#i just have Things to say about zippy

[zippityzap]

I have been in a rather sudden and tremendous Sonadow mood lately and I want to draw something but alas I always struggle with ideas for ship art

In the meantime I will compromise by drawing my Sonadow fan kids because if there’s one thing I can do easily it’s designing and drawing ocs

[pebblezone]

Feeling like a Yuma morii Pokémon card

[polo-drone-070]

Buzz is Born: Maximus Tries Something New

A mascot meeting

Oi, so we were at the mascot meetin’, right? All of us—me, Grayden (@polo-drone-084), Bucky (@buckygold), and the pups—workin’ out how to get the crowd hyped for the match against Vanguard. Grayden was goin’ over plans, his usual smirky, boss-man self, lookin’ sharp as ever. Bucky’s throwin’ out ideas, proper focused, all knightly n’ shit. Me? I’m buzzin’ just thinkin’ about suiting up as the Golden Knight again. Ain’t nothin’ like flexin’ in that gear, hearin’ the crowd go mental, yeah?

But then, Chevy (@chevy-gold) n’ Grant (@grant-gold43) start givin’ me this look, their tails waggin’ like mad. Them two already propa settled in their roles as Golden Pups—cheeky, rowdy, proper full of energy, init. They always make it look like a right laugh, even if they’re a bit daft with it. Milo—PDU-151— (@polo-drone-151) was sittin’ calm as ever in his black rubber polo, tail flickin’ lazily. Always quiet, always focused, but you can feel he’s takin’ everything in.

Chevy leans over to me, his ears floppin’ as he grins. “Oi, Maximus, you ever think about tryin’ somethin’ new, bruv?”

I squint at him. “What d’ya mean, bruv? I’m already the Golden Knight, init? Ain’t much better than that.”

Grant smirks, nudgin’ me. “Yeah, but think about it, mate. When Grayden or Bucky are suitin’ up as the knight, yeah? Wouldn’t it be proper sick to have more pups runnin’ with ’em? You know, a whole pack hypin’ up the crowd, bouncin’ about, goin’ mental?”

“Pack, yeah?” I say, blinkin’. “You think I’m cut out for all that woof-woof shit? You takin’ the piss, bruv?”

Chevy’s tail wags even faster. “Nah, mate, serious talk. You’ve got the energy for it! Enthusiastic, rowdy, proper dumb—but in the best way! You’d be perfect as a golden pup. And we got the perfect name for ya: Buzz. You’d be Buzzin’ all over the place.”

“Buzz?” I ask, scratchin’ me bald head.

Milo finally speaks up, his tone calm but firm. “Buzz suits you, Maximus. It aligns with your energy and enthusiasm. You’d complement the pack well.”

I stare at the three of ’em. They’re propa serious, like they actually think I could pull this off. Me? A pup? Proper mental idea... but also kinda excitin’. The Gold Army’s been pushin’ everyone to try new things this week, and I ain’t about to back down from a challenge.

“All right, bruvs,” I say, grinnin’. “Let’s do it. Make me Buzz.”

Collared and Ready : Golden pup energy

Chevy and Grant get to work right away. They slap a gold collar round me neck, the tag jinglin’ as they clip it on. “Buzz,” it says, all shiny n’ official-like.

“Buzz,” I say, rollin’ the name round me mouth. “Oi, yeah, sounds propa zippy. I like it.”

Grant grins, handin’ me a golden pup hood with floppy ears. “Stick this on, bruv. You’re about to become one of us.”

I pull the hood over me head, snug n’ tight, and they clip a waggin’ tail to me shorts. I can’t help but laugh as it bounces with every move I make. “Oi, bruvs, look at me!” I bark, strikin’ a dumb pose. “Propa pup material, yeah?”

“Atta boy, Buzz!” Chevy cheers, waggin’ his own tail. “Now, let’s get ya hypin’ the crowd like a proper golden pup. Rowdy, dumb, full of energy—just go wild!”

I throw meself into it, barkin’ n’ bouncin’ round like I’ve been a pup me whole life. Chevy tosses a foam ball across the practice field, n’ I take off after it like a rocket, grabbin’ it with a massive grin on me face.

“Got it, bruvs!” I bark, waggin’ me tail as I bring it back.

“Good boy!” Grant laughs, rubbin’ me head. The praise makes me all warm inside, like I’m doin’ somethin’ proper good.

We spend ages just messin’ about, chasin’ balls, jumpin’ n’ rollin’, hypin’ each other up. I’ve never felt so... free.

Milo’s Turn : Drone pup programming

Then Milo steps in, his black rubber polo gleamin’ under the lights. His tail twitches as he approaches, calm n’ composed. “All right, Buzz. Time to see how you perform as a drone pup.”

My tail slows as I stare at the gear he’s holdin’—a black rubber polo n’ matching shorts, shiny and snug, just like his. The vibe shifts immediately. There’s no more rowdy energy from Chevy n’ Grant; it’s all focus now, serious-like.

I nod slowly, lettin’ Milo guide me as he slips the polo over me head. The rubber clings tight, snug n’ firm, and as it settles into place, somethin’ in me shifts. The rowdy, bouncin’ energy starts to fade, replaced by a deep calm. The black shorts follow, and with each piece of gear, I feel my head quietin’ further.

Milo clips a black tag onto me collar, and that’s when it happens. The programming stirs. The sharpness of the rubber’s embrace pulls me under. 070 rises, not all the way, but just enough to bring its order n’ discipline to the surface.

“Good, Buzz,” Milo says, his voice steady n’ firm. “Now, follow my commands. Let the programming guide you.”

Buzz is still here, yeah, but it’s 070 now, too. A mix of the pup’s playful energy n’ the drone’s perfect focus. The commands come, and there’s no hesitation, no thinkin’, just action.

“Jump.”

070 obeys, the body springin’ into a perfect leap, paws landin’ with precision.

“Spin.”

A flawless turn, controlled n’ sharp.

“Roll.”

The movement is seamless, efficient, yet still carries that pup-like enthusiasm, tail waggin’ at the end.

“Bark.”

“Woof!” The sound bursts out, loud n’ clear, but with a sense of controlled power.

Each command feels natural, like it’s what this body was built to do. The mix of playful pup energy n’ drone obedience blends into somethin’... perfect. 070 recognizes this state as optimal.

“Cheer,” Milo commands.

“GO GOLD!” I bark, leapin’ high into the air, my voice filled with unwavering energy n’ loyalty. The jump is precise, the landing flawless, but the cheer is still hyped n’ joyful, reflectin’ Buzz’s personality wrapped in 070’s discipline.

Milo nods, his tail waggin’ faintly as he observes. “Good drone pup. You’re performing as expected. Let’s take it further.”

Milo steps closer, his tone calm but more intense. “You are PDU-070, a drone pup. Your purpose is to serve, inspire, and obey. Playfulness enhances morale. Precision ensures perfection. Let the programming guide you completely.”

The words sink deep. The pup hood n’ rubber polo amplify the programming already embedded in me. It’s no longer just Buzz or just 070—it’s both, workin’ together perfectly.

“Yesss,” I say, my voice soft n’ slurred, the words comin’ out automatically. “PDU-070... serves... obeys... inspires...”

Milo watches, his expression calm n’ satisfied. “Good drone pup. Now, perform.”

I run through more stunts, each one flawless but still filled with playful energy. I roll, fetch, leap, and spin on command, barkin’ when prompted. It’s pure bliss—no overthinkin’, no distractions, just obeyin’ n’ servin’ like I was built for it.

Buzz Reflections

When the session ends, I flop onto the turf, pantin’ n’ grinnin’ under the hood. The mix of Buzz n’ 070 fades slightly, leavin’ me feelin’ proper accomplished. “Oi, bruvs, that was propa mental!” I bark, tail waggin’. “Never thought I’d be a pup, but fuck me, that was amazin’. Buzz n’ 070 workin’ together—lit as fuck, yeah?”

Chevy laughs, rufflin’ me hood. “Told ya, Buzz. You’re a natural. The pack’s better with ya in it.”

Milo clips off the black tag, his calm demeanor never shiftin’. “You performed well, PDU-070. Your obedience and precision enhance the pack. You will continue to train and grow.”

I nod, proper eager. “Yeah, bruvs. Can’t wait to train more. Maybe 049 (@polo-drone-049) will take us out for a pack walk. Heard he’s got loads of drone pups, like Chevy n’ 098. Bet they’d be a laugh to run with.”

As I sit there, waggin’ me tail, I think back to a month ago, when Spencer—PDU-098— (@polo-drone-098) had me in a similar state. He’d put me back in drone mode when I was slippin’, added a hood to the mix, and brought me back to full focus. It was... intense, yeah, but now I get it. The hood, the rubber—it’s not just gear. It’s part of what makes me better.

The trainin’ wraps up, and I strip back into me gold kit, but the memory of the rubber polo stays with me. Being Buzz ain’t just about havin’ fun or playin’ a role. It’s about servin’ the Gold, whether as a rowdy pup or a precise drone pup.

“Oi, bruvs,” I say, grinnin’ at Chevy n’ Grant. “Propa glad I tried somethin’ new. Buzz is here to stay, yeah?”

They cheer, waggin’ their tails as we head out. Milo follows, calm as ever, already plannin’ the next session. Me? I can’t wait to get back to trainin’ n’ hypin’ the crowd, whether as Buzz, 070, or somethin’ in between.

Woof-woof, bruvs. Let’s go.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 9/24/2024

you might be wondering “is my dear friend tumblr user girlfriendsofthegalaxy still unemployed?” the answer is yes. take this cat off my hands please i don’t think he’s causing the unemployment but he certainly isn’t helping

listening

via Wendy @dying-suffering-french-stalkers, Huoy Meas' ប្រគល់ក្ដីស្នេហ៍មកខ្ញុំវិញ. figuring out what this incredibly zippy Cambodian rock song is named and what it's about was really difficult bc spotify is a bane upon this earth and won't let you fucking copy-paste and OCR was not working on the Khmer script. i ended up listening to the first couple seconds of each of her songs on apple music, and finally figured out this roughly translates to Give Me Back My Love and is about begging a fuckboy for closure.

via the spotify discover weekly, Night Club's Pretty Girls Do Ugly Things. all Night Club's songs sound the same so if you like one, great news! i had this song on for a full gregorian hour bc, i am only a tiny bit ashamed to say, i was storyboarding a The Man With No Name fancam to this. i think it would go pretty hard.

Smoke you like a cigarette Choke you like a lariat Fatalistic tourniquet Do you want more?

-

reading

thank you mackintosh.

i did not Adore any of these comics from the library. i sort of enjoyed Night of the Ghoul, a one-volume TPB by Scott Snyder and Francesco Francavilla. i think ive blogged about this before but every once in a while i'll get a bee in my bonnet to read some horror comics even though i am a giant baby about horror movies.

Night of the Ghoul is about how you can't save your dad from PTSD but also about a lost horror film and also about the extremely dad behavior of tracking down every scrap of info about an auteur. there's also a monster.

the subtle art changes from present day to the remains of the film to the non-film flashbacks are well done, imo. the cover screams mignola but the inside pages are really fun pulp nonsense. i love a piece of genre writing that rolls around and delights in being a piece of genre writing.

im doing my level best not to get sucked into tiktok but i DO love watching this lady revive antique nail polish and look for dupes for shades from like the 20s. she found an almost exact dupe for a shade produced during wwii which is crazy insane to me!!!

-

watching

The Asphalt Jungle (1950, dir. Huston), it's a very painterly heist noir. i even like Sterling Hayden in one of the more prominent roles, even though i think he generally has the appeal of undercooked dough.

much like Fritz Lang's M, it presents the criminal element of the city as its own class with its own reputation and reference systems. it got in some trouble with the censors for having a VERY clearly laid out heist plan and execution. it's also got the babiest Marilyn Monroe in one of her earliest roles

this was such a gloriously messy movie. everyone is such a fucking mess. this woman only known as Doll is heartbreakingly, head over heels in love with Sterling Hayden's character. she's a little flighty and bumbling and silly, but determined! they're constantly orbiting the gravitational weight of her desire for this man and desire for a real life with this man. and that's just one subplot! she has maybe five minutes total screentime! she should have gotten a supporting actress oscar!!! everyone acted their fucking hearts out and it was so much fun to watch!

-

playing

monument valley is in the netflix games library this month (i don't actually know what their liscencing agreements would even look like, they and the studios they worked with were very tightlipped about that when they were rolling this out three years ago) but i assume it's going to be on the service for a while. i have never played this game, which makes me feel a little bit like a bad gamer. you can tell it's ten years old from some of the color and texture choices, but WOW did literally everyone take inspiration from this game.

this is the platonic ideal of a phone game. i get why everyone went insane about it and there was a brief boom of geometry-based puzzle mobile games. it is MUCH much harder now to get people to pay money to play a game that has a planned endpoint and planned number of levels, so netflix is a good home for it.

i was often frustrated but always delighted. the level below involves making something happening that made me genuinely gasp out loud in glee. well worth the annoyance of downloading the netflix app and scrolling through the poorly labeled and poorly sorted carousel of games.

great retrospective, a bit about how you need to have tiny teams go off and just kind of fuck around and bring weird stuff back, and a lot about how they actually designed the levels

The end result had a pixel-perfect axonometric aesthetic that not only went hard on its references to Dutch master artist and printmaker Maurits Cornelis Escher, but also dug deep into classic video game design, going right back to early arcade machines and 8-bit titles. Each of the ten levels is like a piece of fine furniture, built with invisible dovetail joints and inlaid with marquetry, stuffed with secret compartments and little design flourishes. Gray cites the world of theatre and stage design, as well as graphics, as important keystones in the way the levels were constructed. ‘Ken would always talk about flower arranging, and how you frame a silhouette of a level on the screen,’ he says.

-

making

update on the Phantom Menace fabric: pinked the raw edges and threw it in the laundry again with a very large quantity of vinegar. 50% poly was too high for it to really do anything, which is interesting. it didn’t lessen the seam edge effects either, which is a little annoying bc the seams were so gigantic and that’s a good chunk of fabric to lose. i am going to buy a camp shirt pattern at some point when i have money again but for now it goes in The Box

also! thrifted a pack of o-rings for jars for a dollar and finally put my grains etc in my pretty jars. they’re going to live in the pantry but today they live out on the countertop

[ladyluscinia]

2x08 Reaction #4

I'm legit stunned how bad of a job they did at using Izzy's death to further Edward's character arc.

Like.

That's the easy, shortcut method of trading onscreen manpain for not having to actually do character work. You fridge a guy's wife so you don't have to come up with a realistic motivation for him to do the rest of your story.

Izzy legit dies in Edward's arms giving him a motivation speech and it's absolutely meaningless???

For one, if you are going to motivate with grief you kinda have to have time with the grief? Izzy dies so close to the end of the episode, and they really want that last bit to be happy, so Edward like. Isn't really sad? I mean I assume he's sad but he spends less time with a camera pointed at his mourning Izzy face than he spends watching the zippy LuPete wedding?

And Izzy's deathbed wishes are either Things That Were Explicitly Already Done or Things Edward Ignores Completely.

Why is he telling Edward to retire Blackbeard and go be with Stede outside of piracy like this is a new thing he's blessing and not the same thing he encouraged literally last episode? "Maybe you should listen to it" about tossing the leathers means nothing? I mean, tbh, no it doesn't lol because he's literally still wearing them in the last scene but I guess whatever.

And then the whole "You're my only family" "Bitch, you have a whole fucking family over there (not remotely attempting to comfort me as I die)" and then they just fucking dip? Like the union is sailing into the sunset for pirate adventures and leaving the co-captains to be shack hobos? So glad Izzy's dying wish was for Edward to experience family for literally the amount of time it took his body to grow cold and that was it!

It's just... It's so utterly underwhelming. He doesn't even, like, get some memento of Izzy to meaningfully promise to live his best life for. If you really want to scrape the barrel for some impact then maybe vaguely-suicidal Izzy saying "no I'm cool with dying" magically cured Edward of his own suicidal desires... but that's absolutely nonsensical. I'm just saying words now.

You fridged his wife and you had him listen to her whole dying speech and then he stood up, walked to the kitchen, and made a sandwich? The only thing that changes about his life is he's now unemployed, and he gave his notice before she died.

Most non-impactful death-solely-to-impact-other-character I've ever seen.

Fascinatingly bad.

[3gremlins]

feel like im having a DA2 experience again where I really liked it and was in my little "this is good" cocoon where i played it many times only to emerge from underground and find everyone else hated it (i mean ive found the other da2 cicadas since but at the time it got really slammed). i've been really enjoying DA:TV so far ( lol tho obvs have notes) here's an early thoughts review, may be a bit spoilery, def rambley, trying to stay vague on stuff still (i think i'm about half way maybe? im trying to not look things up and doing it blind on my first run through. it's hard to tell b/c i went hard on all the side quests and am now way over level for the msq)

the combat system is a little jarring at first and i still miss at least being able to switch to and play as party members if your character dies (instead of the god of war style of full wipe), but i've gotten used to it (it's more annoying for boss fights, regular combat it's very zippy and fun). the targeting at least on controller is kind of annoying sometimes- i'll think i'm pointing at one enemy only to have rook turn and fire at nothing or companions to hit an add instead of a boss. I wish we at least had more control over how it queued who it was hitting. some of the arenas are obnoxious design wise - there's bosses that teleport to you and they give you like a tiny little box to dodge around, not the most fun. i do like that you can punch way above of your weight class sometimes which reminds me of DAO a little bit (like how you'd just wander into a fight or hit a gong and be like oh no, those enemies have skulls over their heads, oh well YOLO). sometimes it doesn't work out but when it does it's very satisfying. It's nice to be able to conquer something mechanically even underleveled (smol fromsoft vibes) Having always been a big fan of the strange composition parties (i.e not just war/rogue/mage), i like that this is now even more viable (and not just me being cheeky "we're having a leather party!" of all squishy rogues). but like the main thing about bioware games is the companions/interpersonal shit and i'm enjoying the heck out of that .i only do main quests to get more side quests from companions (or more side quests in general so we can troll around for more banter). i like petting griffons (and cats and dogs) and playing games with manfred*. I wish the gift system was more interesting like DAO or DA2- i was so excited to see it again and then it was a little disappointing to have them barely react when you get them stuff.

my current fave party are rook and the poison boys (emmerich and lucanis) since they're a rogue too and we just stack necrosis, bleeds and other elemental effects on things till they disintegrate. i like the lighthouse, it feels much cozier than skyhold. I love that you can just wander up to companions having convos and awkwardly eavesdrop. I do miss the little interactions/quests you could get with cole esp*** i think the animations are a little lack lustery? Idk there's something with the face model morphs that sometimes feels weird but the voice acting is strong enough that I don't notice too much. i do miss some of the more bioware-y cheeky things like item descriptions or weird notes near random silly environmental tableaus (there's a little but i just want to read all the notes! there's some in the grey warden areas where i was just like WAIT I HAVE QUESTIONS but there was no plaque about them T.T). where are the stacks of cheese (i do appreciate the fereldens love cheese jokes tho and harding getting so excited when someone says something nice about ferelden) i was esp bummed that there were no random things to read in the black emporium and it's all codex entries instead (that's my favorite tiny bit in DA2 where there's junk you can click on and xenon says weird shit to you). i also wish more had been done with accents of npcs- like i wish all the antivans had similar accents or your crow rook had an antivan accent, stuff like that (having a lot of "ferelden" generic british accents everywhere is disappointing. takes you out of the immersion a lot) My biggest gripe is probably the pacing - I wish it had more horror/mystery pacing like dao and da2 had- the reason we're all scarred by the brood mother is b/c the build up to that was so so creepy (also the necromancer bit w/hawke's mum in DA2). They gave us time to be unnerved or afraid and I do feel the evanuris reveals have been a little rushed so you can't really feel that worried about them (some of the side quests get close to this but still not quite there**). I wish they'd let them breathe a bit more instead of rushing from one giant world changing event to the next. Some of the reveals have been not so great- like lore that the fandom has poured over for 15ish years explained in one line?? i wish there'd been more build up of rook as a character too, maybe even a time skip from a prologue to finding solas kind of thing. the first trailer made it seem like that's what was going to happen but then it in media res'd us in a strange way. the first 10 hours of the game are probably the weakest imho, it took it a bit to get rolling and feel more natural. I appreciate that the first major decision doesn't really let you scum save for it (bit of a jump scare for me lol).

I also don't really need this much varric anymore, i kinda wish we had a different narrator if we have to have one. He feels really awkward to just have there and not doing anything(and not just kill off or have something happen to him? he got stabbed by the dagger and harding only touched it is what i'm saying). at least let him get better pjs and slippers or something Idk it does feel like bits of previous iterations they were working on are still there and they don't completely serve the plot well. And ofc there's the decisions not meaningfully carrying over thing- which is a huge bummer. But in reality they've never been good at that- the characters from previous games we see in new games don't really carry through their plots/arcs that much (it's more like cameos or they're a new person now) and the world states are usually effectively the same just with aesthetic faction swaps. I was sort of hoping we'd get some solavellan SOMETHING but it doesn't look like we will get much at all past the stuff in minrathous. i feel like if they were going to only include the one choice it really should have had more impact on the story. (i am also still a clown and want to talk to solas constantly still even tho he has no reason to talk to my rook at all, i do not care, i love a sad woof. i wish we could just casually visit him in the fade. i wish we could switch to lavellan and visit him in the fade, idk something. need more gareth david-lloyd pls) the interpersonal character decisions have been the only ones that mattered much and then only within the constrains of their own games- the bigger world changing stuff is usually the illusion of choice. It would have been nice if they let us have one protagonist carry through but i can also see why they liked changing it up and felt stuck in that format. tl;dr: i'm really like it for what it is but it's def got flaws. Parts of it feel super polished while other bits do not- i think knowing how game dev works that they had to make decisions on what was going to get prioritized and some of it works while others not so much. I wish the pacing was better for sure but i love the characters/companions which is generally what bioware is best at. sad it won't get meaningful dlc, i don't really care about mass effect 5 tbqh. So far I like it better than inquisition for the most part- it feels like a bigger/more polished DA2 in a lot of ways if that makes any sense (with similar budget/pacing issues, but the environments are more fun). as i mentioned in my other post, i really appreciated the trans/non binary inclusion into the story/cc tho. like that can't be discounted, even if the rest of the game has issues. (all the holes in the narrative make me want to do fan art and fan fiction tho so idk, maybe that's an okay thing. maybe dragon age is best at inspiring us to sandbox around in it)

*side note, i am surprised at how much i like emmerich like holy shit what a lovely soft nerd of a man! going to have to play through a few times and romance him and also bellara for sure (romancing lucanis this time round) i find myself shipping my companions with each other more than i normally do too. I just want them to be happy! I wish they'd let us have polyamory, like i could see little polycules in this squad so easily. i need to give bellara hugs and lucanis head pats. taash deserves head pats too, but my rook will need a ladder.

**i am going to cry if they do with the griffons what i think they're doing with the griffons. like straight up, feeling like it was a cursed wish to have them now T.T *** do we think the caretaker is cole? the character design makes me wonder (like the hat/silhouette is very cole like but maybe not. maybe i just want it to be cole lol) there's def characters i want to see show up that aren't going to and then bioware is like "what about this fan favorite??" and i'm like "eh".

[grif-hawaiian-rolls]

Anyways the “essay” about the energy sword to character development pipeline below the cut

Ok so like yea tucker-crunchbite-junior is, obviously, the first instance of the sword-quest-companion theme/trio that im like, rattling in my head rn

Tucker finds the sword, crunchbite shows up and theres the “quest” that challenges tucker both in the false intent (you need to be the hero) and the true intent (SA leading to Junior which is not handled well but it IS important) which is a push against tucker’s character thus far in that he’s the comic relief, make everything a sex joke archetype— he doesnt take it seriously, he doesnt see himself as important beyond getting just enough recognition to be “hot” and now he’s made to be the so called “hero” and the true plot puts him in the one position that he probably never thought could be him. Bc he wants to get laid so… yeah. Pushes his character if you give it like three seconds of critical thinking and not just the standard “haha alien baby bullshit” (that said, i do enjoy fics that explore crunchbite more and play with the potential of the “joke” shitty character into someone less sinister, but im doin my best to stick to canon rn)

And JUNIOR, oh man, because theres the thing that really solidifies this for me like

The dude who doesnt care doesnt bother is all jokes and ‘man whatever’ energy is a dad, and it starts with him trying to avoid it but he really fucking quickly steps the FUCK up for Junior and its the start of his development that people are like “oh he learns to be a leader on chorus” which i mean kinda yeah but he never struck me as a Leader even on Chorus even tho he does decidedly lead, its not the same as when kimball leads or when wash leads or carolina

He’s leads as a dad bc he is a dad

Not always a good one, but he’s trying and yea sometimes that means being the asshole, sometimes that means screwing up but it also means you fucking care and you take responsibility and you put yourself in danger first (the rescue mission, leaving the lieutenants behind)

And that doesnt start on chorus! Its the most evident there sure but

it starts with junior

It starts with him going after tex to protect his son, it starts with him trying to be a diplomat so they stay together, in sending junior away so he is safe while tucker buys time protecting the temple, it STARTS with him looking at church and going “leave my kid out of this” and yeah the way rvb was written and approached does Not take that seriously bc it wouldnt and if it did it would be a very different show but the implications are there and its acknowledged with tucker’s photograph of junior with his 5th grade basketball team (“i know right? Who carries actual pictures anymore” -tucker) which i could go on about THAT too but suffice to say its very clear that tucker cares so gd much about his kid and yeah his character development isnt super linear but you can basically pinpoint when it starts with the sword and junior

The second run of this trio of things is actually grif which is admittedly, a stretch, a big ol reaching for straws (okay, TECHNICALLY grif is the third run, but i’ll address that in a minute) largely a stretch bc grif… does the pattern backwards

This IS S16 stuff so if ur a shisno paradox hater i respect that, i however am gnawing on it with everything i have and will be going feral so this is your warning thank u for reading the tucker side of it mwah appreciate ya

Anyways

Grif does his plot backwards during timetravel shenanigans

He gets the alien companion/friend who contrasts his character first in Huggins

Grif is a loyal friend, but he is lazy, even after s15’s breakdown and apparent change of tune, he’s still looking to take the path of least resistance, avoiding the call, trying to keep things from moving

Enter Huggins: zippy, full of energy, excitable and just so different in that she is not only so proactive she puts herself in danger (which helps everyone in the long run/plot but its the principle) but shes so fucking lonely

As far as she knows, her family is dead, except for muggins who is so dettached from her, he might as well be a coworker and not her brother

Compared to grif, who has a family even when he tries to push them away (the reds, the blues, KAIKAINA) but hates taking action

Huggins is the start for grif’s arc of “it sucks but someones gotta do it” which in their case is best shown as the trudge across the bottom of the english channel which is so fucking funny to me but it really pushes both of them and puts them firmly in the friends category

Huggins cant zip ahead without grif, grif cant stop moving because huggins wont let him, so they find their little balance of gas vs brakes and together they cruise along p well

The actual push of the “quest” is grif having to be the one who steps up (kinda like tucker but its to the left) he’s the one who starts getting everyone together again across the timeline, even if he is very,,,

Well he’s very Grif about it, but it is still fundamentally, the change in character

Tucker isn’t a always good dad, Grif isn’t always a good instigator of action

But theyre trying and theyre working on it and grif’s arc suffers a Little from being so late in the show and thus not having much of a parallel to pull on but you could argue he gets the parallel from s15 anyways with the refusal of the call (from fake church/loco) and rescue mission but i hesitate to call that a parallel bc its literally back to back but an argument could be made for it which i love

Enter part two: the alien quest giver

“Wait wasnt that huggins”

NOPE huggins was alien companion! The Bestie in grif’s case,

The alien fetch quest comes from atlas, in that stupid wishing sequence but cmon it wouldnt be rvb if the character development wasnt sandwiched inbetween obnoxious gags and stupidity

The quest is less important here admittedly bc again, with grif doing this in reverse its not the challenge to his principle character that it was for tucker, his connection to huggins was the challenge, and this becomes the final push into the development, the “you have a role, now play it” that gives grif the final shove into Doing Things literal!! And his prize? For this character development arc? An alien sword

And thus the inverse version reaches an end, sort of (im pissed that technically he loses his sword, im also ignoring that he loses it in canon bc he fucking earned it okay this is a bit of canon i will ignore and loophole my way around it)

And now we track back to Chorus and to the second iteration of the sword-quest-companion plot

Locus

Now okay i will admit this is conjecture and pepe-silvia-on-corkboard-with-red-string fuckery at this point but hear me out okay!

He gets the sword with Felix’s death. We know this. What we dont know is how the fucking hell he gets off Chorus! We just see him show up later with A’rynasea. The vaguely alien (maybe sentient?? AI? Its implied with the way he addresses her but we literally have her for like two episodes) ship that seems to be the driving force (literal) (bc shes his ship) behind his chosen redemption arc where he pushes himself to help others at no apparent benefit to himself, but because it is, and i quote “the right thing to do”

Arguably, Santa could be Locus’ quest giver, seeing as how he is the one who triggers the whole shift in view for Locus in the first place and that is, technically, what crunchbite does and what atlas finalizes for grif! But the problem is we simply dont have enough of A’rynasea to draw the parallel between her and Locus as personalities, as companions for it to work for me??? But that might just be me overthinking? But it does make Locus’ version is a bit messier depending on who you consider his quest-giver but as far as I’m concerned, he’s still on his quest snd its just up to interpretation if A’rynasea is his companion?? or if theres a secret third alien for Locus that we never wouldve seen even if they planned for that bc its red vs blue and im just delusional about locus and his role in plot and this is just me firing concepts blindly into the sky at this point like - yeah i could still theorize what kind of companion characterization i think locus would work well with bc its more about the wielder than the companion in this sense (sorry junior and huggins i love yall i promise) but thats a completely separate rant at this point and not nearly coherent enough at this exact moment to add it PLUS its ridiculously self indulgent and only marginally canon compliant/adjacent but i will never not be amused by this very specific plot beat happening enough to draw these parallels, as tenuous and vague as the parallels are

[ashwii]

Celestial AU FAQ

Usually I prefer pinning my favorite artworks to the top of my profile, but over the last couple weeks I've gotten MANY repeat questions about my rottmnt celestial AU. I never mind answering questions, but I want to limit how many asks I answer to keep everyone else's dashboard's in mind [i.e. I don't want to clog up other people's tumblr with several asks that have been answered in the past.]

Below is a list of general frequently asked questions regarding my celestial au. Even more detailed information and questions can be found in the "#celestialFAQ" tag on my blog.

What is the Celestial AU?

It's a ROTTMNT au where Leo, Donnie, Raph, and Mikey embody celetial bodies. Leo embodies the stars, Donnie embodies the Moon, Raph embodies the Sun, and Mikey embodies the comets.

Can you tell us more about what they are?

Leo is the stars — he overlooks the stars as a guardian figure. While he thinks of his stars as his children, he is also an embodiment of the stars — he IS the stars. They are one and the same.

The same goes for Mikey and his comets. Although, while Mikey specifically embodies and overlooks the comets, he also overlooks all them zippy lil' things in the galaxy [meteors, asteroids, etc.]

Donnie and Raph are a little different — Donnie specifically ONLY embodies Earth's moon, and is the overlooker of all the other moons in the universe. The same goes for Raph and Earth's Sun.

Are there any other characters in this AU [Splinter, April, Drax, Krang, etc]?

[As of writing this] The only other characters in this AU are April [an astronaut who works for NASA / an aspiring astronaut], and S.H.E.L.D.O.N. [a robot made of lost junk and lost space tech that Donnie found]. I do not plan for there to be any other characters in this au, as I mainly want to draw and focus on the turtles.

There have been lots of fun headcanons in the askbox about who else could be in the au and what they would embody, and I think that's great! I love all the fanart and creativity everyone is doing for this AU, I will never be mad at exploring fun ideas [I've even doodled some of these ideas for fun] — as for what is "canon" in the AU though, at the moment I'm going to keep it as the turtles, April, and S.H.E.L.D.O.N.

What's the lore behind this AU?

There is no real lore behind this AU, just a bunch of fun ideas in a fun concept. Lots of other people have had fun coming up with their own lore and ideas for this AU, and once again, I think that's great! There's so many ideas other people came up with that I love — but again, in terms of "canon" and what I'm willing to draw, there's no legitimate lore for this AU.

The Sun is also a star. Does that mean Sun!Raph has a special relation to Star!Leo in some way?

Yes! Leo and Raph have a very strong special connection in this AU because of this.

Do the celestials control what they embody?

Control isn't exactly the right word — say for Star!Leo, for example, he's more of a guardian figure to the stars. "Control" implies that the stars have no personality of their own whatsoever, but that's not exactly true. They almost have their own little life to them — like a healthy tree —that Leo can understand since the stars and Leo are one in the same.

What are Moon!Donnie's alternate phases?

Moon!Donnie's alters are Blood Moon, Harvest Moon, Blue Moon, and Super Moon. Moon!Donnie's design also changes some depending on the phase of the Moon [eg. During the Full Moon phase, Donnie has no shadow up his arms and legs. During the New Moon phase, Donnie is all encompassed in shadow].

Is there any more info about these phases?

During Donnie's Blood Moon phase, he tends to be a little more mischievous and violent. He's ready to kill, no questions asked.

During his Blue Moon phase, he's a little sadder than usual. He's not breaking down every minute or endlessly sobbing — he's more just a little blue (heh) and the unending river of tears just comes with the phase. He just needs some cuddles and comfort during this time <3

Harvest Moon Donnie is a happy lil guy! He's a little chipper and cuddly during this time, hapoy to help and talk with his brothers on end.

These phases don't COMPLETELY change his personality — he still the same Donnie, but just with little changes to his overall mood.

There are many more types/names for the Moon [Snow Moon, Worm Moon, Flower Moon, etc.] — will you be drawing those as designs for Moon!Donnie as well?

While I think I may sketch out some of them for fun, in terms of "canon" to the AU, I want to keep it limited to what I listed above in the previous question.

Are there any alternate versions of the other celestials?

Sun!Raph gets sun flares when he's upset, and I have a Nova!Leo design in the works. I haven't thought of any alternate versions for Comet!Mikey, but I don't think he needs one, haha.

What happens during an eclipse?

During a solar eclipse, Raph gives Donnie a hug from behind. During a lunar eclipse, I like to imagine that Donnie is hiding behind the earth because he ticked Raph off.

Can Star!Leo feel it when any stars die?

Yes, he does. I explained in much more detail in the "#celestialFAQ" tag, but when his stars die, it hurts him some emotionally and physically.

Whenever the Sun [Raph] would explode in the future, Star!Leo will be out of commission for a while because of how much it would hurt him.

What is Star!Leo's relationship with the stars?

Leo is the stars, point blank. He is the personification of them. He's all the stars, he is them, they are he. One and the same. BUT there's also a special relationship there — Leo looks at the stars like they're his children, almost. A very deep connection and love. The stars feel that deep love for Leo too, they see him as almost a guardian figure. They love him more than anything, and Leo knows that.

Now HOW can the idea that Leo looks at the stars like they're his children, and the idea that Leo is just straight up the personification of the stars (him being all of the stars) both be true at the same time? Ah — no real answer there. It just kind of is, and it's more of a feeling that I myself have. That's just the way that I personally feel Leo's relationship with the stars is, even if I'm never able to describe it quite perfectly, and even if it's confusing to everyone else lmao.

Do the celestial turtles still have their weapons like the canon turtles?

Yes they do — Star!Leo has katanas made of constellations, Moon!Donnie has his staff made of shadow, Sun!Raph's fists fire up, and Comet!Mikey's comets and meteors spin around him and he can shoot them where he pleased.

Is this AU meant to be accurate about how astrology and space works?

Not at all — there are a lot of inaccuracies in this AU. But what's the fun of making an au like this if I have to keep everything pinpoint accurate! This AU is for good, fun vibes, and it's ok if not everything matches up with exactly how space works.

Can I make fanart/fanfics for this au?

Yes, you can! If you do, please tag me and lmk, I'd absolutely love to see what you guys make. Oc's and fan characters are welcome as well.

[ofmermaidstories]

You have such a great grasp on dialogue. The way you weave the things that are being said with the body language and the actions of the characters flows so nicely. I struggle to not let my dialogue be a he said, she said type of deal so I was wondering if you had any tips? I really admire how you create such magic with your writing!!

Oh, shucks. 🥹 You flatter me. But—he said, she said can be really impactful!!! i don’t think you should consider it a struggle. 🥺 it’s so—zippy, and quick! good for funny scenes. 🥹 and if you’re in moments in your writing where you don’t want the dialogue to be so snappy, having your POV character just take note of how the other/s are saying what they are is a good way of grounding the scene. And obviously what they observe (or don’t observe!) is dependant on who they are. A more confident character might just directly meet the other’s gaze, head on, in a convo, while our shier friend might distract themselves with watching the other’s fingers fanning out on a table, or something. If they’re not people who are attracted to each other (thus making them more likely to clock tiny details) then maybe one character is watching the other’s face and feeling something like, disgust for how it’s moving, lmao. Or they’re looking beyond them, half listening, and missing the small, important details that body language can do to recontexualise a convo, like… shrugging, or raising an eyebrow. Play act! Have the conversation with yourself. Imagine you’re having it with someone you’re painfully in love with, or you can’t stand, or your best friend—do you relax? Do you tighten up? Adding that kind of detail is just about asking yourself a hundred different questions, and then testing out the answers. 🥹

[edgy-ella]

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice thoughts

Overall I really liked it! This is definitely Burton’s best outing in years. His signature quirky sense of humor is back, and it’s got some fun performances and a nice blend of practical effects and CGI. Go see it if you can.

From here on out I’m gonna get into spoiler territory so proceed with caution.

This movie along with the original Beetlejuice have made me realize that one of Burton’s unsung strengths as a director is his strong pacing. Both movies are very zippy, never lingering on one shot or scene for too long. That’s a good thing, too, because I don’t think this movie would’ve worked otherwise. The script juggles a lot of characters, old and new, and subplots that don’t tie in very well to each other, leading to a climax that feels like everyone lining up to get a slap in the face before exiting stage left. Burton’s directorial touches—snappy pacing and cartoony German Expressionism visuals—are what make the movie work.

There’s some sequel gap syndrome at play here but it’s not very distracting. I think it helps that there is a huge time skip between the two movies rather than something like Psychonauts 2 which takes place literally the next day after the first game ends. You don’t really question how Beetlejuice unshrunk his head or how he has a bunch of other shrunken head people working for him now; so much time has passed that you can just sort of infer it on your own. That being said, the movie seems to have abandoned the concept of afterlife social workers all being suicide victims.

There is meta humor but it’s all very subtle. It’s never a big punchline where the actors pause for the audience to laugh, it’s always incorporated into the dialogue fairly naturally and there for people in the know to chuckle at. One character says that she’s “never doing Disney again” while talking about Halloween costumes. Neither of my friends picked up on this bit, but I got a nice giggle out of that one. Like you go Tim you’re finally out of your abusive relationship with the mouse.

For those of you that have seen the musical, it is a little distracting early on in the movie because it seems like Lydia and Astrid’s character arc is the exact same one that Charles and Lydia go through in the musical. The kid’s got a dead parent and living parent won’t talk about them, which becomes a source of tension. Astrid doesn’t go running into the Netherworld to find her dad like Lydia does for her mom in the musical, but strangely enough, she just…kinda bumps into him? It’s very strange. He’s working for customs in the afterlife and they just so happen to pass by each other as Astrid is nearly sent to the great beyond. I’m too tired right now to go into what this kind of thing means thematically.

Jenna Ortega gives a good performance as Astrid, but I wasn’t really sold on her character. I appreciate that she’s not just Lydia 2.0, but the Snarky Politically Active Teen Who’s Above All Of The Superficial Blonde Girls™ has been done to death already. I don’t see her having the same cultural impact that Lydia had when the first movie came out.

Monica Bellucci���s character, Beetlejuice’s ex-wife Delores, honestly feels like trailer fodder. She suffers the most from the movie’s lack of focus, especially for how much she’s hyped up at the beginning. Once again, she gives a good performance, but the script isn’t doing her any favors. Bizarrely enough, they didn’t really keep the gag of Beetlejuice keeping her chopped off finger/wedding ring? She’s still missing a finger, but she doesn’t get it back from Beetlejuice. It’s just there with the rest of her. She staples it back onto her body the same time she does her torso and legs.

One of the writers definitely has a pregnancy kink. There’s a couple of those “the writer’s poorly disguised fetish” moments in the movie, which honestly got a laugh out of me for how blatant they were. Congrats guys, you got to see Winona Ryder and Jenna Ortega give birth. There’s also an inflation scene, but that only happened once, not twice.

Lydia is shown taking either antidepressants or schizophrenia meds, which her fiancé throws in the trash in like the first scene of the movie which just made me think of that scene in the Fnaf movie where Vanessa throws Mike’s sleeping pills in the lake.

On a similar note, there’s a shot that is more or less frame for frame that scene from the Casper movie where Kat and Casper start levitating while they’re dancing. It even serves basically the same narrative purpose. Seeing it gave me whiplash. You can’t do this to me Tim.

Kind of related to the meta humor, but I got a kick out of how they wrote Jeffery Jones (the actor that played Charles) out of the movie. I mean, they definitely had to, but still. We see Charles’ death through a pretty goofy stop motion segment, and in the afterlife he’s walking around without a head (presumably played/voiced by a different actor). Conversely, the Maitlands (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) don’t show up at all. Lydia says that they “found a loophole and were able to pass on” and that’s it. I wish they got a stop motion segment the same way Charles did.

Bob is my goat. He’s very Sir Dan-coded. He did not deserve the fate this movie gave him.

I wouldn’t say I prefer this movie over the original, but my god, it’s leaps and bounds better than all the remakes, reboots, and gap-sequels we’ve been getting for the last ten years. It could’ve benefitted from a tighter script, but in a movie like this that’s not really what matters. It’s dark, it’s funny, it’s charming, it’s memorable. It doesn’t feel forced or corporate the same way that movies like Hocus Pocus 2 or that new Indiana Jones movie do. It’s worth a watch.

[riptidesblog]

Ninjago hcs

Kai's(Smith-Jiang family's) eye color hcs:either amber,brown or sea-green eyes just like Maya's,while Nya has brown(I think this one is canon) and Ray has amber/brown eyes

After unmerging with the sea Nya's eyes started changing colors to match the nearest body of water:sea-green when near the ocean,grayish when near something like a bottle of water or sink water and etc.They will also turn glowing blue when she uses her powers on a large scale (they once turned blood-red bc she was treating an injury and blood has water in it)

Post-Crystallized:sometimes parts of her body would turn into liquid during the adjusting to being a human again(during which her eyes would be white like the foam)

After unmerging with the sea her powers became even more stronger and easier to control.After all,Nya was one with them for an entire year

The reason Nya couldn't get out the water in Jay's lungs during Seabound was because all of it kept responding,including blood and the water in Jay's body and she couldn't risk drawing out too much water and/or blood to help Jay

Pixal has Jay saved in her contacts as "extra charger"

The pink clothes Nya wore during Prime Empire shorts were given to her by Cole(they used to be Lilly's)

Nya makes the best coffee,not even Zane can match her skill there and surprisingly enough, Cole is a close second when it comes to drinks

The public didn't know Nya used to be Samurai X until a new one showed up and ninja had to answer some questions during interviews

Kai is a history nerd

All the ninja know basic first-aid,though Nya and Zane are the best medics.Kai is/was good with taking care of dragons

For a while after he learned that he was a nindroid,Zane didn't know how his body functioned beyond the basics.It's after HoT that he started learning more about himself instead of relying on Pixal,Jay or Nya all the time

All the ninja wear a bracelet that is made of interwined threads of their colors (gray for Nya,purple for Pix,gold for Wu and the rest are obvious)

Nya loves animals(this one is based on Wu's teas ep and how she seemed to like Zippy in the Island)

All the ninja+Pix see Wu as a father figure(even if some of them already have fathers)

Same with Misako

Mrs.Benedict constantly scares Lloyd by appearing out of nowhere in the weirdest places

Mrs.Benedict loves Nya and Pixal the most out of the entire group

After Seabound-Crystallized Nya always smells like sea and the salty air of the beach

Wu and Misako are best friends(the love triangles/angles in ninjago are a pain,so I'm ignoring them),but when it comes to history they're rivals worse than Oni and Dragons,FSM and Overlord combined.It's always fun for the ninja to watch their debates(especially when Misako is right bc those are the times when Wu says that he was there when the events happened)

Garmadon and Maya were best friends,same with Ray and Wu

Wu is Kai's godfather,Garmadon and Misako are Nya's

Wu anonymously helped Smith-Jiang siblings when he heard that their parents were gone,but he didn't take them in for two reasons: he wasn't doing well after Garm's banishment and he didn't have a legal identity to prove that he could take the siblings(not that it would have stopped him,but the first point stands)

Jay and Nya weren't in a relationship until s6, they weren't a couple during or before s3,but did go on dates or hangouts

Nya has a green burn-scar thing from Tiger Widow venom

Nya misses being a part of the sea and hates herself for it

Zane sometimes missed the cold of the Never-realm and how close he was to his element as Ice Emperor

Nya still has marks all over her body from merging with the sea and sometimes they glow

Elemental masters are naturally more durable and stronger than humans(the reason Cole managed to survive the Oni clouds) and once they master their powers,they age slower too (they look younger than they actually are)

[sirfrogsworth]

Wishlist Haul

All I asked for were pants, and those are coming Saturday. But you all came through in a big way with my wishlist and helped me solve some problems that have really been bugging me lately.

One of my biggest current issues is my decision to use my M1 MacBook Air as my main computer until I can move my PC upstairs at some distant time in the future. Which means I need to ask a lot more of it. And it is capable, as these Apple Silicon devices are amazing and very zippy, but I only got 256 GB of storage because I thought this would just be a secondary computer while I was taking care of my dad.

So I need storage. And if you do photography and use Lightroom, you know you need *fast* storage. In the days of spinny disc drives, going back and forth between images was maddeningly slow. I already hate the process of culling photos and picking the best ones. And sometimes you'd need to find 5 winners out of a few hundred. And when it took 3 seconds to switch between every photo, I wanted to die. And honestly, it could still be better.

But one of the best solutions is a super fast SSD. Which I had. I bought it right before my parents got especially ill and was planning to install it in my PC. But my priorities changed and I just never found the energy.

The problem is that was an internal NVME SSD. I needed it to be external.

Which is where this little thingie comes in.

This is an NVME enclosure, and if you are looking for cheap, fast external storage, this is so much better than those external SSDs they overcharge for. For $200 they give you a 2TB drive that can read about 2000 MB per second. Or you can get a 2TB NVME and this enclosure for the same price and get 3000 MB per second. Not only that, but it is upgradeable. In a year when 4TB is $100, you can plop that in. And the Mac's Thunderbolt 4 has a max speed of around 5000 MB/s, so there is room to improve there as well. Though sometimes advertised speeds are not reality speeds.

The only thing you need to be aware of is these drives run hot. You're going to think there is something wrong with them. Like, they top out at 90C. Which is nearly 200 degrees in freedom units.

I wanted a convenient way to mount my drive, but I didn't want 200 degrees on the back of my screen, so... MAGNETS!

And I can stack a few more if that section starts feeling too hot.

So, I have that problem solved. I can now use this as my main computer and work on my photography.

Next up... fashion!

I'm going out more and I want to look a little more presentable. I thought these two tone shirts looked a little more fashionable. And they are very comfortable too. I have a red one that I think I'm going to wear on my trip. I know you can't see the two tone well in the picture, so here is the product photo of the red one.

Next problem?

Well, it's maybe not a problem so much as something cool I wanted. A black light!

My mom had all of this uranium glass and I had no idea my salt shaker was marginally radioactive all these years. I really wanted to take a proper photo of some of the glass before it all gets sold at auction. So this should be a fun experiment.

I will say, if you don't have uranium glass, don't get a black light. You will want to burn your house down. It does not matter how clean you think you got something... you didn't clean it enough. And I have all of this dry flaky skin on my feet. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't bother me. You can't even really see it unless you look really close. But when I shined the light on my feet they looked like they had some undocumented disease. I will not be sharing a photo of that.

But the depression glass, that's super neat.

Some proper photos coming soon I hope. Maybe after my trip.

Next problem!

My key fob. This thing is a piece of shit.

Even if it looks cool under a black light, it is THE WORST.

It's cheap plastic, it takes a stupid watch battery, the symbols on the buttons all wore off. And all of that I could handle, but for some reason this fob has an effective range of about 2 feet. I literally have to be standing next to the door before it will work.

I had a black fob that worked much better, only the plastic casing was falling apart. But I taped it up as best I could and hoped it would not fall apart. Then I went to get my tires changed and they needed the fob to do some special reset of the pressure sensors and the battery died before they could. I went home to try and change the battery, and the entire thing basically disintegrated on me.

The inside looks like this.

The battery retention contact is held on by a tiny dab of solder. And if you pull the battery up even a little, it snaps off. And that's what happened. And to make matters worse, the rubber buttons were falling apart and the unlock button just... fell off.

So I was either stuck with the 2 foot range green one or I needed a new fob. Thankfully, they are only 20 bucks for 2 on Amazon. Unfortunately you need a dealer or an auto locksmith to program them. The lowest quote was $100 for about 5 minutes of work. The dealer actually wanted to sell me the fob as well, which they quoted as $150 for ONE. Same cheap plastic piece of shit and everything.

So, I got all of the parts from the broken fob and I hot glued that battery contact back into place and I transplanted that into a shiny new casing.

Works just like new. The buttons feel much better, I can actually see the symbols, and it has a range of at least 100 feet. And that hot glue isn't going anywhere. Changing the battery might be an issue, but these lasted several years.

Next problem!

An intervalometer is a fancy shutter button for a camera that allows very long exposures. It is detached from the camera so you don't shake anything and it needs a backlit screen because if you are using it, you are most likely in the dark.

My intervalometer is about 12 years old and uses another dreaded watch battery. And the backlight on the screen seems to be dead. So it is pretty much useless.

But look at this!

The light even works in the... well, light! And it takes normal batteries. Seriously, watch batteries need to stay in watches.

I don't know if I will get to take a long exposure in Florida, but I want to have this with me in case I do.

Next problem!

This one I actually solved on my own. But I found these stainless iron (yes, iron!) shims and I covered them with black tape and now all of my most used kitchen items never take up counter space.

Yes, I use magnets and hot glue to solve most of my problems.

Next problem!

My garage door is not very smart. And the remote control for it is huge and does not fit in my man purse.

So I downsized the remote.

But I wanted to fix the non-smart thing as well. A while back my brother got into my garage without me knowing. He must have taken a remote of his own. And I really don't feel like figuring out how to change the frequency, so I now have a sensor that lets me know when the door is open with a phone notification. Beyond that, I can open or close the door from my smartphone from anywhere. And I can give access to anyone with a smartphone in case of an emergency.

I will say, this company is really paranoid about people being crushed by garage doors. The instructions tell you to put up this sign in your garage...

And if you use the app to close the door, you get a light show with annoying beeping...

And I know that these accidents happen in real life. But whenever I think about how that could actually happen, all I can imagine is that scene in Austin Powers...

In any case, I am really glad I have this now. And I also like that if I forget to close the garage door, I can check the app and not have to get up to do it.

OH! I almost forgot. If I want, I can have Amazon place packages inside my garage.

Next problem!

What in the heck do I need galvanized steel plates for?

In product photography you need a diffusion panel called a scrim. If you try to buy one of these already made, they are hundreds of dollars. They are mostly made for movie productions, and those items always have inflated costs.

So most product photographers make their own out of tracing paper or a special plastic called Translum. It's $80 per roll, but lasts forever. I used to hang my scrims from the ceiling. But you can't really angle or move them, so you have to move the object you are photographing instead. Which is just a backwards way to work. So I invented my own scrims with two strips of very thin wood, metal chip clips, these little plastic feet that held up plexiglass barriers during COVID. And to weigh everything down... steel plates.

This is version 1.0 where I glued the plastic rather than affixing it with the chip clips.

The clips work much better and allow me to put different weights of plastic on, or even double plastic, for more or less diffusion. And I ended up not needing that board at the bottom which allows me to curve it as well.

And these scrims let me take this photo...

It's called graduated lighting and it makes things look neat.

I also got a backpack for my trip and shorts, but I am going to forego an explanation of those.

To all that helped, thank you so much. I hope you can see I am putting everything to good use.

[thirteen-jades]

Finally got around to playing Armored Core 6 (thanks @self-loving-vampire!) and I’m loving it so far. The movement is a hell of a lot of fun, which is a good sign as movement is usually the first thing I start complaining about in a game (this is mostly a me thing, I just like being fast and zippy and it’s very easy for games to start feeling sluggish if they have fairly normal movement). The weapons feel nice, I’m getting a feel for how it plays, and I quite like the aesthetics. Mechs are cool!

I had some vague knowledge of the game before playing but even so I wasn’t really prepared for just how blunt and on the nose it is about the fact that you’re the bad guy here. In one of the early missions, you come upon a pack of trash mobs and a radio line plays of some guy talking to his comrades. He says something to the effect of "there's just one of them, we can do this!" in the wavering voice of a man who has never fired a gun before trying to find any amount of confidence before he puts his life on the line for his home. And then you unceremoniously blow him and all his friends straight to hell and move on. It doesn’t even tell you which enemy was talking, he’s just another faceless mook for you to brush aside on your way to destroying the objective.

Every now and then one of them will ask why you're doing this, and there's literally no answer to give them even if you could. The game doesn't even pretend that you're fighting a ~just war~ or something, they're just like "yeah, these guys are the Rubicon Liberation Front. They're getting in the way of our corporation exploiting their world, go destroy them" and then you do. And it's not even very difficult. They've got terrible equipment and no training whatsoever and just don't stand a chance. But you keep getting to hear their comms, and those comms keep painting an ever clearer picture that you’re not a soldier fighting a war so much as a grown adult beating a bunch of children to death. Nobody tries to justify what you're doing in any way whatsoever, your handler in the intro makes a comment like "y’know, if we make this job work then we'll strike it rich and you can buy your life back" and that's it. Regardless of what “buy your life back” is referring to here, it’s plain that you’re in this purely for selfish motives.

And that’s to the extent that 621 is even deciding to do this at all. So far it’s also done a great job of dehumanizing the main character completely, and you never really make any decisions beyond which of two missions to do first and how to build your AC. People keep referring to them as their handler’s dog, nobody expects them to have anything to say or any opinion whatsoever, and that’s great because as a matter of fact they don’t have any opinion about any of this. They’re just here to blow up whatever they’re told to.

The most memorable instance of this so far, and what really made it clear that this isn’t just the game not wanting to voice the MC or something, was one of the early mission briefings. You’re tagging along with some ACs from one of the corps, and the guy in charge of their in-house fighters at the end of the briefing says something to the effect of “now sound off!”, followed by a beat of dead silence. Then he says “eh, good enough” and ends the call. This makes it clear this isn’t just a pre-recorded message; it’s someone talking to 621, expecting a response, and not getting anything. It’s a little detail that I laughed about in the moment, but I really like how telling it is about your character as a person.

[ginger-snap-makes-art]

Lucky: Memoirs From the Backlot

Lucky

Memoirs from the Backlot

By: Ginger Snap

1914

There are many things that one may constitute as ‘lucky’. It is lucky, for instance, to find 10 dollars on your way to work. To see your cat sleeping comfortably on the neighbors porch after he took off through the open front door. To have a warm, safe home and parents who love you. To not be turned into an immortal creature of the night by a nefarious nosferatu with a textile mill to fill, and to love someone very dearly and openly without societal or personal repercussions.

If you were to judge one’s luck on those factors, Benoit Blanchette (or Blanchet, if you asked him how to spell it) and William O’Reilly were possibly the two most unlucky people alive.

But, none of that was enough to ruin them. After all, the two had managed to find each other after all their time apart, find new friends and new found glory as a preteen pair of vampire abolitionists, and even began to heal the many wounds their impossible childhoods set upon them. Now, decades away from where they had begun, the two maintained steady employment, changing the world in whatever ways they could through film making.

Benny winding days away rearranging scenes and talking actors through motivations to characters lives they would never fully want to understand. William spending hours upon hours putting pen to paper-dutifully writing dialogue and prose burning with love and longing and passion that would put a tear in the eye of any easily impressed actresses on set. Then, every night they could look forward to coming to their small, one room cabin and sharing their woes and wonders from the quick days around the lot. Talking long into the night about new ideas, old friends and adventures journeyed on together, and sometimes just lying next to each other-both feeling content in each other's warmth and company.

To spend not a day apart from one another, and to feel fulfilled in their livelihoods was to feel quite lucky indeed.

It’s a shame that their luck always found a way to run dry.

------------------------------------------------------------

“Two days???” William repeated, incredulous to his boss as he reiterated the information for the 4th time.

“He’ll be completely safe, we just need him for a meeting in Chicago with some benefactors. They’re very surprised we’d even allow a vampire on set and we just think Benoit will be a better representative for the company. He’s less….”

“Tall?” Benny offered.

“…intimidating. You’re very good with the people on set but I worry your stature and quiet demeanor would make them nervous. Also Zippy stares and it frightens people.” Mr. Horsley finished as delicately as possible. “Anyway, we can’t force you to do anything but we can’t afford to take you both. It’s Benny or I have nothing.”

William wanted to call bull. He was just as charming as Benny. Sure, Benny had those soft, deep eyes and that warm country twang and that bravado that came so naturally when telling a story you’d think he was born for entertainment; but he also had a propensity for putting his foot in his mouth. Like everything else about him Benny would let his words get too fast for his own good and wind up saying something that would earn him a death glare at best and gunshot to the chest at worst. What if he wasn’t there to stop any problems, what would happen then? God he couldn’t handle it if Benny got himself hurt because he wasn’t there to balance out all his loud bombastic energy.

“But I-“

“William,” Benny interjected. “It’s fine. I can handle two days with Horsley and a few other oldies.” He gave William an assuring smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes. “I’ll be okay.”

“Well…if you’re sure, I trust you…” William replied nervously.

Benny threw another shirt in his suitcase. “Alright, I’ll call that packed. When do I get going?” He asked, pulling the bag over his shoulder.

“The car is just about packed up-just give the driver your bag on your way out and we’ll leave in 30.”

Benny’s face paled a little. At the best of times moving machines made Benny ill. Trains, boats-even carousels got his stomach to lurch uncomfortably-but cars were the absolute worst. They were too slow for him and made little rocking and ricketing motions that felt so unnatural. But, Benny couldn’t afford to get lost running there himself and the producers felt the need to ‘coach’ Benny on proper etiquette for the meeting. He supposed that you could only tell so many stories about turning well-to-do mages into paste before someone got nervous introducing you to wealthy folk.

William nudged him and gave him a look, silently asking:

“You gonna be okay?”

Benny swallowed hard and nodded. Horsley turned around and left the room, leaving the two alone.

“Hey, you know you don’t have to do this, right?” William asked.

“I know but, it’ll be good for the company. They’ve done a lot for us, I can manage this.”

“This is the longest we’ll have been apart since….” William trailed off.

He didn’t need to finish, they both knew what he was going to say.

“Yeah…I know…but, hey! We’ve been through worse! We can handle two days away from each other! Hell, it’ll probably be good for us: we need to know we can still survive on our own, right?” Benny asked.

William felt his throat tighten a little. He couldn’t even fathom going through a whole day with his best friend being there at some point. It wasn’t like they were in danger or anything, not like before they joined Nester studios. But still, he couldn’t imagine going to sleep alone tonight. Part of him did worry like he’d somehow be unable to make it through two boring days alone on a quiet, unassuming film set in the middle of nowhere. Stupid as that felt.

“Yeah. Yeah that’ll be good.” He finally responded.

If Benny felt any more confident than William he might’ve commented on how he obviously didn’t believe that, but it felt a little like calling the kettle black. So instead he changed the subject.

“Alright, well, since I’m gonna be gone and I do most of the chores around here I should probably run down what needs to be done.”

William groaned. “Oh come onnnnnn, they can’t wait a few days?” William hated doing chores. Anytime he tried anything around the house it was like his brain leaked out of his ears and he would manage to screw the simplest things up. He just wasn’t built for domestic labor. Thank god Benny was so naturally good at it and got a weird joy out of keeping a home, so it never seemed to matter.

Benny rolled his eyes. “No, dummy. We got a schedule to keep up with, if we give up on it now we’ll never get back on it. It’s just a few simple tasks: I think you’ll manage while I’m gone. Yer the smartest guy I know, after all.”

“…how am I a dummy and ‘the smartest guy you know’?”

“I don’t know a lot of people.” Benny shot back a shrug.

“On second thought, why don’t you up the trip to a week?”

-----------------------------------------------------------

Benny waved one final goodbye to William and Zippy before hopping in the back seat of the car and speeding off onto the main road.

Zippy and William watched the car disappear into the distance until only dust clouds remained.

“Alright Zippy, it’s just you and me for the next two days! What’s the play? Chess? Darts? You wanna get really into wood carving and then give up on it a week in?” William asked.

“Oh.” Zippy scratched the back of his neck. “I actually have plans.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah I’m gonna go dig a really deep hole in the desert with some of the grips.”

“Why?”

“Seemed fun.”

“...Can I come?”

“I don’t really think it’s my place to invite anyone…”

“Oh…well…have fun?”

“Yeah…”

The two stood next to each other awkwardly for a few moments before Zippy cleared his throat and walked away to find his hole digging buddies.

“Welp….guess I could get started on that chore list…or maybe I’ll get a head start on my script revisions for Saturday? I’ve got this, I’m not gonna let a little loneliness get me down! I’m also gonna stop talking to myself…publicly…like a total freak…” William’s eyes glanced around at the few crew members giving him confused looks before spinning on his heel and walking inside.

“Okay, I have two days to revise my latest script, do the laundry, sweep the floors, and clean those blood reserve bottles that have definitely coagulated by now. And then I’ve just got to fill the rest of the time with super cool, fun stuff that I’ll brag to Benny about. Piece of cake!”

-----------------------------------------------------------

Two Days Later

Benny stopped on his heels in front of the one room cabin he called home, panting slightly after his journey. It may have been a long run home, but he could not handle being in that car the whole back. For multiple reasons. He rubbed a hand on his face roughly, trying to steady his breaths and soften the obvious anger lines on his face as he approached the front door.

He reached for the knob, but stopped when he heard William talking on the other side.

“Honestly, who do they think they are? ‘Oh, Benoit is just less intimidating than you!’ Bullshit, what does he have that I don’t? Of course between me and Benny it’s always him, isn’t it? Always the talented one, always the charming one-just so lucky to be so blessed. Bet he’s having a wonderful time right now schmoozing rich bastards out of their fortunes with that stupid country accent and those big, ridiculous stories. I’d have stories too if I wasn’t rotting in a mill for a fucking decade. But no, instead Benny is out there living it up while I’m stuck here like a loser who can’t shake out a fucking plot to save his life! God, why is script writing so fucking hard?!” Benny heard the clattering of something crashing against the wall.

Tears burned the corners of his eyes. He took a shaky breath, steeled his nerves, wiped his face, and turned around. If that was really how he felt then he wouldn’t bother burdening him with an early arrival. As he went to step down the front steps he lost his footing, cursing as he tumbled into the dirt below. As he struggled to his feet he heard the sound of the door swinging open and William was standing above him on the porch. As if he didn’t feel small enough already. Ugh, and his hair was down. He had no idea why but somehow William’s hair being in that messy, unruly state of curls and frizz like he had just woken up from a hard night's sleep always made his mouth go dry and-

“Benny? I thought you weren’t supposed to be back for another 8 hours.” William’s voice broke through his racing thoughts.

“Meetin’ ended early. I chose not to stay behind for the drive back. Ran home as fast as I could.” He hoped his words didn’t sound too bitter. “You seemed busy so I figured I would come back later.” He dusted off his jacket and started walking away.

“No!” William yelped suddenly. He paused awkwardly, seemingly surprised at his own outburst. “I mean, uh, I just wasn’t expecting you so soon but it’s really great to have you back early.”

Benny scowled. “You sure? I would think my ‘stupid country accent’ would just distract you while you tried to work.” He spat.

“Oh…you heard that?” William looked at the ground shamefully. “Benny, I didn’t mean any-“

“I’m sure you didn’t.” Benny cut him off haughtily. “I’m sure you didn’t mean for me to overhear any of it.”

“Benny, come on I was frustrated. You know I don't actually think any of that stuff.”

Benny huffed and crossed his arms, looking away.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m pretty sure the only reason Horsley picked me over you was because the old rich bastards had way more fun making fun of me than they would’ve anybody else. Just one more person out there who can feel better knowin’ they’re smarter than me, right?”

“That’s ridiculous-Horsley is a nice guy, there’s no way he’d bring you along just to throw you to the dogs.”

“If he wanted someone that makes vampires look good he would’ve just taken you.” He sat down on the front steps, head in his hands. “God, I’m such an idiot; I seriously believed that someone saw somethin’ worth seein’ in me. Somethin’ besides a complete joke anyway.”

William sat down next to him, unsure of what to do.

Benny looked up at him, wearily. “ Do you have any idea what it’s like bein’ friends with someone who’s better than you at everythin’ that matters?”

William looked back at him, incredulous. “Are…are you fucking serious right now?”

Benny raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? Everyone knows it-you’re the one who’s got everything going for him. Looks, smarts, talent, charm. I’m just the guy who can run fast and is lucky to be your friend.”

William’s eyes narrowed. “ That’s not funny, Benoit.”

“What’s not funny?”

“This. This bullshit you’re pulling on me right now.” He stood back up, fiddling with his needle as he paced. “Do I know what it’s like? As a matter of fact, I do. I’m not an idiot, Benny. There’s no way you don’t notice the way every crew member is enthralled by your stories, how everyone seems to be saved just in the nick of time by your oh-so-sage wisdom about cowboy bullshit, how every two bit actress on set blushes and giggles around you like a braindead, lovesick, basketcase!” He made a frustrated, strangled noise and flopped back down. “Meanwhile, I’M the loser who writes crappy, pulpy, mediocre romance he’s never actually experienced and gets left behind when it’s time to do any of the real studio changing work.”

“Oh don’t give me that.” Benny responded, face flush. “I’m a novelty to our crew, your writin’ is the only thing good and earnest enough to keep these films afloat with all the trashy actors comin’ and goin’, and don’t get me started on all the actresses who I have to hear gush about that ‘tall, mysterious writer’ who gives them their scripts every week!” He groaned. “I’m not even a good director, I’m just a lousy stagehand with a fancier title to make me feel better-you’re the real creative genius.”

“You’re plenty creative.”

“Name one thing I do that isn’t yell ‘cut’ and ‘roll’ and do whiskey runs for Fahrney.” Benny grumbled.

William paused. He hadn’t expected to bring this one up today but he supposed if they were truly airing it all out.

“...You used to play music a lot.”

“Psh. I knew, like, one song.”

“Oh come on, don’t lie to me. I know you wrote some songs yourself. You just don’t ever share them for some reason.”

The color drained from Benny’s face. “How did you- Y-you haven’t heard any of ‘em, did you?”

“No. But I know you write them sometimes in your journal-don’t look at me like that; I know you journal when you think no one’s around, dumbass-and you hum when you write music.”

Benny stared down at his boots. William took his lack of response as clearance to continue.

“I miss your music. What happened to it?”

“Honestly? My guitar broke in Virginia when we had to fight through that swarm of-”

“giant bees with the silver tipped stingers, oh yeah. You broke it over that mage’s skull.” William finished.

“Well he was gonna get the jump on you; I couldn’t let that happen!”

William smiled for the first time since the conversation started, but quickly waned again. “ So, why didn’t you ever get a new one?” He asked. “It’s been years.”

“Didn’t think anyone cared for it much. Gets disheartenin’ after a spell to keep doing somethin’ that everyone around you doesn’t seem to like.”

“I liked it.”

“Why? You don’t listen to music much. Last time we were in the city you hated all the music we heard. Said it was just noisy bullshit.”

“I don’t know…I guess it’s different when it’s you.”

It didn’t seem possible for Benny’s face to get hotter and redder. He said nothing. William shuffled in closer, placing his bad hand on top of Benny’s. Benny gently brought it up to his bad cheek, and the two sat there, any remaining frustration from their spat evaporating and disappearing like mist in the wind.

“We can’t do this to each other.” William said. “We can’t get this jealous of each other. It’s not fair-it just hurts us. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had my fill of leaving you with scars.”

Benny pressed William’s hand harder against his cheek, like he was trying to memorize the feeling of his coarse, black palm contoured against his skin. Normally he’d flinch or wince if that part of his face was touched, but if it hurt he didn’t show any sign of it.

“I’d do anything to keep from leaving you hurt again, Willie. It’s just so hard to see myself as someone with anythin’ when I’m standin’ next to you, you’re so just so…lord I can’t think of a word strong enough to describe what you are. Some days I wake up and I think I must be the luckiest guy in America to be lyin’ next to you.”

“Psh, you’re one to talk.” William smiled, heat burning at his cheeks. “Some days when I wake up next to you and see your face it’s like I’m staring at the sun…but if it didn’t hurt to look directly at the sun, I mean. It’s not that you’re hard to look at, it's that you’re-I’m getting off track.” He took a breath. “I can’t believe I know someone like you. You’re not just something Benny-you’re everything I want.” William paused, eyes flickering with the recognition of what he’d just said, muscles tightening. “ Uh, to be. Everything I want to be.”

“Even with my stupid accent?” Benny laughed, somehow missing the obvious faux pas just committed in front him.

William’s body untensed. “It’s like honeyed silk on my ears.”

“I don’t think that makes sense.”

“It doesn’t have to, it sounds nice.”

“Well you would know-you’re the talented writer here.” Benny smirked up at him, like he had just won an argument William didn’t know they were still having.

William laughed, playfully shoving him away. “Fine, you got me. Maybe I’m not the worst at my job or something, I don’t know.”

The two sat there for just a moment more, wondering if the air felt this warm and comfortable to anyone else in the world right now.

“Alright, enough sappy shit, I need a drink and a change of clothes.” Benny stood up, preparing to head inside.

William shot up, looking more nervous than ever. “Uhhhhh, you sure you aren’t in the mood to go visit Zippy or something first? I hear he dug a really deep hole while you were gone!”

“What?”

“Yeah I don’t know. Or maybe we could-”

“William,” Benny stopped him. “Did you not get all the chores done?”

“Well, I, uh-”

“Come on buddy, it’s okay.” Benoit assured, opening the front door. I'm sure what you did manage was plenty goo-oh dear lord what did you do?”

“I can explain.”

“I have no idea how you possibly could in a way that makes sense but I am dyin’ to know what’s on the ceilin’.”

“That would be our bedsheets.”

“...You know what? If I had seen this before I overheard you talking shit I might’ve been more less upset because if I managed to do this to the house in two days I’d have a breakdown too.”

William laughed nervously. “At least you know for sure there’s something important that you’re always going to be better at than me?” He shrugged.

Benoit blinked a few times.

“Are you mad? You can be mad.” William winced.

Benny’s eyes scanned the room, still in disbelief before a cackle escaped his throat. William looked down at him as he started to double over with laughter and smiled, only one thought going through his head.

“How did I get so lucky?”

[glassxrose]

For the ND ask game: 8, 9, 24, 28?

Have a zippy day! :D

I can't believe I got THREE of these asks overnight oh my goooodness. 8. Favourite second chance

Hey, how come at the end of Thornton Hall, if you click on the wrong symbol on the wall, a real fucking ghost kills you? Why does that happen. 10/10 no notes.

9. Something you find scary in an ND game that people don’t talk about

Oh, what an interesting question!!! Jeez. Well, I made a post a few months ago covering some unnerving places in the first five games that make me uneasy, but the moment that really comes to mind is during Haunted Carousel, when Nancy has to crawl underneath the entire ride to grab a remote control. Not only is that crawlspace creepy as hell, but the moment the player picks it up, the ride starts to move, threatening to skewer Nancy. The fact that this happens completely silently - COMPLETELY SILENTLY. Nancy says nothing, the Carousel makes no noise, the organ does not play. She makes no remarks about it. There's something so unnerving about it. You just have to click away quickly and then it's over.

24. Most confusing plot

So the MYSTERY of "Shadow At The Water's Edge" is "Oh fuck, is this place haunted? What's that about?" Cool, it's the same mystery as SIX previous games. Awesome and we love to see it.

The PLOT of SAW is Nancy, a visitor here at this family-owned traditional inn, repeatedly begging everyone to talk about the woman/mother/daughter who DIED there, and being SUSPICIOUS of them when they don't want to talk about it. The writing of the game, and the writing of Nancy's dialogue, means to convince the player that Nancy is Right - since ghosts are OBVIOUSLY not real and only stupid people believe in them, then the smartest suspect must be faking these hauntings to PREY on the others for some reason, and that ALONE gives Nancy the complete right to be as horrible, rude, and ghoulish as she is. I feel gross playing this game. There are many things about it that I love, though I don't think it's as great as the fandom typically regards it as, but this is the worst "Nancy Stumbled on a Mystery" game in the series.

She walks in, sees people acting "weird" about a painting falling off of the wall, and then insists that she is ENTITLED to know the details of Kasumi's Suicide, the history of the Family, and the TRADITIONS OF THE RYOKAN IN THE SHIMIZU FAMILY. The writers completely forgot to give Nancy any tact, empathy, or genuine reasoning for being allowed to stay, because 1/3rd of the way through the game she should have been fucking kicked out and shamed for her behavior.

The "confusing" part is, to me, why the player should want to continue being forced to ask horrible questions of a grieving family, snooping through their things (and a dead woman's things), and repeatedly being BEGGED over and over again to stop asking about it!! WHY IS THIS THE PLOT OF THE GAME? AAAAAAUUUUUGH I'M NORMAL.

28. Favourite place to snoop

If I can only pick one, it's Abby's Room in MHM. The music that plays in there is 10/10, the whimsigoth decor is 10/10, the information revealed to the player is 10/10, the clutter and extra prop details are 10/10. However, I'd also like to say that I love the snooping in The Final Scene, where I feel about equal attention was paid to each suspect's little area where you get to snoop around in. Very satisfying.

[goodlucksnez]

Glimmer of love

so this is not something i normally post but this is a collab post with @dr-ground-zero

cw: messfuckery, horny/indulgent, and angst

this is about our mha oc (zip and shu_ this is year two of their relationship

The holiday season had arrived and Zip was bursting with excitement. The apartment was a blank canvas, ready to be transformed into a festive wonderland.  He had boxes of decoration- tinsel ornament light and more-stored in the attic, waiting to be brought to life 

“Shu come on! It's time to decorate for Christmas!’ Zip called out his voice filled with enthusiasm. He is already pulling down the boxes from the attic with a bright smile on his face.

Shu emerged from the kitchen, a mug of hot cocoa in hand, looking less than thrilled. “Do we have to do this now, Zip?" he asked with a hint of reluctance in his voice. “Can't we wait a bit longer?”

Zip shook his head, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “No fucking way, Christmas is around the corner, we need to get started if we want everything to look perfect”

With a resigned sigh, Shu set his mug down and joined Zip in the living room. They opened the first box, sweeping the cobwebs out of the way. The old cardboard box opened with a plume of dust, revealing the shiny decorations inside. 

Zip rubbed his nose, already feeling the effects of the dust. Maybe it would be best to open these outside, then bring them in”

Normally shu would have agreed but since a snowstorm was currently happening outside he proposed a different solution.

“Why don’t you set up that thing,” he said pointing at the two-part tree that lay on the floor, and i will deal with the boxes”

Zip put down the wreath he was holding and quickly covered his nose with his shirt and sneezed harshly. “"Heh... heh... HHhzzSSCH’eHH!”

Shu jumped at the noise before snickering and replying with a, “Bless you, goodness that was fast. Dust is bothering you already?”

Zip stuck out his tongue at him. “Oh shut up Mr. Grinch and get to unpacking.”

Shu opened the next box, pulling out the stocking stuffers with the initials VIC and Zippy on it, feeling both bittersweet and sad he never got to make fun memories with his folks. Before setting them on the mantel. 

The next thing out of the box was an old, dusty picture frame. Shu brushed some of the dust off and looked at the frame. It was a picture of a small blue-skinned boy with two front teeth missing sitting by a fireplace holding an oversized bat onesie, assumingly on Christmas morning. Shu felt his eyes watering, and if Zip ever asked him, he would say it was the dust and not the feeling of wanting a nice family Christmas. 

Shu wiped his eyes and set the frame on the mantle, as he let go the frame backing folded in and it fell. Shu tried to catch it but it shattered on the ground behind him glass littering the floor around Shu feet. 

Within a moment Zip came running. “I heard something crash, are you okay?”

“I am fine, just a picture fell.” Zip, seeing glass around his bare feet, barked an order at him. “Don't move!!!! I will get a broom.” Shu smiled. “Love, I am not going to get hurt from broken glass, I ride a motorbike for Christ's sake.” Zip snapped back “I know and I have a heart attack every time.” 

Zip hurried off to fetch a broom. Upon his return he found Shu picking up large shards. Zip yells at him. “DO NOT PICK UP BROKEN GLASS WITH YOUR HANDS!.” His quirk started to activate the ringing of his voice echoing off the walls of the apartment. It might have been the surprise or the fact he had been looking at the family heirlooms for the last thirty minutes but the tears that threatened to spill started falling. 

Zip, not seeing the tears, pushed him out of the way and started sweeping up the glass mumbling about being irresponsible. Shu's mind started to fog, he felt his pulse in his ears. His face started to flush and he felt his breath start to quicken.  

Before Shu could stop himself he shouted out, mincking Zip's voice with his Quirk. “Well fuck off, I didn't have this, OKAY! I didn’t have nice memories with anyone. So I am sorry if you think this fucking capitalistic holiday is all that, but you know for others it is a fucking nightmare.”

Zip turned around shocked. In all the time they had been together he had only heard him shout one other time. He felt his throat tighten. Before he could find his voice Shu continued. “You might have had a warm fire and loving parents but I wasn't okay. This is hard enough,” he said gesturing to all the lights and joyfulness and taking a deep breath, I don't need to have to be WITH YOU A HAPPY-GO-LUCKY FUCKING HERO ON MY ASS!”

Zip felt his world shatter. All the joy and lights around him dulled and he was left alone in the dark. Shu stomped off, slamming the front door. The wreath which was held up by a loose nail slid down and clattered to the floor. Zip was left alone surrounded by dusty boxes, distant records playing in the background, and a hole in his heart.

—----

When Shu’s senses came too, the first thing he noticed was he was shaking and he was cold. He didn't know how long he was walking. It felt like hours but looking at his 12 battery percentage left phone it had only been 40 minutes. He looked behind as the blistering wind swept over the snow covering his footprints. He wrapped his arms tightly around himself. His mind was fuzzy with the event that led to this but as he sat on a bench near a streetlamp, the memories started coming back to him.

The picture frame, the dusty ornaments, the nicknames on the stocking stuffers. The tears sprang back to his eyes and he wiped his eyes. Why was this getting to him now, they had been together for Christmas before, this was the second Christmas. The first one Zip took him to a light show and Shu had gotten sick. Now a year later their relationship had only grown stronger. Why were these feelings building up now? What has changed? Zip was still playing basketball and in a great position in his rescue work. Shu had been working hard and actually getting noticed by the mafia. So why now? He racked his brain before a sudden strong wind came and he shivered. 

He smiled as a memory came to the surface. “You need to wear a coat in the wintertime or you'll catch your death.” the memory of Zip's sultry voice filled his head. And suddenly like he had been hit by lightning he knew what was different. It was love. He loved Zip. He was in love with Zip Kōmori.

He jumped up and screamed to the quiet and snow-covered world around him. “I LOVE ZIP KŌMORI!!” 

His legs started running before he knew he was going to. His feet sank into the freshly fallen snow but he continued to run. The cold air wiped at his face and stung his nose and lungs but he kept pushing forward. He could see the lights of the apartment complex getting nearer. His love was so close. As he reached the stairs leading up the yellow interior he stopped, his breath coming in short rapid breaths, his skin burning from the snow and ice hitting him. 

That last thing Shu said was evil and cruel, how was he going to explain he realized he was in love with him? He knew he sounded crazy. Luckily he didn’t have to decide the door opened and zip arms flung around him pulling him down on the snowy steps.

“Do not ever do that again, you can't just leave and not tell me where you are going! My heart can’t take it. Please don't leave me. I look down at the Christmas lights and everything. I am sorry, I thought everyone liked it. But I was wrong, just please don't leave me.” Zip chokes up on the last words and holds Shu tight in the falling snow. 

Shu, too shocked to speak, slowly rises and leads them inside. Zip stays attached to Shu until Shu pinches forward with a wet sound sneeze.

“Et-chiew! Et-knk! Kgnnk!”

“Oh shit you're soaking wet you need to dry off, you don't need another cold on Christmas like last year!” Zip rushes around the corner almost colliding with the stairs and comes back with a new thick blanket he had never seen before. “I was saving this for Christmas but you need it now” 

He wraps Shu in the thick fuzzy blanket almost too tightly and steps back like he is afraid a bomb is going to go off. “All wrapped up, um I hope you like it.”

Shu couldn’t help but laugh, a deep hearty laugh that seemed to shake the cold from his bones. He looked up to see Zip looking both scared, confused and worried and it was enough to jumpstart his heart.

“Zip, darling. Do you want to know what I thought about while I was out there? Nothing but you. How much i…no our lives have been better since that cold rainy night! While we might not be perfect for each other and we know how to tick off each other, there is one thing we have in common, well at least I hope we do?”

Zip swallowed hard before speaking. “Oh yeah, what is that?”

“We both….love each other!” Shu smiles and blushes and just waits.

Zip stands there for a moment, the words echoing in his mind..loves me…he loves me…WAIT HE LOVES ME!

Before Zip can process what he is doing he runs and tackles and hugs Shu on the sofa, almost knocking the whole couch over in the process. He holds him so tight, that he is afraid he might be hurting him. 

He frantically yelps out “I love you too Shugo! My whole heart is yours forever and always!”

Shu hugs him back until his nose starts itching and he tries to warn Zip with little success. “Zip ... .move gonna snee-EEEH! Et’chiew! Et’chiew! Ed’sshiiew! Ed’shiiiew”

Zip not letting go and knowing based on past times asked softly. “Bless you kitten! Are you done?” 

Shu shakes his head in agreement before quickly ducking his face into the blanket. “Et-chiew! Heh! Hehe Chiew!”

“Goodness, that was big! Bless you, take a breath.”

Shu rubs his nose on the blanket before cuddling in Zip’s chest. Shu could hear his heart beating fast and smiled before replying with a smirk. 

“Aw did I excite you little Batsy”

Zip blushed every shade of red imaginable before hiding his face. “Oh shush Rudolph, you have no place to talk!” Shu let out a soft laugh before snuggling back into Zip’s chest, rubbing his nose against him a little. “I’mb-I’mb sorry about earlier ... .for yelling, and for what I-Ihh I! Oh fugk” He gasped before ducking into Zip’s chest. Zip holds him both as a way of support and a way of comfort, by the looks of his redding nose and the fact he had just been outside in the snow for minutes without a coat on, he would have a talk about that with him later, he knew he was catching a cold. 

He hoped as Shu hitched into his chest this was not going to become an annual thing. “Et’chiew! Et’shiiew! Ht’chiiew! Hdd’sshhhmmmph!” If Zip could blush any harder feeling his lover’s wet sneezes dampening his shirt, he would be red enough to stop traffic.  All he could do was loosely wrap his arms around him and give soft blessings to you as he sneezed. He could still feel each sneeze making Shu’s chilled body bend and shudder against his larger frame. “Bless you kitten, come on deep breaths, don’t want you passing out on me.” He said with a soft chuckle and back rubs. Shu sniffled thickly and let out a heavy groan. “Thagks, also sorry” Zip cupped Shu’s face in his hands and guided him up, to give his forehead a kiss. “It's alright, I’m not angry ... .I may not fully understand but I get it.” He said in a low voice, things got quiet for a moment before Shu leaned into him. “I guess, seeing all those pictures it-It felt conflicting, I’m jealous ... .and that’s not your fault. I’d never wish for anything bad, nor would I want you to know a shred of what I’ve experienced but-” Zip hugged him firmly as Shu spoke. “I wish you never experienced that stuff at all” Zip spoke, he knew pieces and parts of what Shu had gone through growing up. Especially when it came to holidays, even if he didn’t know the full story he knew it wasn’t an easy life. It broke his heart multiple times when hearing Shu recount his younger years. “I just want to give you the Christmas you never got….If you’ll let me”

Shu tried to respond but his nose had other plans still, he tried to speak through the incoming fit. 

“I.. want that, i do but…oh fuck mbe-Et’chiiew! Et’chiew! Et’mph! Et’mph! Et’chiew!....HHh.ugh

He sneezed wetly spraying the air between them before Zip led his head to his chest. “Come on kitten let them out. I know it is so itchy!”

“Ibm tryign…its stuck.” He said his face pressed to Zip’s chest. Zip could feel Shu’s chest rising and falling erratically. “Oh no this is gonna be a lot.” “I know baby let it out you won’t feel better till you do, come on let me help, look at me.”

Shu looked up with watery eyes and Zip's heart almost melted. His scrunched up, his nose was reddening at a fast pace. Shu’s hands were fumbling to rub at his nose, which was proving to be an unhelpful method. Zip reached out and slowly rubbed at his septum. “Aw, you are so cute when you are sneezy.”

“eEcchiew!Etcchiiew! 'Et'chiiew! Eeetsshiiew!....ugh i'mb fide…Imb don- godda get it o-ode dehh heh HETCHIEW!” 

“Goodness, that sounded like one of mine! Is your nose okay?”

He goes to respond but his nose is twitching. Mess is dripping onto the new blanket and Zip rolls up his sleeve and wipes at his running nose.

“hehh oh guuh god hehh heh!...Zip..please…big”

“Okay okay baby, I know let it out, I can wash a hoodie later, I don't mind.”

“Hh— hhAH— A’DSHU’H!...hH’KSHU’H!...Ugh fuck….HUtchiew! HUTCHIEW! huTCHIEW! HT'CHIEW.” Zip could feel the spray through his sleeve and shivered before tending to the other dripping nose. The poor thing looked beat up. His eyes were watery with a few tears staining his cheeks and his nose…it had seen better days.

The poor thing was angry and twitchy, it was a bright irritated red. Clearly needing gentleness compared to the harsh rubbing and scrubbing Shu had been doing that pissed it off in the first place.

Zip went off looking for something to help, and came back with an old hoodie he knew Shu favored. He had used this before during a previous sick day to wipe at his inflamed nose, thinking Zip did not see it…but he did.

Zip unwrapped the blanket from Shu’s shoulders, noticing the chill it brought to him. He positioned Shu on the corner of the couch so his back was against the armrest and straddled his lap. 

If Shu could speak would have certainly said something but before he could, the soft fabric was being pressed to his face. The contrast between the rough skin of his nose and the soft fabric was a delight, and Shu sighed in relief. The sentiment was short-lived because Zip started to rub his nose counterclockwise and it ignited the dormant but persistent tickle. He barely had a second before his breath seized and was bending into the waiting hoodie.

“hhah-TSSSSH’oo!…hhehh’IYSSCh’hh! — hhh! hheh’ITTSCH’ue! hh’TSSSch’—chh!—cchh’ Zip mbe careful…ibm gonna-hh… hih! …hih—! Hhhh-! Heh’GXHktshh’hu!!!”

“I know baby that is the point, you are gonna sneeze, you have a messy cold. I am helping. Come on, your nose is so full. I know it itches.”

Shu blushed every shade of red. “Baby you’re killing mbe here, I..hih..oh no, shit messy….Hhah-hHAESSHhuu!…huh…hHH!-hHN’GXT!hht’sch!-iht’sch-tssh-hkshh!!!”

Zip could feel the hoodie get drenched with spray from Shu, and from the way the other was snuffling, he knew he needed to blow. He turned the hoodie over and helped it over his nose, “Go on kitten blow for me.”

Shu did as he was told. The sound was wet but seemed to bring the edgy man's nose some relief at last and he slumped into Zip exhausted.

“There you go, your nose all better now?”

“Yeah, imb dbone on god i sound awful”

Zip blushes and kisses his forehead “No, you sound so cute and adorable all stuffed up.” Shu blushed and whined at his compliments. He relaxed against him with a sigh, keeping Zip's arms around him. “Bmerry Christmas, Zip” “You too, kitten~ I love you” “I love you too”