#how do you use this thing? i probably have outdated poses

[divadollcreations]

In Honor Of (Possible) Burglars In Sims 4, Meet Cassim, King of Thieves

And have some selfies with his son Aladdin by the pool because pose player is hard

[profectua]

》ＢＬＵＥ ＬＯＣＫ Ｈｅａｄｃａｎｏｎｓ

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ; ɴᴏɴᴇ! ᴘᴜʀᴇ ᴄʀᴀᴄᴋ ʟᴍᴀᴏ

ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀꜱ; ɪꜱᴀɢɪ, ʙᴀᴄʜɪʀᴀ, ᴄʜɪɢɪʀɪ, ᴋᴜɴɪɢᴀᴍɪ, ɴᴀɢɪ, ʀᴇᴏ, ʙᴀʀᴏᴜ, ʀɪɴ, ʜɪᴏʀɪ, ᴋᴀʀᴀꜱᴜ, ʏᴜᴋɪᴍɪʏᴀ, ᴏᴛᴏʏᴀ

Isagi: Back when he was younger, he had a phase where he would do the dab whenever he scored a goal. It could be completely outdated too and people would cringe at him LMAO. Might’ve also done fortnite dance (he doesn’t even play fortnite). His teammates try to go over and celebrate but he randomly breaks into the orange justice (he can’t even do it properly) so they end up just standing there like 🧍. Let him have his moment I guess???

Bachira: He was one of those kids that played with insects outside or something (speaking from experience) 😭. You’d catch him playing outside and there were 3 worms, each with different names. He probably gave them sad backstories too. The neighbors thought he was weird as hell. If someone pointed it out, he’d be like “Stop being rude to them! They’re my friends!” And he’d actually look pissed off, exactly like this emoji 😠. If he comes back to the same spot only to find that they aren’t there, he’ll come home crying 😭 🙏 Please help him.

Chigiri: He’s canonically a moody guy…I feel like he ‘decides’ his mood for the day ykyk 😭. If it’s a clear sky, sunny day, he’ll choose to be happy but if he wakes up and it’s raining, he decides that he’s gonna be angry. Always ends up breaking character though. If he's laughing and suddenly remembers that he's supposed to be angry, he’ll immediately put on a blank expression again like 😐 and the people around him think they did something wrong LMAOO. Like??? What happened bro???

Kunigami: His go-to pose for photos is the thumbs up or the peace sign and HE LOOKS SO STIFF. He’s just there like 🙂 ✌️. He looks so awkward pls 😭. His little sister is trying so hard not to laugh and he’s just like ???? What's so funny?? If he’s accidentally photo-bombing and realises too late, he’ll strike that EXACT POSE until someone tells him to move cus his brain couldn’t process it ITS SO SAD 😭

Nagi: Once, when he was younger, he tried doing one of those free robux application things where you play a bunch of games for robux and he thought it was legit because some youtuber did it. His parents were like “Seishiro what are you even doing” and he was like “I’m grinding robux mom, you wouldn’t understand” Like Nagi…don’t even get your hopes up 😬. Long story short, it didn’t work and he ended up with some virus on his ipad. He woke his parents up at 3am and was like “um…I think I got hacked ☹️” His parents WERE NOT pleased 😭

Reo: Had a little rebellious phase where he only used cringey Gen Z slang. In front of his parents too and they’d stare at him like 😨. “Zamn ngl this food is bussin’ fr goated no cap,” said young Reo, at a luxurious 5-star restaurant. His mom almost choked on her food. Probably got side-eyed by the waiter too. He didn’t even realise that it wasn’t cool until he found out that NOBODY actually says all that 😭.

Barou: When he’s eating other people's food or eating at a restaurant, he judges it like he’s Gordan Ramsey or something??? Imagine he’s at someone's house for dinner and then when they’re eating he has this whole routine. First he sniffs, feels the texture, then he examines with his eyes, and finally starts eating. You’ll tell if he likes it or not from his expressions 💀 He’ll start interrogating too LMAO. He’d be like “What kind of spice is this?” “How much salt did you add?” HE’S NOT PLAYING YALL.

Rin: Took elementary dodgeball SERIOUSLY. He’d yell at his teammates. Losing? Not on his watch. “WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?! IT’S DODGE BALL NOT GET HIT IN THE FACE BALL YOU LOSER!”. If he ever lost a game in PE, he’d start crying and throwing a fit, all while blaming his teammates. He would act like an angel if Sae was there though LMAO.

Hiori: He tries to re-enact cool moves from video games. Like if there's a character that has a cool playstyle he’ll literally hop out of his gaming chair just to swing a spatula around 😭. He got the sound effects goin on too, you can hear little pews and booms. Or if there’s a specific voice line from the final boss that he thinks sounds cool he’ll say it out loud (sometimes his parents hear and they think that he’s lost it not that they care though.)

Karasu: He had a huge chess.com phase, probably in middle school. But he was that one kid that goes ‘I wasn’t even trying tho lol’ when he lost (behind the screen he is SCREAMING in rage). ALSO He’s the type to be super expressive (kinda like Barou) 😭. You’ll know when he’s judging you cus’ his face will go 😬 😲 ☹️ 😧 🤔 in that order 💀. He could say something but his expressions reveal all there is.

Yukimiya: When he first got his glasses, he probably forgot them a lot LOL. Like he’d show up to football practice without them and one of his teammates would go “Yo where’s your glasses, Yukki?” and he’d be like…oh yeah. There was probably one point where he thought his eyesight was getting better. He woke up one morning and just decided that he suddenly felt like he had good vision again. It was all in his head 💀.

Otoya: He once tried hitting on a girl when her boyfriend WAS RIGHT THERE and he didn’t even notice. Let’s just say he ran for his life. His older sister has a video recording of it and uses it as blackmail. Worst of all he genuinely thought he could've ‘stolen’ her from him 😭 LIKE OTOYA NO. 😭

[dotmander]

How To Get Your Character Models Out Of A Game: Tips And Tricks For Bitches That Have Never Used Blender

(it's me, i'm bitches)

(also ignore how messy that lighting is it's 1am and i should have been asleep hours ago. he's there for proof of concept 💕)

a couple people (specifically @forsaken-constellation and @ratasum) asked for a tutorial on how to rip models out of the game. this is not that, but it is a compilation of resources i used to learn about ripping, blender, and 3d modeling in general. i desperately wanted a post like this to exist when i was trying to figure this out, so here we go! all the resources below are completely free, with the exception of a link to the patreon of the person that created ninjaripper.

disclaimers:

there are probably more efficient ways to do the things i am doing. i watched a tutorial to learn shortcuts and then skipped to character models. if you have tips to add, corrections to make, or other thoughts, please feel free to share! i'll link to your post here. ^^

i do not know if any of this will get your account banned. i've ripped several models, so i'm going to assume it's fine as long as you don't try to make money off of it. use your best judgment, be an adult, etc etc etc

last updated: june 30, 2024

PROGRAMS & WEBSITES

ninjaripper 1.7.1 - there's a newer version on the creator's patreon, presumably with support for newer versions of blender and fewer bugs, but i haven't tried that

blender 2.79 - the import addon that comes with ninjaripper 1.7.1 is outdated for the current version of blender (3.5 as of this post), so 2.79 is needed to combine the .RIP files into a .BLEND (blender) file

noesis - ninjaripper saves your textures as .DDS files, noesis lets you view them and export them as .PNGs

blender 3.5 (optional?) - i just like it better than 2.79. if you're completely new it might not matter to you. all of the tutorials linked later are for later versions, though.

mixamo (optional) - rigs your character for you and lets you put them in Situations (like my guy above.) there's a whole library of free animations and poses you can try!

TUTORIALS

how to use ninjaripper - most of what you need to know about actually ripping the files and using ninjaripper is covered here. do not skip this one.

how to use blender 3.5 - full disclosure i haven't finished this series because it's uhhhh many hours long. but if you are a complete newbie to blender, i do recommend at least the first few videos; you'll learn about shortcuts that will make your life easier, how to unfuck your model when it fucks itself for no reason, and different terms that will help you google things you don't know later on. possibly he even covers some of the things i'm about to link! anyway.

what's a uv map?

how to apply textures

how to apply bump maps (note: for our purposes, you wouldn't add a color ramp node, you would add an image node with your bump map, and attach it to the bump node as the person does in the video)

there should be stuff here about weight painting, cloth physics, emission maps (makes your sylvari glow), and other stuff, but um. i haven't figured those out <3  

TIPS

TURN UP YOUR GRAPHICS BEFORE YOU RIP - if you don't, you might end up missing certain textures/glows/etc. HOWEVER, you should turn animations down, because apparently high animation can make your meshes misplace themselves

rip from the character select screen, rather than an instance, because you will have 100 meshes to sort through instead of 1400. i am not exaggerating either of those numbers. if you are new to blender, please love yourself and start with character select.

your textures will be fucked up the first time you try to apply them. this is because the UV maps (the things that tell your textures where to go) of your models are flipped upside down in relation to the texture image. you can flip them back over manually, ooooor you can just flip the entire texture file in something like CSP or photoshop.

for some reason all eyes are red in the texture files. i have not figured out why. i recommend editing the .PNG to have the correct eye color before applying the texture.

that's all i can think of for now - if you have other questions, feel free to shoot them my way, although i can't promise i'll have a straight answer ^^;;

mixamo only works for humanoid characters with tight clothing (or without clothing at all). if you try to use it to rig a charr or asura, or someone with a skirt or big sleeves, you will most likely be disappointed.

2024 edit: sometimes parts of hair meshes just...disappear. i have no idea why. if you can figure it out please let me know LMAO

information from bookahlogy about character proportions, fixing normals, and other fun tips

[gatheredfates]

Happy weekend, all! 🦇 I'll probably do one more spooky update next week to round it out and then we'll be back to normal Compendium updates! I miss the spooky season already. 🎃

This is also a final plug for SEAFLOOR Saints Wake Gpose Challenge for anyone who might be interested! All works are reblogged to SEAFLOOR as well as queued on my blog. 🍬

If you know of anything I have missed, please reach out to me via my Discord or the Google Form.

Without further adeb, the following communities have been added to Sea's Community Compendium for XIV Creatives. 👻

COMMUNITY FOCUSED / EVENT SPACES

The Kwehnnedy Center—The Kwehnnedy Center for the Performing Arts gives performers a venue to showcase themselves and audiences access to some of the finest shows Eorzea has to offer.

MISC

Beginner's Guide to Gposing with Anamnesis/Ktisis—An entry-level walkthrough of how to download posing programs, load actors, edit character appearances, and manipulate poses in gpose. Written by @lilbittymonster.

CHANGELOG

Etheirys has been removed from the Large Scale Communities at the request of its owner due to imminent shutdown.

FFXIV Roleplay (Tumblr) has been removed at the request of its owner due to imminent shutdown.

If you'd like a FFXIV-based forum/communityto join, I would suggest Final Fantasy XIV Roleplay at this time!

The Google Form contained the outdated categories for Compendium sorting. This has been updated.

Have you thought about joining our Tumblr Community? You can find it here!

Want to submit? You can either fill out the google form here or send me an ask with the relevant information!

Is my space suitable for the Compendium? Most of the time, yes! Below the read more is some more information/stipulations. This is all publicly available on the document. 🐈‍⬛

Below are the following things I do not accept on the Compendium:

Personal/Single-Character LFC ads. (Though these get posted to the SEAFLOOR Tumblr Community when I find them!)

Content intended for or can be used for bullying, harassment and OOC gossip. E.g. ‘Secrets’ blogs, receipts, callout posts, etc. This does not include IC tabloid blogs or other ventures used to generate roleplay.

Communities that do not have an RP/writing element (large-scale exempt).

Anything I find personally distasteful or goes against the spirit of this project.

Common-sense rule applies.

I want to put my community on the Compendium but we have an application process. Is this okay?

Yes! Just note somewhere in your application that's a requirement. The only thing that is mandatory for the Compendium is that you must be open to new members or have a public-facing/accessible facet. There's no point advertising a community if no one can join it in some way!

I want to put my Community on the compendium but I only have x number of members —

Also totally okay! People don't start with large communities. Activity is a must but, whether your server has two or two thousand members, if you're looking for new people to join, I'd love to help you find people.

I want to put my community/resource on the Compendium but I worry its too niche?

Okay, and? If your Eorzean Fishing Alliance has four members but you roleplay every second weekend, I still want to know about it. The same goes for resources; if it's relevant to the game, it'll be useful to someone.

How active does a community need to be?

If you find a community has not been active in about two/three months, send me a message and I'll take a look at it. Communities have ebbs and flows, especially event spaces that may take hiatuses depending on member interest/life events. I'm not strict in my implementation provided a space isn't dead. If a link or anything is broken, contact me asap!

I have [insert a question not stated here]?

No drama! Send me an ask or use the #Compendium channel in my Discord!

[kurov1864]

Milgram idol au (pt.6)

005 Shidou:

Omg it's Shidou!! Didn't know people actually debuted when they were close to 30 but then again Milgram hired a fcking 12 year old so who am I to judge

Has that Korean ML type of styling. Like long overcoats, lots of neutral and darker colors + white, and whatever those actors like to wear while they're sipping coffee looking all hot and shit. Surprisingly marketed as a dad figure more than Kazui… not sure why either.

I saw somebody on Tumblr say this before and I could not agree more that he seems to be the type that has the dry skin + oily hair combo. Like predebut this man was spending 30 hours in the hospital everyday, his ass would not have time to shower or moisturize. Because of this his makeup team always have to leave him with very specific instructions on how to handle his skincare routine + products. I am entirely convinced that he would accidentally leave his serums and creams in the sun.

His fanbase has daddy issues man. Like they flock to him so they can have at least some form of fatherly affection (looks at Shidou fans)

Uses emojis on social media unironically.

I feel like with his fans he'll either care too much or too little about them. Either he gets super attached to them and tries to cheer them up the best he can, or just sees them as like a transactional relationship. Like yeah, he cares about them only because they're his fans. He doesn't really care for them as actual people.

Probably does those "doctor reacts" TikToks. He's usually a pretty calm and level-headed guy, but gods you should see the way this man absolutely rips those creators to shred. He has no tolerance or patience for those that spread medical rumours.

I forgot to mention this before but yeah he's the group leader of the entire wave. I'm not familiar with Kpop in general so forgive me if the leader is supposed to be like the most popular person or whatever, but he's a really responsible person who would actually fulfil their role no matter what they think of other people. Also pacifist so :D

Is his sense of humor outdated to the point where he can't understand his group member's jokes and just has to sit there with a smile on their face looking confused? Yes. But it's endearing.

Speaking of endearing I think many fans would like the way he's so serious while doing an unintentionally OOC thing. I don't think he lacks general logic in any way, it's just he's not familiar with the memes and trends today so sometimes he unintentionally does it TvT

Also has this air of quiet resignation whenever play fights break out within the group. Like they'll be shooting insult after insult on TV and he'll just sit next to them smiling in the overworked tired dad kinda way.

I could not for the life of me come up with a signature pose. I apologize.

Actually tbh he fits being an influencer more?? Should I just switch it to famous people,,, oh well too late to switch it now we're going full idol

[laithraihan]

Hey I really love your art - I wanted to ask if you use references from anywhere specific.

Also, have you considered the idea of Reigan becoming Minori's Guardian Ad Litem? I agree that Reigans not exactly the kind of person to make the most responsible father (at least where we leave him in the show) but I could totally imagine him becoming her guardian for some legal reason.

He's really the only adult she'd know to trust outside her father.

I can imagine they're put a whole court case together with Reigan as her guardian just for legal reasons and they win, and then Minori's like. "Oh shit where do I go? Guess your my guardian for real now." And Reigan is like.

What?

Thank you 🫶💜 hmm well for pose references including clothing etc I just get them from google stock images, I generally try to avoid making the pose too similar to the images I see so I sometimes draw in different angles (honestly most of the time I struggle looking up references because I cant find a picture in a specific angle I want, so I go with my intuition even if it's wrong), honestly google is probably the place I rely on the most for this. Like if I forget what a shoe looks like then I'll just google it.

If you're talking about where I got inspiration for my art style (or what I look to get ideas for my art etc) I'd say the major ones for me are ONE's sketches on twitter (especially his shaky lineart and how he draws eyes), early episodes of Detective Conan (clothing folds, color choices sometimes, body proportions like the chest being pointed etc), Revolutionary Girl Utena (also clothing and body proportions), FLCL (I have no idea what parts of it influenced my art but I feel like it's an obligation to list it here)

Uhh for the fun drawings that require more effort I'd say music is inevitably the most important part of it. 99% of the time my drawings that arent plain sketches are modeled after a specific song I listen to (primarily from ZARD but other artists too although not as often) even then I think my sketches are still influenced by ZARD somehow. Wait I completely forgot to mention I also look up images of ZARD on Pinterest for poses or just... to draw anything honestly. Theres a good number of pictures of her in various angles (I remember one of her photographers said she was very photogenic so most of her pictures are very casual as if a camera wasn't present) I think it's good to look at them if you are looking for something natural. Just looking up "Izumi Sakai" there will give you results.

For text placement/colors/vibe/whatever I like to look at old media I grew up with like MADs, shitty websites made in the 90s/2000s, old anime subtitled in Arabic (I have plenty of DVDs with anime dubbed/subbed in Arabic that I have no idea where we got them from, I assume it's all pirated. Anime openings/endings in Arabic also have very poor aesthetics when it comes to logo placement/text color/text animation/etc but that's exactly why I like them) I also have a Pinterest board with outdated ZARD edits that I look at often while drawing. For image textures or backgrounds I use this website. If I struggle with art block or don't know how to draw a specific thing I also look at everything I previously listed and reference from there. Anyways I talked a Lot but hopefully I could help with that.

As for Reigen being a guardian .... I never considered it seriously but I think he could pull it off. He'll definitely make mistakes but he could succeed if he had a daughter. I just have to kill off Minori's real dad or something and it'll work. The only problem would be that Minori has to live with the fact that her new father is broke and unable to spend thousands of dollars for her every week.

[12am-motivation]

Aight, so basically... Welcome to the actual Main Story: Hard Mode, ft. unhinged post-war demon brothers and a higher risk of getting harmed 👍

So based on my understanding we, the same MC from the original game, somehow travel back in time to the old Devildom right after the Great Celestial War and we have to reforge our pacts with the brothers in the timeline we got transported into for us to return to the future.

I get that the time travelling part is a way for us to insert ourselves in the timeline we weren't born into but this plot poses some more questions (aside from things like what Beel's secret from Belphie could be):

How do we get transported to the past, especially during the time of the old Devildom? Will this have something to do with Barbatos? (That last part in the OMNB! teaser maybe...)

Is this by accident or on purpose?

Considering that we've been warned before not to interfere with these timelines, why would we have to play therapist again just to get back to the future if they'll eventually have it all sorted out without our help?

What of our role as Lilith's descendant? And what would happen if their post-war selves were to find out?

(And some more probably outdated speculations from a previous post)

Iirc, the brothers have occasionally mentioned how they wished for us to have been present in their past, and now we get to experience that alongside them firsthand.

Could this be some trial on how much we're willing to go through in deepening our bonds with the brothers not just by knowing their past, but by getting to experience it?

Imagine if this were some hardcore Devildom History lesson all along

We still have yet to know the actual involvement of the other side characters in this plot aside from their reactions to the Fall (particularly for the angels), especially Solomon and his relation to the attic.

For Diavolo and Barbatos, we're most likely going to see how the brothers came to be the renowned Avatars of Sin we know them by today. Thirteen and Mephisto seem to have more minor roles, but they're still there.

But Solomon... What else is there to him and how will he take the spotlight this time?

Anyways, I'm excited about this game and I'm hoping that we will be getting news about the game mechanics soon! If OMNB! were really the final product from Ruri Tunes with the character song remixes, *cracks knuckles* I'm more than ready.

[toges-cough-syrup]

jjk characters as things my friends (and i) have said

lessgo (ignore the fact that toge cant really talk—)

—

gojo: im mommy today.

—

toge: a is for asshole. b is for bitch. c is for cunT and e is for EEEEEEEE

panda: and o is for octopussy—

—

yuuji: i love ikea. and i love meatballs….balls.

—

geto: you want kfc?

—

nobara: *sends a photo* ignore how bad my nails look.

—

maki: im confusing myself. identity is stupid.

iden titty. titty. tits. boobies…k bye.

—

nobara: i just saw a mouse run across my kitchen floor and hide. kill me. now. do it.

yuuji: OH NO OH FUCK BURN THE WHOLE HOUSE.

—

toge: my kimchi will be done fermenting before i can eat it. its a sad life.

—

yuuji (ab sukuna): why’s his finger so crooked. his dick probably crooked too.

—

gojo, geto, shoko, yuuji, megumi, and nobara: *having hour(s) long conversations about red white and royal blue*

—

megumi: i hate.

—

gojo and geto: yelling at the other for not taking care of their (digital) children (on widgetable)

—

todo: dude i had the weirdest dream. the instagram pfps on my discover page were squares. we were taking a group photo and—this is gonna sound weird but they put us in clear boxes so we pose right. and i met Tall Idol Takada Chan and i hugged her while crying it was beautiful

(side note: my friend irl said jimin)

yuuji: sounds great.

—

gojo: yk that song that goes “i wanna ride”? its so real. i felt that in my soul. (talking to shoko about geto)

—

yuuji: personally the phrase “shits and giggles” is outdated. use “shiggles” instead

—

k imma end it here <3

[infin-8-morphosis]

So hmmm, 3 weeks of relative freedom and lets see, what did I do with it.

Probably most importantly I now have a standing desk (It's great. Now I can walk away every 5 minutes and not have to sit back down n remember what I was doing before I get distracted again) and most most importantly I have a functioning tablet that does not make my eyes bleed and brain cry from the colour inaccuracy. I hadn't seen purple in so long. You have no idea how much this speeds things up. In theory.. I'm still slow. It's just how I function, and that's okay.

Well I'm redoing the map again, to no-ones surprise.

Decided on it being a tidally-locked moon, with pretty extreme temperatures either side but a moderate middle. Its orbit is skewed so the moon has earth-like seasons, but less extreme. It has a lot of land, and 2 separated oceans, plus lots of craters, the ecological impacts (pun unintended but appreciated) of so many massive collisions it looks cool okay.

For reference the edges of the map, and the centre line horizontally, are the equator...s. If you cut it in half along the central horizontal line, the centres of the resulting squares would be the poles.

Bit outdated but, like this. That lower right corner is actually like 50% of the globe, probably too big but... it's okay, it's mostly frozen wasteland on account of being near perpetually dark.

Only the top of the main continent is done but I'm feeling good about it. Also bought a plugin to make it interactible so eventually it'll have many layers including the heights, climate, biomes, political stuff, roads, towns, etc. Don't you miss when old web games had interactible maps. Like Neopets. I am now living beyond my wildest dreams making them. Awesome.

Perhaps the biggest thing is this. Sort of... I decided to make a big worldbuilding decision, one I really have wanted to make for a long time but never knew how to go about it in a way that was better than just 'theyre aliens but happen to look like humans' (booo)

so the Valkyries are now 100% home-grown aliens, or I guess more accurately natives, since they used to be aliens to this planet.

This has some fun opportunities to explore non-magical possibly also sapient offshoots and relatives, better flow to the biology aspect now they don't feel so separate to the rest of the world.

Importantly they maintain a pleasantly human-like look and I guess function, while being visually and functionally different. They breathe through their necks (Realising Avatar already did this but they didnt give their humanoid the cool necks so boohoo i beat you to it. Also I forgot about the neck thing in that so I guess we're both cool. Theyre derived gills.) Also their neck is. on the back of their head. Its really cool. Their eyes are really that huge, but are oval shaped and dont actually rotate... only the layer of skin over it does, which contracts to from a pupil of differing sizes. So they have 3 eyelids, 1 skin, 1 membrane, 1 sphincter thing. Lovely.

You've maybe guessed already (Well probably not I hardly post them) But uhhh. This has a lot of implications for my characters, and more direly the uhhhh. giant comic I'm halfway through making.

Honestly I've kind of given up on 'finishing' it. I dunno, I feel content to move on with the story and just work on it whenever I want to do a bit more with it. It was always intended to be my 'practice' for the 'real' comic, which I feel fully capable of. Doesn't mean I'll do it tho.

And you can maybe also guess why I'm modelling them therefore. Uhhhh.... 3d comic anyone? maybe? probably not but ooooh. the ease of doing complicated poses, you have any idea how much of a wall a wierd pose is. using the 3d model as the background. I dunno, I've never seen it done before, I'd like to be the first at something, even if it doesn't work. I feel a lot more secure in my work than I used to be., to be free to fail.

If I can get the model to be as expressive as my 2d art (Which. Wuargh. Hard task.) and set it up so I don't need to unsymmetrise it (daunting but doable I hope with a few tricks) then there's nothing to stop me. Oh also clothes I guess and people touching and What To Do with Water and How To Rig Hair but like. I love 3d. And it'd be so much less destructive than 2d. I redo so many panels over and over from scratch because the pain of adjusting dozens of layers is greater than just redrawing. Imagine destroying that problem by being able to redo whatever I like and rerender it. Honestly the comfort something is changeable would maybe stop me from endlessly changing things.

So this model is ideally going to be a template for me to model my characters. I'm unsure if I'll be able to make them share a rig to the point that poses and such will be reusable... but I'll try. I think as long as the bones have the same names it'll work.

Here's an example of a redesign. Also little teen teri... cursed and skinny... Still a mild victim of funky tablet colours so if it's wierd, yeah.

(It's hilarious putting her proportions into 3d. She is so dense. She is easily 4x the body mass of the template, its ridiculous. And that was only the muscles, I didnt even add the fat yet. I probably won't model everyones skeleton and muscles but she needs it okay)

3d is really just, the closest you can get to those flash dressup games, you know the ones, but with complete creative freedom. And cloth physics.

[keefwho]

June 05 - 2023 Monday

9:22 AM

I feel so out of touch with everything I’ve done and everything that I am. With friends over time I start to live up to what I think our relationship is/should be instead of what it actually is. I slowly forget everything we’ve done to get to this point, but I do this with everything. I have a nasty habit of forming conclusions and then forgetting about the relevant information, all in an effort to make things simpler or easy to understand. The problem comes when these conclusions turn out wrong or become outdated. It just feels so hard to always keep so much data in mind at all times. I must be doing something wrong. I wish so deeply that I could figure out how to get better. I want some clear actions I can take. 

7:30 PM

I’ve felt so empty. I fear if I cannot figure myself out soon then I’ll be lost for good. That’s probably not the case but it sure feels like it. 

I’m so afraid of becoming someone that pushes away his friends and can’t pursue anything that makes him happy. I desire human connection but I either have to learn to accept myself first or develop the trust that allows me to believe other people want me. I know I’m afraid of growing anything because of the ability to fall. If you don’t build up then you can’t plummet, that’s unintentionally been the way I look at things. I want to be brave and build strong bonds. I want to grow my business, and my skills. I want to raise myself up without being afraid of falling. For me that takes a lot of bravery and the mindfulness to catch when I’m sabotaging myself. 

10:50 PM

This morning I made eggs and cup noodle stir fry with onions and a sausage link. I think this contributed to tummy problems tonight because that nor lunch had much fiber. This morning’s stream went well and is the last morning stream Daisy will attend for awhile which makes me sad. I sketched some otters and started my buddy Goodtimes’ commission which went well. After stream I successfully did my workout and I feel good about that. In order for it not to be a problem later, I took care of myself in the shower. I simply don’t want to put up with sexual urges lately, they’ve been stressing me out more than anything. Largely because I feel that they are unwelcome, but thats a result of my plummeting self confidence. Lunch was a pack of ramen and some fish sticks in an effort to eat things from my freezer first and my workout left me with a craving for calories that ramen always fulfills. During my afternoon work I hung out with David again. He apologized for being busy lately because he wants to deepen our newly found friendship which I thought was nice. I liked how straightforward he was, I can tell he has good communication skills. My problem today was forcing myself to hang out and chat didn’t really help how I felt. It was very hard to take true interest in the conversation or feel like I was actually welcome in the VC. Again, all my fault right now. I did all my work and left the call so I could do yoga in VRchat. The channel I watch, YogawithAdriene, finally released a new video. Conveniently it was for days where you feel down and need to remind yourself that you are cherished and loved. It didn’t really have that effect on me though. I mostly used the semi-alone time to sulk as I pushed through the different poses, as hard as I was trying to lighten up. Afterwards I layed in VR for a little bit and watched the clouds. After that I got off to play some Zelda and watch Twitch until Daisy messaged and we played together. We just pulled the Master Sword out of Zelda’s brain and started the next quest to look for the lost sage. Now she is asleep and I am going to bed an hour early because of a new schedule change so I can wake up earlier like I’ve always wanted to.

[nomlangaclarke]

What Sort of Relationship are you Looking for

TBH, dating apps aren't my vibe. The design of dating apps may also create frustrations for burnt-out users. While which may pose some sure amount of nuisance, it implies that the audience on the website goes via a test, so that other users wont experience undesirable conditions. Then, if you're lucky, you may just develop previous collectively. I might but it is dangerous! There'll usually be pointers as to what types of picture you can put up, and there may be an approval process before it truly will get posted. נערות ליווי בראשון לציון Do you settle for what you had is no longer there? Would you like to search out out what sort of dater you might be, if you do not already know? A stroll in the park sounds type of good. In response to our data, Wot Dennis is presently single. In line with our data, Romeo Santos is at present single. Currently, it seems that Patrick is single. A few dozen in common use. Ross, a 24-12 months-outdated at the moment residing in California (who requested that I take advantage of only his first identify as a result of he didn’t want to debate his dating life publicly), used Facebook Dating whereas he was in the Philippines over the summer and immediately discovered the logical end level of the benefits of an algorithm that matches individuals based mostly on shared interests and connections: As quickly as he logged on, he matched with an ex-girlfriend he’d previously unfriended.

In addition to the flexibility to contact people by means of their profile, a paid membership often grants entry to more advanced features of the location, equivalent to higher profile searches or a better ranking on your profile when it comes up in different users’ search outcomes. Historian Dr Janina Ramirez tells the unimaginable story of 'Aud the Deepminded' - one in every of the primary people to settle in Iceland within the 9th Century. I invite them to a social gathering one in every of my mates is hosting. I'd probably chuckle about it with my associates. Despite Cyrus the Great’s world renown as a sensible, just and compassionate leader, one can’t help but wonder what the empire he based - the idea of trendy-day Iran, barring politics - would have been with out the aid of the qanat. Lori, Karen, and Lisa all work together to assist their shoppers succeed. Yes, watch me work. Yes, they adore me - they said so! Yes, very, but I do not go on about it. Yes, they're a mandatory evil. Yes, but we're too busy to present it.

Yes, now we have our personal lives as well as one another. Of course, at every stage, it's fairly clear to any relationship knowledgeable around you the place you might be, if they have just a couple of minutes of your time and the chance to throw just a few questions your method. As one of the OG dating companies (it’s moved from web site-solely to a web site and app), Match is one in all the preferred on-line dating apps of all time. After some time has passed, come again with a brand new type and confident attitude. You may have come to a safe space, brah. We used to have more, however we have whittled them down now to a couple. Let us know just a little about the best way you two discuss, the way you make decisions, what you find out about one another, and what your plans are, and we'll figure out simply how far down the connection road you might be.

No plans? Yeah proper! No, only small issues. While they could also be efficient otherwise, when it comes to herpes dating Sites, things are likely to get somewhat complex. Telling someone you meet that you've got herpes could be tough at first but it surely does get simpler. It’s a lot easier for the president to brush apart or ignore questions he doesn’t like when he’s strolling alongside the White House grounds. We talk about how a lot we love one another. We mostly discuss logistics. I do not know, my boo is the only individual whose calls I take. I know that I do know, as a result of I simply make it daily, however I couldn't tell you - it's sheer muscle memory. I do not know if I am officially with them yet. I don't even know the place they live. I'm the same but they bought even more lovely! We're like barely frayed versions of the same factor. They worth them the same as I do. Only the youngsters, but we keep which means to go out. That's a passport to the opportunity of the really huge milestones: marriage, youngsters, shopping for a house, mingling your funds, and more. There's a snug interval of dating and becoming ever extra entwined as you meet the mother and father, exchange keys, and say the three little words that make it all official.

[thesensemedieval]

[OUTDATED] TheSenseMedieval - 400 Followers Gift | The Witcher 3 Bath tub & hot tub [Both functional]

Find the updated version HERE

Before doing anything, I remind you the conditions to use my cc : termsofuse

EN

THIS IS 4K TEXTURE

It means the quality is extremely good looking and detailed. If it is not the case in your game, feel free to ask me for help, I’ll see what I can do for you.

I'm really proud for I wanted functional medieval bathtubs for a while ! I struggled a lot at the beginning to understand how to make it functional (I mean, properly) but finally found it out !

I know about another bath tub from the witcher 3 and would have wanted to convert it too and make it functional, problem is I never found the original model, so it won't be part of the 400 followers gift unfortunately...

Also, I think about those who take screenshots or make vids that need to play poses or animations. I know you cannot have the water from the bath animation at the same time your sim is posing/playing an animation, so I'm working to make a object water (separated from the bath) you can place in the tub with several swatches. The reason I didn't put it in this pack is that for know I'm only failing on making it work properly :')

Last thing, I could'nt take the glowy luminosity away from the hottub, I don't know how to remove this vfx so the hottub doesn't look that bright, I would love to see it with its normal color (way darker than in the screenshots). Hope It won't bother that much...

Nevertheless, stay tunned, because when I'll succeed doing the object water, and maybe remove the shine of the hottub, I'l post an update of this post (I'll probably reblog it once I've added these features) and same if I find the second bath tub from TW3.

It's a lot of speaking, sorry for that haha

Functional Medieval Wooden Bath Tub

(Screens 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8)

Features :

Originally there are the 3 benches for the bath tub but I removed them because it was not so natural to have them while the sim is not sat. However, I kept them for the hot tub.

The water,bloody water and the mud are not textures from the game, I replaced them, they're not par of the original mesh I converted, this is a bonus I added for it to look more realistic.

Functional

2 swatches :

Normal water (Photos 2-3-4-5-6)

Bloody water (Photo 7)

The third is not a swatch, it's when your sim takes a mud bath (Photo 8)

Base game Find it in the bath tubs or search “thesense4” / “tw3” or “bath” to find it as well !

DOWNLOAD

(Mediafire)

Functional Medieval Wooden Hot Tub

(Photos 9-10)

Features :

The Hottub is a bit bigger than the bathtub. I kept the benches as the sims are sat.

Functional

Single swatch

Base game Find it in the bath tubs or search “thesense4” / “tw3” or “hottub” to find it as well !

DOWNLOAD

(Mediafire)

Don’t forget to tag me if you use my cc on your tumblr! :) Converted from the Witcher 3, all credits to CD Projeckt Red.

FR

CE SONT DES TEXTURES 4K !

Cela signifie que la qualité est extrêmement bonne et détaillée. Si ce n’est pas le cas dans votre jeu n’hésitez pas à me contacter pour de l’aide, je verrai ce que je peux faire pour vous.

Je suis vraiment fière car je voulais des baignoires médiévales fonctionnelles depuis un moment ! J'ai eu beaucoup de mal au début à comprendre comment la rendre fonctionnelle (je veux dire, correctement) mais finalement j'a trouvé comment faire !

Je sais qu'il y a une autre baignoire baignoire de the witcher 3 et j'aurais voulu la convertir aussi et la rendre fonctionnelle, le problème c'est que je n'ai jamais trouvé le modèle d'origine, donc elle ne fera pas partie du cadeau des 400 abonnés malheureusement...

Aussi, je pense à ceux qui prennent des captures d'écran ou font des vidéos qui ont besoin de jouer des poses ou des animations. Je sais que vous ne pouvez pas avoir l'eau de l'animation du bain en même temps que votre sim pose / joue une animation, donc je travaille pour faire un objet eau (séparé de la baignoire) que vous pourrez placer dans la baignoire avec plusieurs couleurs. La raison pour laquelle je ne l'ai pas mis dans ce pack c'est que je ne parviens pas à le faire fonctionner correctement pour le moment : ')

Dernière chose, je ne pouvais pas enlever la brillance du jacuzzi, je ne sais pas comment supprimer ce vfx pour que le jacuzzi ne soit pas aussi étincelant, j'aimerais le voir avec sa couleur normale (bien plus sombre que dans les captures d'écran). J'espère que ça ne dérangera pas tant que ça...

Néanmoins, restez à l'affut, car quand je réussirai à faire l'eau en objet, et peut-être supprimer l'éclat du jacuzzi, je posterai une mise à jour de ce post (je vais probablement le rebloguer une fois que j'aurai ajouté ces fonctionnalités) pareil si je trouve la deuxième baignoire de TW3.

C'est beaucoup de paroles, désolé pour ça haha

Functional Medieval Bath Tub

(Screens 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8)

A l'origine il y a les 3 bancs pour la baignoire mais je les ai enlevés car ce n'était pas très naturel de les avoir alors que la sim n'est pas assise. Cependant, je les ai gardés pour le bain à remous.

L'eau, l'eau sanglante et la boue ne sont pas des textures du jeu, je les ai remplacées, elles ne provienne pas non plus du model originel que j'ai converti, c'est un bonus que j'ai ajouté pour que cela paraisse plus réaliste.

Caractérisriques :

Fonctionnel

2 couleurs disponibles :

Eau normale (photos 2-3-4-5-6)

Eau sanglante (photo 7)

La troisième n'est pas une couleur c'est quand votre sim prend un bain de boue (photo 8)

Jeu de base

Vous pouvez la trouver dans la  section “baignoires” ou alors chercher “thesense4” / “tw3” ou encore “bath”

TELECHARGER

(Mediafire)

Functional Medieval Hot Tub

(Photos 9-10)

Le bain à remous est un peu plus grand que la baignoire. J'ai gardé les bancs car les sims sont assis pendant les bain de jacuzzi.

Caractérisriques :

Fonctionnel

1 couleur unique

Jeu de base

Vous pouvez la trouver dans la  section “baignoires” ou alors chercher “thesense4” / “tw3” ou encore “hottub”

TELECHARGER

(Mediafire)

N'oubliez pas de me taguer ou/mentionner si vous utilisez mes cc sur votre tumblr ! :)

@deana4sims

[astaroth1357]

Ok but like, what if MC's fandom starts to make ships with MC and the guys. Just think about the ship wars, the fancams, the fanarts, the absolute CHAOS when the brothers find out. It would be even worse if they start shipping MC with the undatables, one day everything is normal and the next day there are ship wars fighting over MC x Barbatos vs MC x Solomon (who are both very smug about it)

The MC's Fanclub are… Shippers?!

Perhaps… The italics blurb has been fulfilling its greater purpose all along…? Perhaps in its state of existential angst, it has in fact developed a plot of its own… An arc of introspection and self-discovery in which its own longing for purpose has forged a meaningful identity… It now has… a story…

Lucifer

As if they couldn't get any MORE frustrating…

He's not an otaku. He's not a part of ship culture. He's not even sure why anyone would care about who dates who around this school, but apparently it's a big deal to some people...

He only became aware of their interest in him and the MC's relationship through some very… subtle clues…

Like the groups that would follow them around in the hallways with their phones out.

Or the multitude of fan rumors about their relationship that Satan spams him with from time to time just to irritate him.

"MC refused hug from Luci in halls today!! Are they bout breakup??? 🥺"

"Tots got pic of kiss today!! Relationship upgrade??"

"IS ARE MC+LUCIFER SECET LVRS?!? PLEASE RESPOND"

It only got worse after he found out the MC gets shipped out a loooooot….

If he had to pick his least favorite ship, it'd be MC x Mammon. He can kind of see it with any of his other brothers (admittedly, Levi is also a little mystifying) but the idea of them ending up with Mammon makes his skin crawl...

He once found a drawing of the MC and Mammon in an… explicit position in one of the classrooms and he was so disgusted that he wouldn’t even touch it. He just set fire to the paper outright. Disgusting...

Mammon

Shipping, eh…? More money making opportunities!

Has some passing idea of what shipping is from Levi and, from what he knows of it, shippers eat cutesy couples stuff right up!! If all he's got to do to make bank is to look all couple-y around the MC then sounds like a win-win to him!

He'll happily pose for a photo or two (paid in advance) of him throwing his arm around the MC or something. Want him to hold their hand? Sure thing!

But since this is still Mammon we're talking about, the second MC actually starts getting into any of it he'll still turn into a blushy, stuttery mess...

For WEEKS the headline picture on so many of their fans' blogs was an image of him turning beet red while the MC kissed him on the cheek. (A fan really got their money's worth there... 😏)

Though he doesn’t exactly like the MC getting shipped with other people, he'll still totally sell pictures of any of them together. He almost paid off an entire credit card with the money he got from the t-shirt sales of the MC and Satan!

If he had to point to one ship he doesn't like it's either MC x Asmo or MC x Levi. His opinion, but Asmo won't treat them right and they could do waaay better than a shut-in. Like him. Ship the MC with just the Great Mammon, got it?

Leviathan

… Lowkey super active in the MC shipping community but is a self-shipper to the extreme.

Like, he never uses his real name on anything (and would probably die from embarrassment if anyone ever found out) but a lot of their fans probably know a couple of his aliases.

He does everything from mod forums, runs a couple blogs, even anonymously posts his own work of him and MC that are totally not his secret fantasy dates or AU versions of themselves, shaddup.

It’s a lot easier for him to keep his involvement secret because he’s hardly at RAD, but the few times he does show up he tries to keep an eye out for anybody prowling for pictures so he can get in a good pose and save the image later.

Mind you, his version of a “good pose” rarely gets more spicy than linking pinkies, but even then he’s still lit up a Christmas Tree throughout.

Naturally, he’s also not a big fan of any ships that aren’t just him and MC and he can find a reason to be jealous at almost anything. But he keeps a special corner of hate for MC x Mammon and MC x Diavolo. Like, the first one doesn’t even need an explanation but MC x Diavolo?? Really??? Do those two even talk?? (please, please, please make sure they never actually talk because a guy like him versus literal royalty? He’d lose MC for sure….!! 😫)

Satan

He hates to actually agree with Lucifer on something, but their fans are starting to get out of hand...

Knows what shipping is in concept, he may have done it once or twice to characters in his books, but he was kind of surprised how it could evolve into such a… group activity?

He was pretty quick to pick up that the MC’s fans had a bit more interest in them together than they did when they both were apart…

I mean, those hideous shirts that Mammon was pedaling were kind of a dead giveaway…

Considering he finds their fanclub all rather annoying, even without their bizarre interest in his love life, when they started actively meddling with him and the MC he was ready to smash some heads.

No. He will not stop for pictures. No. What things they do together is none of your business. No. He has zero interest in seeing your explicit fanart and if you don’t start running that will be the last question you ever ask.

He DOES, however, appreciate the cringy “annoy Lucifer” ammo. They could keep that up for a lifetime... 😏

He doesn’t have a least favorite ship because he doesn’t care about any of this, leave him alone. (That’s a lie, it’s MC x Lucifer. He pokes fun at Lucifer, but he can’t stand it either. Big shock, I know 🙄).

Asmodeus 

Oh he is shamelessly a part of the community, are you kidding?? 

He could practically call “Shipping the MC” one of his favorite pastimes. He’ll openly gossip with their fanclub about who they’ve been with, who they’re seeing, who’s got a chance, etc… He lives for this shit!

He’s the only person who knows that Levi is also in the community and what his aliases are (not because he told him, but because Levi’s not as subtle as he thinks he is… Who else would call themselves “SupremeRuri666” and speak mostly in outdated chat lingo?) but he doesn’t out him because he thinks his very obvious crush is kind of cute. 

Plus, Levi needs the outlet waaaay more than him…

Doesn’t stop him from constantly trolling him and getting into arguments over who the MC would be better with though (the two are “virtual nemeses” as far as Levi is concerned).

Appreciates all forms of expression that comes out of the community (especially the saucy kind 😏) and will happily feed into his own shippers without a care in the world.

Truthfully, Asmo will say that there isn’t a ship he doesn’t like but if someone mentions one that he thinks is kind of “eh,” he’ll just add himself into the mix. “Oh, you like MC x Barbatos? Well how about Asmo x MC x Barbatos? That sounds loads more interesting doesn’t it??”

Beelzebub 

Oh, Beel… Sweet, sweet Beel… Beel doesn’t even know what their club is doing…

Because Beel has a reputation of being pretty protective of MC - and against the fanclub in general - the club keeps a healthy distance… but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to sneak in some picture or make a SHITLOAD of fanwork about them.

Between classes and practice Beel is a busy guy, so sometimes he just doesn’t notice that there’s people hiding behind trees when he’s out with MC. 

Honestly, his complete ignorance of it all makes it even cuter because when he acts sweet, it’s not just for the camera. That’s the real deal.

Mammon was the one who eventually let it slip that there was even shipping happening and Beel was… kind of creeped out because isn’t this stalking? But also kind of weirdly happy(?) that MC x Beel was so popular… Very conflicted boy here.

He never actually acknowledges the community, though, and just keeps on being Beel (which still gave the fans more than enough material so all’s well that ends well?)

Beel genuinely doesn’t have a least favorite ship (because he believes the best ship is whoever makes the MC happy) but his second favorite under himself is probably MC x Belphie. They look very cute together...  😊

Belphegor 

Ride or die, Beel x MC x Belphie. 

Just kidding (kind of), Belphie isn’t into the shipping but if asked he’d be pretty okay with that one.

His campaign against the MC’s fanclub and their attention stealing ways means that he found out about their shipping thing only slightly ahead of Beel when Mammon was trying to get pictures of them napping together…

Honestly, he couldn’t care less if a bunch of weirdos were weirdly invested in their relationship, but he’s not about to let Mammon just make a quick Grimm off of it. Belphie makes sure that he gives him NOTHING to work with. 

Since Mammon is the main dealer, the shippers in both the MC fanclub and Belphie fanclub aren’t nearly as well fed and pretty desperate for anything... You best believe he plays that to his advantage (because it’s okay if he does. He’s not Mammon).

Really helps that MC x Belphie is legitimately a very cute looking couple, carried by Belphie’s cuteness alone if nothing else. Add an adorable MC and you reach levels so cute it could actually melt people into puddles of goo... They could be a registered weapon.

Least favorite MC ships are any that don’t involve him or Beel. Any others may as well just not exist, he won’t even acknowledge them. MC x Who? Yeah, that’s what he thought.

[avaritia-apotheosis]

Phantom Children Ch. 8

What's this? An update! Massive thanks to my betas for helping me get through this chapter <3

In Which: A few answers are given to the family and Danny is rudely awoken

[Side note: If you wanna know the general ages of the batfam, its listed in the AO3 version. I also talk about katanas in the end notes ^-^]

AO3 | Prologue | 7 | [ 8 ] | 9 DAMIAN INFORMED TODD—and Drake when he arrived on his bike sometime later on—that the boy whose face is plastered across the monitor was neither a picture of himself nor of Father.

Drake took one glance at the monitor and sighed, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose. “Just when I thought this day was getting better.”

“What, did that café on 5th finally let customers supersize their drink?”

“God that would be the dream, wouldn’t it?” Drake sighed wistfully. “Nah, but I did get a lead on where some of that stolen Cadmus tech might’ve ended up. I was gonna spend the night following up on it, but I guess we have to deal with,” he gestured to the monitor, “whatever this is.”

Todd leaned against the edge of the computer, arms crossed over the red bat insignia on his chest. “What are we dealing with this time, brat? A clone? An alternate universe counterpart? Magic shenanigans?”

Maybe. Perhaps. All of those were perfectly valid conclusions for the enigma that was Daniel James Fenton. (Why Fenton and not al Ghul? Or even Wayne?)

Damian, too, was a genetic experiment; a ‘test tube baby’ as Drake put it at times. Damian was born for greatness, created to be perfect. The perfect soldier. The perfect assassin. The perfect heir. Was this boy—Daniel—like him as well?

A failed one, then. Perhaps the precursor to Damian’s own existence. But that would not explain why the boy was allowed to exist for so long. His grandfather demanded perfection, especially from those of his own blood. If the boy was a failure, he would have been eliminated immediately, not sent to live with some eccentric scientists in the Midwest.

Damian was not naïve enough to think that his mother and grandfather did not keep secrets from him. On the contrary, he expected it. The League of Shadows dealt in secrets as often as it did in death. Certain information was worth its weight in gold, whether it was given or buried away.

But he could not help the sharp pang in his chest. A lightning strike, quick and electrifying at the notion that they kept secrets about their family from him.

His father’s face flashed in his mind. The shock turned into a slow, dawning horror. That flicker of light, of recognition, as he scrutinized the contents of the flash drive and cross-referenced it with a public database.

And grief.

Damian recognized the grief.

Alfred, too, nearly dropped his tray of fresh-baked cookies when he stepped in front of the monitor. His usual unflappable demeanor was momentarily broken at his father’s whispered “Sixteen years. Alfred— he’s sixteen years old.”

His father knew of the boy. He was allowed to know of Daniel when he was not allowed to know about Damian.

------

Grayson returned to the cave with a distinct lack of energy in his step. His mask dangled off the tips of his fingers, chin angled downwards and covered largely by his hand. For a split second, their eyes met. Grayson shifted his gaze away, scratching the back of his neck. Father told him, then. Damian wondered how much Father revealed to his favorite son.

Damian clucked his tongue and buried himself deeper into the chair, arms crossed and pointedly looking away. If it was not for his accursed ankle, he’d have headed out to the training ring to take his frustrations out on the dummies.

“Oh, thank god you’re here, Dickface. Damian’s completely out of it.”

Damian shot him a look. “Shut up, Todd.”

“Leave him alone, Jay. Is Tim back yet?”

Drake emerged from the changing room in a dark green shirt, a fresh cup of coffee in hand. He took one long sip before exhaling. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“O-kay…” He pressed his hands together, mouth thinned into a grim line. “Uh, hey Tim, glad to see you back safe. Bruce is coming down soon to explain some things.” He let out a deep sigh, carding a hand through his hair. “This kind of thing would probably be better with the girls around, but I—god, I don’t know.”

Todd raised an eyebrow. “Don’t know whether to call Steph and Cass in Hong Kong, or don’t know what’s going on?”

“Yes.”

------

When Father arrived, Pennyworth following dutifully behind him, it was with an aching slowness in his gait. His steps measured and precise, preternaturally quiet as he made his way to stand by Damian’s chair. Damian sat up straighter, shoulders squared and back an inch away from the backrest. The rest, even Todd, stood at attention; an ingrained habit among Robins and an amusing instinct even among the senior heroes of the Justice League when it came to facing the Batman.

His father kept a steady hand on Damian’s shoulder, and Damian, shamefully, leaned into the touch; his head inclined towards his father’s hand so much so that he could feel the ends of his hair being pushed up slightly as he brushed against his father’s forearm.

He spoke with his usual monotone, as if he was heading a Justice League meeting as opposed to unveiling the secrets surrounding that boy. He brought forward the few photos they obtained from the flash drive. “A few weeks ago, we were alerted of suspicious movement from the League of Shadows in Amity Park, Illinois. Their objectives are, as of now, unclear, though it appears to be tied to the death of Amity Park resident, Daniel Fenton.”

One photo was a standard ID picture people get for their driver’s license, the lighting deliberately horrible so that any attempt to look decent would always end in failure. Another photo was a little better; a candid scene of him chatting with two others his age, a Caucasian girl in gothic-style clothes and an African-American holding a sleek, but still very outdated PDA. His blue eyes crinkled at the corners, hand reaching up to his face to stifle a laugh. There were other photos like this, some candid, others posed. At the forefront of each, a boy that looked too much like his father, too much like Damian.

His father glanced at the photos. He shut his eyes and when he opened them again, he fixed them on some distant stalactite in the Cave. “Around six months ago, Daniel was pronounced dead in a vehicular accident. A body was present, but according to police reports, he was identified via his driver’s license as opposed to any kind of DNA profiling.” He leaned over Damian’s chair to pull up a profile of Masters. “Our source—Vladimir Masters, mayor of Amity and a friend of the Fenton family—indicated his belief that Daniel is actually alive. I am inclined to agree.”

“He’s your son, isn’t he,” Drake said, more of a statement than a question.

Father gave a curt nod. “I cannot say for certain until I can perform a DNA test, but I highly suspect that to be the case.”

“First the demon spawn, now this. Great.” Todd made a hand motion towards the screen. “You know, Bruce, not knowing you have a kid once might be a coincidence, but twice? How do you do that?”

“As of three hours ago, I was still under the impression that my son never made it to term.”

“What?”

“Over sixteen years ago I was involved in a mission that put Ra’s and I on the same side. During that time, Talia and I entered a relationship that resulted in a pregnancy. Though initially ecstatic, she eventually led me to believe she miscarried the child and pushed me away. For what ends, I do not know, but trust me Jason, if I knew—” He paused, the hand that was not on Damian’s shoulder curled into a tight fist.

Father pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why she hid it from me then doesn’t matter. Why Talia wants him back now is important. Judging from Daniel’s records, he was adopted into the Fenton family as an infant and has since lived a seemingly normal life as a civilian. His adoptive parents, Jack and Maddie Fenton, are brilliant scientists and engineers focused on the field of paranormal studies. Eccentricities aside, they have zero connections to the League of Assassins or any other concerning parties.”

“So why now?” Dick asked, shifting his concerned gaze from Bruce to the static picture of Danny’s tired smile. “Why, after all this time, decide that now would be the best time to recover him?”

------

Danny’s experienced plenty of rude awakenings before, but waking up at the ass-crack of dawn to avoid his kidnapper-slash-assassin-slash-biological-mom launching a surprise attack takes the fucking cake. He can’t believe he’s saying this, but thank god for all those late night ghost attacks that conditioned him to be a light sleeper. And, of course, the League’s insistence that everyone be in optimal condition regardless of how little sleep you actually got.

Danny kicked Talia off of him, ripping his blanket away before scrambling to his feet. Seriously, if the universe decided to spontaneously give him powers again, he’d really like an upgrade to his ghost senses, please and thank you. Something that works on humans and not just ghosts. Like spidey-senses. He’d really, really like some spidey-senses.

“Your reaction times have improved considerably,” Talia said.

He eyed the katana sheathed beside his bedroll. “Thanks. Who could have guessed that constantly challenging someone to a spar in the unholy hours of morning would make them paranoid to sleep too much? Really, how am I supposed to grow taller at this rate? ” If he could just get it--

She smiled, taking a step forward. “Prepare yourself.”

“Heh.” Danny stepped further away from Talia, keeping his back to the mouth of the cave. One hand stretched in front of him and the other, coated in a green light, was kept hidden behind his back. “Am I actually gonna get some answers today?”

“Let us make it interesting. Last 10 minutes against me and I shall tell you more about your brother.” Talia twirled her blade. “If you happen to draw blood, you may ask any one thing of me.”

“Anything?”

“Within reason.”

His face caught between a grimace and a smile. He’d rather be sleeping right now, but if he had to be awake, then he’d better make the most of it. “Deal.”

Talia’s smile dropped. She veered her body to the right, barely dodging the streak of bright green that whizzed from behind her. The ectoplasmic energy that surrounded the katana bled away as the handle connected with Danny’s outstretched hand.

She quickly glanced back at Danny’s bedding. Beside it lay an empty sheath. “You have telekinesis?”

He shrugged. “It comes and goes.” Yeah, no way was Danny gonna admit that seven-out-of-ten-times he forgot that he had telekinesis. Besides, that shit was hard to do when he wasn’t Phantom.

“A surprise attack from behind is a sound strategy, Daniel. Though it’ll take a lot more than that to harm me.”

Danny pointed to the side of his cheek. “Are you sure about that?”

Talia frowned. She reached up to her face. Her fingers brushed against her cheek and came away with a thin streak of blood.

Danny grinned, pointing his blade at his opponent. “First blood goes to me.”

------

Fact: most fights don’t last long. An average street fight could last anywhere between 25 to 40 seconds, and sword fights rarely last over a minute. Like Talia said, the goal of a fight was to end it with as few injuries to oneself as possible. Humans, even the most skilled ones, can rarely last long in a fight. Prolonged combat is suicide; it makes you tired, makes your muscles heavy. It’s nothing like what Hollywood would have you believe.

Even with Danny’s own enhanced stamina and Talia holding back, he couldn’t last a full ten-minute spar. If Talia didn’t finish him within twenty-five seconds, then he’d fall by his own human limitations.

But the goal wasn’t to spar continuously for ten minutes.

He only had to last that long.

Danny sprinted out of the cave. The sun barely peeked out of the horizon, a thin line of deep orange breaking apart the wide expanse of blue-black sky above. He couldn’t see shit; great news since that meant there’s a good chance Talia couldn’t either, but that doesn’t fix the fact that he can’t see.

Nearly stumbling on the ice, Danny veered to the left. The edges of the lake stopped at towering rocks twice Danny’s height, leaving little room for cover. Though if he remembered correctly, there should be a few crevices here and there to hide in.

“You’ll have to be faster than that, Daniel.”

Shit—

Danny stopped. He brought his sword up to parry Talia’s strike and twisted away, putting distance between them.

Well, so much for just avoiding her for 10 minutes.

He adjusted his grip, keeping his sword steady and eyes trained on Talia as they circled each other. Danny lunged with an overhead strike. Talia used one hand to block the downswing by gripping his wrists. She thrust her sword forward, the tip harshly poking Danny’s abdomen.

“Less than three minutes.” Talia let his wrist go, Danny’s arms slumping to his sides.

He sighed as he sheathed his sword. “Damn, I thought I’d last longer than that.”

“You made a good effort,” Talia assured him. “Putting as much distance between us at the beginning was a good strategy. You recognized the win conditions immediately and attempted a battle of attrition.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I am very proud of you habibi, especially as you managed to draw first blood.”

A warmth grew in Danny’s stomach at the words, heating his cheeks. Sheepishly, he scratched the back of his head. “I wasn’t entirely sure that would work, honestly.”

“It was clever; half a second later and you might have even killed me. You are an al Ghul through and through” She brushed his hair out of his face. “What would you like as your prize, then?”

Danny’s heart clenched. He frowned, dropping his arm to his side. If I was such an al Ghul, then why didn’t you keep me? The question lodged itself in his throat, stifling his thoughts. It was something he’d been wondering for a while, actually, in the moments of solitude he had at the compound. Talia, during their training, would always remark at his potential. How talented he was, how adaptable he was, how much greater he would have been if he had been trained at a younger age.

Well then, why wasn’t he? Why did she give him up?

But each time he tried to ask, his tongue would turn to lead and the moment would pass, the question still left unsaid and simmering at the back of his mind. A Pandora’s Box that held none of the world’s evil but all of Danny’s possible shortcomings.

He could ask the question now.

He could.

He didn’t.

“Why did you take me?”

Talia tilted her head. “It is because you’re my son.”

“No. Not that. It has to be something more than that. You had sixteen years to come back for me—or, hell, you could have just never left me.” His breath hitched, fingers mussing his hair and hiding his eyes. “Why else did you take me?”

“It is true that there was more than one reason why we decided to retrieve you from Amity Park. One of which is because you are my son and an heir of the Demon’s Head.” Talia stilled. The dark skies of dawn made it impossible for him to read her. “The second reason was to protect you.”

“You kidnapped me…to protect me?”

“Knowledge of the ghosts of Amity have spread through the more insidious parts of the world. There are many out there who would pay exorbitant fees to study one of you or to use you.”

Use him? What did she mean by—

Oh.

Ghosts—Amity Park’s brand of ghosts—were a new element that the world had to contend with. Amity Park might have a crime rate of zero but that wasn’t the case everywhere else. Theft, assault, murder; the world was rampant with crimes and criminals clawing their way to the very top. Having ghosts, even ones with the most basic powerset, would be a huge advantage.

“There’s no way that would work,” Danny insisted. “Most ghosts just want to be left alone, and the ones that want to wreak havoc would never work with humans. The only reason they even work with halfas like me at times is because they still consider us as ghosts.”

“If my sources are to be believed, ghosts might not even get a choice.”

Danny’s blood curdled in his veins.

No.

Someone’s found a way to control ghosts.

[jocia92]

… So much of an actor’s craft is figuring out the “I want” of their character, but that’s got to be a little different with Tom since he states that he literally cannot want anything. What challenge or opportunity did that pose for you?

I think he wants to improve. I think he wants to calibrate according to Alma’s needs, wants, and desires. I think he’s very ready to learn and to understand. That was the kind of primary objective: listen, learn, calibrate, improve. That’s almost the track of each scenario. He just gets a little better each time, and the process gets a little faster. But certainly, in the beginning, he’s just delivering this sort of 20 classic chat-up lines that he’s been uploaded with and getting it all wrong. It’s fun to watch the machine learn and chart that progress.

On a practical or philosophical level, how did you approach the process of humanizing a character that’s an algorithm, or did you at all?

It was very much about charting with Maria exactly when we want to see the machine, when we want to see the human. Even playing with that ratio was really interesting and fun. It’s not so much about watching him play the machine, but watching a character try to play the human. Certainly, in the beginning, in some of the not quite so successful human moments, shall we say, we deconstructed what we regarded as the conventional human behavior in that. We looked at a lot of screwball comedies, like Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Katharine Hepburn movies. [We were] taking a move or a gesture, breaking that down, and just doing two of the things. It just suddenly looks very odd and wrong, and you’re like, “Oh, this is what a human does in this moment!” But it’s just off. It was really as much about looking at the human.

You’ve mentioned things like The Philadelphia Story as shaping the film and its central relationship. Was that to ground it in reality or further ensconce it in the warped reality of cinema? Grant and Stewart are recognizable to us as people, but things like that mid-Atlantic lilt were entirely manufactured for the screen.

That was a very key point for Maria in referencing Cary Grant. The hair color that we chose for Tom was very much like Cary Grant’s hair color, being a shade darker than is possibly human. And the skin tone being slightly artificial for Tom. You’re right, Cary Grant is often very heightened and mannered sometimes, and it works in the situation in the style of the thing that he’s in. But we quite liked the idea that Tom has been uploaded with some outdated versions of what a romantic lead was supposed to behave like.

It’s striking just how thought-out things had to be down to how Tom responds to dead air space in a conversation. What was the process behind those small moments that can make or break the believability of a character?

It was very fun to play with, and probably quite frustrating for a lot of the human actors. Maren was giving a beautifully naturalistic performance, and the conventional responses that there should be from her scene partner weren’t there. We deliberately strip those away—sometimes without telling her, sometimes without needing to tell her. It’s just the way that Tom was, so it was about pushing those moments into a space that became a little uncomfortable: not jumping in on the lines where you might normally jump in, sometimes coming in hard, sometimes offering a delayed response, sometimes none at all. Playing with those, and watching how comfortable or uncomfortable that made them both, was really fun.

Did that frustration, built in by the process, bleed over for Maren into the character of Alma, do you think?

Maybe for Maren. Certainly, for me, it was frustrating in that I would have to remember not to respond in the way that I might normally and remove some of those things. [I had to] really break down exactly what Tom is thinking, what his programming is doing in that point, how he’s responding and calibrating, and whether we see that or not. Choosing moments to show the human, to show the machine. Along with Maria, that was one of the great joys of the role.

How did you settle on the physicality of the character? Was it at all helpful to have done something like Beauty and the Beast in a mo-cap suit to be hyper-aware of how your own movements translate to the screen?

Very much so. In fact, in pretty much every role I’ve done since Beauty and the Beast, I’ve incorporated not always a movement coach, but I’ve definitely looked at movement theory and physicality in a totally new way because of the challenges of that role. And, I have to say, dance plays a huge part in that. Whether it’s incorporated on the screen or if it’s something that just feels as if it helps the role, I often find that a dance studio is a very fruitful space to discover things about your character’s physicality. Learning the rumba for this role was incredibly helpful because it’s a very precise, technical, almost robotic dance in terms of the laser precision that’s needed to get it absolutely right. I had a fantastically exact teacher in Berlin who was teaching me the rumba the whole way through the shoot. We shot that [one scene] quite near the end of the shoot. Just to have those lessons, that kind of physicality, and that poise with me the whole way through the role was really useful.

How did the role being in a non-native tongue affect the characterization of Tom? Was it all easier to make him seem slightly unreal given that the words might not come quite as naturally as they would in English?

I think it was a deliberate choice on the part of Maria to look for a foreign actor who could speak German. She needed somebody who could both get their heads and their mouths around the very technical German that was required, which, even for a German is pretty complex, but also who had that sense of otherness. I’m sure they could have tailored the screenplay to any number of nationalities, but I was very happy they came to me and made him British. It definitely helped with, as I say, the fact that he’s listening, learning, focusing, trying to improve…that was literally all I was doing last summer, every day.

How do you lock onto the frequency of German comedy, which isn’t always something people associate with that country or people? How is it different than doing something like the more mannered British wit of Blithe Spirit or the broad studio comedy of Eurovision Song Contest?

It’s not a country known for it, but I think they should [be]. I find Germans very funny. They have a very interesting sense of humor. What’s particularly delightful is the way that they can tackle really kind of big, sometimes weighty, issues with a certain wit and lightness of touch, which is not common to all countries. Physical comedy, I think, is fairly universal. I think there’s something almost farcical about some of the physical stuff that we managed to get in this. It was really fun to make people laugh in a foreign language. It was surprisingly delightful. It felt very unifying, somehow, to be able to get a joke across in any language.

[taiblogcomics]

I Can’t Pet Force You To Read This One, But...

Hey there, high school crushes. Well, it's finally here. Can you believe it? Yes, counting from the original Xanga site (which, yes, still counts. It's like our own Golden Age publication or apocryphia), this is our 10th anniversary of reviewing comics. That's fantastic. I'm excited, can't you tell? I can tell, since I'm writing this preamble a good two months before the actual anniverary~

So, last year we reviewed the absolute pile of dreck that is Heroes in Crisis. And while that was worth ripping into, I'd rather not spend the 10th anniversary hating on something. I'd like to do something actually meaningful to me. I've teased about this one for many years, probably for as long as I've been doing this blog, and I think it's time we stopped pussyfooting around and reviewed some Garfield. But not just any Garfield. It's finally time, my friends. This... is Garfield's Pet Force.

I dunno how many people will remember this one. Maybe you recall the direct-to-DVD movie adaptation from 2009, or at least advertising for it. I never saw it, but apparently it differs a bit. They also appeared a few times in those Garfield comics from back in the day. We even reviewed a couple (some were on the Xanga blog). But what we're looking at here are the original novellas published between 1997 and 1999. So yeah, these really are from my childhood. And since I've long espoused that Garfield was always funnier 20 years ago, this must be actual premium Garfield content, yeah? By golly, I hope so, because we got five whole books here today. So we should probably get into them~

Book 1: The Outrageous Origin

This is a classic sort of superhero cover. Standard team shot of poses, and that's fine for a first volume. In fact, that's great. Later editions of this would replace the lightning-filled gradient background with a pure white one, but I have this original version. We'll get to specifics about these characters in the meat of the story, but let's talk about the costumes for a bit. Very classic early-'90s sort of look, before the Dark Age kicked in. Reminds me a lot of Jim Lee's X-Men designs, actually. Making all your characters visually distinct is important in a team book. The heavy lean into secondary colours is unusual for heroic characters, but not unwelcome.

So we actually start with a cold open in the superhero universe. This is pretty much to introduce us to the characters as soon as possible, and thus I'll do the same for you here.

*Garzooka, team leader, super strong, has a razor-sharp claw, and can shoot radioactive hairballs from his mouth. That's... at least a unique power, I don't think anyone on the Justice League can do that~ *Odious, the dumb muscle with the accent on the "dumb". Possibly even stronger than Garzooka, and possessing a "super-stretchy stun tongue", an elastic tongue that can scramble the minds of whoever it adheres to. *Starlena, the team girl. She can fly, and she has a siren song that can put those who hear it into a hypnotic trance. Garzooka is the only one immune to its effects, for reasons that are never explained. *Abnermal, the kid-appeal character. He has ice powers, forcefields, and an ill-defined "pester power" that means he can annoy people on a greater scale than normal folks. It's pretty much only used for comic relief, but that could be a brilliant power in the right hands. *Compooky, the brains of the operation. Other than flight, his powers are limited to super intelligence, which means he's usually the exposition guy. There's probably a reason they left him out of the movie adaptation~

You got all that? Don't worry, we'll introduce you again later in the book. What actually happens in the intro chapter isn't really important, it's just setting up the universe. In fact, it's all taking place within Pet Force #99, a comic just enjoyed by Nermal. Yes, we quickly cut over to the main Garfield universe ("our universe", the narrator calls it), where Pet Force is just a comic book. The Garfield gang is all outside, enjoying a cookout prepared by Jon Arbuckle. Nermal is extremely enthused by his comic book, and brags about how he has all 98 previous issues sealed and polybagged, and this one will soon join them. Sorry, Nermal, this came out in 1997, the speculator boom already went bust~

Garfield dismisses comic books as stupid because you can't eat them or use them as a blanket, and declares that none of the stuff that happens in the comic could possibly happen in real life. Uh oh, irony! Because these things can happen, and do! It's a parallel universe, baby! This might be one of my earliest introductions to a "parallel worlds" concept. Much like Earths 1 and 2 in pre-Crisis DC, the events of the comic are essentially the real life adventures of their super-powered counterparts in another dimension. Most of the action in these stories will take place there~

So here's the setup: Vetvix (the parallel equivalent to Liz the veternarian) is an evil sorceress and scientist, who essentially wants to experiment on animals in peace, and possibly subjugate the universe while she's at it. You could argue that Liz is an odd choice for villain, since our universe's Liz isn't particularly evil. But then, our universe's Garfield isn't particularly heroic either. She operates out of a deadly space station called the Orbiting Clinic of Chaos, and at present she's waiting for the arrival of her henchman, Space Pie-Rat, who is a six-foot-tall anthropomorphic rat dressed in stereotypical pirate getup. Vetvix has just finished inventing a levitation ray, and she'd like Pie-Rat to go out and use it to steal all the food in the universe. Vetvix doesn't think small, is what I'm saying.

The counter to Vetvix is Emperor Jon, ruler of the planet Polyester. He's kind and benevolent, even if he's a little dippy and his fashion sense atrocious. Having gotten wind of Vetvix's latest plan, he contacts Pet Force in their ship, the Lightspeed Lasagna. Upon learning the problem, Pet Force gives chase to Pie-Rat. They eventually corner him on some desolate planet, landing and entering an abandoned factory. Unfortunately, they're not safe amongst the dangerous machinery, because this turns out to be a trap. Vetvix has been busy as hell, because she's also invented a metal that's impervious to their powers. And that's not all, because she's also basically invented the Phantom Zone, where she traps Pet Force forever. It specifically mentions it doesn’t kill them, because it wouldn't be kosher to murder the heroes in a Garfield book~

The Lightspeed Lasagna has both onboard cameras connected to the heroes' belts as well as automatic return protocols, so within two days, Emperor Jon knows exactly what's happened to Pet Force. He needs help, so he calls upon his most trusted and powerful advisor: Binky the Sorceror. Binky's just as loud and obnoxious as in the main universe, but he's also a powerful magician. He conjures up a spell for Emperor Jon that lets him pierce the veil between universes. It's basically Equestria Girls rules: parallel universes have similar characters between them. So to replace Pet Force, they need the nearest genetic equivalents from another universe. And that's the versions of Garfield, Odie, Arlene, Nermal, and Pooky that we know and love~

Back in the main universe, it's another day entirely. Another cookout is taking place, and Nermal has received his special anniversary issue of Pet Force #100. The cover's really special, dripping with '90s cover gimmicks like glow-in-the-dark and embossing. A rarely used one, though, was "portal to another universe". That was pretty expensive to print, so you won't find many comics like Nermal's. Maybe he had something there with the collecting after all. The cover glows, and while Jon is distracted by the grill, Garfield and Friends disappear~

They reappear in Emperor Jon's wood-paneled throne room, now transformed into Pet Force. Emperor Jon and Sorceror Binky try to explain the situation, but Garfield--now Garzooka--is disbelieving of the whole thing. In fact, even the idea that Jon can now hear him talk absolutely floors him. Since he's about to deliver the exposition for everyone, can we talk about Compooky for a minute? This spell has just granted sapience to Garfield's teddy bear. I don't expect deep philosophy from a children's novella, but the ramifications of this are really under-explored. Like, never mind the whole idea of a teddy bear having the same genetic makeup as an alternate universe equivalent. He goes from inanimate object to fully conscious being, and he just rolls with it.

Anyways, once everybody gets caught up on what's going on and accepts the new reality, a training montage ensues so the group can all learn to use their powers without killing each other. Once at least reasonably trained, the reborn Pet Force is sent out to stop Pie-Rat. He's gotten sloppy in the times with Pet Force dead, so they track him down easily. After a brief scuffle where Garzooka takes his eyepatch, Pie-Rat flees in his ship. They follow Pie-Rat back to the Orbital Clinic of Chaos, but they can't go in the front. That led the original Pet Force into a trap. Finding an unguarded maintenance hatch--standard on any big space station--they enter Vetvix's lair for a final confrontation!

After dealing with the Waiting Room of Doom, which slowly fills with outdated magazines, they enter Vetvix's inner sanctum. Frustrated with Pie-Rat's failure, she uses her magic to turn him into an ordinary mouse. Vetvix then attempts to use her same weapon on this new Pet Force, but thanks to story contrivance, it only works on beings born in this universe. As other dimensional visitors already, they can't be banished to another dimension. She then pulls a Dr. Claw and runs off cursing Pet Force's name while her base self-destructs. Vetvix is a very "discard and draw" sort of villain, it seems. Pet Force, of course, makes a harrowing escape just in the nick of time.

Returning to Emperor Jon, they vow to be ready to return whenever they're called on, since evil never stays dormant for long. Odious even gifts Emperor Jon with the mouse-ified Pie-Rat as proof of their victory. Well, I'm glad they remember that, so they didn't accidentally murder a major villain in their first superhero outing. They're returned to their own universe, and the time differential between them places them back with Jon having not had time to even look up from the grill. Garfield begins to doubt the adventure even happened--until that night, when he finds Pie-Rat's eyepatch still on his person. Ah, definitive proof of... eyepatches, I guess~

Book 2: Pie-Rat's Revenge!

You have to wonder where, in a space-faring superhero setting, Pie-Rat got the inspiration for his classic pirate motif. It's a little incongruous is all I'm saying. And hey, remember when I said earlier that Garzooka's purple-and-green colour scheme was odd for a hero? Well, here he is as a villain! That'll catch your eye. This would be a terrific comic cover, which is what you want in a series like this.

The book opens with a brief recap of the previous story's events, then moves into the new plot. See, Emperor Jon has opted to keep the polymorphed Pie-Rat as his pet. How very Ron Weasley of him. That's pretty apt, actually, because similarly Pie-Rat has maintained his intelligence in his new mousey form. Pie-Rat gets sick of being Emperor Jon's pet and plans a daring escape, exploiting the emperor's dimwitted and loving personality against him. Pie-Rat jams the lock with a food pellet and makes his escape that night.

Once free from his cage, he encounters Binky's cauldron, still left in the throne room from when the sorceror summoned Pet Force from Garfield's universe. Figuring he has nothing to lose, Pie-Rat jumps in the leftover brew. Suddenly he finds himself growing. He returns to his original anthropomorphic state--but with a twist. He's now twice his original height, a staggering twelve feet tall. He scoops up the rest of the remaining potion for later, and sneaks out of the palace as best as a 12-foot rat can sneak. Desiring revenge on both his former employer and his longtime foes, he steals Pet Force's ship and makes his escape from the planet, headed for Vetvix's newest base.

After his guards help Emperor Jon put the pieces of the problem together, they decide they must once again call upon the powers of Pet Force to recover their missing vehicle and stop the newly embiggened Pie-Rat. Fortunately, Garfield and friends have been watching movies all weekend, so Jon doesn't notice when his pets disappear from the living room in a bright flash. Of course, once returned to the alternate universe and the situation explained, they still have a problem: how do they give chase to Pie-Rat when he's got their ship?

And speaking of Pie-Rat in their ship, he's followed the trail of a mysterious energy output, and it's led him right to Vetvix's new base, the Menacing Moon of Mayhem. See, this is why you don't blow up your base: the backup base is never as good. if it was, it wouldn't be the backup. Given that it's such a shoddy base, Pie-Rat is easily able to get inside and get close to Vetvix. She's expecting a technological attack, so she's unprepared when he pulls out that vial of magic potion and sprinkles her with it. And naturally, the potion that made him grow 12 feet tall makes Vetvix shrink to 5 inches. It's magic, we don't have to explain it!

Pie-Rat takes the magic crystal that Vetvix uses to fuel her powers, which of course didn't shrink because magic is just bullshit. See previous paragraph's last sentence. And while Pie-Rat takes over the base and begins plotting a further revenge against Pet Force, we cut over to them. They're at Sorceror Binky's own castle, and it's clear he's a bit of a hoarder. This is to their advantage, though, as they eventually piece together a working spaceship out of old car parts and other things, all patched together between Compooky's know-how and Binky's magic. This seems like the sort of book where I could use that "it's magic" quote every other paragraph. But craft a new--if small--ship they do, and speed off in the newly christened Planetary Pizza.

The rickety little ship does eventually find its way to Pie-Rat's base, saving him the trouble of being proactive as a villain. The magic thing keeps happening, and Pie-Rat basically becomes Discord for a bit while he fights them, doing things like turning Starlena's siren song into actual living music notes. One by one, the members of Pet Force are taken out, with only Garzooka is left. He and Pie-Rat struggle, while Pie-Rat tries to aim the magic crystal at Garzooka. Garzooka uses his claw to rip the crystal from Pie-Rat and defeat him.

Unfortunately, here's where the cover comes in. It seems the moments Pie-Rat was focusing the crystal during the struggle affected Garzooka's mind. He puts the crystal around his own neck. which turns him evil. He helps Pie-Rat to his feet, and the pair escape in the Lightspeed Lasagna. While Pet Force pursues them in their ramshackle ship, the new criminal duo strikes the storage planet of Deli to steal their food. Pet Force manages to catch up as the villains celebrate their spoils, and use a magic blast from the systems Binky installed to short out the Lightspeed Lasagna. This enables them to dock with the ship and climb aboard for a contfrontation.

The group fights, and once again the bearer of a bullshit magic crystal subdues the heroes easily. Annoyed now, Garzooka takes hold of Starlena and prepares to kill her or something. She taps into the one thing she has left: she's not fighting just Garzooka, but Garfield in his body. She drops some heavy put-downs, which resonate with Garfield, and he hesitates long enough for her to cut the crystal off him. The crystal hits the floor and shatters, undoing its evil magics on Garzooka's mind as well as on all his teammates. With Pet Force reunited, Pie-Rat is easily subdued and locked up.

The group waits for the ship to power back up, then speed off to apologise to the planet Deli. Following that, they head back towards Vetvix's moonbase. That night, though, the magic that was making Pie-Rat 12 feet tall wears off, and he escapes from his cell. He steals the remaining shards of the crystal, climbs into the Planetary Pizza, and makes a getaway. As a bonus, he also repeats the power-down spell against the bigger ship, giving him ample time to escape. And he's not the only one. Over on the Menacing Moon of Mayhem, Vetvix also returns to her proper size, and abandons this base as well. And when Pet Force fails to find her, they simply return to their own universe, ready to be called on once again in the future~

Book 3: K-Niner: Dog of Doom!

Another very basic comic book-style cover. K-Niner is a much more typical villain in style. This one's actually a wrap-around, and features the rest of Pet Force reacting to K-Niner on the back cover. Which is good because, other than the first cover, the covers all have a heavy Garzooka focus. Which makes sense for a book series, I suppose, you wanna assure the kiddos that Garfield's gonna be in the book. But as a comic book series, this would be a bad look for a team book~

So after our standard introduction and recap, we start off with Vetvix in yet another new base, the Floating Fortress of Fear. I'm sure it's very intimidating, if she can keep hold of it for more than a single book. She's picking up from the epilogue and putting the last touches on K-Niner, mostly enhancing his intelligence. Now, you look at the cover and tell me what kind of voice you'd expect. Some sort of German or Austrian accent, like the doberman on Road Rovers? Does anyone remember Road Rovers~? Anyways, but no: he speaks with a posh British accent. You know, the "I say, good chaps, looks like we're in a bit of a sticky wicket, eh wot?" type. Trust me, you can tell. But just because he sounds refined doesn't mean he's not evil.

I also love that after the initial "trapped them in the Phantom Zone" bit, the villains just go whole ham. K-Niner here demonstrates that he is indeed evil by threatening to rip out Vetvix's throat. Let your villains be villainous is all I'm saying. She's pleased he's so vicious, but feels he needs to learn his place as well. She force-chokes him until he complies. She then gives him his assignment: she thinks dogs should be liberated. The Boy Mayor of Second Life would approve, and so does K-Niner. Turning pets on their masters is just his style.

K-Niner takes a portable evolution gun, and immediately sets off. He begins on the planet Kennel. Isn't it neat how every planet is named after an English word that describes its function? K-Niner quickly takes over the dog population and turns them against their masters, because boosting their intelligence also makes them evil, of course. They use enslavement collars on their former owners, and within a few days, the dogs now run the planet. We cut over to Emperor Jon on Polyester, where a man has crash-landed a ship. He's an escapee from Kennel, and he's here to report the events so we can get the plot moving and once more summon Pet Force!

And summoned once more they are, Garfield and Friends once more conveniently disappearing in a split second while Jon's back is turned (this time they're outside playing volleyball). And once back in the parallel universe, Emperor Jon fills them all in on K-Niner's dastardly doings. Garzooka, naturally, takes great offense to dogs being in charge, and takes his duties as a hero completely seriously for once. Pet Force takes off for a confrontation with K-Niner in the Lightspeed Lasagna. And speaking of Pet Force's ships...

The Planetary Pizza, piloted by Pie-Rat, plants its pads down on polar planet Glacia. Pie-Rat is here seeking a way to restore his magic crystal and regain his mighty magic powers. He's sought out the home of a legendary evil wizard, who's known by the name of... Barfo. I see why Barfo keeps his location a secret. But anyway, Barfo is the one who made the crystal, so naturally Pie-Rat reasons he can restore it as well. Suprisingly once on Glacia, Barfo's evil lair is pretty easy to find. His manservant, Hobart the Gnome, brings Pie-Rat before the wizard, and within moments the crystal is restored! Pie-Rat turns to thank Hobart, but Hobart suddenly turns into Vetvix!

Yes, Vetvix knew all along that Pie-Rat's quest would lead him here. And as she was once Barfo's student in the ways of evil magic, she knew she could get the old coot to go along with her plan. Barfo returns the crystal to Vetvix, restoring her powers. And so Pie-Rat, a recurring villain in three whole books, is unceremoniously done away with, as Vetvix teleports him inside an asteroid, trapping him in solid rock. Even if the asteroid were hollow or he displaced the interior when he teleported in, no doubt he'll suffocate within moments. That's pretty harsh.

With that over, we rejoin Pet Force as they approach Kennel. K-Niner's battle cruiser spots them incoming, and shoots the ship down, even in spite of Abnermal's forcefields. Pet Force bail out of the ship, and Abnermal uses his powers to make snow to cushion their fall. Upon landing, a contingent of mutant animals attack. The mooks aren't much, but K-Niner himself puts up an impressive fight. However, one of the mooks pulls a gun and points it at Compooky. This is why Compooky usually stays aboard the ship, but that wasn't an option. Rather than let their friend get hurt, Pet Force surrenders.

Pet Force is held prisoner separately from Compooky, with both the cell's technology making it freeze-proof and threats of "don't break out, or we'll shoot your compatriot". Their imprisonment is not long, though, as suddenly the power goes out. Pet Force takes advantage of the situation and make their escape, quickly running into Compooky. K-Niner didn't think the hyper-intelligent teddy bear needed a high security cell, and just locked him in the basement. It was easy for him to then break out and shut down the local power grid. This also has the side effect of turning off the control collars the humans were wearing. How convenient!

With control of the planet now tilted in their favour, Pet Force now has time to both fix their ship and reverse the polarity of the brain-boosting weapons, turning the dog population of Kennel back to their normal selves. Though the experience did change the pet owners of Kennel. Having experienced life in their pets' shoes (so to speak) for a bit, they've resolved to treat their canine companions a bit more equally. More being allowed on the furniture, less stupid tricks for treats. Still, Pet Force can't stay long, and they head off in pursuit of K-Niner's battle cruiser. This is why most superheroes don't have spaceships (Jedis don't count): if your enemy also has one, they can flee way more easily than on foot.

Not willing to let another place go to the dogs, as it were, Pet Force catches up with K-Niner. With his previous success, Vetvix has stepped up the timetable and sent him after Polyester right away. Emperor Jon is in danger! They enter the planet's atmosphere, and are attacked by fighter craft. They fend them off, but their weapons system is damaged in the fight, so they can't simply use the reverse brain-rays and solve it quickly. The team splits up instead: Garzooka and Abnermal will go after K-Niner, while the other three will find the planet's power source and knock out the collars, since that worked so well the last time.

The two heroes quickly make short work of K-Niner's guards, and then turn the battle to deal with the Dog of Doom himself. While the struggle goes on, the rest of Pet Force reach the planet's power grid. Using a clever tactic, Compooky overloads the power and causes and electrical storm that simultaneously undoes the brain-boosting effect and shorts out the enslavement collars. There's only a few pages left, after all, and we have to wrap this up.  K-Niner is reverted back into an ordinary dog, and the emperor is reverted to an ordinary non-enslaved person. The day is saved!

And now once again, Pet Force prepares to return to their own universe. However... when the spell clears, the five heroes are still standing there. Something is blocking the passage between dimensions, and Pet Force is trapped. And while Pet Force's adventures have taken place between mere moments in their own universe, they have always returned quickly enough that Jon didn't notice a thing. But this time, as Jon retrieves the volleyball and turns around to his pets, he's surprised to find they've all vanished into thin air...

Book 4: Menace of the Mutanator

This one's very striking because of its more painted look compared to the heavy black outlines the rest of the covers have. Does this one count as having the whole team on the cover? Because, spoilers, that's what the Mutanator is: the rest of Pet Force mashed up into a villain. Again, though, that's definitely a striking image that'd draw in readers to a comic cover. In fact, while Garzooka may be over-used as a cover focus, several of these also show him imperiled in some way, and that's nice for character stuff. That helps balace it a bit~

I wanna say, before we start, that I'm impressed by the continuity for the series as a whole. They could've just written each story as a standalone, but for a series of 100-page children's novellas starring Garfield characters as superheroes, things happen in these books. Like, maybe not sweeping status quo changes, but events affect the plot of each next book down the line. And that's where we pick up! Right where the last book left off, with Pet Force now stuck in the alternate universe, unable to return home to Jon. But if they can't go home to Jon, well, maybe then events will conspire to bring Jon to them~

Yep, because Jon happens to wander into the room where they keep the copy of Pet Force #100 that acts as a portal to their universe, he gets transported into the Pet Force universe. And since Emperor Jon is still an extant entity, there's just two Jons now. Jon, of course, is a bit freaked out, and it takes several pages to explain the whole deal to him, and also have a showcase of all their powers to pad out the book some more. Eventually, they decide to call in Sorceror Binky to examine the problem. When he has a go of it, a sudden tornado emerges from the cauldron and whisks away Pet Force--save for Garzooka, whose prodigious strength keeps him anchored.

Garzooka heads out in the Lightspeed Lasagna to track Pet Force's signature, glad to get away from a double trouble Jon. And while he's searching, the scene cuts to Vetvix's Floating Fortress of Fear. Hey, one of her bases actually lasted more than one book! This is where Pet Force has been transported to, once more in a power-proof cell. Vetvix monologues to the heroes, as she is wont to do, explaining that she's the one who cast the spell to keep them from returning home. And further, she's brought them here to mutate them into her servants.

While Emperor Jon exposits about his backstory (turns out he is not of royal blood, and has about as much legitimate claim to the throne as you or I do), the search continues. Sorceror Binky detects Pet Force, giving them all a view of what happens next. The trapped members of Pet Force are literally broken apart and reassembled: Odious' body, Compooky's brain inserted into the chest, Abnermal's hands, and Starlena's head. She christens this beast "Mutanator", and it is soullessly obedient. I also wanna say, Mutanator's kind of a non-binary icon, aren't they? (The comic uses "it", but it was 1998 and alternative pronouns weren't really a thing yet.) Muscular, masculine body, but confident enough to still wear lipstick. It's a look, is all I'm saying~

Mutanator continues to possess the combined powers of Pet Force as well. Vetvix sends them to attack the planet Armory to gear up before attempting to conquer Polyester. And meanwhile, thanks to the convenience of being able to scan all of Compooky's memories now that his brain is part of Mutanator, Vetvix has the perfect trap to spring on Garzooka--or should she say Garfield. Yes, she really knows the whole origin for Pet Force now, and now she knows all Garfield's weaknesses, likes and dislikes, and probably blood type and other dating profile stats~

Thus, when Garzooka receives the coordinates from Emperor Jon and arrives at the Floating Fortress, he finds himself menaced by giant spiders. Vetvix couldn't think of a way to get Mondays to attack him, so the Giant Spider Invasion will do. Spiders are apparently very formiddable foes, Garzooka's personal fears aside. They can swat gamma hairballs out of the air, they can construct webs as quickly as certain Marvel heroes, and their hairy exoskeletons are resistant to both claw and strength. But despite his fear and Abnermal's running commentary, Garzooka manages to trounce the spiders with a carefully applied flame--taking Vetvix's blueprints with them.

Garzooka heads out once again to track down the Mutanator, leaving his less-than-all-together friends in the safety of their forcefield prison. While he's off, we return to the perspective of his target. Using their combined powers, the Mutanator swiftly conquers the planet Armory and sets their sights on Polyester next. It's not a bad plan, honestly. With the stockpile from Armory, not only will the Mutanator be more powerful, Polyester won't be able to use the planet for backup. Fortunately for the two Jons, though, Garzooka intercepts the Mutanator before they can leave Armory.

The fight's actually pretty good. Very back and forth. But even despite Garzooka's great strength, the Mutanator wins in the end. Thankfully, Vetvix puts her conquest of Polyester on hold to take the time to retrieve Garzooka and add his power to the Mutanator. This, of course will be her undoing--in a completely ridiculous way, of course. For back in the palace, our universe's Jon is watching Pet Force's struggles with the scrying cauldron. And he leans in a bit too close. Sowhile Vetvix is prepping the machine to divide Garzooka's body like she did the rest of Pet Force, Jon suddenly tumbles through the dimensional warp caused by the cauldron and lands on Vetvix, which causes her to put the machine in reverse. A real Jonnus ex cauldrona there, eh?

The Mutanator disappears, their existance as a unique being wiped out as their pieces return to their proper Pet Force owners. With Pet Force reassembled, Garzooka takes out Vetvix with one of his gamma-radiated hairballs while she's distracted by Jon. Pet Force decides that the vile veternarian should have a taste of her own medicine, and stick her in the body-splicing machine with some of her guards. This divides them all up and mixes them into bizarre combinations. It also has the side effect of disabling Vetvix's magic, so they can return to their own universe now.

The book wraps up here. Pet Force first returns to Armory to both return the stolen weapons and also make repairs on the buildings that were damaged in Garzooka's fight with the Mutanator. That's the sort of thing I'd like to see in more superhero stories in general. The two Jons part ways, with the Emperor believing the other Jon's heroism to have been deliberate. And thus are Garfield and friends returned home. And just like the end of their first adventure, where Garfield couldn't be sure if it really happened, so too is Jon's memory fading. Had he really witnessed all that? Only his pets know for sure--and in this universe, they can't talk~

Book 5: Attack of the Lethal Lizards

This one's another wrap-around, showing the rest of Pet Force engaging the remaining Lethal Lizards on the back cover. This is one advantage books have over comics: a front and back cover you can use for your story-telling. The Lizard designs are pretty good for a villain group too. Like Pet Force, they don't adhere to a particular theme, but they do look good individually. Garzooka roasting a hot dog on a stick might be a bit too comedic for a superhero story, though. It sets the tone wrong. How "lethal" can they possibly be if Garzooka is out here roasting hot dogs in the middle of battle?

So here we go, last book. After the usual recap, we open with Jon explaining to Garfield and friends his latest plans: they're going to WackyWorld, a theme park dedicated to Jon's favourite cartoon, The Wackies. Both Garfield and Nermal think the show is lame, and if those two agree on something, you know it must be so. In less lame universes, however, trouble is once more a-brewing. So it turns out Vetvix's Floating Fortress of Fear has been orbiting the swamp planet Reptilius this whole time. And her various experiments in the last two books have been radiating the planet in magical energy...

From that magical power, three reptiles find themselves uplifted in intelligence and granted fantastic powers. Please say hello to our three main villains for this book: Snake, an enormous snake (the only one without an anthro design) with stretching powers; Chameleon, who can shapeshift; and Dragon, a komodo dragon with fire breath and the bad attitude to match. While Snake and Chameleon figure out their powers, Dragon declares himself the leader as he's clearly the smartest, strongest, and most powerful. They name themselves the Lethal Lizards and start plotting how to rule the planet.

After that exciting intro, though, the book kind of slows down. First we get a whole chapter of Emperor Jon also deciding to go on vacation, to planet Funlandia. With Vetvix out of commission for a while, there's no better time. In short, he's out of the castle and Sorceror Binky is in charge. This is followed by a chapter of Jon and his pets at WackyWorld. It's certainly an accommodating amusement park to allow pets on its grounds. Garfield at least gets along with the food, but if you know anything about amusement park food prices, the amount Garfield eats will make your wallet weep. Jon takes his mind off it by dragging the pets along to a ride. Surely they have to be under the height restriction~

Fortunately, we get back to the actual stars of this book, and we see a bit more of their dynamic. Snake is the sort who sucks up to whoever's calling themselves "Boss" at the moment. Dragon is power-hungry, and it's clear he'll sell out his allies at the drop of a hat. Chameleon is Starscream. Anyway, they trek through the jungles of Reptilius until they find a downed spaceship. Reviewing the logs reveals it was a scout ship from Vetvix, and they also learn of Vetvix and her mission. However, they don't know where Emperor Jon lives, so they crowd into the the newly christened Rapacious Reptile and set course for the stars.

The first planet they come across is a world called Klod. Quickly the Lethal Lizards beat up the populace and find the local government. Chameleon shapeshifts into a dignitary, pretending to be an advance entourage for Emperor Jon, schmoozing with the governor until he learns both what Jon looks like and the name of his planet. With this information secure, Chameleon nips out suddenly, and the trio sets forth towards Polyester. Governer Klutz calls up the palace as soon as the reptiles depart, and reports the incident to Sorceror Binky.

Binky wastes no time, and he dials up Pet Force. Since all five are in one place, he's able to pull them through even without them being near the gateway through issue #100's cover. Convenient! Pet Force, however, does waste time, as a lengthy comedy scene eats up several pages before we just get on with it. Eventually, the situation is conveyed, and they figure it's safer to keep Emperor Jon on Funlandia for the time being. Compooky stays behind to help plan some strategies, while the rest of Pet Force boards the Lightspeed Lasagna to intercept the Lethal Lizards before they even arrive.

Pet Force spends the next few minutes both scanning for incoming ships and bickering with each other, so I'm very glad when the Rapacious Reptile appears on their detectors before too long. Dragon threatens the ship, telling them to move or he'll knock them aside. It's a spaceship, dude, you can move in three dimensions. The ships trade shots, and while Chameleon's piloting is actually pretty good due to his independently-rotating eyeballs, eventually both ships crash land on whatever planet is nearby.

Both ships crash right next to each other, which is improbable but less ridiculous than some of the contrivances in these books, so I'm okay with it. Now you'd think what with the enemies being reptiles and Abnermal having freezing powers that this battle would be over really easily, but no. In fact, Garzooka and Dragon are pretty evenly matched. Snake turns out to be immune to Starlena's siren song because snakes don't have external ears. See, now there's a contrivance I find a bit weird. Snake swallows Abnermal whole, and Chameleon and Odious get literally tongue-tied. The Lethal Lizards actually live up to their name pretty well.

As the fight continues, half of both sides are laid out when Compooky comes rushing up, saying he has an urgent message from the emperor. And that's when he sucker-punches the team. It was actually Chameleon in disguise, having gotten knocked away when he and Odious separated. So yeah, round one goes to the Lizards, and they make their escape first. Pet Force regroups, and they give chase. The Lizards have enough head start to really lay siege to Polyester before Pet Force arrives, though. They even get access to the palace using Chameleon's shapeshifting, leading to Sorceror Binky letting slip the real location of the emperor just as Pet Force arrives.

Another fight ensues--see, now it's really a superhero story--and the Lizards leave again 2 and 0. This time Snake uses his venomous fangs to attack Starlena. This leads to the weirdest contrivance yet. Maybe not the worst, but definitely the weirdest. They have only minutes to save Starlena. So how do they do it? Well, they notice that Odious drools quite a lot. It's very "fluid output". So they have Binky magically reverse Odious' drooling, so that he has "fluid input" on his tongue instead. It becomes a big suction sponge and sucks the poison out of Starlena. They then restore the drooling, and he just harmlessly drools out the poison. What.

With their teammate saved, Pet Force pursues the Lethal Lizards to Funlandia. They get there just in time to rescue Emperor Jon from their clutches, with Garzooka and Odious combining their strength to literally rip a kiddie ride out of the ground. Starlena corners Chameleon in a hall of mirrors, turning his own trick against him. Snake is undone by Odious' strength. And Garzooka fights Dragon to a standstill, finally trapping all three on a roller coaster still operating. When the ride comes to an end, Abnermal freezes them all until the authorities can retrieve them.

Naturally, Emperor Jon thinks it's all part of the show (because Jon is dimwitted in any universe). The Lizards are sent to a lizard-proof prison (seriously, it specifies this), and Pet Force returns to their own universe. As usual, Jon didn't notice his pets go missing during the dark amusement park ride. The book concludes on an ominous note, however, as the ship carrying the Lethal Lizards makes its jump to lightspeed just as it passes the Floating Fortress of Fear. The shockwave knocks over some debris that reactivates the combining machine, restoring Vetvix to her full evil might once more!

The end!

No, really. Those five books are all there was. I hear it may have continued into the comics, but I don’t know how accurate that is. I didn’t really look into it.

But boy, what a ride, huh? Let’s dissect the books one at a time, since it only seems fair to take them as individual stories.

The Outrageous Origin: It’s a fairly basic origin story, I’d say. It kind of has to be. I guess my main gripe is that, like Rita Repulsa’s entire run on Power Rangers, the heroes never fight the main villain directly. In fact, there’s barely even an evil plot in this one. You have henchmen and some traps, and that’s about it for the menace.

Pie-Rat’s Revenge: A cautionary tale about why you treat your minions with respect. This one’s pretty good, but the events depicted on the cover make up such a small part of the book. Wouldn’t it have been more fun if Garzooka was turned at the beginning of the story? Book 4 would at least do the reverse of that, so it’s not a major complaint~

K-Niner, Dog of Doom: I think this one’s about as middle of the road as you can get. What a coincidence that it’s also the middle of the series! Like I said in the recap portion, it’s a shame that Pie-Rat’s story ended here. This one definitely feels more “villain of the week” than most.

Menace of the Mutanator: This one might be the best book in the series. Garzooka, alone, battling against the best parts of his team? That’s gripping stuff. I guess the main problem is that the Mutanator isn’t really a character in and of themselves. Like, K-Niner, he may have been a generic rent-a-villain type, but he had a personality. Mutanator is little more than an extention of Vetvix’s will.

Attack of the Lethal Lizards: I’m a bit split on this one. The bits with the titular Lizards are great. They steal the show! But the parts where it focuses on either Jon kind of drag, and Pet Force is a bit too jokey here. Like, I get the point is that they’ve relaxed into their roles now, and there’s not much point of doing it as a Garfield story if they don’t actually use the character personalities, but... I dunno. It’s good, but it could have been better~

And that’s it! Like, I dunno how to wrap this up. Pet Force was neither my first exposure to superheroes nor my first introduction to the Garfield brand (you can thank Saturday morning cartoons for both of those). But for some reason, maybe just the absurdly goofy premise, it always kinda stuck with me. And I think that’s a good enough reason to make it my 10th anniversary review, don’t you~?