme. Not sure if there's enough time to do him justice though, considering he's not much of a character.

"we don't want to reveal Vacuo yet, what do we do?" "put them in the desert"

Yessss, Ilia got a cameo!

Are they pulling her back from voiceless purgatory?

Holy shit, wow, really didn't expect to see her.

Literally a pet. I wonder where the hound falls in the hierarchy

...why is she so happy? She's not supposed to be happy!!

siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

yeah

was expecting this

Poor guy, I wonder if this is the first news he gets from her daughters.

Taiyang made me realize they didn't show Yang's team. Huh.

Oh, fuck you rooster teeth.

Fuck oofffff (RT, not you, Pietro)

Is Winter end up doing the right thing? She's obviously affected by seeing Penny's sword there.

Also, I wonder if her new armor is just that or if it's a bracing system to help her move so soon after getting beat. But I guess that wouldn't be necessary if her aura helped her heal.

Hopefully, if Watts escapes and tries to get everyone else to help (since I doubt he can beat all the guards on his own), Qrow shows he learned his lesson about trusting the enemy.

ah, there you go

Okay, this is an amazing reveal. Is Salem transforming Mantle into another land of darkness? Because that'd definitely explain why she was so unworried about the broadcast.

What a way to end the episode. A brief moment of hope completely destroyed, twice.

Penny has been raising so many death flags that her inevitable hacking lacked some impact. I'm still sad (and annoyed at RT for poor Penny being a magnet for suffering) but Watts being Watts maybe he did a bad job just to prevent Atlas to escape? And Penny seemed able to resist? aaaah, I don't know. Now that the hacking finally happened all the foreshadowing is over, anything could happen.

The worst part of the hack is that it modified Penny's thoughts. It wasn't a complete takeover, like with Pietro, it was a lot more insidious. Literally making true what Cinder told her. Ugh.

Looking back at the screenshots, wow, a lot of the episode was just them fighting, but there were some fun moments, like Maria kicking Neo's ass.

Very curious about where it's going. Both the Penny plot (there's absolutely no way hacked Penny doesn't fight Ruby, there's probably a rule written in the universe about having mind-controlled people fight their loved ones) and the river of Grimm which was an excellent secondary gut punch. Really, loved that reveal. "You thought things were bad? lol"

I think that's all for now, until next time!

[inknerdblog]

Is Spinel 4 Dimensional?

https://my-little-universe.fandom.com/wiki/Spinel

Finally, after hours of research, analysis, and a ridiculous amount of editing all with only 5 hours of sleep I have completed my masterpiece! The idea I found in the two previous posts was interesting, to say the least. So, I just had to run this idea into the ground with the power of the Internet!

WARNING: EXTREMELY NERDY CONTENT BELOW

Side effects of content consumption may include second-hand knowledge on physics and geometry, rant-induced headaches, accidental consumption of glorified nerd spaghetti, and unintentional theory crafting.

READER’S DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Definition of 4th Dimension:

Before determining if Spinel is 4 dimensional, we need to define the 4th dimension. From a math perspective, it’s just another coordinate. Just like the x-, y-, and z-coordinates or length, height, and width on a 3-dimensional coordinate plane, adding a fourth coordinate gives you a fourth dimension to move along. 

Of course, that doesn’t exactly explain what the 4th-dimension IS. In simplest terms, a 4D shape is just a bunch of 3D shapes fused together (which is very fitting for Steven Universe). Take a cube for example. 

https://www.transparentpng.com/cats/lines-1247.html (edited)

A 1-dimensional cube is just a line. 

https://www.vexels.com/png-svg/preview/139342/basic-square-outline (edited)

Fuse 4 lines and you make a 2D cube or a square. 

https://www.vexels.com/png-svg/preview/155839/stroke-cube-icon (edited)

Fuse 6 squares and you make a 3D cube which is obviously just a cube.

http://centerofmathematics.blogspot.com/2015/03/throwback-fact-magic-squares.html (edited)

By this logic, a 4D cube, known a tesseract, is a fusion of 8 cubes. These are many ways to draw a tesseract including a view from one of its axes like seen above.

A full view of a tesseract can be very hard to see in a diagram. A fusion of 8 cubes means there are...a square has 4 lines...multiply by 6 squares per cube...times 8 cubes per tesseract… THAT’S LIKE ALMOST 200 LINES (192 to be exact). Luckily there’s a way to kind of see what a 4D cube would look like.

https://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/four_dimensions/index.html (edited)

You essentially just have to cross your eyes to “fuse” these figures together. If you have trouble, just try to look slightly over it.

Another way to interpret the tesseract is with a “beach ball” cube.

https://researchblog.duke.edu/2017/04/26/visualizing-the-fourth-dimension/

This is just a cube that has been printed along the sides of a sphere to give it a bloated appearance.

https://researchblog.duke.edu/2017/04/26/visualizing-the-fourth-dimension/

When shining a light on its north pole, the cube creates a 2D plane.

https://researchblog.duke.edu/2017/04/26/visualizing-the-fourth-dimension/

This can then be converted into a 3D object and connected with circular faces.

4 Dimensional Being Abilities:

The easiest way to explain the abilities of a being that is 4-dimensional is to consider how a 2-dimensional being would interpret us as 3-dimensional beings. In a 2-dimensional world, 3D beings would only be cross-sections. This would make us appear to only be blobs of shapes floating in mid-air.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/619210/4D_Toys/

Moving into the 3rd dimension (i.e. a different z-coordinate than the one the 2D world is in) would make us “disappear.”

With this in mind, a 4D being would essentially be extremely powerful. They would be able to see everything in the 3rd dimension at once. They could “disappear” by moving into the 4th dimension. Heck, they could remove your heart without cutting you open, much like a 3D being could remove a dot from a circle without cutting it.

So Could Spinel Be 4-Dimensional?

Short answer: no. With what we’ve seen from the Movie and Future, Spinel could not be 4-dimensional.

Spinel would be super OP. She would have no problem defeating all the Diamonds AT ONCE let alone Steven without any of his powers except the power to stick to smooth surfaces, apparently...

https://makutas-chronicle.tumblr.com/post/187538461056/spinel-garnet-and-true-kinda-love (You should check out this post. It brings up some really good points about the song “True Kind of Love”.)

Her whole reason for attacking Earth would be completely pointless! As a 4D being, she would have SEEN what happened to Pink Diamond and left the Garden before the show even started.

Even if gems had the technology and the massive amount of resources to create a being beyond their comprehension, what would be the point? Spinel was only meant to be a playmate. If they wanted Spinel to also have surveillance on Pink that could MAYBE justify creating a gem as complex as her. However, that still gives Spinel enough power to overthrow the Diamond Authority BY HERSELF. 

The only way the events of the movie could take place AND Spinel could be this powerful is if she spent her time in the Garden suppressing her ability to avoid peaking while playing the “game” with Pink.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBTN4ewBPQc

Maybe after thousands of years of suppressing her power, she lost the ability to use it? But then how did she get the Injector if not by walking into the 4th dimension? When she reset, wouldn’t she regain the ability without the memory of suppressing it? Wouldn’t she constantly morph and contort whenever she moved as her ability becomes goes haywire!?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyhqb1ciB2s

I think it’s more likely that she can only infer the 4th dimension. Kind of like how we infer the 3rd dimension. 

Yeah, apparently humans can’t actually see into the 3rd dimension. We only see the 2nd projections of 3D shapes and use light, shadows, and our position relative to objects around us to interpret depth.

https://researchblog.duke.edu/2017/04/26/visualizing-the-fourth-dimension/

Maybe Spinel just has advanced retinas. Maybe she can see into the 3rd dimension and infer the 4th.

https://researchblog.duke.edu/2017/04/26/visualizing-the-fourth-dimension/

Yes, she wouldn’t be able to flatten her gem or be the next dictator of all gem-kind, but it could explain what we see her do. She could walk around without half her head being gone one second and her leg the next.  She could have seen where the Injector and the Rejuvenator were through the 4th dimension. She maybe could have even navigated into the 4th dimension with her advanced vision and some effort.

The only thing this theory can’t explain is where that Rejuvenator came from and why it was so close to the Garden...Did Pink have a backup plan in case Spinel tried to follow her!?

https://vocal.media/geeks/everything-you-need-to-know-for-steven-universe-the-movie-part-2

And that’s it! If you made it this far, you’re just as hopelessly nerdy as I am! Only you didn’t spend hours of your life writing a 10-page paper on whether a fictional character could take over the universe...

Special thanks to  a-second-chance-su-au for inspiration. I never would have made this nerd spaghetti if you hadn’t handed me the ingredients! Check them out if you like SU AUs featuring CG Spinel.

Do you have any suggestions? Criticisms? Ideas you want me to obsess over explore? Did I miss something? Do you have a counter-theory? Then just send in an ask! I’ll try my best to respond. Have a nice day and drink your energy beans! 

References (Order of Appearance I think... I may have messed up the order):

http://eusebeia.dyndns.org/4d/vis/01-intro (Humans Only See in 2D)

https://plus.maths.org/content/richard-elwes (4D math perspective)

https://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/four_dimensions/index.html (Shape Fusion)

https://researchblog.duke.edu/2017/04/26/visualizing-the-fourth-dimension/ (“Beach Ball” Tesseract)

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/fourth.html (3D Beings to 2D Beings = 4D Beings to 3D Beings)

[fly-pow-bye]

DuckTales 2017 - “The Lost Cargo of Kit Cloudkicker!”

Story by: Francisco Angones, Madison Bateman, Colleen Evanson, Christian Magalhaes, Ben Siemon, Bob Snow, Tanner Johnson

Written by: Colleen Evanson & Tanner Johnson

Storyboard by: Vince Aparo, Kristen Gish, Victoria Harris, Ben Holm

Directed by: Tanner Johnson

Spin it!

Before doing research when Don Karnage first came to the series, my knowledge of TaleSpin began and ended with me having that awful Genesis game as a kid. I do know that the show took place long before the modern day, which is when DuckTales 2017 takes place, and it appears that the events of TaleSpin in this universe still goes with that. Why do I know this? Because this episode does not start with Baloo piloting the Sea Duck...

...but a grown-up version of his surrogate son, Kit Cloudkicker, who is now running Higher for Hire by himself. However, while things have definitely changed for Higher for Hire since Baloo's apparent retirement, mostly for the worse, some things remained the same. Namely, he is still being tormented by the nefarious Sky Pirate of the Skies, the corsair of the air, Don Karnage. Or Dan, as he calls him much to Karnage's annoyance. The good news is that Kit is now an ace pilot who can easily fight off sky pirates like he did back in the glory days. The bad news is that he can still do what he did as a kid with a giant cargo plane. He even says it, and with most of his dialogue in this cold opening suggests this is going to make him look foolish.

Even worse news for the business is that the fragile box addressed to F.O.W.L. is just sitting in the center of the cargo bay with no security whatsoever aside from a caged chicken and a goat. After rocking back and forth due to Kit fending off against Don Karnage, the box breaks to reveal a rock with a blue lion carved into it, and when that aforementioned chicken and goat touch it, they both turn into some sort of chicken-goat hybrid that Kit has to fight. How is able to fight this goat-chicken while piloting the plane? Simple: he puts a crowbar in the steering wheel, just like Baloo did in the original. Here, the idea is played as silly as it would be to someone who had never heard of TaleSpin. It is doubly sad when one considers Kit treats this crowbar like his only crewmate, because it is.

I do like that this first scene introduces this show's version of Kit very well. He's obviously an incompetent pilot, and not one that is lovably incompetent like Launchpad, and this incompetence is pretty well known among his customers judging by this line:

Kit Cloudkicker: Who's the terrible pilot now, everyone?

He's surprisingly cheerful about that, which, again, makes him look foolish. Despite all of this foolishness, he does appear to still be competent at coming up with plans to defeat his enemies, whether they be sky pirates or mutated goat-chickens, even if those plans end up putting the cargo he was supposed to deliver into the water. This includes that lion stone. He looks onto this and says "my bad" in a way that shows that his business is definitely going to be in the red in a few years.

A few years later, we see that Della is taking Huey, Dewey, and nobody else to Cape Suzette, and she's even allowing Dewey to fly the plane along with her. It is easy to see why Huey is extra prepared even if Dewey is doing surprisingly well, as Huey is not only using extra seatbelts, but having a Safety Boy helmet as well. Huey's also prepared with the knowledge of that Lion Stone we saw go into the ocean in the previous scene, which, you guessed it, is a Missing Mystery of Isabella Finch. Specifically, it's the Stone Of What Was, which was described with the mysterious phrase "what was once two becomes a-new." Huey does not seem to figure that one out. The good news is that it was found, but the bad news was that it was found by F.O.W.L, but the better news is that they lost it, but the worse news was that the stone was made of potassium benzoate. Okay, that last one was made up. There's a few throwaway lines to fill in how Huey even knows F.O.W.L. had the stone in other scenes, and those plot holes are really not that important.

After nearing their destination, which we learn was based on a clue from an intercepted F.O.W.L. transmission from a throwaway line from Huey slightly later in the episode, Della has the bright idea to let Dewey land the plane. Letting a little kid fly a plane? Not a good idea. Letting a little kid land a plane? Also not a good idea. Telling that little kid that there's nothing wrong with a basic landing? May be a good idea in the off chance it could even come up, but definitely not a good idea when it comes to Dewey. To Della's credit, at least it was Huey that did that last one.

After the crash landing, and not a Launchpad-type one, they arrive at Higher for Hire, which shows an advertisement showing its legacy playing on a television screen with plenty of TaleSpin references. This includes one shot of Baloo and another shot of a younger Kit and Molly Cunningham riding on an airfoil done in the style of the original show. This is great for people who were not aware of TaleSpin, which the target audience for this show may not have seen unless they have Disney Plus. Kit, still shown to be the sole employee years later, assumes anyone knocking at his door is the bank demanding payments, but he's delighted to see one of his former classmates at pilot school. He constantly has to tell Della that he is an ace pilot now. Most likely, he's telling that to himself too, as we'll see in the next scene. He at least has reason to believe he's a better pilot than his former classmate, as it doesn't look like her plane is in good shape. Della could have explained that this state was because she let one of her less competent sons fly the plane...and that would have probably made her case about a thousand times worse.

That television commercial also inspires a sort of B-plot that also ties into Kit's character arc, as seeing young Kit cloudkicking makes him want to do it, too. Despite his failure at even mimicking it, Kit is happy to see a fellow cloudkicker and would be glad to teach him the ropes. Della is not too excited by this prospect, but ends up allowing it, because she doesn't want to be the mother that does not support her kid. They aboard the plane, which ends up being a very bumpy ride, and Della goes to investigate, only to find that Kit was in the bathroom, letting his only other employee, the crowbar, be his substitute.

Kit tries to stop what he calls "mutiny" by saying that he's the only one who knows where the cargo could be, only for the crowbar to slip and reveal that he's been keeping a map in the glove compartment. The map actually has some Xs and a circle on it, which suggests that Kit may have been trying to correct his previous mistake, but either never getting the motivation to go through with it, or, more likely, he isn't competent enough to deal with whatever is on that island he circled. Maybe I am thinking about this too hard, but I would say it would be fitting.

Kit decides to distract everyone from him getting kicked out of the pilot's chair by giving Dewey his airfoil and the cloudkicking rope for him to hold onto, and a shot of Dewey's excitement instantly cuts to Dewey screaming for his life, holding on for dear life as he can't seem to. The parallel between a former cloudkicking guy who isn't really a good pilot, and a kid who can actually fly a plane who isn't really a good cloudkicker is easy to notice, and the episode plays around with this. For starters, similar to Kit and his not-so-ace piloting skills, Dewey also tries his hardest to hide how terrified he is at the cool new thing he wanted to do. Of course, it is very possible that Kit is acting the way he does because he's in a certain someone's shadow. Dewey just does it because that's how he is.

Despite that difference, this parallel is enhanced even more when they get attacked by the Sky Pirates, and Kit has to intervene and show that he, at the very least, can get Dewey out of the danger that Kit himself has caused. And yes, Don Karnage's Sky Pirates are now working for the very organization that they indirectly harmed years before by attacking that cargo plane and making them lose that precious stone. That does not come up at all, not even as a throwaway line. What does come up is that Don Karnage is delighted that one of the people after the Stone of What Was is his new arch-nemesis, Dewey. It's a long story that started all the way back in Don's debut in Season 1. It's neat to see these old references. After they all make a landing on the circled island, some more safe than others, they get to meet the wildlife of the island. Let's say there's a good reason why this island was circled, and why Kit could not handle it by himself.

It's a rhino and a gorilla crossed together, either a rhinosorilla or a gorillanoceros depending on whether one likes Dewey's word for it or Kit's. Clearly, this is the result of the Stone of What Was...what was...Wuz...Wuzzles! Admittedly, the Wuzzle was also not a show I grew up with, though that could be because it lasted only a season. In fact, I just now notice the lion carved into the Stone of What Was happens to have bumblebee wings. These animals are a little more realistic here, as they don't talk, and they're not cute or fuzzy like the original Wuzzles were. In fact, the character this gorillanoceros was based on was actually a monkey-rhino. There is a difference, even if they are very similar species genetically!

They eventually get to the stone, only to see that Don Karnage and his crewmates have found the stone first. Hiding, they see Don Karnage command Hardtack Hattie, his strongest crewmember, to lift it up. Unfortunately, she happened to lift it as a bunch of ants were crawling on it, turning her into an ant centaur to her and Don's horror. Despite that horror, and fitting for someone who just wants to finish his mission, he tries to get some of the other crew members to lift it...

...leading to these freaks of nature, which is what Don Karnage actually calls them. DuckTales 2017 isn't too afraid to show the horrifying nature of some of these fusions, continuing with the theme of how they portray the Wuzzles as these monstrous beasts. I would not call it nightmare fuel, but I would not be surprised if it already has an entry on TV Tropes. What makes these even worse is that there is no way for these guys to revert back to their normal forms. There's no "if the stone feels like it, it'll separate you" clause here, that snail-dog is permanently a snail-dog, and that pirate will have to live with a hand for his head for the rest of his days. These guys just end up getting forgotten.

Della tries to sneak by climbing around this horrific scene, only to be caught on some sort of sticky rock. Dewey decides to try to save her with his airfoil-riding skills, much to Huey's disagreement. Dewey's got to Dewey it! Oh yeah, I forgot, Dewey ends up doing "Dewey" puns for most of the episode. It's not funny, but I have a feeling it wasn't meant to be funny, and it's certainly not funny when he ends up falling down near the pirates. Face to face with someone who considers him his arch-nemesis, he tries to save face when he notices Kit stole Don Karnage's plane...which he immediately crashes into a rock.

As for the rock that Della was stuck on, it turns out it wasn't a rock. Nor was it a rock lobster, either!

It hatches into another classic Wuzzle character: the Butterbear, or the Bear-terfly as Don Karnage calls it. They never quite match the original Wuzzle names, and it is not like they would know them. There is one part of this where Kit and the Bear-terfly cross paths, and it almost seems like they're going to bond because they happen to be a similar race. Then, it instantly cuts to Kit running away from a rampaging Bear-terfly. How are they going to continue from this? Have the Bear-terfly get caught in some rope, and have it run in a way that ties up the stone, and have it fly away with Della still on its back. It is a bit convoluted, but it works in the end as it is a way for the stone to travel without it mutating even more people. Whether any of these fusions can use the stone to combine into other fusions is left unanswered, which is for the best.

One may notice I didn't talk a whole lot about what Huey did, and that's because he really didn't do much for most of the episode. He delivered the exposition, he tries to stop Dewey from "Deweying it", and that's about it. However, he does have a major part in the episode: he gets to take part in the scene where the two bumbling fools realize what they have been doing was foolish. Namely, they needed to realize that they should do what they were good at: Kit should cloudkick and Dewey should fly the plane. It is a good lesson that had some good buildup. Sure, they were pretty much failing throughout the episode, but there were scenes where they were surprisingly competent, like the scene where Kit rescued Dewey with his Cloudkicking skills, and Dewey managing to fly the plane in the beginning before he decided to "Dewey it" and crash it. It does not come out of nowhere. Speaking of which...

Dewey: Okay, let's do it.

What would be an unremarkable line actually works really well here, mainly because he decided not to make a pun on his own name, which he did way too much. It does show development, as if this fun-loving showboater is actually learning his lesson throughout the episode. I expect this from DuckTales 2017, and there are certainly cartoons where I don't.

Fittingly for a TaleSpin episode, this all ends with a flight chase scene. No, not the usual DuckTales 2017 fight scene, though there are some fights here and there, especially with Kit and Don Karnage, armed with that crow bar and sword, respectively. The scene actually manages to make Dewey keeping the plane steady an action packed scene, as he has to save his Mom while trying not to let the stone fall into the ocean and make an octopus-fish-squid hybrid that would rival the Eldritch horrors. Again, whether any of these fusions can use the stone to combine into other fusions is left unanswered, which is for the best.

It's not really a spoiler to say the good guys win, but I will say the TaleSpin part of the plot is very much all tied up in the end. If Kit only makes a minor appearance in the finale, and I'd actually be surprised if he didn't appear considering how packed the clips were, it would be completely understandable. Also, there's a cliffhanger and we finally get to hear Don Karnage sing another song, if a very short one. It seemed like he just couldn't do it in his other appearances.

How does it stack up?

With the genius way of using not just one Disney show's legacy, but another Disney show as well, there's a lot to love about this episode, though I wouldn't say it's among the absolute best. Four Scrooges.

Next, Scrooge gets indicted.

← Beaks In The Shell! 🦆 The Life and Crimes of Scrooge McDuck! →

[rowdeyclown]

the masks of majora’s mask ranking that no one asked for

i have many Thoughts about majora’s mask, it’s my favorite piece of media ever and honestly i could go on for ages talking about it, but today i wanna just talk about the masks of the game because i am very passionate about masks

im sorting this list by type of mask. there are only two types of masks to obtain, transformation and collectible, this is just to help me keep track of everything

transformation masks

the Deku mask. ngl deku link is super cute and he may not be the most powerful or fastest but he sure did spin his way into my heart. 7/10

the Goron mask. among other mm fans this seems to be the most popular of the transformation masks due to the incredible speed in which its possible to travel and raw strength with fighting. i personally am not the biggest fan of hand to hand combat using this mask but i sure do love to roll around at supersonic speeds. also this is the mask used for my favorite boss in the game, goht, and is also involved with goron racing which is also fun. speeding is very fun, shame that it only works when my magic meter is full. 8/10

the Zora mask. sorry i couldnt find a bigger png for it first of all but anyway this mask is the one that messes me up the most. you help a dying zora say his final words, then he kicks the bucket and leaves behind a mask which then lets you turn into a zora like what the actual fuck. gameplay wise this mask is my favorite, swimming is actually fun and it is my ideal hand to hand fighter, which is to say fast. 10/10

the Fierce Deity mask. okay. there is a lot to unpack with this one. whereas the other transformation masks are gained as part of the main quest, the fierce deity is only obtainable if you have collected all the other masks in the game. not much is known abt it but boy is it op as hell. like you can literally take out the final boss in like two minutes using this bad boy. the first time i played mm i tried to get the fierce deity mask but then promised myself i wouldnt use it for the final boss, but suddenly i had lost all my fairies and healing potions and i had half a heart left. i said “fuck it, mask time” and with the power of god and anime on my side i beat majora and saved termina without taking another hit. 100/10

collectible masks

Great Fairy’s mask. i thought the actual great fairies were creepy, but then i saw link wearing this mask and i havent been the same since. i have gotten quite a bit of use out of it since i like to collect all the fairies in the dungeons and this mask is required to lure some of them in, so i have to give it points for that. but honestly if it had no other valuable use i wouldnt touch it with a 10 foot pole. 5/10

Kamaro’s mask. OKAY this mask is really weird but also very funny and i think about it a lot. this mask is obtained from a dead dancer named Kamaro and using the mask link can do that same dance and with this ability he can earn a heart piece by teaching another pair of dancers this dance. the fact that its not even a real mask really kills me. theres that fleshy colored bit on the bottom that covers up the whole face and then the face of Kamaro is just sitting on top like a hat and its unreal. 7/10 

Bremen mask. now THIS mask, this one is special to me. you see, i was in marching band in high school and i also played mm for the first time around my senior year. this mask allows link to play a little song on his ocarina and march around! its so BIZARRE and i love it. also this mask is needed to obtain my actual favorite mask from the game. 10/10 

Bomb mask. makes link’s face explode but its okay because this is a video game and characters can survive shit like wearing a literal bomb on their face. 20/10

Bunny hood. THIS. THIS IS MY FAVORITE MASK. its not technically a mask actually but ignore that the point is that this mask is adorable, useful, and obtaining it makes me smile each time. to get this mask you have to start a marching band with baby cuccos using the bremen mask as i mentioned earlier. this mask is special because it boosts link’s movement speed significantly. its absolutely my most worn mask just because of the whole moving fast factor. all around a very solid and good design 10000/10 

Kafei’s mask. okay yes, it is creepy. its very weird. really you only need to wear it once but it is the catalyst of the biggest quest in the game that spans all three days and its also in my opinion the best zelda sidequest ever. so points to this mask for starting an iconic quest, but for the love of god stop staring at me with those empty eyes. 3/10

Keaton mask. obtained during the kafei quest. this mask is used to communicate with nine tailed fox-like creatures called keatons, and if link answers their riddles right he can gain a piece of heart. this is basically just a one use mask that really doesnt do any good in the long run. 4/10

Postman’s hat. turns link into a mailman. 10/10

Mask of Truth. dont even talk to me if this isnt what your third eye looks like. this mask is used to communicate with animals and talk to gossip stones. i wouldnt say this mask is really necessary as it is an optional item to use for a heart piece to collect but said heart piece can also be collected without it, tho it is significantly harder. 5/10

Mask of Scents. hehe piggy. 10/10 

Don Gero’s mask. remember that mask that turned you into a marching band kid? This turns you into the drum major. well, not really, but it is used to direct a choir made up entirely of frogs. basically the ideal mask. 10/10

Romani’s mask. allows link to enter bars despite being underage. i do not support underage drinking at all, especially when the underage person in question is like 10. -20/10

Garo’s mask. the first picture there is the mask as seen in the original n64 game and the second is the redesign from the 3ds remake. why did they make such a drastic change? beats me. the mask itself allows link to talk to invisible ninjas and is involved heavily with ikana valley. ikana is a weird and complicated location, and the abilities of this mask truly help build the atmosphere of the area and game in general. 8/10 

Captain’s hat. tricks skeletons into thinking that link is their leader. idk how that even works since its not even a transformation mask. idk maybe the skeletons are just stupid. also one of two masks that cause redeads to dance rather than scream at you so thats a plus. 7/10

Stone mask. this mask is so weird, it turns link invisible to almost all characters. its very useful for infiltrating the gerudo fortress and for the quest to earn a certain other mask, but is also not required. it is very funny looking though. i do prefer to use it over doing actual stealth since im lazy so this mask is actually useful for my particular tastes. 8/10 

Troupe Leader’s mask. okay THIS MASK. THIS MASK IS THE REASON WHY I WANTED TO MAKE THIS LIST IN THE FIRST PLACE. this mask is literally pointless. the mask itself cries and can stop bandits from attacking you in a certain side quest, however doing that side quest is pointless at that point since that side quest is literally how this mask is obtained. its pointless and stupid. in the 3ds remake it can be used to get an empty bottle but the fact that it literally was completely unusable and pointless in the original game just goes to show how much of a waste of space this mask is. -100/10

All-Night mask. this mask is terrifying and keeps me from falling asleep. incidentally, thats its actual ability. according to some text in the game this mask was used as a torture device at one point which is uhhhhhh. hm. yeah. the actual use for it in the game is literally a thing to keep link from falling asleep out of boredom. what an absolute nightmare of a mask. 1/10

Gibdo mask. makes gibdo (aka mummies) think link is one of them which is useful for not dying to one but boy is it terrifying. the second of two masks that make redeads dance instead of scream at you. 3/10

Couple’s mask. this mask is the product of the entire kafei and anju quest. it doesnt look like much and is only useful for one moment in game to obtain a piece of heart but its true value lies in the journey travelled to collect it. this mask was born as a representation of the love between the characters kafei and anju, and that whole quest is beautiful and heart wrenching and this mask brings it to a satisfying close. infinity/10 

Giant’s mask. doesnt even look like the actual giants in the game. 0/10

[galionne-vibin]

Posting this little step by step in hopes it can help out friends just starting out with SAI and also in case anyone is curious as to my art process. This isn’t really a guide but more of a “this is how I do it and if it can help you that’s great” kind of thing.

Also before you open this, be warned: VERY LONG POST UNDER THE CUT

Step 1: Sketching

I have 2 tools I use for sketching: first is a custom brush that has a rough and papery texture and second is the basic pen tool (with a few tweaks). Which tool I use depends entirely on my mood of the day. (Feel free to copy my settings if you’d like! This goes for this entire step-by step.)

Step 2: Lineart (New layer above the sketch)

Again I have two tools for lineart, but this time there’s an actual difference! The first one I use mostly for quick sketches ; like doodling characters or other silly art. It’s a second custom brush with a rough texture (sometimes it looks a bit thin so I duplicate the layer and merge it down again to make it thicker). The second one is, again, the basic pen tool. This one looks much cleaner and smoother but also takes longer to get done, so I only use it for big pieces that will get fully shaded, have lighting, etc.

Step 3: Coloring (New layer between the sketch and lineart)

Oh boy, my favorite! I’ve come up with a few shortcuts for this one to make things easier.

First, on the lineart layer I select everything that isn’t to be colored/around the character with the wand tool. In this case I didn’t close off the lineart so it’s selecting areas that I’ll have to fill in later. My art style includes a thick lineart, but if it was thinner I’d have to play around with the ‘color diff.’ setting of the wand tool.

After that I increment the selection about 3 to 5 times depending on the thickness of the lineart (I use this function a lot so I tied it to the W key), then invert it so only the inside of the lineart is selected. The incrementation is to make sure I don’t have any pixels outside the lineart selected.

Fill everything in with the bucket tool on a new layer UNDER the lineart layer (the lineart layer is always at the top up until the last step) then hit ‘clear selection’ and fill in the missing colors using the pen tool (the best tool) if there are any.

After that I hit ‘preserve opacity’ so I won’t be able to draw outside of what’s already on the layer…

And start coloring (on the same layer)! Again using the pen tool.

If their are any extra details to be added that aren’t surrounded by a lineart (markings, tattoos, patterns, etc.) I add a new layer above the base color layer and hit ‘clipping group’. This means I can’t draw outside of what’s already drawn on the layer underneath the one I’m working on (in this case the base color).

Step 4: Shading (On a new layer just under the lineart)

On a new layer, hit ‘clipping group’ (if multiple clipped layers are stacked on top of each other, they all clip to the closest layer that isn’t clipped to anything- in this case the base color) and add all that nice shading. With the pen tool. The pen tool has holy powers and is second only to our Lord and Savior Dino-Tank.

I like to do everything in one color ; you can use dark grey but I’d recommend something colorful like orange, purple or blue.

Time to use the magic that is ‘layer modes’! Switch the layer mode to ‘shade’ and lower the opacity until everything looks good to you! Magic!

This technique does have a few flaws ; especially when working with darker colors where the shading might look too dark. In that case hit ‘preserve opacity’ and change the colors to something that works better (usually by shading dark areas with a very light color).

Step 5: Lighting (New layer above the shading layer)

Add a new layer, hit ‘clipping group’ and use a light color (I used pure white, but depending on the lighting you could use light blue, light pink, etc.) to add hightlights.

Change the layer mode to ‘luminosity’ and lower the opacity until it looks good to you.

Step 6: Finishing touches & Exporting

Almost done! Now add a layer above the lineart (*gasp*) and add some little extras. Blushy cheeks are a must for a good boy such as Pegassa.

Finally, untick any lauer you don't want visible in the final art (like the sketch layer) and export your piece with the desired settings! I always export in PNG. If you haven’t added a background, 24ppp will give you a solid white background while 32ppp will give you a transparent background.

And voilà! Two very good boys ready to go!