#didn't include more characters bc there's already too many

[thatdeadaquarius]

PowerPoint night with the genshin cast ✨

NO BC I SAW THIS IN MY INBOX AND I WAS FROTHING AT THE MOUTH WITH TOO MANY IDEASSS, the energy is just this:

You introduce the wonderful concept of powerpoints, then a powerpoint night and you should expect absolute chaos

Mondstadt over here like,

"Why I Deserve Wine:

I am a god

I am YOUR god, give me offerings duh

(insert conclusion here)"

by Venti, he didn't even both filling out some slides, and they're all just plain text with maybe a nice selfie of himself on the first slide lmao

STOP, DILUC'S POWERPOINT BEING A 40 SLIDE PRESENTATION RESPONSE TO VENTI'S AHALKSJ

or better yet, Creator!You version:

"An Explanation of Why the One Above Us All Would Enjoy Living in Liyue During Their Stay Here" by Zhongli, which takes approx. 4+ hours to get thru, and its his case for why u should stay in Liyue Harbor - half the ppl there are actually paying attention and the other half are fast asleep (u included)

Meanwhile Yae Miko trying to stir the pot like, "Which Vision-User, God, or Nation is Our Ruler's Favorite" 💀

Also another presentation that would make several ppl give response presentations and it just becomes: HER SISTER WAS A WITCH BRO = THE CREATOR LIKES SUMERU MORE BRO

CRYING- people like Zhongli, Albedo, Alhaitham, Xingqiu, Neuvillette, Xiao, Sucrose, Jean, Ei/Raiden Shogun, Faruzan all misunderstanding and thinking u actually want a real presentation from them 😭😭

ngl all the Sumeru/Akademiya/Fontaine characters have probably gotten somewhat close to doing some kind of equivalent to this, mostly bc ppl will debate abt the stupidest stuff over there so they get it, wonder if they made drinking games out of it lol

(first question from Sumeru characters is "what is powerpoint night, and why has Alhaitham probably already won it")

pls im so braindead rn there are ENDLESS possibilities for this, if anyone has more I am LISTENING!!!

Safe Travel 0rah,

💀♒

If you wanna join a taglist, DM me what for! "Pspspsss, please tag me for [All SAGAU posts, Only SAGAU Language AUs, diff fandom, etc.]!"

(If you ever wanna drop, just DM me! "No more taglists/[specifically this AU/fandom] please!")

♡the beloveds♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche / @chocogi / @fallen-starr / @areaderofbooks / @devilangel657 / @esthelily / @justinsomniachild / @nanithefuck / @questionotmystopit / @chinuneko

@kiyomi-uchiha777

[hor3nee]

• Union •

Gojo and his arranged marriage with Reader.

CW/TW: Fem! Reader, Arranged marriage, BREIF Suggestive stuff, Corny Gojo, Reader & Gojo ages implied to be very young (18-23), Gojo typical flirting, SFW (Lmk if I should add anything else!)

Characters: Gojo x Reader

AN: Gojo is bitchless in this fic bc I say so. Pt 2 here.

Weddings aren't supposed to be this boring. In fairness, boring is better than a bad wedding. Could have a roadhouse-type fight between in-laws, an ex breaking through the doors proclaiming their undying love or a runaway bride. Or a runaway groom. Maybe he should've been a runaway groom? Internally, Gojo's sure it'd be more exciting than sitting in a room full of family and 'friends' who are discussing his marriage more than he's even caring to think of it.

"Congratulations to The Strongest and his bride." Another blanked-out random voice says giving polite blessings to him and the lady dressed in bridal wear beside him, you.

Satoru Gojo, the strongest, they call him, well he calls himself, and yes, he is, he without a doubt is the strongest. Born with the Six Eyes technique after ages of the Gojo clan, while relevant in the Jujutsu world, unable to have a child with such technique for so long, Gojo was instantly hailed heir, no questions asked.

And with all of that, comes responsibilities, that, as immature as the man acts, he does take care of. Responsibilities include many things other than killing curses though, responsibilities include managing the clan, doing his part in Jujutsu society, mentoring the students and keeping peace with the other clans. Just to list the few, less action-based responsibilities. Marriage is an obvious one as well.

And you're the bride.

He knew it was coming. It wasn't specifically because he was the strongest he was gonna be strung into a marriage as quickly as possible, though that played a role in it. He saw it with his parents, relatives, and the other clans, Zenin especially who practiced it most rigidly perhaps, marriage was a necessary part of holding a certain status, it's simply expected. Arranged are ideal.

It's not that he was forced into it either, everyone knows this is Satoru Gojo, he does whatever he wants. He gets whatever he wants, he's spoiled, both by the hands of Jujutsu society that almost worships him for his abilities and his own self, the ego he holds very proudly and very loudly that he shamelessly keeps up. If he wants something, he takes it, if he doesn't, he'll leave. He holds that sort of irrefutable power.

So he's okay with this, with marriage. With an arranged marriage, to you, whatever his reasons are that much is clear.

"You gonna eat that?" He's not asking really, he's already got his freakishly long arm drawled out on the table grabbing the plate out of yours. Fingers wriggling comically and he doesn't even make eye contact, looking at the slice of cake with a deeper passion than he bothered to look at you with. Not that you're expecting it, but.. you are the bride, he is on board.

"..Uh guess not." Is all you can reply, slightly awkwardly as he snatches the slice and gobbles it, humming like an overgrown toddler. Was he feeling as awkward too? He didn't look it, he looked fine, bored out of his over-active mind but not mad or anything. Much less mad at you, nor nervous. You're sat close, right by his side, being the main events the two of you of course, Gojo more so because he's the main event in everything in his life.

"This shit's good." He's moaning now, at cake. Almost makes you cringe but with that huge grin of overabundant confidence he has, he somehow makes it seem less cringe.

"Wedding cake's always good-" He gulps down another piece as he speaks. "Best part of any wedding."

Was that?.. Was that an insult? Felt like it, you're sat there all prettied up prim and proper to marry him, and you know he accepted this marriage and he's calling the cake the best part of the wedding? No, you can't even blame him. If anything you probably agree, save for the overly expensive gifts of cold hard cash the other clans and guests were leaving those were also good parts. Because this is, arranged.

You two, are, for the most part, strangers to each other. Together yes, married actually since you and him signed the legal documents no less than 10 minutes earlier into the wedding.

Still, it's awkward.

Soon the cake is gone, mostly by Gojo's abyss of a stomach, and the guests leave. Caterers clean up and family members give some last tidings before leaving. As well as you, and Gojo.

"So, do you think I'm hot?" He perks, sprawled on the couch with his formal wear lazily pulled off scattering around the floor from when he took it off the instant he was inside the residence. His residence, of course. A grin showing no signs of the tense awkwardness one would expect a young man freshly married to a wife he's only married to through arrangements would be. But no, he's Satoru Gojo, if there's one thing he has, it's an overwhelming amount of self-assurance.

"Do I- Do I think you're hot?" You reply, standing a bit awkwardly in front of him, still trying to process the fact you're sleeping here tonight, no for the rest of your life you'll be sleeping in this house. Home, you should call it, it is your home now. Might take time to properly digest that but it is.

"Yeah, am I hot?" The question is, by his expression, obviously self-explained. He IS attractive, with pretty big blue eyes, tall and decently built, and gorgeous lips too, he knows it, he knows he's hot. Gojo just likes to tease, he's a little shit. 

"I mean, am I attractive to YOU?" He asks again, putting more emphasis. For all the slightly passive-aggressive things he's said the evening and immature behaviour, the question is poised genuinely. He's smirking, humming almost as he asks but the way he looks at you it's also clear that he is asking you, seriously.

His gaze never breaks with yours, and though you only take a second to respond, it feels like an hour with the heavy weight of the situation in your brain and the almost stinging feeling of his wide baby blue bright eyes piercing through yours waiting for your response.

"You... Yes, you are attractive." He is, he knows that already though and that wasn't what he was asking. But you know that wasn't what he asking. His expression doesn't falter though, but there's an obvious disappointment, boredom more specifically in it at your lack of response. You're talking but the words are white paper plain, even you can taste it on your tongue, how chaste you sound. 

"I think you're attractive, too." His reply is more genuine than yours as well, maybe not genuine but a lot more emotion in it. Maybe he's just more confident, which he is no doubt. 

"Thanks-"

"Like, seriously." He whistles, christ that's jarring. "seriously hot." 

He's up off the couch before you can give another disingenuous 'thanks' and standing right in front of you, eyeing you down with little to no attempt to act ceremoniously, which he was showing at least the faintest ounce of at the wedding earlier. That gawky tension of whatever the hell the two of you have going on is back, but not for Gojo. He doesn't even have a semblance of humility in him to feel that tension that's burning inside of you right now.

"We're supposed to like each other, you know." He adds, keeping his eyes trained on your body shamelessly.

It feels like his hands are folded around you but they aren't, they're hanging loosely by his side all dangly as his limbs are, the man is a giant. It's more a feeling, suffocating, as though you've been cornered when you aren't. It's the middle of a decently spaced living room and the front door is unlocked. And Gojo, as devious as his smirk is, would never hold you by the binds of a pressured marriage. If anything, you were almost under the assumption he didn't care for you, or this marriage.

"I guess, yeah." You start. "You like me then?" You finish, a bit bolder now, he's seamlessly talking and you are married now, till death do you part as they say. Might as well match his energy.

"You bet I do, sweetheart." Petnames? Okay maybe too much, he might need to dial it down. But Gojo is Gojo, the strongest, an eccentric man. He doesn't 'dial it down' for anything, or anyone. You're his wife, and he likes what he sees. Smiling as he speaks, genuine and concise in his words, he means what he says. As confusing as this situation is, he is young, he's accepted it, and not begrudgingly at all. "I got me a pretty wife- you, you're my wife, so I like you." 

"Thanks Gojo." Ah, there it is, not disingenuous. Though minimal he picks up on it, you also mean it. Maybe not in the way he means it, maybe more than he means it, who knows, not him. Confident as he says he is with the ladies, he's never actually been with one before, this whole relationship shtick, marriage shtick, is new.

Marriage is built off of love, his elders told him, he saw in shitty rom-coms and pop songs blasting the radio. He'd like that, love, as much immaturity and disregard he’s shown at the wedding, the engagement, the arrangements when he first heard they'd picked a partner for him, it has appeal. And he wants it, and this woman, you, you're going to be the one to give it to him, love. Not today, not tonight. Maybe not in a month or a year, but it'll grow, and fester over time. He's sure, as he is in everything, this marriage will last.

"I'm tired as hell from all that wedding crap," Gojo says, his feet ever so minimally backing off so he isn't smothering you with his presence and wide sapphire-like eyes boring into your understandably unsure eyes. "There's a guest room, I'll sleep there and you can take the main bedroom-"

"I can sleep with you." You cut him off.

"In the guest bedroom??" He questions with a blink, okay so he's a bit stupid. That's okay though.

"No, with you, in our bedroom." You correct him, feeling more assured now, eased by Gojo's, thankfully.

"Right." The cheeky grin is back. Actually, it isn't very annoying anymore, it's kinda attractive. He is attractive that much is sure, but he's starting to be attractive to you. "Let's go sleep in OUR bed then, how's that sound?" 

"Sounds good."

It's oddly domestic, the walk to the bedroom he previously had all to himself, showing you the way, and showing you the bed you're gonna be sleeping in for the rest of your days. The way his slender fingers, which you were almost sure would poke out your eyes, gracefully helped you dissemble the layers of jewelry and fabrics you were dolled up in. His touch was feather-light, in stark contrast to his smug demeanour, making it clear, the boy has never undressed a lady.

Nothing goes further than that though, he doesn't push for anything more, and considering how new and confusing everything still is, you don't either. Instead choosing to lay back, and shut your eyes beside Gojo, letting exhaustion overtake you both and just sleep for the night.

Sleep beside your husband.

[genericpuff]

Hello! I’m just here bc I’m a little confused on what you meant by Smythe drawing out “each individual asset” when she was making comics? Now, granted, I can see that it made her file ginormous, but me personally as someone who knows nothing about making online comics but is really wanting to get into it (and also as someone who has a ‘too many layers’ problem myself), is there a way to avoid using too many layers?

My current way of making comics has been to draw the panels individually and then format them (which I know is terrible management wise and also messes with the quality) but I honestly have no other idea of how to do it properly, and seeing how stunning Lore Rekindled looks, I don’t know how you would manage to put all that lighting effects and little details on the same layers. (But also I may be thinking of it wrong so I’ll let you talk qwq)

Ah I can actually give you a visual breakdown of what I meant by that!

So in this you can see there are a TON of layers, and not even all of them are visible because some of them are stuffed into FOLDERS that have been left closed. BUT if you look REEEEALLY carefully-

^^^ These layers right here? That's specifically Minthe from this panel in Episode 61:

(the unique pose here makes it real easy to tell that this is the corresponding panel, you can see the matching body shape with the dark shading that's clipped to the base layer below it!)

So what this means is that Rachel didn't draw all her characters on one base layer, she drew every single character in every single panel separately. Now of course, she could merge all these layers together as working on separate layers helps make it easier to work on elements that collide separately (like one character being 'underneath' another character like Hades is here) but because she has all of those clipping layers with the shading already added in, she likely didn't merge them afterwards because that would actually create MORE problems (because if she merged the Minthe layer in with Hades, then the shading for Minthe that she painted outside of the lines would show up on Hades and then she'd have to erase it which is just a bunch of extra work).

You can also tell all these characters are on their own layer because the layer thumbnail EXCLUSIVELY shows those characters. A layer will show as much canvas length as it needs to cover what's in that layer, so if the thumbnail is only showing one character, that means there's NOTHING ELSE on that layer. If there were more elements on this layer than just Minthe, the layer thumbnail would look more like this:

Now let's compare it to Rekindled's layers! I'll use a completed page to make it fair as we use a lot of extra layers in the post-production phase where we add the texture effects and glow and all that fun stuff, plus I'll even make it a more complicated page like that big nymph explanation spread from Episode 51:

So I'll break it down to make this make more sense:

BG 2 Copy (technically this is supposed to be BG 1) - Basically the panel shapes, what I'll do is mark out the panels with flat blocks and through that we'll add background elements in a clipping layer (usually done by Banshriek). Often times they'll do multiple layers to make the process easier and then merge them all together in the end. With these shapes operating as panels, it means I can just auto select the whole layer, invert the selection, and easily erase whatever's outside of it (such as the lineart and base colors that I put down afterwards). I could just use masking layers like I did in [AFTERBIRTH] but I find this way works better for the process of making Rekindled.

BG 2 - This is where we add objects / foreground elements. So stuff like furniture, interactables, anything that needs to be kept separate from the larger background to make it easier to work with. This can also include "floating" panels that need to be above other panels, such as this:

All of the backgrounds are then nested in a folder for organization purposes (we also sometimes use clipping layers on top of those folders to apply extra effects over anything contained within that folder without affecting other folders, that's a common technique that Banshriek applies)

Then we get into our Characters folder:

BASE - This is where I do the majority of my work, all the characters in every panel on a page are flatted into this layer. Sometimes I do have to create separate layers to, again, make it easier to work with overlapping characters, but usually those layers will be merged before I go into the shading process. I simply shade on a single layer by using the lasso / magic wand tool to select my area for painting, the flat colors make it really easy to do that. Sometimes I need to create a secondary shading layer if I've put down dark colors that start to bleed into the lighter colors, but again, I merge when I'm done into a single shading layer. We also sometimes employ an Add (Glow) layer into the clipping set if we need a glow effect that's exclusive to the characters and doesn't travel outside of their base colors.

There's a (leaves) layer here that I used for the dryad because I needed the leaves to be above the base layer, after that I selected the leaves elements so that I could erase the lineart in the layer above it where needed.

LINEART - It's lineart, enough said haha That said, I do think Rachel actually uses clipping layers for her lineart in places, it seems to be visible in some of her process videos where you can see the lineart present in a clipping layer, and that would explain why there are panels where the lineart suddenly 'cuts off' and doesn't travel outside of the base layer, like so:

GLOW - This is where we do an Add (Glow) layer that isn't restricted to the base layer, it's where we add all the fun lil' glow and sparkle effects over the characters !

The CLOUDS layer is, like the leaves, a background element that needs to be above the base layers rather than constricted to the background.

Above the Characters folder you can see what I mentioned earlier where Banshriek has added more post-production effects that are exclusively clipped to the contents of the Characters folder. This means the effects / blend modes do NOT affect the background layers or anything above it.

The BLUR (Overlay) layer is something we just started doing over the past several episodes, it's a technique I actually picked up from 66 of City of Blank where I merge all the layers into a new visible layer which I then apply a Gaussian Blur to at around 60% and then set to Overlay (and then I adjust the layer opacity until it looks right, usually around 25-35%), it gives it a bit of a softer "dreamier" vibe in the final colors and really helps unify everything!

CANVAS - This is an Overlay layer which is also set to an opacity of 25-35% where I go over the panels with the Add Canvas brush from the Kyle Webster set, unlike the Canvas overlay texture in CSP I can actually choose the colors I want to use which means I can match the canvas texture color to the mood and environment of the scene (ex. I'll use a very light blue for scenes in the Underworld). Not only does it give it that signature texture from S1 of LO, but it also helps balance out the effects of the BLUR layer.

The SKETCH layer sits on top of everything and gets turned off once all the base layers and lineart are down, and ofc the SPEECH folder is just where all the text is kept.

I know everything I just laid out is a LOT but ultimately it's how we operate, it works for us! But it also begs the question of why Rachel operates the way she does because a lot of it seems extremely unnecessary and more likely to bite her in the ass (the more layers there are, the bigger your file size gets, the risk of drawing on the wrong layer increases as well as the risk of posting a panel that's missing elements because the layer was left turned off by mistake, etc.) And it's more so concerning with how she operates with her assistants because if she's still using this many layers when collaborating with other people, hooo boy. Though based on what I've observed of what her assistants contribute, I get a lot more of the sense that she circumvents this by having the artists do the flats separately and then importing them in as separate assets that she then just imports into the page and places them where they need to be. Still not a great workflow IMO because it's what's led to a lot of the issues of characters "floating" rather than feeling like they're actually in the environment-

-but that's still an issue that could be solved by Rachel just taking more time to actually flesh out the backgrounds and lighting to give more of an impression of the characters actually existing in the space. Like that Hestia panel could easily be fixed by just giving the background a bit more detail and putting actual shading underneath her (and lighting from whatever direction it's coming from).

Either way, regardless of whether or not Rachel's process is productive or not, I hope that breakdown helps explain how we do it in Rekindled! Learning how to manage layers is definitely a skill that can be tricky to harness, but once it "clicks" there's a lot you can get away with. Ultimately how you do it is up to you, but my best piece of advice to offer is to just be open to other types of workflows because you don't know how much you might be shooting yourself in the foot doing things the hard way when there are often way easier and more efficient ways to get the same job done. That's basically the vibe I get from observing Rachel's workflow, it seems like she's still using methods that she thinks are working for her (and probably did work just fine for her when it was JUST her) but could be vastly improved for her and her team if she'd just get over the initial hump of stepping outside of her comfort zone. Would probably make for a better comic too LOL

I hope that helps! Good luck! ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡

[theboombutton]

Bad Fictional Data vs Fictional Bad Data

WARNING: This post will include discussion of a name that might be Alice Dyer's deadname. I won't be calling Alice by this name or using it in the context of that name being a pointer to Alice, but I will be using the name, uncensored, when talking about where and why the name appeared in chdb.xls .

----

You may know that as part of the ARG, the sleuths on Statement Remains uncovered a document called chdb.xls, allegedly a list that has something to do with The Magnus Institute. There's a list of names, ID numbers, first and last names, dates of birth, and information apparently related to each person's "score" in an assortment of psychological/personality tests. Three of the names in particular have stood out in a lot of analyses: Samama Khalid, Gerard Kaey [sic], and Connor Dyer.

You likely don't know that the commonly linked version of the spreadsheet, ported to Google Docs and linked in the TMAGP ARG Masterdoc, is presented out of order. (I'm guessing they didn't lock down editing until it was already all out of order from various people messing with it - totally understandable, this is not a callout post, thank you for making this easily accessible to people.)

But let me tell you about something I discovered by looking at the spreadsheet in its original order, and the almost certainly incorrect rabbit hole of theorizing it has sent me down.

Bad Fictional Data

Until episode 2 I had the same thought about the Dyer listed in the spreadsheet that I think most people did: that it was Alice's deadname, and that she had therefore been one of the Institute's young subjects. But after Alice had absolutely no reaction when Sam mentioned the Magnus Institute to her in episode 2, I now think this is significantly less likely.

Don't get me wrong: it's still reasonable to think that the Dyer listed in chdb.xls is Alice. Maybe she had some kind of supernatural experience that wiped her memory. (It probably wasn't that Alice was too young to remember, as the Dyer on the spreadsheet is listed as being at Piaget Stage 3, which occurs from 7-11 years old; but it's always possible that the Magnus Institute was using the names of legitimate psychological tests to hide their tracks when recording more esoteric data.) The point is, this isn't hard evidence that Alice has no connection to the Magnus Institute; it just made me go looking for more evidence.

I went back to the spreadsheet to look for more clues about whether or not this was Alice's deadname. What I found instead was some extremely sloppy fake data at the bottom of the spreadsheet.

For context, here are first ten names in the spreadsheet:

Note how each ID begins with the name's first and last initial.

Now check out the last ten names:

Not only do these IDs no longer always match their subjects' names, they occur in order: CD, EF, GH, IJ, KL, MN, OP, QR, ST, UV. The first names of each pair match the first letter of each ID, but many, though not all, of the surnames don't match the second letter.

My first thought was that whoever Rusty Quill had contracted to generate these names had gotten sloppy at the end of the list, created the IDs all at once using this alphabetical pattern, and picked names to fill in that roughly matched the IDs. But hey, we could use this to our advantage! Any name that was filled in as part of a series of IDs with an alphabetical pattern like this could be removed from consideration for red string analysis - we'd know they were meaningless fakes added by a lazy contractor, and not clues or characters that might show up again later.

Scrolling back up the spreadsheet, we can see the person generating the data having more care the earlier we go. We find the beginning of the AA/BC/DE/FG/HI pattern at line 136, but at first, the names mostly conform to the initials they've been given. JK09874 "Josie Jordan" at line 154 is the first break from the "first two letters of the ID are their initials" pattern; and breaks occur more often the further you go down the sheet.

Scrolling up to before line 136 (AA09911 - Aaron Atkinson), while the pattern isn't yet at AB/CD/EF/GH levels of obviousness, the first initials are still in alphabetical order. Zoe Hart follows Yara Logan follows Xavier Freeman follows Wyatt Edwards. The data creator skips a few letters - for example Niamh Fenton is followed by Phoebe Emmett, and S and T are together in the same line in Skye Travers.

We can follow this less-obvious version of the alphabetical pattern up to an abrupt break right at line 118, above which the IDs don't follow an alphabetical pattern at all. (They might follow a different pattern, but it's not one that I've found yet.) So that means we can discount all the names in line 118 and below as purely fake, generated lazily by a contractor, and not worthy of our attention for the purposes of red-stringing. Right?

What the fuck?!

(highlight is my own, it is not present in the original document)

My first thought was that the sloppy data generator had done the funniest thing imaginable, sending everyone on a wild goose chase about Alice's deadname just by having the name "Dyer" on the brain while looking for a surname that started with D. This would be Very Funny. No plot relevance, no implications, just the brain fart that launched a thousand theories.

My second thought was that maybe Connor Dyer was the last legit name on the list, and whoever started filling the rest of the sheet in with alphabetical junk data was inspired by the "CD" initials in the first place - whoever it was went on from there.

These are both valid thoughts! But I prefer my third thought:

What if it's on purpose?

Fictional Bad Data

There is a very obvious break between the set of data that doesn't look obviously* fake, and the set of data that is immediately identifiable as such. If we assume that this was intentional - and I want to reiterate that it all being unintentional is still a very real possibility here - why would someone at Rusty Quill want the data to be structured like this?

If the sharp dividing line between reasonable-seeming data and obviously fake data is intentional on RQ's part, it would suggest that we should take the data above row 118 as in-universe real data, and the data below row 118 as in-universe falsified data. It suggests that someone, either at the Institute or after its demise, was adding nonexistent children to the roster of The Magnus Institute. Why would someone want to do that?

There are all kinds of possible reasons, but here are a few off the top of my and my theorizing buddies' heads:

Financial fraud (institutional edition). If the Magnus Institute received funding on a per-child basis, they'd have an incentive to inflate their numbers.

Financial fraud (researcher edition). One or more people on staff were blowing off their child-analysis sessions and recording fake numbers for fake children. This would be ballsy as hell if they could be fired for it, but it was the Magnus Institute, so there's decent odds they couldn't be.

Scientific fraud (faking conclusions edition). The Magnus Institute in the Protocolverse claimed to be doing research on giftedness in children, which is the kind of thing that you'd normally publish in a scientific journal. It's not unheard-of for dickhead academics to falsify data to generate statistically significant results, since statistically insignificant results aren't going to get you published.

Scientific fraud (obscuring paranormal bullshit edition). If the Magnus Institute was using legitimate psychological test names to record Fear-related test results, it's possible their results showed different patterns from what you would expect from the real tests. They could have added the fake children to balance out the dataset as a whole.

Pseudonyms. The children are all real, the Institute just started using fake names for them for privacy purposes. They couldn't go back and change the names they'd already written properly for some reason. Probably something paranormal.

Those are all pretty interesting possibilities, and if we could narrow them down, it might tell us something about what things were like at the Magnus Institute before it burned down!

And the other big question is: why did RQ make the dividing line between the two sections, the first likely-fake entry, Connor Dyer?

One straightforward reason could be as a troll, a red herring to watch fans get in a lather over. And once the community inevitably noticed all the obviously falsified entries, RQ could eat popcorn and watch us lose our minds over whether or not that's even a real entry! (That sounds really fun, I would absolutely do that.)

But let's dig a little deeper, and look at what Connor Dyer being on the border between the real and fake entries would mean in-universe. Because of its position as the border between real and fake, it would be very easy for that entry to be accidentally included in the wrong group - a real research subject discarded as fake, or perhaps more interestingly, a fake research subject accidentally reclassified as real.

Remember, if a name is fake in the context of the Magnus Institute's research, that doesn't mean that the name itself is made up. If I was trying to think of a name that fit the initials CD, and those were the initials of my next door neighbor's kid, I might just write their name in as a lark. Especially if it was my first time trying to get away with falsifying information: this is a kid that verifiably exists and lives in the area.

My theory, supported primarily by my love for The Implications instead of actual evidence

Twenty years on, after all institutional memory of the fraud was long gone, trans icon Alice Dyer applies to work for the OIAR - an institution that (according to this theory) has an unofficial preference for hiring former Magnus Institute kids.

They are very confused when Alice proceeds to act nothing like a former Magnus Institute kid. It doesn't occur to anyone that her entry might have been falsified. What reason would anyone have to do that?

----

* Of course people with a background in data analysis or statistics will see immediately that even above line 118 this is a wild-ass dataset that would raise red flags for falsification, but at least it's not "the alphabet over and over" levels of obvious.

[rvb-canon-tuckington]

here are some "quick" rvb restoration thoughts before i go to bed that i may expand upon later, in no particular order:

this movie was ABOUT tucker but tucker is not in it. there is a tucker sized hole. we see tucker only a little bit more than we see donut, but tucker is still there the whole time!!! at the beginning, i was excited for the tucker whump, but does it count if not a single character reacts to the truly horrifying news that their friend has been controlled for a few months by eight or nine ais, at least two of which have tried to kill him and everyone you love before? like even if they had retconned red and blue teams being friends (which they didn't), you're telling me that we never get to see wash's reaction to this news? carolina's? two people who lost a different friend to this exact gruesome process of de-personing? no one ever tells carolina that tucker is in there and no one objects when tex goes to fucking decapitate him? like i get that caboose was the only person to see that tucker was actually still in there, and he can't really be trusted to communicate things clearly, but they could have even just included some sort of discussion where they decide that they think that tucker would rather be dead than be dragged along in this parody of life (and with the way the ais were torturing him, he probably would have agreed.)

speaking of caboose knowing that tucker is still in there - grif and simmons abandoning caboose rubbed me SO wrong. usually if a character is trying not to involve themselves, they'll "run away" to the nearest place to hide, not GET ON A SHIP TO FLY AWAY LEAVING CABOOSE TO DIE AT POSSESSED TUCKER'S HANDS. i get why they (the writers) did it, but that doesn't mean i have to like it lol

why weren't they FRIENDS ANYMORE

where was donut

what was that wash b-plot. what did the wash b-plot add?? what it did: make me feel weird about dr. grey's character, kill doc off screen, and make wash useless in the main plot. what it did not do: make sense. when did wash get injured post chorus? why is he hallucinating, period? why was he institutionalized? (and why is the room number the same as his prison number?) why did they spend so much time on it for it to have no real conclusion? they didn't need to have this weird "wash is hanging onto the past via doc" plot to have the carolina-wash-freelancer ghost heart-to-heart. (also i have never laughed so hard as when i saw the post pointing out that they left wyoming out bc neither my friend or i noticed lol) why wouldn't he know there was a manual way to activate the recovery beacon since he was LITERALLY recovery one? so many questions, no answers. what have you done to my boy, burnie.

the pacing was ATROCIOUS. nothing happened for the first half of the movie, a bunch of stuff happened in the second half, and none of it felt resolved.

where was donut

why was everyone separated at the beginning? why was no one worried about it? where was donut? where was carolina? why was no one worried about where tucker was? had caboose been the lone blue for the few months that tucker was gone and wash was hospitalized? genuinely, my friend and i thought that the reds and caboose had been mind wiped and dropped into their undisclosed locations without knowing why, and the plot was gonna be them all reuniting and piecing together what had happened and getting tucker back. alas.

it felt like it was the grif-simmons-caboose show, which was interesting because that's not a problem i feel like i've had before with this show. even if i saw less of a particular character than i wanted to. they usually have a pretty good balance of characters and this movie felt like they suddenly Realized how many characters they had and fumbled it.

i did actually really like the tex reveal that was BOSS i LOVED IT

i have more thoughts but this is far too long already so i'll save it for later lmao

[wukodork]

I've been having a TON of fun dressing dolls up in clothes made by @cosmomoore! This isn't even everything I have, and I've already ordered something else whoops.

Some ghoulfriends! This is Ghoul Spirit Cleo, wearing an outfit Cosmo Moore designed (including the fabric!) with stock accessories (headband is Skulltimate Secrets, shoes are I think core, earrings are Ghoul Spirit and idr where the necklace is from) based off of early g3 concept art and Feardescent Frankie wearing an ooak outfit they designed including accessories! Frankie even has socks that you can't see, which is so fun.

I have so many Draculaura leggings that it's almost not even funny. Cosmo Moore just had SO MANY prints that look adorable on her! This is Ghoul Spirit Draculaura wearing Bite in the Park stock along with some lovely spooky leggings and a delightful pink jacket. I love how the leggins look with her dress so much!

Twyla is a bit of a mess right now, but that's okay bc she's comfy! She's wearing her stock shoes, skirt and accessories as well as a Neon Frights top (sans earrings idk where they are) with the leggings I originally got for Lagoona but forgot about her fins along with a trans version of Cosmo Moore's skeleton bomber jacket and a "plush" rabbit purse! I'm very happy to have a pastel version of that jacket, and as SOON as I saw this little rabbit, I knew Twyla needed it.

The last one for this post is Lagoona sporting one of the ooak outfits Cosmo Moore did for her! I love that each piece of clothing incorporates multiple but not all of her palette, and the button holes to accommodate her fins is a very clever idea! The outer top is reversible, and this is actually the back side - if you look at the pic they originally posted the front is a very nice blue that's subtly different from the blue background of the shirt. It's absolutely lovely, but I'm more of a high contrast monster myself. This Lagoona is Skulltimate Secrets with stock earrings and shoes. I'd put the hat on, but it fell off in a hard to reach spot so hatless she shall be.

I absolutely adore the little winged heart purse, too! I keep imagining her chewing on it to self soothe. And this is an outfit for a ghoul design they didn't like all that much! And it still turned out so good! That's super impressive to me, especially since Lagoona is probably my single favorite character this generation due to how fun she is in the show and how much I like lots of color.

[corvuserpens]

I have a take that might be lukewarm at best and boiling at most, but:

Captain Flint has ALWAYS cared about the Walrus crew.

Hear me out.

Many of the characters in Black Sails have this perception of Flint as kinda aloof, distant and reserved, and he DOES prove time and time again the lengths he's willing to go to accomplish his goals regardless of the welfare of his crew. I mean, by the time the show is done, only three original members of the Walrus make it out alive (RIP to our girl, she put up such a fight until the very end). Everyone else is very much dead.

But like, remember the episode when they beach the ship to scrape the barnacles off the hull and make her faster and more nimble before the Urca job and some crew guys tie off the ropes on the wrong fucking trees before going off to the fuck tent for Gods know how long? And then the trees get uprooted under the weight of the Walrus while Randall and Morley are under there and Randall gets stuck UNDER AN ENTIRE SHIP AND IS ABOUT TO GET CRUSHED TO DEATH??

Who was the first among them to run under that ship while everyone else, including Billy Bones, the Eternal Defender of His Men™ (until season 4 that is lmao) scramble to get away and save themselves?

Flint did. FLINT.

He rushed in there without thinking in the hopes of saving at least one of the men under there, despite the danger to his own life. And if it hadn't been for him and Silver, both those men would have died. He saves Randall's life by cutting off his leg, which takes a looooong time, and hauling him away just in time before the rest of the ropes give up. Poor Morley though, he died trying to save Randall too.

And like, throughout the show he's always making decisions that he knows will save the most lives, as difficult as they might be for everyone else to accept later. He's the captain after all, it's his job to make the hard decisions. He'll always sacrifice the few to save the many, but that doesn't mean he doesn't give a shit about them. There are exceptions of course, like Mr. Singleton and Mr. Gates, whom I will never forgive him for bc Flint deprived us of the joy that is Mr. Gates for the remaining three seasons and he was the GOAT, but back to topic - note that both those men severely threatened his position as captain and therefore his suicidal revenge mission against England before he murdered them. It's like Silver himself says later: he only wants things done so long as they are done HIS way. But that's a conversation for another post.

Which brings me to the whole "did he or did he not push Billy overboard that night during the storm" question.

Personally, I don't think he did. He had every reason to do it, of course: Billy found out about Miranda and how she was pushing for a pardon to be given to Flint so the two of them could go to Boston and live the rest of their lives in peace, and if the crew found out about it, Bad Things would follow. Then Billy slips and Flint reaches out for his hand just in time to stop him going overboard (on an aside, I love that the writers didn't let the audience see what happened next, leaving all this doubt about what actually happened). Even Billy himself recounts later that he's not sure whether his hand slipped from Flint's or if Flint simply let go.

In my opinion, and this is just MY opinion, I believe he did try and haul Billy up and save him because up until that point, Billy was going along with Flint's plan. I mean, he lied to the crew about the blank page taken from Singleton's body and he knew about Miranda's pardon plot and the Maria Aleyne story for at least one episode. If he was going to tell the crew, he would have done so already. Saving Billy's life would have been a risk, sure: Flint would have to trust that Gates would convince him to keep his mouth shut and that he would obey. In fact, I'd argue that saving Billy's life would be much more advantageous in the long run than letting him drown at sea. Flint is a master strategist and would have taken all these things into consideration before making a decision.

Maybe that's why he ended up failing in saving Billy: he was so preoccupied trying to decide the more desirable outcome that Billy just... slipped and fell. And as we see as the season continues, Billy's "death" brought more problems than it solved. It wore out the crew's trust in him as captain, it destroyed his relationship with Gates and put in jeopardy the entire Urca mission and his plans for a war against the British Empire.

I guess, it doesn't really matter whether he intended to save Billy or not. Everyone thought he had let him fall or even pushed him. Given his past actions, who could blame them? The lies, the falsehoods, the secrets... They all had a cost, and this was the straw that broke the camel's back.

What do y'all think? Sound off in the replies/reblogs/tags.

Still, TL:DR - Flint always cared about his crew no matter his decisions and worst impulses, and that's the hill I will die on!

[that-damn-fouth-chaosemerald]

Can we have fluffy and romantic headcanons for a Killcode with a Reader who is a roboticist that used to work for The Creator?

×A/N×

Ofc you can! ^-^

I was already done with this, it's just needed a bit of editing-

Btw I already received some TSaMS requests, and dw guys I'm already working on them!

×❢ About my work ❢×

fluff, KC is a cuddly one, no proof read, there are no other warnings, them/them pronouns used for the reader, GN! Reader

Requested by: @sassycandypoetry

Fandom: The Sun and Moon Show

Character(s): Killcode, Moon, The Creator (mentioned), You| (Y/N) | The Reader

Ship(s): Killcode x You| (Y/N) |The Reader

Form: Headcanons

𝐊𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐡𝐜𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐭! 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫

(Also, I'll try to find a different image for him, bc I don't want to keep using the same image for every work I include him)

• Before we start: I just want to say that I wrote KC's character with his old model (yk the tall and sharp clawed one)!

• He'll appreciate it so much if you don't judge him at the beginning by his scary appearance! Many people do, and he can't help but feel bad about it... So please don't judge him by his look, trust me, he's much more sweeter than he looks!

• Since you are a roboticist, you can also manage to do check ups and fixes on him, anytime he needs them! I mean, he's probably capable doing it himself, but missing out the chance to spend more time with his lovebale partner between this chaos what's happening in this dimension? He would be crazy!

• KC loves your presence and he just loves it even more when you're so close to him! He loves your fragrance, your touches, and also your voice! He loves to listen your voice during check ups, it helps him remain still and relaxed! (Please talk to him more!)

• He just adores you! ♡

• He is also very gentle, even with his sharp claws. He would never try to hurt you. 

• And to be honest, he often won't even touch you (despite how touch starved he is), because he's afraid of he'll harm you. Please reassure him that you trust him and you won't get mad if he accidently scratch you!

• KC trusts you enough to do fixing on him (even if you worked for The Creator before all of this), so please don't misuse his deep love and trust towards you! 

• Won't let others to do check ups on him. You're his favourite! <3

• Since you used to work with The Creator, Moon couldn't let you just walk around the pizzaplex. As you stepped into the building, you couldn't even blink twice and you were already under an interrogation by him. If KC didn't have talked with Moon, he would be more harsh with you.

• "I think you're going too hard on them." Killcode spoke as he was watching you from the large windows in front of him. You sat in the same seat for 1 hour if not longer. It must be getting uncomfortable for you. Poor thing... "At least let them walk a little."

"KC, they need to be interrogated. We can't just trust in anybody who came from the outside. Especially not, when they just came from the Creator." Moon hissed sharply, cutting of KC. He kept an eye on you, wacthing you suspiciously.

Killcode looked back at you before he spoke again. You looked so tired... You've been repeated the same answers over and over again still, Moon didn't let you leave. You looked so pale... at least you should rest a little before the next questioning. Maybe he might earn you some time to walk around and/or rest a little.

"Trust me, I understand you don't trust them, it's reasonable. Just... this time let me try to talk to them."

Moon looked concerned for a second, thinking trough what KC said before nodding slightly. "Okay... Your turn."

• If you're a human, he'll watch curiously every move you make. He just finds humans so interesting and loves to learn about them! 

• You sat down at the counter of El Chips' and started unpacking your lunch. KC silently watched you. 

"What's up?" You asked curiously, since he still haven't said anything and just stared at you. 

"What are you doing?" he asked, eyeing the small sanswhich in you hands. 

"I'm going to eat." You simply responded before you took a bite. 

"But you've already done that." Killcode spoke with a visible confusion in his deep voice.

"Yeah, but I'm a human, you know? Unfortunately (or not), I can't keep up without energy which I can earn from the food too, and we also have to stay hydratated!" You informed him kindly. 

He looked up at you let out a quiet 'Oh'. You couldn't help, but seeing how interested he was in you, made your heart flutter. 

What's he like in a relationship? 

• Knowing what makes you comfortable and uncomfortable is really important to him. Making his partner feel safe is his top priority! 

• He absolutely loves and always ready to learn of you more! 

• Despite how scary he looks, he is a really gentle, loving and cuddly partner! Like I said before, he loves your presence and because of this, one of his favourite thing to do is holding you close to him!

 • Trust and honesty is really important to him in a relationship! 

• He needs you to tell him if something's wrong! He has a deep trust towards you and he wants you to feel the same. He'll slowly and patiently build up trust with you, if you're unsure about him. He won't rush things.

• It also seems like he has a lot of faith in you. He let you to touch his wires, and keep in mind that they have a meaningful role in operation! Later on, he'll also reveal his past to you, because he wants you to know about it. He thinks that it's important to let you know who he was and who is he now!

• I'm not saying that you have to tell him every single secrets of yours, but be honest with him please!

• The Creator isn't a nice person... Killcode knows that too. If the Creator caused you a hard time (bc he can definitely do that), he'll make it feel comfortable for you to open up. He's patient and careful with you. Although, if you don't want to tell him, he won't pressure.

• About deep talks – he loves to spend intimate times with his partner. Also, he is a really good at giving comfort aswell! He's really patient and gentle if you decide to talk about something deep or serious. In the end, he'll feel honored for you trusting him enough to tell him.

• He can be protective aswell! He won't attack anyone if he don't needs to, and actually, he often chooses peace instead of violence, but if something or somebody is threatening your well being or his family, he won't hesitate to protect you as he can! 

• He loves to recieve gentle touches from you. Either if the touches are from your lips, your hands or just a little friction of you two's arm, he adores all of them. (God, he is so touch starved...)

And like I said, he likes to cuddle with you. His favourite positon is probably big spoon and little spoon.

• As the heavy metalic steps stopped you felt the bed sink beside you. Slowly, long arms started to embrace you from behibd. You couldn't help but smile at the gentle action.

"Well, you seem cuddly today." you spoke softly, not to disturb the moment you and your partner shared. "Why's that?"

"I... Don't know." KC murmured as he begin to hide in the crook of your neck. "I missed you." he breathed out. You chuckled softly as you let him hug you tighter, pulling you closer to him. 

[chubs-deuce]

@drawmanda ik I already dmed you about this but my inbox ate your ask up so I'm responding to it this way now! <3

first of all thank you so much!! sdkjhsdkfh

And well, technically I also draw almost everything by hand too :o

I understand the frustration of being slow, but "fast" digital drawing actually has very little to do with not drawing things by hand (a trap most people infatuated with this terrible AI ""art"" trend unfortunately keep falling into) so much as optimizing your workflow!

admittedly a lot of this is also a matter of both personal preference and practice - but you can hardly practice and have preferences on what you can't know should be a focus right?

Under the cut is a list of the things I do that speed up my own digital art workflow (this one got hella long, sorry):

1) I sketch very loosely and often often skip the lineart entirely.

Something that's imo really important for actually almost all artists to practice is reducing sketches to their essentials!

A good working sketch should be rough and block in the shapes and placement of the features you have in your mind - the details don't come in until later, so they actually have very little business being put in at this stage!

It's meant to be a guideline and foundation for the upcoming detail work after all, not a finished, tidy drawing in and of itself.

Use quick, airy brush strokes to roughly pencil in some vague shapes and don't be afraid of indecipherable scribbles or flyaway lines! All that isn't needed won't be visible later anyways (either bc you turned off the sketch layer or erase the offending bit of sketch away)

Naturally, cleaned sketches are a thing people post plenty of online too (me included), but I promise you most artists that do proper lineart and/or render out insanely polished pieces have a very rough and probably barely legible sketch underneath those pieces lmao

And guess what! Most of my own "lineart" is nothing but cleaned sketches! :'D

I erase the construction lines like the circles for the heads and redraw a few bits and bops, re-trace some lines for legibility and/or to make them more visible and voila! Sometimes this is faster than lineart and keeps the original flow and energy that's in the sketches, other times this takes me just as long as lineart would lmao (highly depends on the amount of details and how lost you get in those).

Note how I didn't even "finish" a lot of the lines in the rough versions and many pieces of the og sketch were kept unaltered? I also tend to focus more on detailing out the faces than the rest - this is one part pure laziness and one part knowing that the faces will draw the eye's focus the most lmao

But see, sometimes I don't even bother with all of that noise! I just color the sketch as is:

This is a bit of a "trust the process" thing sometimes because a sketch can look utterly incomprehensible until you block out some colors and/or silhouettes to give your eyes context!

All in all most sketches take me between 10 minutes and half an hour, if it's a more complex pose or set of poses of interacting characters it can take closer to 2 hours, but in that case I also tend to use multiple layers for various iterations of rough sketching and to separate the characters on their own layers so it's a bit easier to keep track of the limb placements etc - it's best to keep a flexible mind when it comes to your approach to sketches.

Not every drawing will need the same level of care put into its sketches, don't be afraid of being rough with it and trying out different things if your usual way of doing things doesn't feel right!

2) Understanding the tools at my disposal!

Imo something every learning digital artist needs to get in the habit of is experimenting around with the tools at their disposal :D

It can seem incredibly daunting, especially when a program is absolutely packed with functions, but the more you work with different things and figure out what you like using and find ways to use them in your workflow, the easier it gets and the quicker you become! You'll be surprised what knowing your way around well can do to your work speed :D

Dick around with different presets, settings, colors, layer blend modes, filters etc

One of the first things I did when I first downloaded CSP was to just pick up every tool in the list one by one and doodle a few strokes across the empty canvas - no real goal or direction in mind, just getting a feel for it and then did a few drawings using different sets.

Imo even if you end up never using certain tools, it's still handy to know how they work!

3) HOTKEYS!!!!

I use my pc's keyboard hotkeys for. Every. Fucking. Thing. Mind you I'll be mostly talking in the terms and list hotkeys specifically for Clip Studio Paint since that's the program I use for my art, so if you use something else please do your own research on what the corresponding hotkeys are for your program if the ones I tell don't work!!! I promise you most of them have very similar functions just on different key combinations and will also usually let you edit them in the settings :D (this comes from someone who's at least tried out most of the available ones - Such as Medibang, FireAlpaca, Gimp, Krita, Rebelle 5, Paint Tool SAI (this one used to be my main before CSP) and I even tried photoshop and procreate on someone else's devices in the past)

The reason I use hotkeys is so I don't have to drag my curser around and click things by hand unnecessarily, the hotkeys save me a ton of time in the drawing process!

some examples of hotkeys I use for basically every drawing:

the classic undo (ctrl+Z) and redo (ctrl+alt+Z, other programs often use ctrl+Y for this tho); on touch-input compatible screen tablets you can often tap with two fingers to undo and 3 fingers to redo

zooming (this has multiple methods, you can use the ctrl+"+" and ctrl+"-" combo to zoom in and out, you can use the scrollwheel on a mouse or you use what my personal preference is: hold ctrl+space and drag the stylus to zoom in and out; if you have a touch-input compatible screen tablet you can also use two fingers to zoom in and out like you would on phone!)

rotating the canvas (technically has more than one way as well but I'm ngl I can't remember the way that isn't what I use anymore lmao, hold shift+space and drag the stylus - pro tip, you can reset the rotation with the Pos1 button, in the navigation window if you have it docked or in CSP's case also at the bottom of the screen!)

mirror canvas (in the viewport only! permanent rotation requires a transform!) using the M button (this is handy for checking proportions and when you just can't get your hand to do a curved line that goes against the natural range of rotation of your dominant hand's wrist)

drag viewport (i.e. move along the canvas by holding space button, then clicking and dragging)

merging layers (ctrl+E)

selecting multiple layers (click on layer, then hold ctrl and click on any other layers you want selected individually; if you want to quickly select a long and uninterrupted list you can also click on the first layer, then hold shift when you click on the last, this will select all layers in between too)

grouping selected layers (ctrl+G)

deselect all (ctrl+D)

transform selection (ctrl+T)

bring up hue/saturation/luminosity sliders for currently selected layer for quick color adjustments (ctrl+U)

switching between tools (I memorized which keys correspond to which tool categories in CSP and then use the "," and "." keys to move between presets within the category; I also have my CSP set up to have multiple presets in my tool bar that I can cycle between using the same tool button)

changing brush size (hold AltGr and drag cursor to increase or decrease brush size)

switching between drawing colors This is an especially big one for me!!! Did you know that using the little transparent color underneath or near your front and back colors turns your currently selected tool into an eraser? It keeps all of the texturing and blending settings too! I often use larger round brushes to block out an area and using this I can just use the same brush as an eraser to taper the strokes or refine corners without losing the texture using the C-key :D When I'm coloring switching between front and back colors helps a ton too, and for that I use the X-key! Here an example of how that looks executed in practice:

Notice how I never have to stop moving my cursor away from the drawing unless I'm picking new colors? :D I also use this a lot for my shading process! I will often use two tones on a layer with its blending mode set to add or multiply in order to shade and quickly switch between them for easy blocking and blending! Tumblr doesn't allow more than one vid per post so here's a youtube link to a little demo to show what I mean!

4) I aim for vibes > visual accuracy, especially in backgrounds!

(though this applies to how I approach character illustrations too)

A background doesn't have to be mega detailed or coherent to get across what you need it to!

I often use blurred photographs and video game screenshots as backdrops for my art, other times I roughly block in some squares and silhouettes to give the viewer some implied context of where they're at

Detailed backgrounds, unfortunately, will almost always cost you tons of time to do, so the speed with those unfortunately really does come from extended practice more than any shortcuts I can offer :')

for at least big room layouts like this tho I can recommend building the scene in sims 4 or something similar first and roughly tracing the screenshot for proportional guidance, something I've done in this one^ for example!

5) STENCIL BRUSHES <3

BOY THESE THINGS CAN BE DAMN USEFUL!

None of the things in this image below were hand-drawn by me!

These are just some of the ones CSP comes with by default! I downloaded quite a few handy custom ones over time too lol

I really implore you to not get too overly reliant on them however, they can be a huge help for when it doesn't need to be super accurate, but unless you're really good at making them match your style they can stick out a little sorely, so use them sparingly and only where you can easily make them blend in with the rest of your piece!

Also I've seen your lovely art in the tags I frequent a few times now and while the insane amount of detail you lovingly pour into it makes it a really cool and recognizable style that genuinely wows me anytime I see it, I can also see how time consuming it'd be to create it!

I do however think it's a gorgeous style that is worth every minute you put into it, so please don't be discouraged by any slowness! :3

I do of course still hope that any of my tips helped even just a little bit!!!

Keep up the amazing work and take care <3<3<3

[kalcifers-blog]

I have a thought and I physically need to talk about it BC I think the JSE Fandom as a whole does not talk about it nearly enough.

BEFORE WE GET STARTED!!! Content Warnings :

Discussions on mental illness, alcoholism / alcohol withdrawal, mentions of potential suicidal behaviour!!!!!

CHASE BRODY IS NOT AN IDIOT.

I feel like Chase gets mischaracterised as being a bit of a himbo at best and just straight up stupid at worst.

For the record I generally dislike the way that happens? Like there's already a big stigma around addiction, I'm actually very impressed with how Chase Brody is such a sympathetic character with his addiction being an aspect of that. I love how it shines a new light on this very real and scary issue that doesn't villainise Chase at all for his condition.

But this is exactly why I feel it's so important that people understand that Chase also isn't an idiot.

Genuinely speaking there are so many examples of Chase being someone who is an extremely smart individual and I think a lot of that gets overshadowed by the fact that he's an alcoholic and depressed.

EXAMPLES BEING:

He is immediately asking questions the moment he's in IRIS.

He's constantly making it known exactly how he feels about his predicament but at the same time he understands that at certain points (especially when he doesn't have a clear view on IRIS and what they're up too) he needs to go along with things and keep civil to not put himself in potential danger

He calls out the way IRIS puts him through shit and how fucking weird that is of them to do

The moment he sees a shimmer of hope (in the form of Echo) he immediately tries to comfort them and tries to help them and attempts to make a plan to leave IRIS

When IRIS attempts to relocate Chase he immediately calls out that they're lying to him, that something has happened

He can spot people being manipulative from a mile away and is very quick to shoot it down as soon as he can by making it known he knows exactly what they're doing.

I would also like to mention that all this is happening while Chase is very likely going through major alcohol withdrawal issues- the symptoms of which include: tremor, craving for alcohol, insomnia, vivid dreams, anxiety, hypervigilance, agitation, irritability, loss of appetite (i.e., anorexia), nausea, vomiting, headache, and sweating.

Chase is quite literally going through it, like every severely going through it and the entire time he is he's surprisingly got more of a level head than most people probably would in his situation. And he's doing all of this while probably going through some intensely bad withdrawal symptoms as well as all the mental shit Anti is putting him through every moment he can.

All things considered Chase is insanely capable of being able to keep fighting even through some of the hardest things a person could go through.

Chase Brody is not an idiot, he's not useless and he's certainly not weak. If Chase can go through all the things he has and he's still fighting tooth and nail to survive even tho he previously was shown to be someone who was very clearly suicidal? I just think it says so much about his character that at Chase's core he's smart and strong- in ways a lot of people wouldn't appreciate nearly half as much if they didn't physically see the things he was being put through continuously for potentially years at this point.

And again I wanna keep in mind that all of this is going on while Chase is quite literally at rock bottom, like we have only seen Chase while he's at his worst. The fact that he is so smart while he's at his worst only makes me wonder just how capable he has the potential of being once he gets the right help he needs and deserves.

[chodzacaparodia]

I have more thoughts on bllk and Isagi soo It was cool in the start because Isagi was like one of the worst players and we could see how he evolves and that was interesting and weren't boring hearing his inner monologues I guess? And the others all seemed impressive from his perspective lmao But now he acts like a main boss of something and a prodigy who has lots of skills and actually acts a bit rude towards others? (here comes the personal taste that one can just not like his personality I guess) but he like turned to a prodigy whom he admired and win against in the first half and now those are the ones trying to beat him but Isagi is the main characters so kinda these evolve around him which is unfortunate for the ones who don't like his character Soo I kinda mean that we could try to bring back Isagi not being too good? and now he could actually lose (like he can I guess bc he already win a lot and evolved so it's not like it'd be over just for him to get less op and the others could catch up too, because the power scales and balanced really shifted from him needing to beat someone to others needing to beat him which is quite an interesting development of events and a lot has a more tragic past than him now give them a win pls (this is just some personal thoughts I came up with they might not be full correct so my apologise)

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts!

I understand your point of view because in many respects I agree. I admit that it was interesting that he started to develop from an average player into one of the best. His internal monologues were also completely different, because not only did he surprise others, but he was also often surprised himself when he noticed complete things and analyzed them.

I like that you wrote that Isagi turned out to be a prodigy. Because that's the truth. He was a prodigy from the beginning, but before Blue Lock he never had the opportunity to discover it. It's not that I don't think he hasn't developed as a result of hard work and training, but his greatest strengths are actually related to his way of thinking and his special ability to analyze, something that not every character is gifted with and is unlikely to practice because it happens rather automatically.

As the story progressed, Isagi actually became overconfident. (Yeah, totally like a main boss!) And that's why he actually started to think that he was better than others (actually I did a meme about it ). And I must admit that it irritates me a bit. Surprisingly, this didn't irritate me with characters like Barou or Rin. Maybe it's because we get to know them as characters who feel better than others. And Isagi went from a guy with low self-esteem to a guy with a bit of a God complex. From extreme to extreme.

And in fact, he behaves rudely towards others. It seems even more visible because he was a really nice guy from the very beginning! But honestly, I think it's not just a matter of him feeling better than others (but I think that's largely the case). Isagi blended in with the Blue Lock's atmosphere. He was constantly exposed to people who treated others in the same way (including Isagi), so I'm not surprised that such behavior influenced him and he adopted it as well.

(And it must be really irritating when someone you don't like makes you grow. Typical bllk experience).

Honestly, I wish he would lose and humble himself a bit. I want absolute destruction. After all, the higher a person rises, the more painful the fall. And logically, sooner or later Isagi has to lose, because you can't always win. However, I'm not sure Isagi can return to that level as before (I'm not talking about the level from the very beginning, because he will never return to this times, but maybe more to the level from the 3rd or even 2nd selection). He's gone too far with all this. After his defeat, he would definitely go through a worse time, but would he actually become more humble? Would he have completely despaired of his abilities? Would he feel inferior to someone else? It's possible, but I think it's more likely that it will be just an episode rather than a longer streak of self-doubt. This will be seen from the outside more as "His rival was better" than "Isagi wasn't good enough".

But deep down, I really want the character I like more than Isagi to win. I admit that I often let my thoughts go in the direction of "this character has a traumatic past, he deserves to win as compensation". But in my head there is always the thought that Blue Lock was a manga unlike any other from the very beginning. Such issues really don't matter there. On the field, no one cares about the characters' traumatic pasts. All that matters is being the best and striving for a goal without any scruples or moral compass. And as interesting as it was (I would REALLY like to see it), even though the other characters theoretically deserved their victory more. A character doesn't have to have a tragic backstory (like Isagi) to win. They just has to be the best.

(I'm sorry if this wasn't the answer you were expecting! I didn't know how to respond to this and I thought for a long time, but in the end I let the discussion carry me away and referred to some of your thoughts and added my own, not necessarily related to your statement. I really don't know what and why I wrote all this 🙈).

[mac-lilly]

Mega Con London BTS Recap

Since this is a more personal recap of MegaCon London (and a bit of a comparison with Back to the Musical World con by Dream It), I didn't include it in the JATP info dump from yesterday.

BTTMW backstory

Let's do some backstory first. As you may know, the official JATP cancellation was announced at the first Back to the Musical World con back in 2021. I wasn't there for multiple reasons including Covid but also I just got into the fandom and it felt weird. I'm socially awkward - I cannot look into people's eyes, I stutter - especially when talking English - or ramble and I struggle to just touch strangers which is not helpful for photo ops.

So what I was supposed to do there? These people are actors - strangers I have nothing to do with. They aren't the characters I've fallen in love with. Yeah, not my thing, I thought.

However, when the BTTMW2 got announced, I was like 'You know, let's go to just show the cast how much you loved the show'. It was supposed to give me some closure. So I went.

And while the con was a fucked-up disaster in terms of organization and schedule - on Sunday, Charlie signed autographs until 10 pm, and Owen would have done the same if his mom hadn't cut off his line. (On that note: Never mess with a German mom protecting her kid. You'll lose.) But meeting the cast was an entirely different experience. I'd never interacted with them before, so I was anxious as fuck. However, they were so nice and considerate - and seeing them goof around was just adorable.

(And this pic is still one of my fav pics ever.)

And not just the cast. I met so many amazing people there who are now my friends. Big shoutout to them!

So, despite my hatred for Dream It, I went to BTTMW4 (and thankfully it was less chaotic than BTTMW2). But I was also determined to go to MegaCon bc I knew Jeremy wouldn't come back to Paris. (Unlike the other JATP cast members, he's done plenty of other cons before and knows that you shouldn't be so drained that require alcohol to make it through the day.)

BTTMW vs MegaCon London

So, just in general: MegaCon was clearly the better experience.

Firstly, it was cheaper than DI. Much cheaper.

(Note 1: The * prices are from 2022 since Jeremy wasn't at BTTMW4. In 2023, the photo with Madi, Owen & Charlie was already €180. All four would have been over €200 for sure.

Note 2: The prices for MegaCon were originally in £. The price in € is what I paid according to my credit card.

Note 3: Even though not 100% accurate: € = $)

Obviously, Charlie canceled later. But I automatically got a refund. So bonus for MegaCon.

Unlike with Dream It, you were allowed to film and take pictures everywhere, which was cool. And since the panels were exclusively in English, you actually got way more content. The panels were also much longer, and it seemed like the cast was more at ease. For example, Owen started to play body drums on stage, and he initiated the boomshakalaka without being drunk. This is such an incredibly sad thing to say, but I've never seen him that relaxed during a panel.

Also, shoutout to the many fans that were at the Saturday panel. According to the hist, it was the largest crowd they had on Saturday. (If MegaCon had been smarter and had announced the Sunday panel before the people got their passes, it would have had a huge audience, too.)

The autographs ran smoothly, and there was always a queue, which was good bc Own confirmed that it was Jeremy who convinced MegaCon to invite him and Charlie. (Madi got invited later - I assume after people haunted them on IG about her.) MegaCon was wary about it bc they had no idea if the cast was worth the money. I hope the audience on Saturday, the lines for the autographs, and the massive delays at the photo studio caused by the JATP fans (and technical issues) convinced them.

Side note: After Charlie canceled, I got an email from MegaCon. And obviously, I know they just used some phrases to placate us. But I still hope they meant it when they wrote,

MegaCon, you won't read this. But if you get them again, I'll be there!

(And again shoutout to the amazing people I met in London. To my fellow German tumblr friends: I loved meeting you guys and hanging out with you!)

So the only thing that wasn't great were the photo ops. Yeah, most of the Saturday photos are terrible bc of the fucked-up lighting, and due to technical issues, there were so many delays. (Though to be fair, BTTMW also had issues with photo ops.)

So overall, I genuinely enjoyed MegaCon, and I'm very excited to head off to Dublin on Saturday to give Jeremy the birthday card. To all the people who signed it: THANK YOU!

Some other random things that don't fit anywhere

Not Owen assuming that Deutsche Bahn must always be on time bc Germans are always on time. Bro, I know it's been a while since you visited Germany ... but please, that was mean.

When I gave him ghostie!Willie, Owen told me how much his family loves the little ghosties 🥹🥹🥹 (which explains why his dad was in my IG stories after he posted the pic of the ghosties.)

It's random, but this con was so much more balanced in terms of fans. I remember fans being kinda uninterested in Jeremy at the BTTMW - some fans even got angry at him bc he refused certain poses. At MegaCon, the interest was equally split between those three, and it made me happy.

Here's the lovely ghost merch I bought at MegaCon. Obviously, the pride ghost and the skateboard ghost are Willex, the couple is Juke, and the ghosts with the kitty and the one with the pumpkin are both Reggie! (I talked to the guys running the stalls, and they were so baffled about all the JATP fans - a few Fantoms came over from the US and Canada just for this con.)

[mahi-does-some-art]

How good are Servamp characters at handling spice?

Mahiru: 10/10, to everyone's shock. He'll buy spicy snacks if he feels like treating himself and more often than not would lean into the spicier options of recipes if they give good flavor to the meal and not just heat. He could eat hellfire, probably. This is a distinct Shirota Family Trait.

Kuro: This is a European vampire born in fuck knows when. He stole one of Mahiru's spicy snacks once without looking at the label and nearly died. 0/10. Mahiru has adjusted his cooking accordingly.

Tetsu: 6/10. Can handle a normal, decent amount of spice! He prefers more cleaner tastes rather than spicy stuff but he has a few snacks he likes to indulge in. If you give him any raw hotter peppers though, he'll suffer.

Hugh: 2/10. Better than his older brother but not by much lmao. This is another old European man and while he was raised with riches and access to a wide variety of foods, he never had the pallet for it. Cannot bite into raw garlic. Hilarious~

Mikuni: 6/10. All of the Alicein's tend to prefer sweets but he can handle spice well! He loves to be a snob about anything he can be knowledgeable about and that includes many different cuisines, some of which happen to be spicy! So even if he didn't like spice too much at first, he'd grow into it. I feel that he'd make it a point to try and heighten his tolerance but had to stop bc his throat started closing up.

Jeje: 3/10. His face gets red very easily and he gets unsightly looking fast. Mikuni laughs at him for it. Also he does not like the scorch even if he doesn't think the flavor is bad. If he wanted any kind of burn, he'd drink alcohol, thank you.

Iduna: 8/10. I think she'd handle spice exceptionally well! She loves any of those fast food items thats whole purpose is to make your mouth feel like its on fire and has a couple times gotten these items for herself and her coworkers when she drew the short straw for who pays for lunches. Watched them all choke. One time she asks for a bite of Mahiru's indulgent spicy food and Mahiru gives her a portion. She was not prepared.

Freya: 5/10. Prefers heartiness to spiciness. She'll just politely push her plate aside if its too spicy for her.

Licht: 5/10. Actually not too bad handling spicy stuff but will curse at anything that makes his nose start running. In shock of Mahiru and Iduna's ability to down things that look like red hell. Prefers sweet.

Lawless: 6/10. Just barely a noticeably higher tolerance than his Eve but will start sweating fast and start to look unkempt if he eats too much spice for too long. Has deliberately raised his tolerance but won't go any farther than he is now.

Niccolo: 4/10. Decent but also Italian foods are not much known for their hotness. Will start crying and his ears will get extremely red-- Honestly its kinda a cute sight aside from his suffering.

Ildio: He couldn't taste anything for the vaaast majority of his life to flavor in general is new to him. His reaction to spice is him being thrown on his ass bc they made the mistake of giving him something not mild first lmaooo. He gradually keeps trying however and he builds up a very good tolerance! Unrelated but the first time Niccolo gave him a lemon, he bit into it like an orange and puckered his face so hard he got cramps. Niccolo has that on video. 7/10.

Misono: 1/10. DO NOT MAKE THIS BOY SUFFER LIKE THAT. He already has it hard enough trying to brave his way through drinking bitter black coffee to look Cool, he'll pass out. Also I wouldn't think it'd be very good with his allergies.

Lily: 2/10. Not a fan and cannot handle it very well. He'll start coughing and his skin will get all sweaty and red and blotchy and he absolutely refuses, thank you.

Tsubaki: 5/10. Normal! But is sensitive to the strong smells so he usually gets something safely below his capabilities if he wants to indulge. Like Tetsu, prefers cleaner tastes.

Bonus!

Tooru: 9/1o! Again, loving spice is a Shirota Family Trait and while his nephew shadows his capabilities, he still puts all of his coworkers and underclassmen to complete fucking shame. It has saved him from his lunches being stolen in the break room.

Touma: Look, he's fucked the Shirotas but does not have their genes. 0/10. He cannot handle spice for shit and was the one who was stealing Tooru's lunches. He learnt the hard way.

Sakuya: 3/10. Ok at spice but has also shared the fate of unknowingly eating the Shirota's food. In his case, he asked Mahiru to share his delicious (as usual) looking lunch during their time in school together. Mahiru warned him that it was a "bit spicy" and Sakuya make the terrible, horrible, no good mistake of brushing that aside while Ryuusei and Koyuki watch on without saying anything, already paying their respects to their poor friend. Needless to say Sakuya is put on the floor. The other two couldn't interrupt. It's a canon event to being one of Mahiru's close friends. He prefers sweet things, actually!

[bingoboingobongo]

task force 141 + christmas wishlists

Characters: Simon "Ghost" Riley, John "Soap" MacTavish, Kyle "Gaz" Garrick, John Price, Alejandro Vargas, Rodolfo "Rudy" Parra

Warnings: none

A/N: ewww i have finals tmmrw

rodolfo "rudy" parra:

alright so i mentioned this in my stocking stuffers headcanon but we're gonna go in more depth here

rudy's christmas wishlist is really just legos

but like big, expensive lego sets

like i said then, he always compiles a big list of sets he wants each year

this year he's obsessed with the technic/vehicle sets

he got the vespa set for his birthday so that one was crossed off the list

and now he's looking to collect all the ferrari sets

last year he nabbed the ferrari 488 gte "af course #1"

and this year he wants the ferrari daytona sp3

he really likes the technic sets because their like a harder version of the normal lego sets

plus they're a lot more durable which is important to him

he has all his lego sets lined up on shelves around his apartment

and he already has a shelf of lego vehicles

which currently includes the ferrari 488, the vespa, and the lamborghini sián fkp 37 (he bought that for himself after he got a pay raise)

and ofc once he gets all his luxury cars/racecars collected, he plans on moving onto the classic cars collection

john "soap" mactavish:

alright so idk why this headcanon brings me so much joy but it does

but soap really really really wants a dirt bike for christmas

he rode one during a mission around summer time

and ever since then he won't stop raving about how cool it was

if we're being honest he wasn't that good at it

but honestly that just motivated him even more because now he wants one so he can get better at riding it

he wants to be able to do all those crazy flips and tricks they do

and he spends soooo much time researching bikes and watching videos of the tricks

he also doesn't even know when he would get the chance to use it

or where he would practice

since his house is not exactly near prime dirt biking terrain

but he insists he'll figure something out

his dream is definitely the yz250

he just thinks it looks so cool and sleek

but it's like ~$7000 so he doesn't have his hopes up

would definitely implode if he got it tho

john price:

alright so for christmas price really wants a weighted heated blanket

i mean can you blame him?

it gets pretty cold up in his cabin and he just wants to be able to be all warm and cozy

he honestly didn't even realize it was a thing until gaz told him about it

and now he won't stop talking about it

like he keeps hinting about how he wants it

saying things like "god it's cold in here, a nice heated blanket would be great huh?" or "my blanket is getting so thin, one of those weighted blankets would be insane huh?"

what can i say he really wants one

but he also doesn't wanna spend like $100 on one

which is why he's being so coy about it

besides a weighted heated blanket price wants cigars

i mean he always wants cigars but he wants them as a christmas gift this time

he wants really fancy ones that are really high quality

honestly his ideal holiday evening is him on the couch, with warm socks, a tea, a cigar, and his weighted heated blanket and a nice movie on the tv

simon "ghost" riley:

this year (and every year really) simon wants books for christmas

he's a fan of classic literature so he really just wants paperbacks of all the classics

paperback because it's easier to bring on missions

like i said in one of my past headcanons, i think simon was definitely an english literature major in college

so he definitely has a lot of books already

but let's be real you can never have too many books

the books on his wishlist this year include the metamorphosis by franz kafka, journey to the center of the earth by jules verne, and the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde

okay we're gonna go off on a tangent here

but simon secretly wants to open up a bookstore when he retires

except, and this is gonna get kinda sad here, he knows it's ultimately just a pipe dream bc the chances of him retiring are really slim

yk since he's more likely to be killed in action...

but he still likes the idea of it in case he does make it out of the military alive

kyle "gaz" garrick:

alright so for christmas gaz wants new headphones and a speaker

gaz just lives his life with a soundtrack in the background what can i say

he loves listening to music whenever he can

whether he's working or training or in the shower

i like to think that he used to actually have a really nice set of earbuds

and he usually keeps them in one of the pockets of his uniform

but when he fell out of that helicopter he lost his earbuds

and he was absolutely devastated too because they were so nice

but this time around he wants headphones so that he can really take advantage of the noise cancelling feature

probably not the smartest option considering he's in the military but yk what sometimes gaz just needs a break from the outside and honestly who doesn't?

he also has a really nice speaker but then soap broke it

gaz had it next to him on the couch while he was watching tv or smthing

and then soap sorta hopped over the back of the couch to sit next to him

and then sat straight on the speaker

and since the couch at the base sucks and is therefore pretty hard

plus the fact that soap is probably like over two hundred pounds of muscle

the speaker really had no chance

so yeah gaz really just wants his music back for christmas

and off topic but he's into a lot of oldish hip hop/rap rn

like the notorious b.i.g., ice cube, 2pac, dr. dre

yk sorta like the classics

(im ngl idk if those are classics music genres confuse me)

alejandro vargas:

this year alejandro wants a ps5

maybe this is coming sorta out of left field but i feel like alejandro is lowkey a gamer

which ik doesn't make sense since we've established he's into self care and gamers never shower

jkjk no hate to any gamers im sure most of y'all have tolerable self hygiene

but yeah alejandro is actually super into video games

he has a lot of consoles but he didn't get the ps5 when it first came out so now he wants it

im gonna go off on a few alejandro video game tangents here so get ready

first off i think he and rudy played "a way out" together with no prior knowledge of the game

and so at the ending they were absolutely devastated

they also play overcooked a lot

and they let the other task force members play too

it's always interesting because alejandro takes it really seriously

and so he gets soooo stressed about it it's kinda amusing

also he's super good at super smash bros

and surprisingly he's not really a fan of first person shooter games (ironic i know)

it's just that he does that so much in real life he doesn't want to do it in games too

[wintrsss]

『S/O with High Level DOOMs』

Fandom: Death Stranding.

Characters: Sam, Higgs, Cliff.

Request: Can you maybe do Headcannons for a reader with high level DOOMS? Like sometimes just forgetting that (other then higgs) their S/O doesn't have DOOMS like they do? Not in like a dangerous situation but more like teleporting behind them and scaring them accidentally. How would they react and so on with things that just come with being a high level?

Genre: Fluff, Headcanon.

Warnings: None. Reader is gender neutral!

A/N: I'm sure you only wanted Sam and Higgs, but I included Cliff bc I love him <3 let's pretend he knows abt DOOMs

Requests open!

.ೃ࿐

-

Sam Porter Bridges

You'll scare the hell outta him if you teleport without letting him know about it, but with how reticent he is, you probably wouldn't notice

He only knows a handful of people who have DOOMs and only two can teleport, it's rare for him to see one who can. Can't blame him for getting a little alarmed

He is more than happy to pass you some spare cryptobiotes in the case you getting tired from teleporting. You clearly need them more than he does

He will get a little worried once you tell him you're at a high level, with all the repercussions it has, but other than that, he won't dwell on it too much

Sam isn't very good at dealing with emotional problems, but he is a good listener. If you need an ear to talk to about those nightmares, he'll stay quietly at your side. Sometimes he'll say some things that Amelie told him to make him feel better, hoping they'll help you too

He'd rather you not resort to any sort of violence unless it's self defense; there's no need for it. But hey, if you really wanna let off some steam, you should do it to the MULEs or something to clear the area for future porters. Do some good with it at least, right?

-

Higgs Monaghan

Half of him is excited to see you at a higher level like he is, the other half wants to show his superiority to you in every way

Sure, you can teleport like he can, but can you control BTs? Nuh uh, didn't think so

So yeah, with the many times he tries to brush aside your dooms abilities as less than par (compared to him), he's totally forgotten at least once

But after the first scare, you wont get him again! That's a promise!

With nightmares however, he may not understand your fear in them, seeing as he's already accepted mass extinction. He'll probably just tell you to go back to sleep without any thought

But if he sees you really shook from it, he'll at least try to comfort you, but it'll end up seeming really half-assed; he's just not used to cheering people up

Higgs isn't gonna be the one to dissuade you from any violent urges you may experience with DOOMs, in fact he's going to fuel the fire and encourage you to act upon these thoughts. Only thing he draws the line at is you hurting yourself

-

Cliff Unger

I would not advise trying to scare him with your teleporting because you WILL get put to the ground

He wasn't an army captain for no reason, his reflexes undoubtedly prove that

But with how tired you get from doing that, Cliff strongly advises you to not use it so often, especially if it's for your own pleasure of getting a reaction out of him

You having DOOMs fascinates him, he'd love to learn more if you're willing to tell him about it

He can empathize to an extent on the nightmares you receive from this condition, having had plenty of his own in the past, he'll do his best to try to comfort you during the bad ones, rubbing your back and whispering soft affirmations to you

He knows he doesn't have to, but he likes to wipe away your chiral tears

Cliff doesn't want you following the same path of destruction he's gone to, so he'll keep on eye out in any changes in your behavior so that he can help in any way he can

[danmei-confessions]

Adding my two cents as a survivor of multiple forms of abuse (including CSA): I *really hate* how this fandom acts about abuse narratives-- demonizing one abuse survivor vs another, when in reality both of them have done fucked up things as a result of their trauma (it's what makes both LBG and SJ so compelling to me personally!!). I *especially* hate how people seem to basically "tier" abuse, with SA being the "worst trauma" over any other kind and acting as though SJ is more worthy of... pity? idk because of implied CSA (which... that in itself is fanon and up for interpretation... I personally think so, but in a somewhat different way than the usual interpretation but that isn't important) than LBG is... that might not be peoples' intent, but physical vs sexual abuse shouldn't be a "this is worse than that" sort of thing since different traumas affect different people differently, and it's really really uncomfortable to see people make that kind of assumption and talk about very real traumas that very real people face the way they do.

Anyway, I feel like a lot of the debates are due to piss-poor reading comprehension across the fandom. People point out that SJ abused LBH because *a lot of times people will actually act like he didn't.* Things like saying there was medicine in the tea, or that he didn't know/approve of the fake manual... even claims that "that was just the way things were and corporal punishment was normal." Which... is pretty gross tbh.

I like SJ's character as a person who was hurt who then turned around and took that out on others. He's one of my favorite characters because he shows that less inspiration-porn, poor-meow-meow side of a trauma survivor. It's realistic in a very gritty, bitter sort of way. That shit can fuck people up! I relate to him for so many reasons, but that doesn't mean I'm going to deny what he ended up doing by his own agency later. The cycle of abuse is a real danger, and SVSSS actually portrays that really well, which is why I like the book so much!

Idk. SJ stans claim they "don't excuse his abuse" but that's absolutely not true bc I've had people come on my posts and fics doing just that. It's like they miss the point of the character-- not completely scum, but both scum and pitiful... Some people seem to go too far in the defense.

Also, if you're someone who doesn't deny that SJ abused LBH, then *this isn't about you.* It's about the people who do. People in this fandom need to realize that both SJ and LBG are abusers, and that that's the POINT OF THE WHOLE THING, and that neither of them should be excused for it!! But the source of it should still be recognized in both cases!! And I feel that a lot of people don't like to admit that SJ, despite his trauma, *was* the cause of a lot of LBH's trauma. And me saying this ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT ERASE HIS OWN TRAUMA OMG but like... those SJ fans are already well aware of SJ's trauma and LBH's crimes so it doesn't really need to be mentioned??

LBG and SJ were BOTH TRAUMA SURVIVORS. Neither "Worse" than the other because uhhh clearly they were both incredibly traumatized because of the way they ended up turning out. Stop ranking trauma, that's disgusting.

But BOTH OF THEM WERE ALSO ABUSERS.

That. Is. The. POINT. OF. THEIR. STORY!!!!

This is at ANYONE who denies either the victim or the abuser status of either of these characters: fucking stop it. You might not like to hear it, but no matter how traumatized SJ was, the way he treated LBH was still abusive and if you excuse him for it then you're participating in abuse apologism. The same goes for LBG (and any other character whose actions are abusive).

I know we get attached to our favorite characters for various reasons, but when it actually starts veering into abuse apologism IN ANY FORM, that makes me feel really sick and uncomfortable with the way people talk about things that *actually happen to people irl.*

SVSSS fandom, you need to fucking stop.

.