#edit: just adding something in hindsight this might work

[therequiemforthelost-archive]

I just wanna curl up in bed and have someone feed me soup or something :(

vent in tags, sickness/illness mentions

[bamdelune]

In Hindsight 📹 Ch. 04: "the day i died once pt. 1"

notes. please do me a favor and pretend the first slide is actually edited to be posted as a twitter circle tweet 🙏

A familiar pattern of knocks echoed throughout the room. Your head turned to the door in confusion, Baizhu wasn't supposed to be coming in here today. He only came by on weekends.

The door slides open with the rolling sound of the gear to reveal the doctor and what looked like to be Kunikuzushi behind him. The general aura of the mood Baizhu entered the room with was eerily heavy as if someone just died.

"Good afternoon, Y/N." He greets, his tone slightly awkward. You return his greeting and say your hello to Kunikuzushi as well, to which he nods at in acknowledgement.

"Doctor Baizhu, is something the matter? You don't usually come in here on a weekday like this." You ask, nervously fiddling with your fingers. A sense of dread was pushing against your stomach and spread throughout your body.

Baizhu clears his throat, "I'm afraid there's something that needs to be discussed that prompted my visit."

Kunikuzushi has now also turned his attention towards the physician, eyes curious as well. Baizhu takes a deep breath, "I don't wish to scare you but it's inevitable. I fear that your condition has worsened. Ergo, you don't have much left, dear."

Silence fills the room, save for the whirring of the air conditioner. Other than that, you might as well have heard a pin drop. The tension was far too thick for your liking, anyone could cut through it with a knife.

"What?"

That's why Baizhu looked mournful when he came in. He was mourning a dead man walking.

"How much do I have left." Your tone comes out more strained that intended, as if your voice was about to crack.

"11 months. Even then, you're pushing it."

That wasn't so bad, right? You just wouldn't be there to see your album, the one that you've waited so long to start on, in all its glory after the production process. You wouldn't be alive to celebrate it with Xinyan, Aether, and Lumine.

notes. and we're finally at turning point #1 of this au! things will get easier to lay out from here and i hope everyone enjoys what's to come <;3

synopsis. You are a singer-songwriter. Music has always been a part of you, it's a part of your identity that no one can ever take away. However, there's always a catch: you are diagnosed with a chronic illness that puts your life on a timer. Those who have heard your countless melodies have grown to notice that the notes on the sheet played a gloomier tune. Would the snarky and capable medical student you've met be able to bring life back into these melodies? Even as life begins to seep out of your own body? (scaramouche x gn!reader)

tags. gender-neutral reader, angst, fluff, crack, heavy contexts of death and illnesses, friends to lovers, slowburn, profanities, drinking (characters are in college), suggestive themes but no nsfw.

taglist. (open, reply or send an ask to be added) — @beriiov @alatusorrow @br0oke96 @ohmyfinggod @itzblazekun @featuredtofu @sketcheeee

masterpost ★ masterlist © bamdelune 2023. do not repost, translate, plagiarize any of my works without permission, thank you so much! reblogs, notes, and comments are always appreciated!

[rplayford02]

KEEPER: Sound Design

I think I got too invested in AD-ing and all the prep that goes into just making the shoot happen, that forgot to properly consider the sound design. Also, balancing two projects in different stages of development has been quite tricky.

Essentially I didn’t get anywhere near enough wildtracks of the movement, enough voices or enough impacts. And I didn’t have time to foley it. Also the LAVs were way too close to peaking since the actors were yelling into them so they were unusable. The boom sound was mostly good thanks to Tom and Gaby so that was something at least. But I was constantly battling against the echoey space and terrible acoustics. (I’d noticed it on the day as soon as they started yelling but it had been too late to do anything about it by then.)

I should have been better prepared. I know I’ve had similar problems in the past where I don’t go in with a clear idea of what I need in the edit - where I can’t hear the edit yet so I can’t plan what I need to get. And so I inevitably don’t get enough wildtracks and then it makes it so much harder to design.

I don’t think I knew what the final result was going to sound like at all when I approached this. Or I just didn’t think about it. Anyway, it’s been a huge wake up call.

I’m really disappointed that none of the ideas I had planned came to fruition. I wasn’t able to foley impacts despite spending three days on the one minute scene. I didn’t record music because we couldn’t get the guy over in time and in hindsight, it just really wouldn’t have suited the tone anyway.

Looking forward to the real shoot, Ben and I are going to have a lot more discussions about sound, breakdown the script together in way more detail and make sure I have a clear understanding of the vision - and what this will sound like. I’m going to try and do a sound ‘paper edit’ to make sure I have it all mapped out and to highlight any gaps in my working.

I also want to make sure we have a proper tech recce before the shoot next year. When we come back in Jan, I plan to test the lavs with shouting to see what was going wrong on the test shoot. This being said I would still love to AD on set but it might have to be that I do this on a different project? I don’t want my secondary role to get in the way or convolute my primary role on the project, and at the minute I can’t guarantee that this won’t happen. If I can make sure it isn’t interfering at all next year then maybe I’ll AD on KEEPER. We’ll just have to see.

[talenlee]

4e: Group Flirts

4e: Group Flirts

Sure, let’s call it that, why not. That’s not going to be completely incomprehensible.

The skill challenge represents one of the many pieces of 4th Edition D&D technology that was underappreciated in its time and misunderstood in hindsight. The Skill Challenge was a tool that let the DM run a non-combat encounter with the same kind of group engagement that the game’s combat system normally demanded; it has a failure state represented by eventual failures, but it also serves to let players platform their own choices and express how they do things. Skill Challenges in the simplest form are ‘the group needs to succeed on X possible checks before they fail N possible checks.’ The system isn’t necessarily all that groundbreaking, but the Dungeon Master’s Guide bothered to explicate a bunch of useful, good ideas about their execution.

There are ideas you might realise are fiction first and fail forward in the 4th edition D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide, but they’re not called that, and people don’t seem to remember what these books were like. What skill challenges let you do was explicitly call for a moment when many people are trying things at the same time, and get to negotiate the fiction of what that means, what kinds of things people are doing, and how their skillsets are expressed. It’s a great system, and I wish more people were familiar with skill challenges, especially in how they do something D&D does well (induce and encourage all players to engage with simple rules tools) and patches something it doesn’t tend to do well (encourage spaces of free creative expression).

Particularly, one thing that skill challenges let you do is bring the moment of the skill into a group scenario, so it’s much less likely to be ‘the skills-focused character goes off on their own for twenty minutes to work out some malarkey and then decides whether or not they tell the rest of the party what they did when they get back.’ Which isn’t a condemnation of those players who liked slinking off like that, but if it was the primary thing that ‘skilled characters’ did it could use up time at the table in an inefficient way; one player takes focus for a distinct period of time and nothing else proceeds while they’re doing it.

Skill challenges address this by adding a dimension of collaboration to all these solitary experiences, just by dint of making sure that there’s a reason to go around the table and ask ‘hey, how are you involved’ in turns, and to encourage players to volunteer stuff. You get to tell how your skills apply, and your skills are all written with a descriptor like ‘use this skill to do this kind of thing,’ so you are invited to imagine ways in which the skills you have could be applied. The skills in 4e are pleasantly broad, too, which meant that a lot of times things like magical locks could be overcome by lockpicking skills under ‘streetwise’ but also could be addressed by thoughtful skills under ‘arcana.’

It’s to this end that this system helped with one of the hardest things to do engagingly in a group environment, which is, bards seducing their ways into fancy locations. Oh, you may be thinking of another more specific type of character, maybe they’re a sorcerer or a rogue or you had an ardent who was inclined to use this as their solution to any problem, but when I said ‘bards seducing their ways into,’ you were already conjuring to mind an example. It’s classic.

It’s also, on the face of it, isolating.

Flirting isn’t really a group activity. Well, okay, it kinda is,

good girl,

but it’s not meant to be a group activity where you, the subject you’re flirting with (or subjects), and two of your other unrelated and uninvolved friends are all hanging out doing the thing at once. It’s got some intimacy, it’s got some playfulness to it, and that play means that you kind of don’t want to be distracted from it.

On the other hand it is a big point where skills become important, nae, vital to the story progressing, and if you want to use this as a focus, there’s an impulse to make it so it happens briskly and is a yes-no solution, or to say no, don’t worry about it, we’ll find some other solution so I don’t have to sit here and make everyone else engaged with one player flirting with an NPC.

What I’d suggest is to involve the skill challenge here, but also detach it from time. The moment of the skill challenge is in the flirting; up front, head to head, in the conversation with the count or duke or swan-person or whatever it is the flirter has their designs set on. But that moment can be stretched out with a series of references to events that happened in the past that can be treated as important to this moment. Make them into a sequence of flashbacks of other characters in the party building up the flirter, or gathering info on what kind of flirting would work, or even training with the flirter and giving them tools for considering the world from their perspective.

This idea may look a lot like flashbacks from Blades in the Dark and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a big influence on how I run skill challenges now. It’s way less interesting to me for players to have to plan ahead of time what they may want to do than let players play characters who are the types who would have done that planning ahead of time, especially since they exist in that universe and the players don’t. This use of skill challenges to stretch out a moment of conversation and then turning that into a collaborative sequence of storytelling across multiple other characters is a great example of the ways you can improve one game by just playing other games as well.

It’s the TTRPG equivalent of ‘read another book’ I guess.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#DungeonsDragons #Games #DnD4E

[onedivinemisfit]

2022 Creator’s Self-Love Extravaganza

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works (fics, art, edits, etc.) you’ve created this year and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world in 2022. If you don’t have five published works, that’s fine! Include ideas/drafts/whatever you like that you’ve worked on/thought about, and talk a little about them instead! Remember, this is all about self-love and positive enthusiasm, so fuck the rules if you need to. Have fun, and tag as many fellow creators as you like so they can share the love!

Tagged by @bubblesthemonsterartist tho I daresay I am fashionably late at this point, more than two weeks into the new year. Did I forget? Maaaaybe. Which brings us right to the main problem;

I barely remember. Like. 2022. At all. Things happened, I’m sure, but it’s as if there’s a fine layer of mist atop my memories, stopping me from really seeing them. Last year wasn’t really very kind to me. For every up, three downs followed, and between two failed surgeries, a bout of covid, and then whatever the hell kind of flare happened in the autumn… yeah. Idek. It is what it is.

As such, I can’t really comment on my art as like, a whole process, this year. It just existed in the ‘now’, which is presently the ‘then’. I know I beat my submission record from last year, but it felt like a meaningless victory. Despite everything, I can feel it in my hand now, when I draw, that some progress has been made. Subconsciously perhaps, but it’s there.

Onto the ranking then! (I just had to pull up the archive cuz fuck if I remember what I posted, and when)

1.

*deep sigh* we all saw this coming, didn’t we? As much as I love, I curse this image, for in hindsight it felt as if all my creative energy for the entire damned year went into this one piece! Like how dare! But yes it is one of my best redraws ever, and more so than the characters, I feel like I added to the background something even better than the original. There, I said it.

2.

Omigod this entire thiiiiiing. Were it not for the redraw, this would be the top spot. I can’t explain, so many ideas are left in the brain for countless hours, days, months, YEARS. This was two years in the making, and never before did I manage to recreate something that had the exact same vibe as it looked in my imagination. Especially because I’m not a comic creator, hashtag compulsive disclaimer lol. Also while I was drawing it, seeing people go from “hmmm what’s this?” to “wait is that-?” and then “ooooooh it is the lead-up to The Thing” was priceless.

3.

A last-second outlier comes in third. I admit to making this in a hurry, just to have something really nice to show for december (a month which is usually a highly productive month to me, but 2022 didn’t let me have that either) and as such, since I was struggling, both with a deadline, and a lack of real inspiration, I feel like. I managed to improve, somehow. Call it magic, but this looks noticeably different to many of my other colored pieces.

4.

To be perfectly honest, this was a sketch. People might not think it one, for it has details, a color scheme, and even effects - but at the time I posted it, this was just a colorized sketch in my mind. Tumblr disagreed. And I was left in awe watching this first get reblogged within the fandom, then beyond, then go through a hanfu appreciation blog, and finally reblogged with a truly tender chinese poem attached that said person felt gave them the same vibe as what I had drawn. The people spoke, and I was both awed and humbled, and I learned a valuable lesson in humanity relating to art.

5.

Unlike the others, this was a conscious attempt at something different. I can’t really say why it should go in the fifth spot, but it does; i spent a lot more time than usual on composition, colors, and most importantly, mood setting. And putting characters so solidly into the middleground can be a challenge in itself for me, as I run the risk of getting storybook-ish. Which would’ve been disastrous for a scene like this.

Honorable mention;

Coping through art. @bubblesthemonsterartist has the honor of inspiring this, or like, being the one to “give me” the go-ahead to channel some of my experiences through the characters and story-telling in general. Back pain is something I know all too well, and it was well and truly therapeutic. I also got to do another test of “can I retell this scene, even if I switch part of the cast and premise?” And it seems I did. I will always remember @what-plant-metaphor-am-i ‘s tag; ‘# I feel like I just watched an entire episode XD’ <- never has my inner storyteller been more validated.

There, that wasn’t so hard! Sometimes I’m really thankful for the internet, and timestamps, and kicking my memory back into gear etc… anyway, since I am so woefully late to the party, I’m not tagging anyone specifically; if you wanna be fashionably late too, you know who tagged you~

[caseyogdenart]

It has been my final week here on Falmouth University's IFY with my final module, 105, being completed and presented at The Poly in Falmouth (seen in earlier post, image 1 and 2). I would like to mention that I had 8 weeks to work on this and I wouldn't like to dwell on this so first let's talk about my struggles and regrets with my piece. Originally I had planned to make 2 cycles (a run and a crawl) and a pounce animation. It was also my first time animating in a proper computer animation software, whilst also practicing my digital art skills.

First I tried out the software Pencil2D and had about a weeks worth of work done until i ran into some problems with the software, i couldn't reorder frames after I had added them or beforehand for that matter which I couldnt get past and had to move onto another software called OpenToonz.

OpenToonz was too feature rich and overwhelming for my current level so after a short while I stopped using it, but I might choose to revisit it in the future as it contained some exciting features and seems to be useful in translating hand drawn pen and paper animation into something digitally workable.

Finally I landed on Photoshop, a software that I was considering to begin with but chose against originally due to the price tag (which was important as I needed something to work from home on). Also I would be lying if I didn't mention it intimidated me to begin with. However after using it once I actually really enjoyed it, it allowed me to edit pixels which as someone who isn't yet good at shaping things like shadows properly it helped a lot. I also found it so much more fun to use than Pencil2D which I needed after being disappointed for this long. I can't explain how much fun I had making this funny little creature move, it reinvigorated me. Unfortunately at this point it was too late to do more than one cycle as I still had to learn how to use the software and redo all of the work I had scrapped so far, my biggest regret of this module.

Like I had mentioned previously it's kind of hard to state how much i enjoyed just drawing and the gratification of making something move no matter how simple. Making small details in the bobbing of the ears and how good the shadows turned out.

The best thing I learned during the making of this is my faith in being able to make something move! In all seriousness I did learn a lot during this module, not only how to use certain aspects of an important software like photoshop, but also that I really don't like Pencil2D. I also learned how to apply a design to an animated sketch, something I had yet to attempt. How to apply shadows to a digital drawing, how to make an effective 4 frame cycle. And perhaps most important to me is that I gained a lot of confidence with my drawing tablet. As an aside I also wore out my first nib which I didnt know was a thing but in hindsight makes a lot of sense!

I think it's safe rto say I didn't keep very well to my week plan but I feel like in the end it didn't matter to me as I learned a lot, came out the other end with something I was proud of even if there is less than I would've liked and most importantly I had a lot of fun with it when I found a software that was right for me.

In closing, I can't wait to do more animating in the future. I loved my time at the IFY when I was able to attend, the staff are wonderful, my close friends have been so supportive and my other classmates have been a source of endless laughter, silliness (and jealousy, no joke you're all so talented, I wish you all well ❤). I'm excited to see where this road leads me and looking forward to mine and my friends future here at Falmouth Uni.

Completed and Presented 16 May 2023

[jaderimehardt]

Resin First Attempts

Ohhhh, where do I even start~?

In one of my previous posts, I said as soon as I get enough things, I will go out in the garage and start tinkering around even if it's 11pm, midnight, or 1am- didn't I? Yeah, well, that happened, Lol 😅. I was outside in the garage until 2:30am and probably didn't make it to bed until around 3:15am-ish. Details. (I forget when I started, uh, 6pm?)

Second day I went out there earlier but I was probably still out there for about 8-hours? Time can fly by quick this craft! And you don't even notice it. Holy geez.

The first night taking so long, made sense. I was trying to organize things, pull out tools for the first time. Basically get acquainted with my 'Mise en place' (totally a cooking phrase but whatever, I'm using it here).

I've only made 6 bezels so far, and used some of my extra resin in some earring molds (that I haven't added backings to yet) but...! Right now I'm just toying around with techniques and trying to get the hang of things. I think I even already found a new one? I've watched so many resin videos and I've yet to see anyone do this thing 🤔

Anyhow. Here are my very first bezels 😊

Some of these pictures were taken on a cloudy day and some were not... I didn't edit the lighting in photoshop either. And on top of that- I took some pictures next to my backdoor, some in my bedroom, and some in my garage where I've been making these. I did this intentionally to show the lighting variations of the resin, coloring, mica powder, glitters, etc etc.

That potion bottle was my very FIRST one. I'm likely going to keep that one forever as a memento. I had zero intention at the start to add the hearts but had a lightbulb 💡 moment.

Dr. Stone inspiration kicked in and I instantly thought of Senku's love potion at the start of the anime 🤣. In hindsight I should have used the round potion bottle but the love potion idea was literally an afterthought - still came out cute as heck, imo.

If you're wondering about the snowflake ones when it's the beginning of Spring- I was trying really hard to get a Captain Hitsugaya (Bleach) themed bezel but it just wasn't happening for me 🫠

This purple one is a prime example of how different lightings can make a bezel look different. It has me questioning how I want to post this on Etsy in the future 🤔. Many pictures I guess 🤷🏻‍♀️

I wanted something quite literally like a teardrop....? This one has the smallest imperfection in the world that I can see at the weirdest angle if I look at it really hard, LOL. I know it's stupid, but I'm OCD like that. Uhhh... I probably need a better light in the garage so I can avoid this in the future. I think I didn't see a bubble before curing or something. Not 100% sure.

This one has an aurora+pearl mix type mica and aurora glitter so it's constantly shifting colors in the sunlight. It also has intentional ombre, though it's not as dramatic as I wanted. Yeah... definitely a trial and error learning process going on here, lol. I still very much like how it came out. I added the shining star at the bottom to symbolize 'a light in the darkness'.

Couple last shots of some already seen ones- garage shot + bedroom shot. Just to show varying lighting.

Don't worry, I'm not going to do this every time (I think). Maybe 1-2. One near sunlight and one against a white backdrop that I'll setup somewhere. Seems more professional that way, less messy, and maybe my posts won't be a novel long each time 🙃

>>>

Oh let me add a couple somethings!

🔹 I'm still working on getting my Etsy up. I think I just need a banner and an icon? Smol simple things really. There might be more but I think that's it. Aside from me learning how to actually post a listing. I probably won't start selling anything until I get better at this though and feel confident with it. ALSO, I still haven't received the packaging supplies I ordered (bubble mailers). Who knows when I'll get that.

🔹 Yes, those are a bunch of octopus plushies in the background of my pictures. Be prepared to see them a lot, and a lot more other octopuses in my pictures. They are everywhere. Octos are friends in this house 🐙💓

[neonapocalypta]

(Mostly) First Impressions of Eternal Filena

CONTEXT: Another thread repost from my twitter during my original batch of Takeshi Shudo stuff I watched while being ill in March. Of course, these are edited for any grammar and anything that didn't need to be there w/ hindsight. This time, I actually had to add stuff in the form of notes. I gotta get back on this watch, I've just been down so many rabbit holes this year. I had also watched cosmos pink shock, but never got around to talking about it despite loving it. I look forward to talking about these shows more someday. (And pretty soon for one of them...)

---

I knew getting ahold of a lot of Takeshi Shudo's early work was gonna be a challenge, but at least according to Wikipedia he did a lot of uncredited work throughout the early 70s. What a shame, even if it seems like he was just a helping hand.

Lucky for me I guess I've seen enough of the guy's work that I can usually tell what he might have written. He has a distinct style from what I've sampled so far. [NEW NOTE: This is in relation to some of the earliest shows he worked on as a writer. I had been having trouble finding his proper credit online for individual episodes he wrote. I had watched those before watching these ovas. During these shows I'd just have to watch an ep and guess if he'd pop up in the credits. I was right pretty much every time. What a nice memory.]

So far, my favs are Radio City Fantasy and Eternal Filena. Radio is a cute love story in twist with a drug trip. Filena is also a love story about two people that have to come together and make shit work.

Filena has 3 versions. The light novel (I can't read it.) the game, and the anime that was never completed. The anime is still worth watching, it has some cool visuals and frankly I love Lila and Filena a lot, so its an added bonus for me. I'm not sure which version is closer to Shudo's LN. My guess would be the anime since it seems like he had more involvement in the writing, but I'm only guessing. The game feels almost has a road trip vibe and is quicker paced compared to the anime.

I know the claim about Prof Ivy being a Lesbian was debunked recently, so its cool to be able to say Takeshi Shudo has written a lesbian couple. I know there's talk about Filena being a trans man, and I think that's valid. Though it seems like this is mostly talked about from the perspective of the game, where their character is written a bit different than the show. (Less openly affectionate, more traditionally masculine personality)

Also, if Filena is a trans the ending of the game is pretty terrible then, forcing them to wear a dress when they don't want to. (Aka forcing them to conform to women gender roles in this case.) I'm not saying that's why I think Filena isn't trans, I'm saying if they are, that's a really shitty ending for a trans guy. Epesh bc Lila, their partner, is making them wear it.

My guess is that Shudo intended them to be a lesbian couple. Rn having access to the novels would be really helpful. If you've never read a Shudo novel, at the least the Pokemon ones are written a lot different than most books. Most people would say he's a terrible writer, but I disagree. At least in those books you can feel his brain throughout the page. No one else could have written those books in that exact way. He has a voice, lets say, and I'm sure the writing style is the same in the EF LNs. Either way, I think it's so cool to have a series from the 90s that lets people speculate about queer identities and there's viable text to provoke discussion.

It's also cool to see how our main couple is treated. They live in a world where they're slaves and are only seen as entertainment. Together they see each other as loved ones, work ingas a team to create a better future for themselves. It's something you have to read/play to completely get what I mean and I think the anime is better at showing this aspect. But trust me, there's a warmth to their relationship past the romance. (no matter what type of couple they are.) With it being a romance, makes it better. Double for gay interpretation. It doesn't feel it was written to be "Lesbians be hot" but more "This is a couple". Even if in Shudo's novel they don't end up together (they do in the game.) or it goes any other way in the end, I still really respect how they're written.

MORE END OF THE GAME SPOILERS: They become queens at the end. Like Lila is on the throne with Filena. Based.

I'd love to keep talking about Filena and Lila at length bc I think they're great, but I don't want to spoil anything else. Btw the game is on the SNES and never got localized (i WoNdEr WhY?) so Filena being either a gay woman or a trans protag is pretty cool considering the era. Fuck, her being a woman protag by itself was a big deal for that era as far as I know.

*Btw not saying the Queer themes are the only reason this wasn't brought over. I could guess several like how it looks like FF or how its an adult property, and more. [NEW NOTE: I think I meant it looks enough like Final Fantasy that investors wouldn't want to risk it being in competition with those games. tbh that coulda made it a better candidate for an ENG release during certain times as well. I was just spit ballin' but it bothered me enough to add this note. While we're here, I think between it's adult and Queer themes, and also coming out in 95 is most likely why it stayed JPN excusive. I should have mentioned its late release date (for the SNES), but when you're sick and on twitter things slip through the cracks I guess.]

The game has a fan translation and there's a recent lp that shows it off. I'd say check it out if you like that era of JRPGs in general. Personally, for English speakers at least, the game then the anime is the best way to go since you'll get a full story first.

There's several reasons I like one version over the other but that's small shit and I've written enough for now. I wasn't planning on this thread becoming about Filena but I guess it is national Women's day [At time of writing] and no matter Filena's gender, Lila is a queen.

Also sorry if I get anything wrong. Espesh about Shudo's career. Info on the english web is not great. Like some websites say Radio city was his first work at 18, but it came out in 1984 and he was born in 1949. If I get anything wrong, I'll correct it.

i got a lot more Shudo stuff I've seen and want to see, so maybe next time I'll post more about Radio city. This was meant to be a small update thread lol.

[alidravana]

Fandom: Call of Duty: Ghosts

Characters: Hesh Walker & Kick, background Keegan/Logan

Length/Rating: ~2K, Mature

Tags: Alcohol Abuse, Grief/Mourning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hesh is a Mess, Kick is a Saint

Summary:

Hesh turns to alcohol to try to cope with the death of his father. It doesn't go very well.

My entry for Day 4 of @agonyapril2022: Breakdown.  This is set sometime after the Sin City mission in Call of Duty: Ghosts with Hesh’s POV.  Thanks to the wonderful @sugaredmayhem for editing!

Check it out here on A03 or continue reading below!

*****

Hesh barely flinched as the heavy wooden door slammed against the wall, stumbling out the door only to turn around and throw up, barely missing his and Kick’s shoes, who was right behind him.  He could hear Kick asking if he was okay, and he responded with a belch, and another round of vomit splattered the cobblestone lined alley.  

Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, Hesh tried to stand up, intending on heading back into the bar and washing down the awful taste in his mouth with another cold beer.  But a little stumble and he found himself on his ass…luckily not in a puddle of his own puke.  Sighing, he allowed himself to be pulled up, Kick ducking under his shoulder to help him walk.

“Might be best to head back, sober up a bit,” Kick said quietly, as the two of them walked slowly back to their vehicle.  

Hesh hemmed, knowing that Kick was probably right, but he also didn’t want to go back to the base either.  Everything just felt weird on the base after Vegas.  The Ghosts had been a tight knit team, almost like a family, and now, without Elias, they were back to being a bunch of messed up soldiers, whose only focus was revenge.  

Logan wasn’t speaking to him…not that the not speaking thing was a big change for Logan, but normally he didn’t have a problem speaking with Hesh when no one was around.  He was speaking to Keegan though, of all people.

At first, Hesh thought that maybe Logan was mad at him for not being able to get out of his restraints, to try to do something more to stop Rorke rather than yelling insults at the ex-Ghost.  Hesh was plenty angry at himself for that whole encounter, unable to protect Logan and his father, and so that…that would be a perfectly acceptable reason for Logan not to talk to him.  Keegan had been the hero that day, saving their lives, and since he had been paired up a handful of times with Logan on recent missions, maybe that’s why Logan’s anxiety had calmed around the older man enough to actually hold a conversation.

That’s the reasoning that Hesh had stuck with, until he walked in on the two of them in the break room, late one evening when he was having trouble sleeping.  Logan was straddling Keegan on the couch, moaning while Keegan kissed down the side of his neck.  Keegan’s hands were cupped around his younger brother’s ass, pulling Logan closer as they continued to make out like no one was watching them.

In hindsight, standing there for a moment and then suddenly going “What the fuck?!” was probably not the best way to let them know that he was there.  But that’s what happened, followed by Logan running out of the room, his face beet red, Keegan sending a brutal glare in his direction before following Logan out.    

“I’m an idiot,” Hesh muttered, startling Kick who wasn’t expecting him to say anything.  

“Well, I wasn’t going to be the one to say it, but you got a drink dumped in your lap, twice, bro,” Kick said, shaking his head in disbelief.  “You really need to work on your moves,” he added, opening up the door and helping Hesh sit down in the passenger seat.

“No, I mean with Logan and….” Hesh trailed off, not wanting to out his brother and Keegan’s relationship.  He had already been a dick when he found out, he didn’t need to gossip about it too.  

“And Keegan?”  Hesh could hear his neck crack as he turned quickly to gawk at Kick, surprised that he knew.  

“It’s not new, man,” Kick said, pulling out of their parking spot and heading back to the base.  “You might want to avoid Keegan for a bit, he’s pretty pissed at you.”

“I deserve it,” Hesh said, leaning back in the seat and closing his eyes, not wanting to throw up again as Kick took a few corners too sharp on the way out of town.  Fortunately, they weren’t too far from the base, and it wasn’t long before Kick was pulling the car through the last checkpoint.  Hesh startled at the hand that landed on his knee, his eyes opening in surprise.

“Look man, I can’t even imagine what you must be feeling these days.  But you need to remember that you have the rest of the team here.  While you might not want to go to Keegan until he cools off, we’re your friends, your teammates, alright?  And you can come talk to me about anything.” Kick said honestly, squeezing Hesh’s knee slightly and then stepping out of the car.

Hesh took a moment to wipe an errant tear that had appeared, cursing the alcohol for breaking his composure before nodding to Kick, as he needed to lean on the shorter man again to get into the base.

*****

His hands shook as he knocked on Kick’s door, unable to get the image of his brother laying on the ground, a bullet through his head like Rorke shot through Elias, out of his mind.  The blood had continued to pool, spreading across the floor until it touched his feet…and he had woken up screaming.  He had tried taking a shot, and then another, but the alcohol wasn’t doing anything to numb the pain, to stop the scene from replaying over and over in his head.  Hesh thought about what Kick had said, that he could come talk to him about anything, and figured he might as well try to take him up on his offer.

Kick opened the door quickly, Hesh dismayed to see a frown on his face when he saw him standing there.  Taking a quick look around the corridor, Kick motioned Hesh to come inside, pulling out the desk chair for him to sit on.  

“What’s wrong?” Kick said, continuing to look at him with a frown, albeit a sleepy one.

Noticing that Kick only had on a pair of sleep pants on, was barefoot, and his hair looked rumpled, Hesh soon had on a frown to match Kicks'.  Standing up slowly, he started to walk back towards the door, only having to use the wall occasionally to keep himself upright.  “This was a mistake, I shouldn’t have interrupted your sleep -” he started to say, only to tumble into Kick’s arm’s when the other man stood in front of him, stopping his forward momentum.

“I told you that you could come to me,” Kick said simply, gently redirecting Hesh over to sit on the side of the bed. 

But as Kick went to move to the desk chair, Hesh latched on, his hands tightening on Kick’s arms.  The warmth of Kick’s chest, the strong muscles Hesh could feel shift under his hands, the care in his voice.  Hesh knew that Kick was bisexual, saw the occasional glance from his teammate in the showers; Kick even having teased him several times for his good looks.  And Hesh’s eyes had definitely lingered back, more than once.  Kick was smart, kind…and very, very hot.  Maybe this is exactly what he needed, Hesh thought as he leaned in, capturing Kick’s lips with his.   

Kick didn’t pull away, and neither did Hesh, as he continued to push into the kiss.  Kick’s lips were soft, his mouth was warm, and while Hesh wanted to continue to crawl into that warmth and never stop kissing him, he could also feel Kick’s arousal building, pressed up alongside his own hip.  Hesh reluctantly pulled out of the kiss and slid to his knees, looking up at Kick with a small smile.  He let his fingers trail down Kick’s belly, then dip under the waistband of his friend’s pants.  He took a deep breath, knowing the mechanics of what he was about to do was one thing, but actually doing it was another, and this was the first time he had acted on his feelings towards another man.  

But Hesh didn’t have to think much more about it as he found himself on his ass on the bedroom floor, slightly reminiscent of the bar the other night.  Kick had suddenly stood up, knocking an easily unbalanced Hesh over, and was pulling up his pants, tightening the drawstring with an extra knot.  “No, we can’t do this Hesh,” Kick said, shaking his head back and forth, stepping further away from him at the same time.  “You’re straight, 100% straight, and I’m a guy, and I’m your teammate, and…and you’re drunk!” He practically shouted, grabbing a sweatshirt from his dresser, quickly covering the rest of his body.

Kick was right about three out of the four points he made, but all he could do was focus on the ‘you’re straight’ comment, the alcohol coursing through his vein was making it hard to concentrate on more than one thing at a time.

“I don’t know what I am anymore,” Hesh said honestly, still slumped on the floor, no longer talking solely about his sexuality. He was an awful brother, embarrassing Logan like that with Keegan; an even shittier son, unable to save his father; and now he was an awful friend, who tried to force Kick into doing something he didn’t want to do.  Hesh could feel the tears rolling down his cheeks as he started to sob.  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispered brokenly, covering his face with his hands.  He wished he could get up, run away somewhere where he could be alone and drown his feelings with more alcohol.  But his body was either unwilling or unable to get up, he wasn’t sure and so he stayed on the floor, having a complete breakdown in front of his friend.

Hesh wasn’t sure how long he sat slumped on the floor, crying hysterically.  But he swore he felt a pair of arms around him at some point, as he eventually cried himself to sleep.

*****

When Hesh woke the next morning, he was surprised to find himself in Kick’s bed, tucked under the covers.  He was even more shocked when he turned to find Kick laying next to him, already awake and watching him.  Kick had his head leaning on his hand, propped up on his elbow, the frown that had been on his face the previous night now replaced with a look of determination.

“This is what’s going to happen today,” Kick said.  “First, you're going to show me all the alcohol that you have stashed away and we are going to pour it down the sink.  Second, you are going to sit down and apologize to Logan, and then to Keegan.  And then, you and I are going to have a talk about what happened last night."  

Hesh nodded to each point, faltering slightly at the thought of talking about the previous night.  But he pushed through his unease, because what he had to say was important.   "I'm not straight Kick, probably never have been," he said, holding up a finger when Kick started to say something.  "I was drunk last night and I'm sorry about trying to push things too far…b-but I don't regret kissing you.”  Hesh took a pause, watching for Kick’s reaction, who was seeming rather calm after Hesh’s confession.  “If you could forgive me for being an idiot-" Hesh smirked as he heard Kick whisper ‘again’ under his breath, "-maybe we could eventually try it again…sometime?"

"You are an idiot," Kick said with a chuckle, shaking his head.  But then he looked straight at Hesh and Hesh thought he might stop breathing due to the intensity in the look that was being sent his way.  "But you're my idiot," Kick concluded, grinning as he leaned forward to kiss Hesh, but this time on the forehead. Kick’s lips lingered a few moments longer than necessary; Hesh could feel his pulse race at the intimate action.  "Now, go brush your teeth, you smell like a distillery.  And then…maybe we can try again.”

Hesh had never gotten out of bed faster.

[court-of-abs]

Update on “Maybe Tomorrow” [Final Chapter; Chapter 17]

Hello, hello my ducklings. 

It’s been nearly two years since I’ve last been on Tumblr and well over that time since I’ve written anything for my Elorcan fanfic “Maybe Tomorrow.” I actually just finished up reading a Court of Silver Flames and I remembered this page existed. 

As you all might’ve guessed, I never did finish writing that last chapter, or the epilogue, even. And while I no longer intend to finish writing that last chapter now, I decided it would be fun to post what I had written so far as well as a bulleted list for the ideas I had for the epilogue. Please keep in mind two things: this was written over two years ago and I’m not letting myself attempt to edit it (although I did read through it quickly) and there is a potential trigger warning: this chapter covers themes of mental health, therapy, and topics related to it. I’ll also be adding this warning to the previous chapter, as I feel in hindsight I most definitely should’ve included it.

This community and these books were my everything in 2017-2018. I was going through a pretty tough time then, and I am so so happy to say I’m doing much better now despite everything going on in the world. I still keep up with each series to this day (I even cried the BIG tears when I finished Kingdom of Ash) and it will ALWAYS hold a special place in my heart. 

Enjoy!! Let me know what you guys think <3 I miss and love you all, and I hope you’re doing well.

~

Naitivity. To herself, to her problems, to the pain flowing through her veins every step she took. That was why Saturday night had affected her so much.

In the almost nine years since their death, Elide had never acknowledged what had happened. She’d never grieved, barely faltered- she got away with it by not thinking about it, not talking about it. By not accepting the cards the fate had handed her, by turning a blind eye, it became so much easier to pretend it didn’t happen. It became so much easier to pretend she hadn’t changed.

Elide knew now that she wasn’t being strong for it. She was just being naive.

Elide wrapped her arms around herself and leaned forward to rest her head on the steering wheel of her car. She breathed, deeply, taking in the muffled sounds of students walking towards the front of the school- their voices, their laughter.

She smiled, then, thinking about what today was.

Then she frowned, thinking about what today was. The elections and then…

Another breath. In and out, just like the therapist had told her. Elide reached for her school books and swung open the door of her car, stepping out into the heat. She just needed to focus on today, just today.

And then, with the support of her friends, those that cared about her, she’d focus on the next. And the next, and the next…

Elide made it all of three steps away from her car when she ran into Aelin, Lysandra, and Manon standing by the rear of her car, their arms crossed and faces tight.

Elide swallowed and reached for the words she’d been saying over and over in her head for the last 24 hours. They were on the tip of her tongue-

“Manon!” Lysandra’s shout was cut off by Manon barrelling into Elide, pulling her into one of the most suffocating bear hugs she’d ever received. It was exactly what she needed.

“You scared the ever-living daylights out of us” she said into Elide’s hair.

Elide leaned her head on Manon’s shoulder. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Manon shook her head, and Elide watched as Lysandra and Aelin took a few steps forward, readying to pull Manon away should Elide need them to.

“There’s no need to be sorry, but Jesus, Elide, you just… disappeared after Saturday night. No one could get in touch with you all of Sunday, not even Lorcan.” Elide froze at his name. She mumbled another “sorry” into Manon’s shoulder and gripped her harder so that she wouldn’t notice.

“All right, all right” Lysandra said as she gently pried Manon’s arms off of Elide. “Don’t smother her.”

Elide smiled at her. “It’s alright-” and then Lysandra was gripping her in another extremely tight bear hug.

“Hey!” Manon shouted, scowling at Lysandra.

“You had plenty of time with her, it’s my turn now.”

“I got less than a minute-”

“Ladies” Aelin said, stepping between them. “This is about Elide right now, not you.” Aelin stepped towards Lysandra and Lysandra took a step away. 

“Don’t even try, Aelin. You’ll get your turn in a minute.” Elide giggled as Aelin sighed and took a step back.

Lysandra smoothed down the hair on top of her head and said, “Do you want to tell us what happened- after Saturday, I mean. It’s okay if you’re not ready.”

Elide smiled up at her, at all of them, and took a small step forward- Lysandra reluctantly loosened her grip.

“It’s true,” Elide swallowed, “what Maeve said about my parents. That’s all true.” She wrapped her arms around herself, tighter, remembering what Dr. Ren had told her.

“I’ve spent the last nine or so years of my life… in denial. My parents, when they died, they were all I had. I was horrible at making friends, and when Vernon became my guardian, well, you might imagine why he didn’t exactly give me someone to talk to. The SDD tried to get me to talk, to acknowledge what had happened. They worked tirelessly to try and convince my uncle that I needed therapy but my uncle doesn’t really believe in mental illness, of any sort, and I… it was just too much for me,” Elide tried to meet all of their eyes as she talked but the bareness of the moment forced her eyes down to the pavement, “I didn’t talk for almost an entire year after they died. I had no outlet for the pain,” her voice cracked on the word, “the utter pain I was going through. Eventually I learned it was easier to shove it all down. Everyone said that since I was young I would quickly get past it and I took that as meaning that I had to quickly get past it. And so I did everything you’re not supposed to do when trying to grieve about the death of your loved ones.” 

Elide gestured a hand to all of them, “I pushed people away... and I let the mention of the most amazing parents in the world become a trigger for my concealed anxiety and grief. And after Saturday, I couldn’t push it all back down after Saturday. And so nine years of pent up… everything came tumbling out.”

None of them spoke for a moment.

Then: “You talked to one hell of a therapist yesterday, didn’t you,” Manon said. 

Elide let out a nervous chuckle. “Yeah, he set me straight.” Elide said, tracing the lines on one of her textbooks.

“So you’re okay?” Lysandra asked, wrapping her arms tentatively around Elide.

“No” Elide said, “I’m actually far from it. But …” Elide cleared her throat and hastily brushed away a fallen tear. “That’s okay. I know that.” 

“Good” Aelin said. She reached for Elide, then, waving off a pissed Lysandra. “We’re going to be right here while you get through all of it, Elide. Absolutely all of it.”

“Thank you” Elide said, gladly accepting her third bear hug of the day. “And I’m sorry about how I reacted on Saturday, it must have been so scary for all of you. I’m really, truly sorry-”

“Don’t apologize” Aelin said, smoothing down her hair. “You don’t need to. What Maeve did was the definition of malicious, and you didn’t hear it but everyone booed her off stage after Lorcan rushed you out of the room.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t disqualify her from the race after that,” Lysandra said, and then she grimaced. “Gods I can still remember the look on her face-”

“Lysandra” Manon warned, “we all know she’s a bitch, but we don’t need to debate how much of one she is right at this second.”

Lysandra looked down at her feet and mumbled, “Sorry.” 

“It’s okay, really” Elide said. “I don’t mind talking about how much of a bitch she is at all.”

“Oh thank the gods” Lysandra sighed, rushing over to Elide and grasping her hand. “Let’s all go sit down somewhere and discuss this. It’s going to be a lengthy conversation- there is so much bitchy-ness about her that you don’t even know about it.”

“Are we really doing this?” Manon said, raising a single brow. “Doesn’t that make us a bit petty?” A snort from Lysandra.

They all turned to Aelin, but Aelin just shrugged. “What Elide says, goes.”

Manon’s jaw twitched and then she threw up her hands. “What the hell.”

Elide giggled as the four of them linked arms and walked towards the school together. Manon had been right- she had talked to one hell of a shrink yesterday. But she hadn’t just helped her sift through the memories, figure out how to deal with the pain.

Lysandra cackled at something Manon said, and Aelin smiled back at them, unrestrained.

No, she’d also helped her realize how amazing her friends were. And that was best part of all.

~  

If he couldn’t find her before the end of the day- he didn’t know what he was going to do. He just had to talk to her. He just had to know if she was alright.

His feet pounded into the concrete of the school parking lot... (I’m sorry I stopped typing here)

Here’s how I originally outlined the chapter (you can see some changes for when I actually sat down and wrote it):

Chp 17 Summary

Monday morning- day of election results. Elide is a mess. She hasn’t talked to anyone since Saturday night: this includes Lorcan. At school she’s confronted by friends and they’re all worried about her. They make up- Elide opens up to them about it. Lorcan clears things up with Rowan in the parking lot, they walk towards the school together. Then Lorcan comes over and asks to speak with Elide alone- they talk, and Lorcan gives her a new backpack (green like the carpet in the library). Asks if she could take care of Hellas for him- she says yes. They walk into the school hand in hand, knowing what they are and what they could be would have to wait for now.

Chapter Specifics

Outside of School

Elide sitting in her car again, contemplating the weekend. Reflective of first chapter- when she’s sitting there, not sure how things are going to go. 

Walks towards the school in a daze. Aelin & Co waiting for her a few feet from the school. Everyone is tentative but then Manon comes running over and gives Elide a hug. It’s just what she needs.

Elide says she’s sorry and opens up to them about her thought. They all just tell her it’s not her fault for any of it and they’re sorry that happened to her.

Lorcan & Rowan Meeting

Lorcan walking towards Elide when Rowan steps in front of him. The two tersely talk 

Flashback scene of sorts about what Rowan did for him the night before (Cain trying to goad Lorcan into a fight of sorts and Rowan stepping in)

at the end of it the two shake hands and are on good terms again.

Lorcan walks over to Elide and asks to speak with her alone. Bell rings for class to start but Lorcan leads them down a trail to talk.

He’s awkward until Elide leans up and kisses him. She tells him thank you

He gives her the backpack. Elide opens it up to find a copy of A Court of Wings and Ruin, and the picture of her parents protruding from it. 

Lorcan says he wishes he could have made her happy like that. Elide says he did. In the short time they had, he did.

Lorcan asks her to take care of Hellas. She says of course.

Elide leans up and kisses him again and says that she’ll always care about him. And maybe in the future they’ll be something (make sure you don’t rush this!!)

Lorcan starts stuttering and Elide shakes her head. She explains that as much as she cares about him, she knows how much the long distance thing will wear down on them- and that he needs to be his own person when he comes back to her.

Outdoors speakers announce that Aelin and her team had won the election as they approach the school building.

Elide walks into the school with Lorcan, prepared for the day ahead. And the next. And then the next, and the next…

Epilogue

I actually don’t have any notes for this (I THOUGHT I DID I’M SORRY) but I think I had it so that they bump into each other at Terrasen University or something like that and they start as friends but eventually begin dating and then get married in the library and the last scene is them at their spot in the library in their wedding apparel just holding each other (because I’m sappy like that)

Thank you all, again. Writing this was a pleasure and I could not have asked for a better community and support group

- Abs

[ptgigi]

Ramble about PBFP

So my Pokemon Bracket Fusion Project is nearing the end of the first generation of fusions! That will officially mark the halfway point for this project, as each next generation of fusions will shrink by half as they get combined. I’m super excited and looking forward to it!

Since it’s a pretty big moment I’ve been mulling things over and wanted to ramble a bit. I’ve put in a table of contents not because I expect my rambles to be too long (edit: oops?), but if you aren’t too interested in reading all the ramblings you can just look at what interests you.

1. Alola Dex data mistakes strike again (third or fourth time now??) 2. What I would have changed about this project in hindsight 3. Other fusion challenge ideas (please steal)

1. Alola Dex data mistakes strike again (third or fourth time now??)

So people who have been following this project from when Alola dropped might remember I had to reassign a few fusions to add the Alolan PokeDex. This was near the start of the project, so only about 10 fusions needed to be redone. But rushing to get that data in as it was being dropped proved... problematic. I mean, who could have predicted Pokemon would add evolving Legendaries!?

So part of that was me adding color data. I used whatever artwork was available at release rather than the Dream World artset I used for the rest of the project. Recently (last week or so) I rediscovered this decision and corrected all the colors, thinking it wouldn’t cause any problems.

I was wrong.

A Pokemon may have been previously entered as off-white [RGB(250,253,252)] but was corrected to pure white [RGB(255,255,255)]. A few small changes like this over ~127 Pokemon broke about 25-30% of the existing fusions. I decided I’d like to finish this project sometime before I die so I opted not to throw out a fourth of my progress and just keep moving forward.

I’m also not going to correct the stats like Score or Best Match to account for this change either, I’m just going to leave the pairings are they were last generated (else things might look a bit off).

2. What I would have changed about this project in hindsight

Stopped at Kalos, no Alola. All the data errors I’ve endured from that rush job O_O

But more, as I’ve been doing thing project for a few years now (May 2016 wow) I’ve had time to think of things I might do different if I could hop in a time machine and warn myself what journey I was about to embark on:

Individuals rather than families While I like the crazy results of fusing families, doing a bracket of individual Pokemon vs a whole family would allow me to include more data for the formula and presentation (base stats, movesets, etc) and remove wonky data due to evolution:

Color data, think of a family like Eevee, where each individual is a wildly different color. Their “average” color is a weird light brown, but that causes Espeon’s purple, Vaporeon/Glaceon’s blue, and Umbreon’s black to be “ignored”.

Same with body shape data: Cosmog’s line in my formula has 0.5 wings...because only Lunala has wings (average of 0,0,0, and 2).

Forms/stages not getting the spotlight: Sandshrew (2 stages + 2 forms each) was fused with Trapinch (3 stages). Mathmatically, this worked out to be a 2 stage line where the final stage has 2 forms. That made the resulting fusions:

Trapinch + Kantonian Sandshrew + Alolan Sandshrew

Vibrava + Flygon + Kantonian Sandslash

Vibrava + Flygon + Alolan Sandslash

This is an extreme example, but individual fusions would have let each of these evolutions/forms shine in it’s own fusion and not have to also deal with another member from it’s own line.

Region by Region instead of “all” Pokemon

Yeah, big oops here. TPC makes new Pokemon regions faster than I can complete this project, so I had to stop adding new Pokemon. If I had instead done this by region, I could have continued this project into new regions seamlessly.

It would also have the cool end result of comparing what each region’s final fusion looks like! Especially with how Pokemon has changed their design formula over the years, it would be neat to see how these regional final fusions differ.

3. Other fusion challenge ideas (please steal)

So when I eventually complete this project I’ll have drawn 420 (yes, lol) Pokemon fusion families. The final individual fusion count is unknown until the end, but it will likely be over 1000 fusions. I’ll likely not want to draw another Pokemon fusion for a long time, lol, but I’ve come up with some other fun fusion challenge ideas. If any strike your fancy (not even necessarily as a full project, but just to try for a handful of Pokemon) please go ahead and share!

As mentioned above:

Fuse individuals based on similarity rather than whole families. It would let individual Pokemon’s attributes shine through better

Fuse each region’s Pokemon and see the results. Easy to extend for new regions added and lets you see a comparison of different regions at the end.

More ideas:

Base the brackets on dex number, not similarity. Easy to extend for new regions (just add the new Pokemon at the end of your bracket).

Choose subsets based on other criteria. Region was one idea, but what the ultimate Fire Pokemon fusion? Legendary fusion? Eeveelution fusion??

Always fuse the best match. Instead of choosing all pairings at once, see who’s the most similar (ex. Plusle and Minun), fuse those two. Throw that fusion back into the pool. See who’s the next best fusion. The next best fusion could be something like Pikachu+Minusle. This would more match up with my Tree of Life/Evolutionary Tree inspiration for this project.

But yeah, feel free to steal those ideas and share with me if you end up doing any!

[popculturebuffet]

Patreon Membership Drive: Turbo Championship Hyper Fighting Edition!

Hello all you happy people! For those wondering “who the hell is this.” I”m Jake Mattingly. I review animation and comics here on this tumblr 5 times a week, and love doing so. I do so by recapping an episode of an animated show or a volume of a comic piece by piece, how detailed depends on the work and how condensed it needs to be, analyzing the episode and sometimes throwing in some jokes because i’m a silly weirdo and tis my nature. 

 So far i’ve been able to scrape by with the help of my patreon’s kev and emma, with Kev suplimenting that iwth various comissions (I.e. paying me to review a specific episode of a show much like someone would comissoin). But I don’t want to place my entire finacial future in the hands of two people so last month I lauched my patreon membership, trying to get people to join my patreon to releive some of the pressure on them. And not a person signed on during the first month. 

But I realize a large part of that is I simply didn’t advertise propertly, not really explaning what it is I do, what they get, or throwing in any extra incentives for signing up apart from “If so many people pledge to my patreon i’ll do X review” Which is still the main thrust of my campaign but I realized I need MORE than that to give you all proper money for your buck, especailly with Tumblr trying to monteize in the most half assed way possible making people presumibly more wary of spending money on me. 

So for this promo i’m going into what it is I review exactly, how to sign up for my patreon and how any of that works, what you get out of it, and various juicy stretch goals i’m hoping ya’ll can help me reach so

WHAT IS IT YOU DO EXACTLY?

As I mentioned above I review animation and comics, more animation than comics. My meat and potatoes are Disney Duck works, primarily the 2017 reboot and the Don Rosa and Carl Barks comics. For the former i’ve done retrospectives on Lena’s arc, the Della storyline from season 2 and ALL the Season 2 storylines, the last one currently in progress. I intend to review the entire series, the lackluster tie in comics, and the this duckburg life podcast, though the last one has some strings attached we’ll get to under my goals.  I”ve also been reviewing various Carl Barks first apperances and most importantly doing a complete retrospective on Don Rosa’s masterwork the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. 

I also review certain shows week to week, almost entirely Disney as aside from the True Colors Debacle they have the most reliable schedule and announce release dates farther in advance than Cartoon Network and Nick which just sorta pop up announce things. I covered all of season 3 of Ducktales and season 2 of amphibia (With season 3 coverage coming in october) and i’m currently reviewing Owl House every week till that hiatus hits. 

Finally i’m currently looking at all the Tom Luictor episodes of star vs the forces of evil tracking both Tom’s character arc and the show’s steady decline straight into the dumps. 

Comics wise i’m more sporadic but in addition to duck comics stuff, I’ve also been doing a retrospective on the Scott Pilgrim franchise: all 6 volumes of the comic, those reviews avaliable now and in two weeks from this post, just in time for  the video game and movie anniversaries to finish things up. I recently started another one for the comic book Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, I intend to finish one I did for New X-Men, and I have a few in my mind’s eye I want to do soon on John Ostrandre’s Suicide Squad run, Justice League International, and Mega Man that i’m going to do pilots for to see if anyone’s interested. 

Finally recently i’ve started doing quick thoughts, quick reviews on recent stuff from trailers to full on movies I don’t have to cover normally. 

So What Is Your Patreon?

Patreon is a site where creators can get paid for work and can put up exclusive content and what not. You pledge anywhere from a dollar a month, and become one of my patrons and help me do this blog for a living. I genuinely love writing about media, analyzing it and making weird jokes, and this lets me do that as my job and my passion. I simply don’t want to put finacing that on the backs of only two people. 

So What’s In It For Me?

Unlike Tumblr itself I feel my supporters deserve to get the most bang for their buck. As such Patreon Membership starts at JUST ONE DOLLAR. That’s right for a dollar a month, 12 bucks a year so the price of a movie, you get access to my occasoinal exclusive reviews, exclusive poles once I get more than two members so that’s actually sensical to do to vote on reviews, and to pick a theatrical short when i review a bunch of them for character birthdays or holidays or just cause. 

In addition to these though i’ve decided to sweeten the pot. ON SIGN UP ANY PATREON OF ANY TIER GETS ONE FREE REVIEW OF ANY SINGLE EPISODE OF TELEVISION OR ISSUE OF A COMIC BOOK. That’s right for just one buck, you get a review of your choice. Whatever you want. You want to force me to watch something you hate so someone else can bitch about it for you? Go on about an episode yo ulove? shine a light on something obscure? Well i’m your man and for ONE BUCK A MONTH, you can get that. Whatever you want put on my schedule as soon as I have room and your payment’s gone through. 

And if you want me to review stuff on a more regular basis, five bucks a month gets you a review a month, same permaiters as above along with said free review. I will PERSONALLY make sure there’s a space on the schedule every month for your patreon review and review whatever you want no matter how good, bad or stuppid. 

But that’s not ALL. 

STRETCH GOALS:

To explain these better than what I did next time: My stretch goals are goals on my patreon: if I hit a certain number of Patreons I will review (Insert Thing Here) And these are meaty projects too: full season reviews, retrospectives and what have you and something’s unlocked with each person who signs up, adjusted from orignally basing it on price. So your dollar a month not only gets you your own review, but also will get my solemn vow to review a bunch of other thigns, and the more people who sign up the more thigns I’ll add to my plate. Not only that but just for this pledge drive i’m adding a bunch of super neat drive exclusvie stretch goals that will VANISH AT THE END OF AUGUST. dosen’t mean I won’t EVER do these reviews, but it does mean i’ll probably sit on them a bit. 

TLDR: You singing up gets me to guarantee to review some extra stuff. 

SO WHAT ARE THE GOALS. 

I”m glad you asked. Each one is based on a person joining, so 

REGULAR PATREON GOALS THAT AREN’T GOING TO EXPIRE BUT ARE STILL PRETTY NEAT:

One goal for each new patreon so

1 New Patreon: Starting off light but still juicy, I will review the complete season one of Amphibia across two posts. I’ve already rewatched the season recently, so all someone has to do is sign up and i’ll get on it in septmeber in time for season 3! And that’s not the only show as i’ll also review BOTH seasons of the birdtastic show after my own heart Tuca and Bertie! 

2 New Patrons: This one’s a big lighter but you still get some neat things: for my scottaholics in the audience I will review the rest of Brian Lee O’Malley’s works so far: Lost at Sea (his first graphic novel) Seconds (his first post scott work) and Snotgirl (his first ongoing and first work he didn’t draw himself), which follow a girl trying to reclaim her soul/cat, an immature restrauntieur who discovers reality changing muschrooms, and an influencer who might of done a murder. For those who don’t really like Scott Pilgrim i’ll review a buch of paramount plus shows first seasons: Kamp Korral, the rugrats rugboot and iCarly. So if any of that sounds good get on the bus won’t you?

3 New Patrons: My juicest one and one that stands alone: I will review the complete first season of the Owl House across two posts. Every episode, every bit of lumity progressoin, every bit of foreshadowing in hindsight, all for you, all if three people join my patron. So if you want more bisexual magic, step up. 

4 New Patrons: Duck Goals Woo-Ooo! This one unlocks a review from Duck Master Carl Barks EVERY MONTH. Not only that I will be taking suggestoins from my patrons , meaning you can help decide which ones I do! And while tha’ts plenty i’m jucing this one up as getting me this far also nets a review of This Duckburg Like, the interquel podcast that’s given us our last ducktales content for what will likely be an eternity. 

5 New Patrons: Gravity Falls Retrospective! I”m not only talking both season of Alex Hirsch’s era defining masterpice, but also the side materials I have acess to: the shorts, Journal #3, and the lost legends tie in comic. I”d throw legend of the gnome gemulets in there two if I had a working 2ds or 3ds bu tas it stands this is what I got. 

6 New Patrons: Avatarverse Retrospective. No not James Cameron the Bravest Pioneer’s movie he wants to turn into a franchise despite NO ONE wanting this please stop James, we’re begging you. Of course i’m talking about Avatar the Last Airbender, the epic franchise that’s blowing up in size. This will include all three books of Avatar: The Last Airbender, All Four Books of the Legend of Korra, and all the juicy side stuff I can cover: the sequel comics for both series, the kioshi novels and the eye gougingly bad M Night Shamlyn Movie. Yes I really will   myself to that. I have not till now i’m happy that way but I will sufer for you. Speaking of suffering:

7 New Patrons: It’s a crapstravaganza!  If i’ve made it this far I clearly have enough fan support that I can fly into the eye of the crapstorm so i’m going to review some of the worst things I can think of:  * Chuck Austen’s X-Men the run that dared to ask the tough questions your coke addleed uncle you don’t let see your kids would like “What if Angel could cure AIDS with his blood and had sex with a minor while her parents watched?” “What if a rouge relgious sect tried to make Nightcrawler pope and then desingrate people with commuiion wafers in a scheme that makes no sense?” and “What if an x-man made a plant horny?”  * America: The comic that has the infamous and oft used by me line to compare it to other bad lines “What in the holy menstration are you doing here”. And it’s still not the most bonkers thing int his somehow 12 ISSUE SERIES tha twastes one of marvels best creations.  * The Prince: Aka that series HBO what farted out onto the service with no intention of renewal after realizing “Holy shit we greenlit this what is wrong with us” which is basically family guy but with the royal family. I’d say it was a somehow worse family guy but Famiily Guy once had an episode that was about 22 minutes of transphobic punchlines so as long as there isn’t an episode of that your good.  * Mordecai is a Bastard Man: Aka that arc of Regular Show that took a ship I really liked, Mordecai and CJ, and then destoryed it with cheating, attempted murder and saxophone.  *Star Vs Final Arc: Aka a look at how a once great show descended into a mess with unfinished plot lines, wasted characters and a finale so terrible it’s only topped by “Kids this is the story of how I really want you to say it’s okay to bang aunt robin” 8 New Patrons: Infinity Train, all four books and any finale movie if it happens. (Please let it happen) All aboard! 9 New Patrons: Two juicy disney retrospectives! The Incredibles (both movies and both comics series) and Darkwing Duck (Both the Boom! and Joe Books runs) Let’s get incredibly dangerous! 10 New Patrons: My highest tier for now and i’ts anothe rdouble feature and two big projects. If you get me this far, you’ve earned em: A She Ra and the Pricesses of Power Retrospective and a Bojack Horseman retrospective. The two greatest things Netflix has made back to back for life. 

And THAT’S NOT ALL... as I said I have some special stretch goals JUST FOR THIS PLEDGE DRIVE. 

SPECIAL DRIVE SPECIFIC GOALS BABY!:

These are a simple five extra projects for hitting the goals within the rest of the drive FROM AUGUST 1ST TO AUGUST 31ST. I will not add these to the regular goals for a full year if you do not reach them, so one buck helps you unlock projects that otherwise might not happen for YEARS. Like the other goals their measured by patrons but ONLY for this month sooooo

1 New Patron: Quack Pack series review! the most hated Disney Afternoon show in one big two part review. God help me. 2 New Patrons: Rise of the TMNT Retrospective: Both seasons, a movie and regular coverage on the offchance a third season hopefully gets greenlit.  3 New Patrons: Peanuts and Garfield Specials retrospective!: Retrospectives for the technicolor years long world of Peanuts specials and the shorte rlived but still neat garfield specails. All the specials plus all the animated movies for both!  4 New Patrons: Craig of the Creek-AThon: Rewatching season one and watching BOTH seasons i’ve missed since then with full reviews as well as reviews of each bomb of episodes as their released on teh app from here on out!  5 New Patrons: Steven Universe Retrospective! All 5 seasons, The Movie, Future, the comics, graphic novels and games. EVERY. THING. 

So if ANY of this sounds enticing 

STOP BY MY PATREON RIGHT HERE IN THIS LINK, SIGN UP TODAY, HELP ME GET PAID DOING WHAT I LOVE AND GET REVIEWS FOR EVERYBODY. YOU WON’T REGRET IT AND YOU’LL BE MAKING MY LIFE BETTER. 

And even if you can’t support it feedback on the goals, reblogs to get the word out and general words of encouragment are appricated so join me as I try to get at least one extra dollar a month in the span of this month. PITTER PATTER, let’s get at er!

[douxie-casperan]

☽ for the memory meme? :)

☽ - A memory of their father

At least a whole month had passed since the three of them had come to end up in a somehow even more scrungy apartment based in the heart of New York City and despite the chill of the air Douxie had snuck outside onto the balcony in dire need of something a bit fresher than the mustiness of inside to be alone with his thoughts. Despite all the filtration wards that had been set up to make Nari that little bit more comfortable they barely seemed to be making a dent and the second he realised he was fidgeting more than focusing on the paper sitting on the coffee table outside seemed the wiser course and so here he was.

Stupid as it might sound life of late was feeling disturbingly monotonous in how it was get up early (UGH), grab something quick to go because there wouldn’t be a chance to eat until the first shift was over, hopefully get a snack before heading to the second job then if really lucky have enough time to crawl back here to collapse somewhere with no energy left for much else except on those scarce days off eked out when the stars aligned right. The three job days were even worse, you wouldn’t think his sleep schedule could get even more erratic but it turns out the threat of higher rent could do that to anyone and he was a particularly soft target to begin with.

On top of that as someone who adores travelling staying put for long usually drove him stir crazy after a few months he was already showing signs of it happening here too. In comparison somehow Arcadia never did, maybe it was because it’d felt like a home much like Camelot had done once? Part of the reason was definitely the fact Zoe could be a constant for the first time ever compared to the days, weeks or months scattered over the centuries whereas now they were once again forced apart by both wrong end of the continent stuck with phone calls or laughing at one another over the camera only. He misses the bookshop so much work had been put into, the customers that came into Benoit’s always asking how he was doing, the novelty of not having to pretend trolls didn’t exist even if the whole Akriridon thing was a surprise not to mention the apocalypse round two that came with them. It was a good normal and one he was felt a bit lost without.

Leaving also meant that certainty of Merlin was out there somewhere waiting for his moment to pop back up really was gone, something that had been a constant reassuring thought and it’s almost like being a moored boat just one wave away from drifting to parts unknown. Much like the explosion some things that happened still didn’t seem real, more like they were more this weirdly vivid nightmare that forgot to let him wake up so was stuck in a golden haze with no way out.

Glancing through the door he can just about make out Archie perched next to Nari on the armrest having grabbed the sofa for herself and looks to be marvelling at something on the TV making him smile softly. It’s likely one of the David Attenborough docs she seemed to have become quite taken with particularly in how the camera could ‘travel’ between all these places faster than even she could. Neither had the heart to say it was clever video editing, even the magical deserved a bit of sparkle in their lives. This’ll just be for him then and that’s fair enough.

Grabbing one of the two shoddy white plastic lawn chairs he’d picked up dirt cheap with the added bonus of easy cleaning he sits down and pulls his favourite guitar into his lap. Taking a deep breath to try and dislodge anything that might be rattling around his throat that shouldn’t be he begins to strum a few testing notes and making a few minor adjustments to get things about how they’re needed. There had been words banding through his head the past twenty minutes and if they weren’t going to let themselves be written down then going straight to testing will have to do he supposed. Using the staff was an option but… Maybe when he is more certain that he won’t be spit balling something terrible, on the fly usually fell one way and not always in the positive.

Grazing the strings once then a second time, the wizard begins to quietly sing not at all caring who might hear.

~*---*~

Within the earliest boughs of Spring

Everything felt fresh, new and wild

Full of possibilities it could bring

Was spared a sword and led away

Into the court of a King

Things were so innocent back then

-

Night became day and day into night

With chores as endless as my curiosity

Who could have imagined such a sight?

An orphan free to roam in a castle

Yet easily scared by a simple knight

I guess it was only a matter of when

-

As I grew older things started to change

You saw something coming, didn’t you?

I noticed, I did, even thought it strange

You grew quieter and the arguments worse

Everything I knew had started to rearrange

Spring was finally coming to an end

-

That Summer would burst into life

Blazing ready to reduce everything to ash

It sensed blood and carried a long knife

Poked and prodded them all just so

Then marvelled at the ensuring strife

With hindsight it was such an obvious trend

-

Within your fabled workshop

You would perfect the Amulet

After working for hours and hours nonstop

A weapon to save Camelot you said

But it was not humans it would adopt

To Trolls instead it would ascend

-

Killahead came ordering lines to be redrawn

I remember that Arthur was lost first

Wasn’t this supposed be a new dawn?

Yet I lost a sister, a Master, a home

And only more resentment did it spawn

There was only Archie now I could depend

-

Time started to become rather slippery

Though I did what you bade to the letter

Silently we became watchers of history

Dwelling in this brand new Autumn

I was spending it in as much happiness as misery

Some days it was much harder to pretend

-

During a trip to Babylon fought a specterghast

Helped move a strigoi on that was haunting folks

Honestly the adventures have been unsurpassed

The people, the food, all of the places

The future started to seem so much brighter than the past

Even met someone who’d one day be more than a friend

-

Learned far more than I dared dream

Visited places beyond imagination

Though couldn’t say much for my self esteem

All I wanted was to do right by you

I guess my life had a running theme

One that the passing years alone would never mend

-

Eventually the leaves began to fade

It must have started when I settled in Arcadia

Then upon a day when the world fell into shade

The first sign came in the form of an eclipse

To protect people I stood there unafraid

As the Winter began to descend

-

Seeing you again was like some form of rehash

Current or younger we argued just the same

Then suddenly my entire world was over in a flash

You even said you were proud of me

Before in my arms you turned to ash

And to another plane you would transcend

-

It would all came down to one last spell

I fought so hard for us all

But it was time for a final farewell

Everything moved too fast

No one was left to catch me when I fell

Only hearts to rend

-

Goodbye

It was so hard to say

This second chance, a retry

I love you both, I hope you know?

No matter what that was never a lie

Not being here though, it’s hard to comprehend

-

But I’m still here

The path ahead is clear

I refuse to simply disappear

No longer bowing to my own fear

Every word is spoken sincere

Because my time is now

-

This life is my own to walk

 ~*---*~

As the last few words leave his lips he is not ashamed to admit that tears had started falling probably about four verses back and are still coming so he tries to rub the evidence away on a sleeve. Unfortunately all it ends up doing is smearing salt into blue eyeshadow leaving him even more of a mess than he’d started plus an aching chest. It hurts so damn much but it is a good hurt, a reprieve.

“Some grand tribute, huh? Still can’t do much without it all setting me off again.” It is said half sighed while leaning back where he is barely able to make a single star out because of all the lights that blare well into the night unknowingly snatching away another source of comfort. But they’re still there he knows, watching as they have his entire life. Nothing is forever in the world of magic nor in life, not as long as somebody is still there to talk about it.

“Thank you for everything, Master.”

[404fmdminjung]

creative claims — weekend

summary: for @fmdjiah full composition / partial production. minjung’s friends with some bc A&R rep, and does a favor by sending in a few tracks made by her. warnings: none wc: 1059

don’t cross enemy boundaries, or that’s what the public wants you to think.

in hindsight, she’d raise the concession to that one. an exception when a phonecall with one of her friends, prop open in the middle of the night. “seo minjung~” the voice sing-songs against the quiet white noise of daybreak, and minjung can tell by the slur — her friend’s had one too many drinks.

“what are you calling me for? to be your dd?” minjung responds quietly.

“no~ i have a question… do you have any songs you want to throw my way?” 

“and give a song to bc? you forgot, i’m tied to gold star. sealed and kissed in a ribbon.”

“come on~ help a friend out.”

“get home safely, and take a certification shot. then, i’ll see what i can do.”

minjung hangs up the phone, settling aside in the nook beneath her desk. she goes back to the files stored on her harddrive, buried deep into the graveyard of songs once constructed never touched again. she takes a few listens, skims through the seconds of beats that leave her at a standstill — before she turns away to another file.

the first few rough beats, an attempt at city pop — she figures, it’s perfect for the weather. perfect for the year all year-round, any time of day.

(nobody tells you how to deal when your friend’s a bc a&r rep, and working on enemy lines).

-

the song starts itself when she drives through too many downhill rabbit holes of the internet. one youtube video to another, all following suit with the japanese city pop that drums through her speakers. it’s one of those heartwarming, feel-good genres — the kind that leaves you bumping on your toes, yanking the smile upwards on your face as you bop your head from one side to another.

and when inspiration strikes, she makes her own attempt at it.

she pulls the synth out, and figures — any type of music, it’s not made for her. it’s pure fun, just as music is supposed to be.

the first few notes of the electric guitar synth, play the base. a few chords in, drifting in an out in a continuous staccato — she marks that down, whatever lyrics used might be fun to ruffle with the tap tap tap of the staccatos here. because the basis of city pop, is the simpleness of complexities — the simple rhythm that follows a cohesiveness the full way through, mixed and funked by the synth and the over electro-sounds.

she tries to mimic it, but it doesn’t fit. instead, the pieces remain wayward and jagged, so by the time she draws a blank — she falls back into the percussion. the bass line comes as easy as palm slaps against the table, a steady metronome of a snare kick taking precedence as the bottom line of the song. now, the lines remain less jagged — somewhat obfuscated by the juxtaposition of electric lines and guitar. it lacks the softness, too much rigidity before she falls back to square one, palm in cheek staring at the busy screen.

it deals with the editing — or that’s what she thinks by the time her keyboard stows away, and she’s relieved those with the mouse clicks fishing from one filter to the next. the smoothness of city pop, and easy flow through of disco all crash down to the basics: one simple filter, overlaid by another until the emergence building up to what she perceives as the chorus.

so, by the time she hums along — incoherent words to no lyrics written, she goes with the hms and light fall of the verse into the chorus. the simple melody, carried from one to another — the guide vocals, void of any words. 

yet, there comes a standstill in the bleak wall after the first chorus. 

palms pressed to her face, it’s scrutinizing and imagining each piece not knowing the outcome of what the picture’s supposed to present. amorphous, the song becomes stagnated by the simple melody that graces through — until, she comes full-circle, decides a minuscule slice of a rap might hone in the missing edges.

no words written once more, she carries herself with the doo-dooo-doos of a rap, playing vocal metronome as her hands click away to remove the filter — leaving the raw electric guitar and the percussion at bay.

at this point, the song’s a half-mess. half-her own project coming to light. if given to gold star, she knows it’s a red flash of a no — impending. or maybe, it’s just the late night pessimism leaving the track on repeat as she closes her eyes and listens from start to finish. 

whatever it is, she realizes, it doesn’t hurt to add anymore. thinks, perhaps, creating a calamity of sounds, all brought together by the synths and the disco up-beat funk centralized in the song, wouldn’t hurt. but before her mind pieces it, her hands already move from the keyboard to the mouse. then back and vice versa — an ode to the retro oldies, there’s an addition of another layer added in the beginning. the sounds of an old-school cassette tape, cutting in then cutting out, the 32 bit filter, blurring out the hums of her voice to something scratchier.

it’s a resolution to bring her creation back to what it began as. an ode to the old city pop, added disco funk — something she colors pink.

the track has her on the edge of her seat, nodding her head to each beat of the percussion base and the overlay of the subtle backing vocals. the synth clocking right in the middle of the first verse, to the build up of the chorus. it’s ethereal, a dazed dream of cotton candy — lighting up her midnight blues with a grin across her face. 

yet, it’s not a song for her. just a prelude bite of her imagination, before she closes up her computer labeling the track “pink.” 

-

when she scans her files through songs, she goes one after another — flitting from one to the next. still, it’s the track titled “pink” that she turns back to. 

one drag of the file, and she sends it to her friend. one quick smirk before she types away “present. if this does well, you owe me.”

[linklethehistorian]

Randou and the Sins of Season 3's Fifteen Adaption (Interlude)

Episode  27 — The God of Fire: A Post-Section Addendum

Forgive me for backtracking for a brief moment, but in hindsight, there were two small things — particularly relating to the subsection of this section, which is titled “The Confrontation with Sheep at the Arcade” — that it seems I failed to properly address in my initial posts on this subject.

After realizing this mistake during the long struggle to get back on track with rolling out the rest of my article, it became apparent to me that I had three choices: I could go back and try to edit this information into the main article, hoping that it would fit well into what already existed without clashing with the carefully written transitions between sections, I could wait until the very end of my article and then make a post addressing the matter in hindsight, risking my audience becoming and remaining conflicted over certain bits of information until then, and being totally unaware of the one thing I accidentally skipped over, or I could simply make a separate addendum such as this to address it here and now, as soon as possible, and not have to worry about fitting it directly into the previous section for the time being — without having to give up either the chance to talk about it now or even to potentially go back at the end and try to fit it back into the main article at my leisure, as well.

Naturally, as I’m more than sure you can already see for yourself, given that you’re reading this, I decided to go with the last of these options, as I felt that this was the one that would offer the greatest amount of opportunities, with the least amount of potential problems that could come out of it. As for whether or not I will eventually, upon the completion of this very long analysis and review, attempt to backtrack and merge this added data into its rightful place in the main piece, that is something which I will have to decide when the time comes, even if I have a very optimistic outlook on this prospect right now, but in the meantime, I will just be sharing it with you here, and placing the link to this post somewhere in the Masterlist between the discussions on Episode 27 and Episode 28.

On one final note before we jump into this, if this post seems a bit sloppier than usual or just flows less smoothly than the rest of the article in any way, I truly apologize, but if that is indeed the case, it is likely due to the fact that I have had much less time to plan for my discussion of these things than I have had for everything else I’ve talked about up until this point. I promise that if in hindsight I should sense any need for it, I will attempt to re-write it in a better, more comprehensible format at a later date, but at the moment, I’m afraid that this is the absolute best that I can do if I am to get this information out in a timely manner.

Now, with that said, let’s go ahead and get into the actual things I’d like to talk about.

Dazai’s Previous Invitation to Join Sheep, and the Gang’s Initial Misunderstanding About His Affiliation

Okay, so this one is honestly a little embarrassing for me to admit to forgetting in hindsight, purely because of how often the subject is referenced in the novel despite being completely removed from the television series’ adaption, but in earnest, part of the reason I didn’t even think about it at the time was due to just how inconsequential this information was in the grand scheme of things; nevertheless, for those of you who truly want to know everything that was changed or omitted from Fifteen in the anime — or even just want to know more about the events and details of Dazai’s life — these facts probably still will be of some interest, so I will mention them anyway.

Contrary to how the show presents it, in the original version of the tale, Sheep actually do not immediately look upon Dazai as a threat when they first meet him in the arcade, nor does it even cross their minds that he might be a member of the Port Mafia; rather, their first thought upon seeing and conversing with him was simply that he had to be someone whom Chuuya had been looking to recruit into their own ranks.

Interestingly, it was also very briefly mentioned much earlier in the novel by Dazai himself — back during his and Chuuya’s initial meeting in Suribachi City — that the bandaged brunet actually was once handed a formal invitation by Sheep to join their organization but ultimately refused their offer, although this does not appear to be the reason why the gang now mistakes him as a potential new member of their group, given that, at the very least, the members there in the arcade seem not to recognize him whatsoever; in fact, they even question Chuuya’s behavior in seemingly having chosen to induct him without first receiving the council’s pre-approval — an accusation which Chuuya curiously, actively chooses not to correct, likely purely because he does not want to look like a traitor in their eyes, should they realize Dazai was actually with the Mafia. Indeed, it isn’t until Dazai purposefully outs himself as a mafioso in order to stop them from taking the redhead away with them that Sheep realizes the truth of things — at which point Dazai ends up having their captive members released in order to appease them, as we see in the anime, and things then go on to unfold as I have described previously in my article.

However, while of this might be very intriguing and, at the least, a bit insightful into how Dazai knows as much about the organization as he does, to be totally earnest about the matter, I must reiterate all the same that the removal of this information from the show was on the whole a very wise one that I can wholeheartedly support, for its existence truly doesn’t affect the overall storyline in any majorly impactful way, whatsoever — so much so that even I, a very dedicated Fifteen enthusiast, was able to easily forget about its existence during every one of the multiple times I wrote, read, and re-wrote the section dealing with the episode in which it mostly would have been present.

Looking back on it from that angle, I suppose, then, that my failure to bring it up prior to this probably did not change all that much, but still, in the interest of transparency and thoroughness, I wanted to make a small addendum post about it, anyway — and besides, there was already another matter regarding the arcade scene that I needed to speak on to begin with, so why pass up the opportunity to do this at the same time? There was genuinely no reason why I should have resisted.

Sheep Truly Being the First to Leave the Arcade in the Novel & DarkestJay8686’s English Translations

Now, in regards to that other matter I needed to address, for anyone who might have already read and/or started reading only DarkestJay8686′s English translation of the Fifteen light novel upon discovering my article, I am sure that there is probably a lot of confusion resulting from the conflict between my assurance that Sheep were the first to leave the Arcade before Dazai and Chuuya, and DarkestJay’s translation, which depicts the exact opposite of this, and for that I deeply apologize — not because I am wrong about it (as I am not), but rather, because I failed to discuss this apparent contradiction back when I first brought it up, even though, rightfully, I should have.

Be that as it may, I need you to understand that I did actually have a specific reason for why I had previously chosen refrain from talking about it, as although I did sincerely think about and even strongly consider adding mention of this whole ordeal to my disclaimers and notes at the beginning of this article back when I had first prepared to post it, in the end, I was simply too concerned that it would be considered somehow rude or unfair for me to do so.

My train of thought back then was — mistakenly — that to express anything other than complete praise and pure, unconditional endorsement of DarkestJay’s work would be to instantly and irrevocably make myself come off as a disrespectful, ungrateful monster who has no appreciation for the people who dedicate their free time to making these stories available to non-Japanese speaking members of the fandom, no matter how kindly I may have tried to word what I had to say. I was utterly terrified that, even if I spoke highly of the translation as a whole and encouraged people to read it, if I also had explicitly addressed the reason why I personally did not recommend using it as the sole source of knowledge of the book at the same time and mentioned any of the mistakes I found to be made within their interpretation of events, then I would be seen as criticizing the author for things that truthfully were likely to largely not be in any way their fault. Obviously, in hindsight, this line of thinking was not the best to listen to in light of the misunderstandings it could cause, and I realize that, but these were nevertheless my thought processes at the time; having had time to think deeper on the circumstances now, though, I of course have also come to the conclusion that none of these other concerns of mine need be had, so long as I try to approach the matter as delicately and respectfully as I can, however big these fears may have been at the time, and so, I intend to finally speak about it at long last.

Furthermore, while I in no way want to seem like an opportunistic profiting off of someone else’s misfortune — as I assure you that I, too, was quite saddened to hear of their struggles and wish it hadn’t happened — seeing as that their work was nonetheless sadly removed from WattPad, and they had to relocate to another platform where they wouldn’t have to fear censorship again, thus requiring me to have to provide y’all with a new link that actually works and leads you to where you need to go to read it, I think that is really the perfect time for me to preface my sharing of that new link with this little PSA of a sort.

So, if you’re keen on getting that new link I mentioned and want to learn about the reason why my information about Sheep’s departure from the arcade doesn’t line up with their translations, as well as why it’s inadvisable to use their otherwise mostly excellent translations as your sole source of info on Fifteen rather than reading it alongside the other trusted translation I have provided at the beginning of my article, feel free to hop on over to this post to find out.

[View the masterlist]

[goose-books]

(original image credit to @/theyshane on unsplash)

a month or so ago the wonderful and very sharp-fanged @yvesdot said i should make a post about the process of Working On A Podcast - what, exactly, does that entail? and so today i set down upon your table a long post about the process of this podcast, its unique struggles, and What Comes Next!

for those of you who are new here: a modern tragedy is my podcast-in-progress, a loose retelling of three of shakespeare’s plays (romeo&juliet, hamlet, and macbeth) set in a modern-day high school. or, alternatively, “so so much drama localized inside a few overlapping friend groups of gay* people”

post under the cut!

tag list (ask me to be added/removed): @piyawrites @harehearts @bisexualorlando @guulabjamuns

*well. gay people and indrajit “macbitch” chopra. never let it be said i don’t have cishet rep 😤

what i mean when i say “podcast”

sometimes when i say, “i’m writing a podcast,” people get the wrong idea - they think i’m going to sit down, maybe with some friends as guest stars, and talk into a microphone for an hour. what i really mean is that i’m writing a fiction podcast - something like an audio drama, if you will.

i’ve had this story concept for a long time (since i realized i was gay, actually. sometime around my coming out i was like “...sapphic romeo and juliet. oh i’m a genius”), but it never really worked as a novel. my inspiration for making it a podcast was the penumbra podcast! which i am not caught up on but which dragged me shirt-collar-first into the world of podcasts. [blowing a kiss to mars] for juno steel.

i will admit that i actually... haven’t listened to a ton of podcasts. mostly because my incredibly helpful attention-deficit brain said listening to things is impossible forever. but let me tell you that starting to write AMT in script format worked immediately. and in hindsight? it makes sense. i mean, i am retelling some of the most famous plays of all time... why not get a little theatrical with it?

the process so far

the podcast is drafted! all 16 episodes of it. all... 176k words of it... only took me a year and a half...

i have my main cast together! AMT has a lot of side characters, not all of whom are cast yet, but my main recurring squad is gathered and i love them all VERY dearly. (also, the population of people i know irl is 75% theater kid. so i think i will be able to figure out the side character thing.)

within the group of voice actors, i also have three assistant directors, a term i use loosely because mostly i just mean… those are my right hand men. the main folks i bounce ideas off of and the main folks i have helping me organize all of this. i’ve said multiple times that i’m just the keyboard monkey and would be hopelessly out of my depth without my beloved assdirectors. (shoutout to @asimpleram, the only one who uses tumblr, you are my best friend and i love you oh so much)

i also have two “bootydirectors” who gave themselves that name and that’s just the people who know the most about recording technology and acting. thanks kings

right now the scripts have been sent out to some sensitivity readers and i am currently editing! (both with regards to sensitivity reader feedback, and also just editing the plot and character arcs in general.) (if you want me to send you AMT and you’re willing to give me your thoughts i will straight-up send it to you honestly just know it’s LONG)

i actually did not consider that writing this might be uniquely hard before i started

fun max tip: if you look too far ahead down the road and realize the breadth of the project you’re taking on you’ll freak yourself out so just dive into things headfirst without checking both ways or considering your actions!!! [i am giving you a double thumbs up from behind my monitor]

i have never written anything like AMT before! it has been an experience! there have been some unique struggles!

working with other people is harder than i expected! which is not about my group, all of whom are lovely people. it is about me and my little OCD rat brain that hates letting go of control. even though... an inherent part of writing a script... is that at some point other people will be involved... wild, i know.

9 main characters! AMT has 9 main characters. this is somewhat excusable because the whole thing is episodic and more like a season of a tv show than a novel. but still. 9 main characters. why did i do that

i’ve never written episodically before, so i’ve had to figure out how to fit the plot into appropriately spaced intervals. there are three running plotlines (one for each play), and they’re all parallel and eventually convergent. so everything’s happening at once and it’s… hard to make episodes that aren’t just “max threw a bunch of scenes together because they were happening at the same time.” (i will admit i’ve defaulted to chronological order when spacing episodes, so the timeline doesn’t get confusing. but i hope each episode is cohesive on its own.)

balancing the tragedy and comedy in tragicomedy has been… interesting. i do to some degree feel like AMT’s gone darker than i initially imagined it; while it’s a high school retelling of these plays (and thus there’s no. there’s no murder. the only person who dies is isaac’s dad and that’s six years precanon), all three plays deal to differing degrees with suicide, among other things, and it felt… disingenuous not to write about that from a modern high schooler’s perspective.

i can guarantee a long-term happy ending for AMT! i cannot guarantee much about what’s in the middle. (there are sixteen episodes; one of my directors likened episode 7 to a five-act play’s third act, when things really start to… hit the fan. he’s right and i’m obsessed with thinking about it that way)

the massive amount of time i have been working on the thing: i started writing this podcast in january 2019. i finished writing it this past summer (2020). that’s two summers that have passed without my recording it (which is obviously easier to organize in the summer… or it was before covid but you get my point). this is… a little disheartening? i don’t know; oftentimes i underestimate how long writing projects will take me. what it comes down to is my urge to put out content vs. my urge to make it perfect…

…especially since i’m technically competing with one william f. shakespeare. (the f is for fucking.) i mean, dear old billy shakes DID write the plot out for me ahead of time, which i appreciate, but still…

AMT is absolutely consumable if you don’t know the first goddamn thing about shakespeare’s works. that said. i assume some of the people who will listen to it are shakespeare enthusiasts, casual or otherwise, and that’s a little terrifying! AMT is a shakespeare retelling, but i’ve made these characters very much my own, and i suppose i worry about how others will approach that, and whether they will disagree with my interpretations, or the way i’ve adapted the plots, and so on and so forth... i just have to live with this one, honestly. i think i could edit AMT for a thousand years and probably still find something to change about it, so i will simply have to get over myself.

that said, i don’t regret the amount of time i’ve spent on it! i think the time i’ve taken to draft and edit these episodes has been well worth the wait; i’m genuinely very happy with what i’ve created, and whether or not you agree with, say, my interpretation of a modern hamlet family dynamic, i hope it’ll still be enjoyable!

so what’s next?

as i said earlier, the scripts are currently in the hands of sensitivity readers, and i’m editing!

over the summer, the cast met on zoom frequently to read through and rehearse scenes. and i will not lie it was the most fucking fun i’ve had this entire wretched interminable year. i am constantly charmed and befuddled by the feeling of Listening To My Words Read Out Loud By A Human Voice and also i love my friends so very much

we have a tentative plan to gather the cast (socially distanced and responsibly, of course) over thanksgiving break to make some actual stabs at recording! i am too afraid to concretely promise AMT Episode 1: Fortune’s Fool by the end of 2020 but like… i’m not NOT promising it! send me your finest vibes. we’re close.