#i remember seeing the alternate line and doing a double take lol

[quicksilversnails]

I think it'd be funny if the new Pristine Cut gallery included the number/percentage of lines of dialogue seen.

It’d probably be too immersion-breaking to work as a serious idea, but just imagine beating the game for the first time, going to the gallery and seeing you've seen like 5% of the total dialogue in the game. Jaw drop moment

[adorablelokie]

Episode 2 speculation

Or alternatively, how I think episode 2 will go down

Based on the cliffhanger from last episode I reckon episode 2 could have a wicked cold open scene of the mysterious hooded person attacking a yet another unit of TVA Minutemen.

Last we saw her - again, I am firmly convinced the mysterious villain’s name is Sylvie - she lured the TVA Minutemen to an open (and yet undiscovered) oil field in Oklahoma and set them on fire, killing them - which was, whoah. Brutal.

She also stole one of those canisters  (I already pointed out a few months ago that she’s after those glowy orange canisters for some reason), but for the most part remained hidden under that heavy cloak and wasn’t shown doing much.

So based on what we currently know about her, what she’s after, what she wears (because at some point in episode 2 she ditches that cloak, thanks to bts videos from March 2020) and where we left off from episode 1, I reckon the episode will start....

....with this scene:

A small group of minutemen and hunters will be dispatched to check a new branched timeline, unknowingly to them Sylvie will be waiting for them, but instead of simply setting them on fire she will use a nastier trick. I’ve long assumed one of Sylvie’s powers is mental manipulation/telepathy and here’s why:

- back in december they released the first official trailer and we saw Loki losing a fight with what seems to be a normal human being in Roxxcart building. A human shouldn’t be able to overpower a God, so I found all that very suspicious. Is that person not human? Is Loki powerless and human? I said maybe. But it seemed weird, given the fact that Loki, Mobius and the team were sent there to help those people, that one of them would suddenly start attacking Loki out of the blue. However, there was another quick scene of Sylvie being shown watching Loki, TVA and the shoppers on surveillance cameras from safety of Roxxcart’s security room. And we know that’s Sylvie because she’s wearing a cloak, is the main bad, and she was there on set in bts photos.

So then I started speculating. What if she’s doing that? What if she’s mentally manipulating those shoppers to attack the TVA and Loki? And thus also somehow making them stronger? Like...think of demonic possessions in paranormal movies. A normal human being would always be much stronger under possession.

- In April another trailer came out and we saw Sasha Lane’s character, hunter C-20 attack her fellow Minutemen and hunters. Some said maybe she’s a double agent or secretly working for the big bad. All I saw was that it was again Sylvie’s fault (since we also know she’s in this scene thanks to trailer footage) and she did something to C-20 that caused her to start attacking her coworkers. 

So yes, tl.dr.: The big bad’s - Sylvie’s - powers also consist of mental manipulation/telepathy and she’s the reason why the agents start attacking each other.

The scene will end with all agents dead, killed by one of theirs (C-20) who in the end will probably die as well.

Sylvie will then grab those orange canisters (she’s already in possession of them; note her backpack) and disappear.

Meanwhile back in the TVA, Loki and Mobius will probably try to figure out who the mysterious villain is/how to track him down.

Loki will probably be messing around at what could be Mobius’ desk and Mobius will bring him his VARIANT jacket. He’s literally holding it in his hands here.

Loki of course, will ‘happily’ decide to wear it lol

At some point after this Loki, Mobius and some other TVA agents will go to Renaissance Fair set in 1980′s Wisconsin (according to casting calls from last year). Loki will probably not be given his knives here though :( 

but it’s probably going to be his first time mission so yay

Given how the set looks, I reckon that’s where Sylvie’s earlier attack happened when she attacked/killed those TVA agents.

they probably find some sort of anachronistic evidence on the ‘crime scene’, similar to that gum in France, Loki causes some shenanigans and they return back to the TVA HQ to figure out how they can track down the guy doing this and if there’s a pattern

Then Mobius and Loki decide to travel to Pompeii for some reason. Probably because something happens there, because Sylvie’s there, or because they think she’s there. I see no other reason why’d they travel there.

Obviously the Pompeii adventure goes pretty chaotically well. Personally, I think Loki will kinda let himself loose in this scene, because it’s POMPEII! The chaos of it all! And he thrives in chaos.

Anyway, they return back to the TVA HQ just in time.

At some point in episode 2 I think there’s also an attack on the TVA HQ by Sylvie. 

She’s still pretty covered up and we know she takes off her cloak at Roxxcart store.

Meanwhile Loki seems to be hunting someone as well, this time with his knives:

Perhaps one’s first impression would be that Loki went rogue and is trying to escape his TVA ‘friends’, but it doesn’t appear that that’s the case. In the following shot we see a knocked out TVA agent just...lying there on the ground and Loki is, with his knives drawn, slowly making his way towards them, not away from them as he would if he was the one responsible for the poor agent’s state.

It appears that Loki is approaching the commotion/danger and is following the source of the fight. In this case I believe Loki is chasing down Sylvie, who has broken into the TVA HQ for reasons unknown.

However, cue his ‘luck’, he comes across Renslayer instead and of course things don’t work out well for him and she knocks him out. I don’t think Loki was her primary target, I think he was just in the way while she and her agents went after the actual danger, but Loki was being annoying and she did what she knew best.

RIP Lokes

Anyway, they’re hunting Sylvie and Loki isn’t their primary issue at the moment. Somehow they track her down to 2050′s Roxxcart. Maybe even using that gum or the shovel she left behind? Idk, but they travel to futuristic store caught in a storm.

Loki’s magic returns and it seems like he will be using it a lot in this scene. 

Wouldn’t surprise me if at some point Mobius and Loki split up and Loki stays with Hunter B-15 while Mobius goes with his own set of Hunters.

At some point these random shoppers they were meant to help/rescue start attacking them and as I mentioned earlier in the post it seems like they’re being mentally manipulated by Sylvie as they seemingly easily overpower Loki....something a normal human wouldn’t be able to do

She’s nearby watching everything on surveillance cameras, probably expecting them to find her there. Perhaps she even joins in the fight at the very end.

Thanks to bts photos taken last year we know she takes off her cloak in this scene and reveal herself. I think that might happen at the very end of the episode as a closing ‘shocker’, that the person they’ve been hunting is a woman.

I don’t think her real name will be revealed - I think that might happen in episode 3 and episode 4 will show us her backstory and motive for why she does what she does. Remember we have Young Sylvie in episode 4 (as well as Robot scanner and paper clerk guy, so perhaps she gets captured just like Loki did in episode 1)

Something happens, the lights turn red, chaos ensues. Loki sees her face, she escapes through those doors behind him and Loki, intrigued, decides to go after her, leaving Mobius and the TVA behind

I don’t know why the lights turned red, but perhaps it’s something Sylvie did? Or did the branched timeline reach the red safety line?

I don’t know, but I think this is the start of this timeline mess. 

I could be way off but I think, given the information from casting calls and trailers, and by observation...I think this is how I envision episode 2 to go. 

[imthepunchlord]

All your fic ideas sound so good!!!!!!!

A Siege in Paris: Okay, the name sounds familiar, but who is Armand D’Argencourt? And why/how would he bring Paris into the dark ages? 😱

Bluebird of Happiness: I would love to see more of Duusu and Marinette together! I loved “A Declaration of Love.” Ooooh would this be a double Miraculous option? Like, Marinette has the Peacock, but Fu doesn’t know that, so he gives her another Miraculous too? Chaos ensues as she has to deal with two kwamis and 2 hero identities? That would be fun!

Chasing a Butterfly: Ahhhhh I want another Butterfly!Marinette fic too! I feel like this could be a good Lukanette one - Marinette could be more withdrawn and shy and Luka hears her song despite that and knows she is just a caterpillar waiting to be a beautiful butterfly. But then, as a hero, he is wary of the new butterfly heroine. So we could see your take on the kinda love square sans Adrien lol

Claws Sunk In: I’m surprised (but intrigued) with this one! It sounds like a set up for a Chlonette fic, but I thought I remembered you saying that you didn’t want to ship them because Chloe was Marinette’s bully. Would this be a different set up for that? Or is Chlonette a no-go here too? Maybe just platonic?

Copycat: I’m always down for more Felix action! I love the way you write him, but I can’t really read Grumpy Cat because I get too sad about the ending. 😭😅 So, I would love a Felix fic from you that doesn’t involve….well. The ending of Grumpy Cat. 😂

Dodged a Beetle: It seems I’m in the minority here, but this is probably my least favorite. Probably because I dislike Lila so much. I would also hate to see Marinette wrapped around Lila’s finger. But the premise is super interesting though! I never would have thought of it! You’re right that Lila has a lot of potential. I just more see it as potential for bad lol. 😂

Never Met Fu: (Can I also just say I love these plays on words?) Ooooh this one sounds like you could improve on Fu a lot! And it would give you the option of adding heroes to the team that Fu approves of and Ladybug doesn’t know about! Ladybug wouldn’t be the one ha ding out the Miraculouses!

Unbound: I need more deets on this one ASAP. Alternate universe opens up? Magic goes haywire? Body swapping? WHAT’S GOING ON?! 😂

The Gamble of Renard Leroux: Can it be??? An OC INSERT STORY?! I never thought I’d see the day! No one else seems to like to write OC insert stories! I’d love to see your take on it. Or would it be Felix coming in with the Fox? Or maybe Alya or even Lila?

Okay, I think I covered all your ideas lol. Thank you so much for sharing them! I’m already looking forward to….we’ll, basically all of them. 😂😂😂

ASiP: Armand D'Argencourt was Darkblade and was running for mayor. No Andre taking the position, its open to be claimed. And he's got some villainy vibes to him, and a familial history that he can continue as his ancestor (also known as Darkblade) used to rule Paris.

BoH: I am going to go with no as this is meant to be a Peafowl!Marinette centered idea. I don't even know if the Butterfly would be misused as we don't have the details and history of the Agrestes and how they get them. Only for sure is that Emilie is still around so no Gabriel trying to misuse it to revive her. They could misuse it for nefarious reasons, or maybe they don't have anything if they got the Peafowl first and that clued them in on the existence of miraculous. I'm hoping the ep Gabriel Agreste will give some answers, ideally...

CaB: eeeeh we'll see. I haven't decided on a pairing just yet. More focused on trying to figure out the story direction and what to do about lead heroes.

CSI: this is definitely not a Chlonette fic. This is more along the lines of Scarlet Lady au of Chleo at the start getting one of the two most powerful and Marinette's her partner.

Copycat: well its a good thing that this isn't a Grumpy Cat rewrite.

DaB: yeah it can be dicey depending on where it goes. Only thing I can reassure you is that Marinette's not going to be wrapped around Lila's finger. Though she will be regarded as a friend and that means she'll have a lot of tolerance for things that she shouldn't.

NMF: not going to go as your picturing. outside the ending, it's going to be more of a timeskip fic.

Unbound: when LB cleanses an akuma, she severs HM's connection with the victim, and purifies them, turning what's negative positive and turns them back to normal. When Cat does it, it just servers that connection and the victim still has that power and now no item or butterfly to cleanse and HM has no means to control them. They are an absolute wildcard.

TGoRL: ...ish. kinda but not really? Only thing for sure is that Marinette shall have a wily friend coming to her aide. Lila beware and readers, brace for some Alya salt.

[mc-critical]

hey, welcome back! hope your exams and stuff went well, and that you're doing fine now.

i wanted to hear your opinion on nigar hatun. i remember seeing one post of yours in which you said that she wasn't a favourite of yours like you favoured other characters and honestly, same. i didn't really much understand the fascination with her. she was an interesting character, but i can't imagine having her as a favourite when there are so many more characters who are far more interesting. i wish they gave her an alternate arc. idk what it could be, i'd like to hear your opinion on it. one alternative ending i came up for her is that she was extremely angry at ibrahim for toying with her and hatice for keeping her sweet little esmanur from her so she joins hurrem to defeat them? which hurrem did try but it didn't really go anywhere and nigar was against hurrem for killing ibrahim which just was kinda frustrating. they literally give hurrem no ally in the harem [except mihrimah later on but mihri is overall varying in terms of power] so it would be good for her to have some support in the harem from people who actually hated her enemies like her. she had actual political support from iskender celebi, rustem, and ayaz pasha and all, sure, but she didn't have much support in the harem, like all powerful women of the harem were against her. nigar obviously wasn't powerful like a sultan but she was an old member of the harem, was respected and even though she kinda lost her dignity with the scandal, she could've regained it with hurrem's help. sumbul was there later on but he was just a very faithful servant and didn't really have any real motive to harm any of hurrem's enemies except for out of his loyalty whilst nigar could've cultivated a hatred for hatice and ibrahim. this is a basic plot but i would've kinda liked seeing it. there can be many more ways her character could've ended but it would be good seeing a woman who didn't bow to her feelings all the time. the sultanas couldn't really control their feelings when it came to love because they were princesses who were used to getting what they wanted most of the time but nigar was a servant who also suffered the hardships of slavery and it obviously would've made her tougher as a person so she could control her feelings better; idk, i feel like this is an aspect of women they could've explored [or if they did explore it, i don't remember it lol my memory lapses a lot so i don't remember the show 100%] anyway, would like to hear your thoughts on nigar. thank you. welcome back again <3

Thank you! <33 Yup, I'm fine and the exams went well. Happy Pride month to you, too! 🏳️‍🌈

Hehe, I wrote that post years ago and while Nigar still isn't one of my absolute favourite characters, I've warmed up to her quite a bit. And honestly, now with the wider experience in the fandom, I can say that she isn't all that loved as it looks like. I then was under the limited wrong impression that the BG Mamma forum was a metric of all the popular opinions and yes, they loved Nigar a lot and I was sometimes confused as to why, but really, that and the Russian fanbase are the only places I have encountered that appreciate her all that much. There are characters I find more interesting than her, that's for sure, but she has her charm and I'm firmly against people reducing her to "evil" or "manipulative" or "weak after she fell in love with Ibrahim", so forth.

The thing she sets her first impression with is her intelligence caused by her relatively high experience in the harem. The advice she gave to Hürrem opened the path to her whole goal (as she herself acknowledged in E41) and that makes for quite an impact for a more recurring character. Despite of this, I never viewed early Nigar as someone taking an open side, hence I didn't find her supposed betrayal to Hürrem surprising in the slightest: she is also trying to survive in this environment in any way she knows how and she can't really find a fully comfortable position, because she is well aware that everyone is thinking for their own gain in the end. Including her. So the only choice she has left is to direct herself to where the wind is blowing and get advantages for herself once she gets the chance. Because all the experience has taught her to repress her feelings (E10 to Hürrem: "In this castle you can't show weakness."), opt to be the more level-headed person and seek for the more pragmatic solutions.

And yet she is very sensitive and perceptive to people that are different than the others or that are in need and is willing to lend them her hand. She adviced and helped Hürrem because she found potential in her, because she wanted to see her succeed, but not through endangering her own self or other people in the process (she told Hürrem that her game had gone too far again in E41), but through negotiation, compromise and adaption, to know when to start and when to stop and be respectful to those above her, no matter how hard or limiting that may look in Hürrem's eyes. Hürrem had the tendency in viewing every sign of support that came to her as granted, she still had that naive part of innocence in her in S01 and early on was in a desparate need of someone to lean on and unconditionally follow her path, that's why when Nigar diverted from that path, it hurt and took her a while to start trusting her again. But I didn't see Nigar as all that attached to Hürrem as Hürrem herself thought she was, especially with how Nigar became stuck between two sultanas later in S01 and that rendered her lost and more insecure than usual.

That's also why I don't view her as a two-faced or hypocritical double-crosser. Because for the longest time, Nigar was the one character in the series before Rüstem appeared that was clearly thinking about her own benefit and survival first and foremost from the beginning when darting between the powerful people in the harem and was the one well aware that she simply can't cling to a single side in her own position. Positions aren't permanent and can always change in such circumstances, so why can't she take advantage of this? Because who cares as much about the feelings for a Kalfa they can still order around after all? She has faced disregard from Mahidevran, Hürrem, Ibrahim and even Hatice. It is pretty understandable that she's going to seek the best opportunity for herself.

That whole facade breaks when she falls in love with Ibrahim. During rewatch, I found myself to have a soft spot for this character deconstruction, especially in S02. I know that it came to pass because of her falling in love with a man that doesn't share the same feelings and there were moments where it looked like she overdid it, even in S02, but for me, the whole thing nicely added a new layer of depth, while still feeling true to Nigar's character. Her future relationship with Ibrahim had been building up back in S01, when Ibrahim (both inadvertently and not I fully believe) played a part in helping her solve the first internal conflict she had (that is the struggle between the two sultanas). Maybe this didn't mean that much to Ibrahim, maybe he was simply trying to be helpful, but it meant a lot to Nigar - that was probably the first time someone seemed to take her feelings into account and actually listen when she couldn't help, but crack under the pressure. So it is only natural that she would search for this source of comfort once again, being ready to face every risk in the process. When she is appointed to Hatice and Ibrahim's castle, when she's practically left alone with Ibrahim, she decides to take that chance, to taste the forbidden fruit. He gave her something she never received and due to her not allowing herself to show weakness and having to cave to everyone else's demands before that, every ounce of affection Ibrahim shows her, it means the world to her. Thus she begins to idealize what she has with him, to the point of denial and delusion, and centers her loyalty completely on him. But that loyalty never seems to falter.  She began to resent and/or hate everyone who could possibly stand in Ibrahim's way, something she wouldn't have ever done before. She keeps her level-headed self and intelligence (I don't think that this plot line reduced it in any way, not even when she was at her worst.) and she's ready to take any opportunity for herself (case in point: her marriage with Rüstem.), but now her softer sides and her wish for affection are showing all the more.

The problem I have with Nigar's character, writing-wise, and now that I think about it, the main subject of why I didn't get the deal with her back then (along with considering her S01 self bland.. somehow?), is her S03B characterization. While her falling in love with Ibrahim plot-line became an important part of S02 Nigar's storyline, I don't think it overshadowed or dominated over her other characteristics, making for a neat balance of traits and an interesting, nuanced character. In an attempt to keep her for longest time possible in the story, S03B flanderized her in every possible way and overexaggerated her biggest strengths and flaws until they became stale and unbelievable. Her love for Ibrahim read as а near obsession narratively and her opportunism coupled with her will for revenge, which put her into many repetitive intrigues. At one point I even felt she was reduced to a plot-device (the moment Şah Sultan appointed her as a spy) and she felt a little too purposeless and to have totally outstayed her welcome until her last moment in the series.

The root of this problem is again, that they just didn't know when to stop with Nigar. To be brutally honest, she had no long-term role left to play after Ibrahim's death and it was time for the writers to let her go and maintain her generally strong characterization. The ending I would've chosen for her is to simply have Matrakcı give her Esmanur's location and for her to live with her daughter in piece. I know that because of the tonal shift, the show seemed to be already inclined that everyone had to have a tragic ending of sorts, to underline the growing ruthlessness and cruelty of the themes, but I fully believe that Nigar was one of the only characters that were terribly forced through their tragic endings. She didn't need, nor deserve a tragic ending and I doubt it would've been such a problem for the half-season if she didn't get one. I find a happier ending to be perfectly fine for Nigar and I would've loved to see it, if only for a freshness in ideas for character endings. I loved her Esmanur storyline and to witness her finding happiness with her, the only solace she had left, would have been a great wrap up of her S03 plots and an amazing send-off to Nigar's character.

I appreciate the thought you have put into your ending for her and to be fair, your proposal would be much better than anything S03B gave us. It would nearly correspond with the revenge plot of hers they were going for and it would be something more original at the same time. Hürrem's principal lack of allies doesn't bother me as a fact alone, because all her enemies have understandable reasons to be against her, but what bothers me however, is when the writers try using it to dumb her enemies down and make them doom themselves through their own failings or outright use it to put forced (often soapy) conflicts to make the audience sympathize with Hürrem. Or to make everyone "mistitle" her (is that a word? probably not.) or disrespect her on purpose again for sympathy points (that go beyond the part of her motivation that wants to feel respected and does stuff out of fear not to fall under a less favorable position once again.), without changing the status-quo until say, S04.

It is so deliberate it becomes annoying and seeing something else for a change... honestly, gimme! While I personally prefer a happy ending for Nigar, I would live for Nigar and Hürrem to work together again, while keeping what's become her central motivation intact. It may seem a little OOC for Nigar to work for Hürrem by that point, because she's channeled her loss of the most precious people into rage on those that have taken them away, but it would be a decent shifting of gears and a reverence to her opportunism to work to eradicate those she hates for good, even if it means doing so with one of your bigger enemies. After all, after the mission is fulfilled, she could still work against Hürrem in some way, right?

[Tell me if I got what you meant wrongly, but there is an example of a dynasty sultana putting her love feelings behind and by that I mean Şah Sultan. Her love is in the past by the point she arrived in the castle and her love for Ibrahim is only used as a conflict between her and Hatice, which they get over relatively quick. Sisterly love and ambition are a much bigger priority of Şah's: she cared about Hatice past any resentment she may have harbored over the years and agreed to share her life with Lütfi for the advantage this may bring, even though she didn't love him at all. She divorced him only when he offended the pride of a woman and her own personal pride. Other than that, we indeed didn't have a female character in MC that puts her feelings behind in design as far as I recall, only ones that end up clinging to them completely like Nigar here or ones that let go of them eventually like Mahidevran. Characters that have this design by default are more present in MCK like Safiye, or Turhan, or especially Gülbahar, but as I've said many times, MCK is more ruthless, while MC is more about the personal feelings of the characters, hence every motivation they have is somehow tied to them.]

[daeyeolss]

how I make my gifs: a tutorial

Hi everyone! Just in case someone asks in the future + for those curious, I'm here with a tutorial on how I make gifs! If you have any questions whatsoever, please do send me an ask! I’ll be glad to help! The gif I made with this tutorial is the one right here! 

So... let’s start this tutorial with the programs I use.

Adobe Photoshop 2020 - To make the gifs, majority of the work is done in this program.

TopazLabs (Topaz DeNoise 6 and Topaz Clean 3) - To "denoise" and "clean" the gifs, as the names would suggest. Links for download: Topaz DeNoise 6 & Topaz Clean 3

KMPlayer (an alternative would be PotPlayer, or any other video playing program that allows you to capture the frames) - To capture the frames. - I use an older version of KMPlayer, though I don't know which exact version that is.

Now let’s continue onto how I use these programs to create gifs!

Step 1: After you’ve downloaded the necessary programs, download your video. The way to get the best gifs? Quality videos. That’s the first step. For K-pop performances, I recommend this website (the hq files are in .ts form, KMPlayer should be able to open these). Bookmark it! It’s really handy :) Get the video you want to make a gif from and open it in KMPlayer (or PotPlayer or any other program, but for this tutorial I’ll use KMPlayer). Open your video in said program and look for the part you want to make a gif of. Then press CTRL+G (I apologize because I cannot for the life of me remember if this was a standard shortcut or not)

Step 2: After pressing CTRL+G, you’ll be met with this screen:

I’ll briefly explain the numbered parts, but before that, these are my standard settings and just make sure you have them all the same and it should be good!

1: This is where your captured frames will be extracted to. I have them extracted to the standard folder, but you can change this if you want to. You’ll need this folder later when opening the frames!

2: Like it says, this is the image format. I use PNG in the highest quality, as the name would suggest, for the quality.

3: These are the amount of frames the program captures. Say you put in every 2 or 4 frames, you’ll get more choppy gifs. To get the smoothest gifs, put “every frame” (this in turn will increase the gif size as the amount of frames will obviously be bigger).

Once you’ve put in the correct settings and you’ve put the slider where you want the capturing process to start, press “start” (now, before you do this I recommend putting the video on mute as the audio will start to get kinda demon-y the longer you record lol save your ears pls). Then, when you’ve captured all the frames you need, pause the video, press CTRL+G again and click “stop” and close the pop-up/program.

Step 3: It’s time to open up Photoshop! Then go to File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack... (for older versions/another version I used in the past this one didn’t work and I had to use the “Load Multiple DICOM Files...” instead. It should work similarly though, if I remember correctly).

You then get a little pop-up that looks like this:

All you have to do here is click “browse” and navigate to the folder where your captured frames have been saved in. Select all the frames you need, wait for them to load in and then click “OK”!

Step 4: Depending on the amount of frames you’ve selected to load in, as well as the beefiness of your PC/laptop, the frames loading part might take a little while. Photoshop is importing every frame as a separate layer into one file, so just... grab a drink or something and wait a bit! When you’re done waiting, if you haven’t already, go to Window > Timeline. This will show you the animation timeline. For older Photoshop versions this is slightly different (I believe it’s called animation). Then click “Create Video Timeline” and click the 3 squares on the left bottom side (in older versions it’s on the right bottom side, not sure). 

Step 5: After you’ve done all that, you’ll want to select all your layers. You can do this by pressing ALT+CTRL+A or going to Select > All Layers. With all the layers selected, you have to go to Layer > Arrange > Reverse. You only have to do this if you used the “Load Files into Stack” option!

Step 6: After reversing all your layers, you’ll want to go to the three lines you see in the following screenshot, and click “Make Frames From Layers”.

As the name suggests, this turns all the layers into frames. I don’t know why but the first frame will always be 5 seconds long, so to make it easy on yourself when you want to check your gif while editing, just put that on 0 for now. You can do that by clicking the seconds under the frame and clicking “No delay”. After this, check to see if you have the right frames and if you need to delete some (you can do this at any point in the process but I didn’t know where to put it in the tutorial oops).

Step 7: Time to crop the gif to the correct size! For this gif I’m using as an example, I’m making it specifically for Twitter, so the sizes aren’t that obvious (for Twitter I usually use a width of 850 px to keep it sharp, for long size gifs (more height than width for example), I add a background so that it eventually still becomes 850x850 pixels). There’s many posts on Tumblr about the correct sizes for gif/photosets, but a brief rundown of my most used sizes: one gif spanning the entire width of the post has to be 540 px in width. Two gifs next to one another need to have a width of 268 px. I use these dimensions the most! For others, you can Google! 

Step 8: After you’ve cropped the gif, you can do either of two things: either you first add the coloring of your choice and then sharpen the gif OR you do it the other way around. I usually switch these two around depending on how sharp the gif already looks before sharpening because I can’t stand looking at 2 pixels while coloring (lmao). For this one I’ll do the sharpening first.

The whole sharpening process is actually quite simple but you need to make sure that you do the following little steps in the right order or else it won’t work! Select all the layers (CTRL+ALT+A or Select > All Layers) and then click this little thingy:

Then you’re going to Filter > Convert for Smart Filters

If you don’t do it in this order, your gif will end up... well, not being a gif and not moving. If that happens, track back in your history to see if you did it in the correct order! :)

Step 9: The actual sharpening process! After clicking the “Convert for Smart Filters”, you’ll want to go to Filter again and find the Topaz Labs tabs. Personally, I usually do it in the order of DeNoise first and then Clean, but this is a personal thing, really.

I recommend playing around with the settings to see what fits the gif but here are my go-to DeNoise settings (tip: save these as a preset so you only have to click that for faster giffing!):

And my Clean settings:

Press OK when you’re done with these and then go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. These are my SS settings (just copy these, and again, save as a preset!):

Depending on how sharp you want the gif to be, you can input the same settings or go to this in the layers and change the percentage.

Now that we’re done with these... it’s time to flatten it! Just follow these little steps:

And then you wait. Again. I know.

Step 10: After playing the waiting game, you’ll click the three little squares again and do the same thing you did earlier: “Make Frames Into Layers”. Delete the first frame. Add a coloring of your choice (can be a PSD, can be your own coloring, etc. this is honestly just... playing around with things and see what it can do). After you’ve done coloring, select all your frames (same lines as previous screenshot except now you’ll see a “Select All Frames” option, click it!) and change the time to whatever you like (I usually go for 0.05, 0.06, or 0.07. Again, just play around with this!! Try different things!) 

Step 11: Final step! Saving :) I use shortcuts a lot to make things faster so either press ALT+SHIFT+CTRL+S or go to File > Export > Save For Web. Not much to do here, just copy the following settings and save the file!

!!! NOTE: After making a new gif today I realized there’s a weird dotted border on the top of my gifs, it’s a bit difficult to explain but I had no idea what it was. Turns out that the reason why this showed up was because, as shown in the screenshot below, I had “Transparency” selected. If you’re experiencing this too, UNSELECT the transparency and it should be all good!

Also make sure that the “Looping Options” is set to Forever, or else your gif will play only once and then stop!

Tip: While making gifs for Twitter I at one point noticed that if I added in a white background, no matter what I’d do, it’d show up as yellow-y in the preview box. After googling I found that going to the options (1 in the screenshot) and then clicking “Sort by Luminance”, then double-clicking the lightest color (not the transparent one, 2 in the screenshot) and selecting white (or FFF) will get rid of this! This likely won’t be that useful for Tumblr gifs but just in case you ever want to have a white background...!

Then just... save, and upload to Tumblr! :)

Final note: Tumblr has a mix gif size of 3MB. If you have a gifset of 4 gifs you want to upload, all 4 gifs can be max 3MB each. Keep this in mind! If you’re over 3MB, delete a few frames and try again, or resize/crop your gif!

As it turns out, Tumblr has increased their gif size to 8MB, however, the quality tends to get compressed with larger gifs like that so per recommendation: keep them below 5MB! (thank you @yeoli​ for letting me know!)

I hope this helped! If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message and I’ll try my best to answer them.

[kinetic-elaboration]

September 14: Orphan Black 2x04

Got home early today, took a nice long nap, made dinner, and watched Orphan Black. I’m still not sure I feel good but I feel a little better, which is something I guess.

This was a really good episode! It focused a lot on characters I liked, and didn’t have too much extraneous in it.

I love Cal so much, and the weird little family he, Sarah, and Kira make warms my heart so much. He basically is male!Sarah if she just mellowed out a little bit and started keeping bees. He has great taste in sweaters, windswept hair, secret RVs “not under his name” and he asks minimal questions. Her perfect guy. And he’s sweet with Kira. Love the awkward new dad trope also!!

Helena’s story line is nightmare fuel to the point where it’s almost unwatchable but I admire them for showing it as a horror and... I mean if you’re going to do it, do it, no point in going half-assed with your rural religious fertility-cult concept.

I have a weird fondness for Gracie, tbh. Like even when she smuggled Helena. First off, that was a ballsy move. And second, she seems to at least have a better grasp on the concepts of her religion than her father does lol. So she has that going for her.

The weather was really working for them when they shot this episode. Cal and Kira out by the corn field, Art watching Helena in a ripped up wedding dress running across a field under very lightly falling snow... Where is MY stark rural landscape and very lightly falling snow??

Cosima was back to her primarily expository role but you can see that her illness story is going to really ramp up soon. It’s a little weird it’s taken this long... we’re almost halfway through season 2 and it’s the primary thing I remember about her role in the show. I’m a little worried to see it get worse/more prominent. For obvious reasons coughing and lung diseases hit differently now.

But at least there was no Delphine.

Not that much Alison either but she was on point and at a 10 in every short scene. Personal favorite line today was “I don’t believe I’ve ever done the nasty.” Also just every interaction with Felix. He just loves being her brother and you can tell. My mom is right: he likes that she needs him, that he can take care of her in a way. He feels left out of Sarah’s life. When he was talking to her at S’s house, about how Cosima is in her lesbian love nest and Alison is in recovery... he just sounded so left out.

Mrs. S was absolutely kickass today. I forgot that I shipped her and Carlton lol. But that was ridiculously hot. It was like.. such a cliche of old lovers from some kind of Dangerous Field alternately threatening each other, flirting, reminiscing, and fucking, but I loved it.

I’m not entirely sure what S is supposed to know... maybe the show doesn’t know. I remember a lot of what I read as retconning going on with her. I liked her best, as a concept, when she was just this woman involved in radical work who ended up with a kid of mysterious origins, and then she got pulled into the whole greater mystery/conspiracy/whatever. At this point I’m still okay with how she’s being developed... They’re doubling down on the Carlton story, and he seems to not know anything about the clones. So it’s still possible that she got Sarah randomly and THEN did some digging, and got into Leda and all that. But even then might not have known about clones until Sarah told her? Idk I’m just trying to make my preferred headcanon work I guess.

The whole ‘pro-clone’ thing could be interesting... I don’t know, it just never did anything for me tbh. I know some people for whom Rachel was their favorite but I never got her particularly. The vhs tapes of her and her parents, which I remembered in a supremely vague way, were interesting though. And it’s even weirder when you remember that Sarah is seeing someone who looks like her own younger self. And I like the callback to the Beth tapes. I miss Beth.

I couldn’t even be scared of the return of what’s-his-face, even though his torture plans were gross and terrible and I could barely watch Sarah’s fear, because I kept thinking ‘she and Cal really dropped the ball not actually making sure he was dead.’ Like she barely checked for his pulse! Helena would have slit his throat to be sure. And Mrs S would have shot him point blank lol. What did she teach these kids??

The next ep is the halfway point of the ep somehow?? Already?

[kainetestament]

Pietro, no Fietro could still possibly be Peter from X-Men Universe… Maybe?

So as revealed in Episode 9 of WandaVision, the identity of Fietro is none other than Ralph Bohner, the husband Agness always mention, and a possible real resident of Westview. WV director Matt Shakman already clarified that the “Bohner” is actually a reference to his 80’s sitcom Growing Pains. But for many fans of Evan Peters, this “Bohner” joke didn’t play well and at the same time, let us breakdown everything that is wrong with this identity of Ralph Bohner and why he’s suspicious despite the claim of WandaVision writers/director that Evan Peters has nothing to do with the mutants or X-Men Universe, after all they always deny everything. They even mentioned that they had no idea that Evan Peters appearance will cause so many theories and everything, which I highly doubt, I mean come on, they made him play QuickSilver in WandaVision when he is QuickSilver himself only of another universe. I don’t dissed ATJ, I love this guy too from his Kickass, Godzilla movie (this is where I first encounter ATJ before his QS role in Avengers), but as a QS, Evan Peters top him, on my opinion at least, he even has his own QS commercials. Also, Evan Peters have more cool QS moments, the Kitchen scene VS the Age of Ultron overall, at least for me, I prefer the kitchen scene and the whiplash part. Anyhow, let us begin:

 Note: I edited this post to make this article more easier to read and added additional info.

1. Speculations roaming around that Ralph Bohner could be an aspiring actor because the picture is actually his headshot (which actually looks like his earlier AHS photos). I’m not going to debunk this possibility, but I do not believe it’s a headshot nor he’s an aspiring actor. Although true enough, the image does looks like of Evan Peters early AHS photos (kind of like Tate Langdon) – which is probably a reference to that, who knows.

2. The pile of papers on the side table. It is questionable why would your papers, a bill (a very old bill even - not folded or inside one of those envelopes) and your photos in plain sight where Monica – an outsider can see it? Almost as if you planned it all along and he wanted Monica to see it.

3. Necromancy vs Crystallum Possession. Necromancy is a dark arts of when the person (the Necromancer) can manipulate the dead body of the person, or summoning their spirit. Crystallum Possession however is also part of the dark arts but this time you are using an object (like crystals, gems, stones etc) that is embodied with the user’s spells to manipulate the wearer.

Agatha had told Wanda that what she does is a crystallum possession since necromancy is a no-no due to his brother’s body is on another continent, and since this Pietro died in 2014, it should now be bones, I think the “full of holes” remark is nothing more than a mocking remark, because if it’s not, then Marvel will probably have their own interpretation of Necromancy and Crystallum Possession, and this could probably go darker. And Ralph is wearing a bead necklace that is embedded with Agatha’s power. But is Agatha really in full control of Ralph? Honestly, I don’t think so. Why? Because in Episode 6, Peter said about Wanda’s costume “Worse than the costume mom made us the year we got typhus”, then she reminisced “that year”, and told him  “That’s not exactly how I remember it.” because in her universe, she isn’t wearing Halloween costume she thinks is worse and she didn’t deny about them getting typhus, so what are the odds of Agatha/Fietro getting that info if he is not Peter? Also, we don’t know how MARVEL will tell the story multiverse/alternate timelines (the Russo Brothers already claimed that they have their own way of telling this story), but if we are looking for a one generic rule, major life events will occur but will be told uniquely as per their universe, on this case Peter and Wanda did had a typhus, but in Peter’s world, his Wanda and him are probably wearing whatever cosplay outfit their mom made and in Wanda and Pietro are just wearing something simple, or it could be that Peter really just have a weird sense of style.

4. The WATER BILL. Now, this is a real bill, it is not part of Wanda’s illusion, this is Ralph’s actual water bill, because Ralph’s house was under Agatha’s spell, which makes it exempted from Wanda’s spell.  Also, if you go frame by frame, you can actually see the word “Water”, “PAST DUE” on the right column part of the bill, before it totally goes out of focus and you can only read the left side part, that also says “YOUR MONTHLY USAGE (1,000 GAL INCREMENTS)”, which further validates it’s a water bill, not a phone bill nor electricity bill as others actually claim. And here is the tricky part, the bill’s date. On the right side under the STATEMENT is the Account Information (using Arial font), it’s a bit hard to make out of it, but it’s actually an old bill. Before it becomes totally blurry, you can read the right part of the bill that says:

STATEMENT

ACCOUNT INFORMATION

ACCOUNT:                      09-3476-12

SERVICE ADDRESS:     2804 SHERWOOD DRIVE

BILL DATE:                     10/01/2020

DUE DATE:                     10/31/2020

If we go back to Infinity War, it takes place in June 2018. So that means that this Ralph Bohner survived the SNAP, but what could happen to him in year 2019-2020? Who knows, I don’t even know if I should care or not.

If we check on the usage chart – which is “not blurred” (it’s also in increments of 12 – 12/24/36/48/60), and I’ll just speculate on the numbers on the meter chart, so don’t take my word for it. Also, I don’t know what Marvel is planning or hinting by showing this insignificant 2020 bill, which also has confusing usage. (I’ll just use term like pcm – per cubic meter, so that it won’t just be plain numbers beside the month).

January - 6 pcm

February – 18 pcm

March – 6 pcm

April – 6 pcm

June – 6 pcm

July – 9 pcm

August – 13 pcm

September – 22 pcm

October – 34 pcm

(November and December have gray shade - similar to the one in month of Jan-May).

Again, I don’t know what’s the significance of not blurring this part of the bill while the right side column is properly blurred. And the confusing part of this bill, is the bill date is of 10/01/2020 – meaning Ralph had received this bill during the first week of October, but why is there already a usage for the full month of October, when usage should be only show up to the month of September? After the Account Information, there’s the

METER INFORMATION (WATER)

USAGE   PREVIOUS   DATE      CURRENT       DATE

4             1963 (?)        09/01/20      *- - - -*          *- - - -*

The PREVIOUS actually looks like either 1063 or 1963, and oddly enough the first Avengers Comics was published on September 1, 1963, I don’t know if that’s a reference to that, but from my pov, it shouldn’t be because this series is inspired of House of M and a bit touch of West Coast Avengers, which was already reference by the SUV plate number in Episode 7. The CURRENT and DATE are both unreadable, I can only identify _ _ _ 2 in CURRENT and 0_/_ _/20 for the DATE after.

And let’s also not forget that outside the HEX, it is August 2023 and as per Episode 8, inside the HEX is currently year 2013 as shown in the auditorium behind the lighting after it explained how Wanda created Vision. I don’t know if this is a reference to something from the past MCU projects (X-Men even) or future franchise like Falcon and Winter Soldier, who knows, really. I just find it weird why they didn’t blurry the meter chart while the rest are. But why year 2020? Why isn’t this bill thrown out yet? Didn’t Monica notice that billing date of the bill?

5. The man-cave. The staff really transformed Fietro’s man-cave into very, very Peter-like (if he really is not Peter). I will list thing that are present and similar to what Peter of X-Men Universe room have. I’ll reference * (single asterisk) for Days of Future Past, ** (double asterisk) for Apocalypse, and *** (triple asterisk) for both films.

❀ comfortable couch***

❀ guitar*** 

❀ headphones***

❀ balls*

❀ lots of posters***

❀ bike***

❀ a bar**

❀ shoes on the floor**

❀ different types of drinks (non alcoholic)***

Also, lots of silver/metallic items such as:

❀ silver lamp**

❀ silver TV

❀ silver house ventilation tubes

❀ silver pillowcases (looks gray on other angles)

❀ silver mini fridge

❀ silver microwave oven

❀ silver rack (where TV and speaker stands)    

❀ silver wristwatch*

❀ video games*** (both PS & XBox)

and even something that looks like a stolen goods like the Tiki Bar plaque, Tiger head.

This Fietro is basically just missing the goggles, I did my best to look for it (like on those detective games that instructs you to find this and that *lol*), but there’s really none *laugh*. Also, I just noticed the arrangement of his man-cave – single-seat couch** > small side table with a lamp** > 3-seater couch (the Apocalypse has an L-shape couch though) > a middle coffee table**, this arrangement is similar to Peter’s man-cave in Apocalypse which can be slightly seen when his mom came down saying “Just checking on you” (you can watch it at starting point 1:02:55, at least on my copy), you just need to look for proper timing because a few of those shots are out of focus probably due to her obviously looking somewhere reading her lines that are raised besides the camera, which became even more obvious  when she did a close up shot when she told him “But trust me, this won’t end well. Nothing does with him.” 

Also, in Episode 5, when Peter first made an appearance, the leather jacket he’s wearing is eerily similar to the one he’s wearing in his cameo appearance in Deadpool 2 (we only got the glimpse of the front of the jacket in Deadpool but the front side of his jacket in WandaVision is identical). Though I find it weird too that his hair color switch from silver to light ash blonde.

6. Ralph is the guy under witness protection? I doubt it, although honestly at first I considered maybe he is, but after a few thinking, it doesn’t lead to it, because if he’s in witness protection, and the person who is managing him forgets him because of Wanda, FBI database should still at least have a photo of him to be able to identify him, and Jimmy in episode 7 saw Peter and never commented about him being their missing guy. As we all know, the house is under the name Ralph Bohner, who we can assume survived the SNAP and possibly left that house in September 2020. If he had left the house way back in 2020, why does Agent Woo or FBI rather only checked it now? Also, if Ralph Boner is indeed the guy under witness protection, it is the FBI that pays off their bill, on this case, the Water Bill was past due even if it was an old bill, so I don’t think he is.

7. Does Ralph Boner really exist? This is actually something that I have given some thought. Because if we think of QuickSilver, one of his abilities as per comics is his Quick Intelligence. His mind process a lot of things much faster than an average person. Peter spying on everyone and pretending to be someone else in an unknown world is not surprising, let alone using everything he can take advantage of. It can be that the bill is fake and there is really no Ralph Bohner, or just like what I mentioned in #7, he could’ve possibly left in September 2020 and hasn’t returned yet, and Peter assumes this identity to avoid suspicion.

If we are to assume he really is Peter Maximoff of X-Men Universe (Earth-TRN414) and crossed over to Earth-616, I did consider this could also be the house where he lives as per his universe and just so happens that Ralph Bohner is the current owner of the house in this MCU. Also, Xavier Institute is located in NY and in Days of Future Past, they only drove from NY to his house via rental car, which we can assume that he doesn’t live that far from NY, after all NY and NJ are neighbors.

8. Also this has nothing to do with Ralph/Fietro, but something I noticed, that the outside anomaly or outside of Westview – about the selective amnesia has yet to be answered. It only explained that Wanda is manipulating the people INSIDE, but not the ones outside the HEX. What actually come to mind when I think about it is that it can be a work by a TELEPATH which can be either Charles Xavier or Emma Frost (no Jean Grey? Yes I excluded her). What I am actually thinking is that the person under witness protection is a spy sent by Charles or possibly working with him. He could have implanted false memory to the so called “family and friends”, so when the HEX was established, the strings got cut off hence no one could remember this “missing person” anymore, and Jimmy who has nothing to do with this “missing person” is not affected by the selective amnesia and assumes the responsibility of looking for him. And assuming Charles is the telepath who altered their memories of the people outside of Westview, he probably has done it as a precaution since he couldn’t contact his spy or “missing person” and wouldn’t take the risk of endangering the resident who were happened to be outside the HEX when Wanda establishes it.

These are just some of the things I find that doesn’t make sense with Ralph’s identity. But we’ll just leave it at that. I still really want James McAvoy back as Charles Xavier and Michael Fassbender as Magneto, since both Sir Ian McKKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart did mention they’re done with their role. And I feel that it’s too risky to use them since they are in their 80’s now, I don’t know them personally but it gives me some sorts of paranoia *laughs* thinking they might get injured.

[punkscowardschampions]

Rio & Buster

Rio: I just got the last of my stuff from Dan’s… so that’s officially dealt with and done

Rio: You said your parents had a conference THIS weekend, right?

Buster: Yeah? So he’ll still be crying by then, but you don’t have to be, ‘cause I did say that, they’re [deets] all weekend

Rio: You don’t need to concern yourself with how he is or isn’t feeling ever again, sweet as that is, babe

Rio: Great, because I have likewise just finished convincing my mum that Nance needs some quality girl time and she, for some reason, can’t come here as per and I NEED to go to yours

Rio: I can even pull a sickie Monday so Sunday can really count too

Buster: The party I’m gonna throw is a perfect cover for why you’ve gotta be here with Nance, there ain’t a bigger cunt move than inviting everyone from school to swarm all over our house, and it’ll work for how loudly you’re gonna wanna tell me you miss me when you can get a second away from her

Rio: Even if her go-to is locking herself in her room, I’ll convince her it’ll be more fun to join in

Rio: hers is not the room I don’t wanna leave the whole time I’m there, like

Rio: 🤔 I might be able to invite some people to come hang with her

Rio: Your party will have plenty to offer for people that aren’t me, yeah?

Buster: ‘Course, it’s me hosting it, it’ll have everything

Rio: I won’t oversell it quite that hard 😏

Rio: but I know people who’ll be down

Rio: Ava went with them, or is she coming here?

Buster: Get her drunk and you can come see me play on Sunday before she’s even awake to realise you’re gone

Buster: Ava’s going to a friend’s after school on Friday ‘til they get back, probably having her own kid party, like

Rio: I can just wanna drool over the other lads on your team

Rio: she’ll think that’s standard straight girl behaviour and not bother to get out of bed for it

Rio: Cute

Buster: You can wanna before you’ve seen any of ‘em, yeah

Buster: Long as she steers clear of the Brandy in her friend’s parents drinks cabinet, it’ll be fine

Rio: The whole squads busted? Awkward

Rio: Luckily you know my actual motivation to get up at the crack of dawn

Rio: Undoubtedly, she’s smarter than us

Rio: I know all my siblings make me feel like a total idiot in comparison

Buster: Compared to me

Buster: She’s less reckless than me, but less cautious than Nance, as combinations go, I reckon she’ll do alright with that

Buster: I ain’t sorry for living dangerously though and an idiot is the last thing I feel like

Rio: I don’t need to see them to know that

Rio: Good, because if you were going to turn around and tell me not to come already…

Rio: I was scared you’d get back to London and not talk to me again like before

Rio: like, I didn’t think you would with my rational brain but that other 10% or whatever

Buster: I was thinking you’d not be able to get to London without the excuse of someone getting married or born or dying, shouldn’t have underestimated you, or how much my sister didn’t wanna come back

Rio: Mum is pretty chill, it’s more explaining it when your parents are about

Rio: or when you suddenly want to come here again

Buster: Thank Christ they never are

Rio: It does work in our favour

Rio: and if I wanna see the sights, no one is going to be mad at me staying safe and staying with family to do so, right?

Rio: it’s mainly Nance who we need to worry about

Buster: We don’t have to worry about anything, she’s preoccupied with her own shit

Rio: Yeah, can’t argue with that

Rio: or blame her

Buster: That said, we won’t take unnecessary risks

Rio: When you put it like that, I obviously want to

Rio: only the necessary ones then

Rio: because some are

Buster: Right now they all feel like they are

Rio: Tell me about it

Rio: I feel like I’ve barely been here because I wanna be with you so bad

Buster: Alright, I’ll tell you about how I hard I get when I think about seeing you again so I couldn’t come to the airport even armed with the best excuse to ‘cause a glimpse of you would mean I’d have no choice but to stay in the car and then immediately pile all your suitcases on top of me

Rio: Now I’m going to miss you even more on the drive to yours

Rio: How am I not going to just jump on you as soon as I see you

Buster: I’ll make sure you don’t see me until you can

Rio: Is it better to have the party in full-swing when I arrive or is there any chance we can be properly alone before?

Rio: Could ask Nance to get snacks and stuff for my arrival, that’s a believable amount of cheek from me and would get her out of the house for at least long enough to say hello properly if we time it right

Buster: We’ll time it right then, just ‘cause she ain’t throwing a party don’t mean she can get away with being a shit host

Rio: I think that makes sense

Rio: your friends aren’t going to just ignore me straight away, that’s just facts not being cocky

Rio: so it might take a while to get lost during

Buster: Yeah, they don’t all show up wasted, some of ‘em can handle their pre-drinks

Rio: I should hope so, even if they’re all posh boys

Rio: otherwise the friends I’m gathering could be unimpressed enough to trash your place and that isn’t the energy we’re looking for

Buster: Only if we could convince Nance to handle the clean up on her own and the line of how much of a pushover she is has gotta be drawn somewhere

Rio: I somehow can’t see it

Rio: especially as they’re meant to cheer her up, not do the opposite

Rio: At least your place is big

Buster: And I’ve only got the one sibling getting in our way, it’s fucking never-ending at yours

Rio: There is double the amount of us compared to yous

Rio: If I can handle them, this will be easy

Buster: Exactly

Rio: When we go to your match, can we go somewhere after, get some breakfast or something

Buster: My victory ain’t gonna celebrate itself, babe, and I know just the place

Rio: I’m excited 😁😁

Rio: For all of it, not just the promise of breakfast, obviously

Buster: I’d do more if I could, I want to, but it’ll look weird if I take you shopping or whatever before Nance can

Rio: I know

Rio: we can’t take those kind of risks yet

Rio: It’ll be easier when we’re a bit older and me showing up on a whim to shop is more plausible

Rio: I swear this is the worst age to be, no one totally trusts you to be an adult but you don’t get treated like the kids either when they want you to be ‘grown up’ 🙄

Buster: There has to be a way we can go from everyone believing we hate each other to not thinking it’s fucked we wanna spend time together like we used to without having to wait that long

Rio: You’d think but I can’t 🤔

Rio: Unless you want your whole perception with the rest of the fam to change too

Rio: Obviously it’s fine that we’ve got more in common, we’re closest in age

Rio: but if you don’t give the rest the time of day at all, that’ll raise eyebrows

Buster: I taught them all how to fight and play football, didn’t I? It ain’t my fault Grace isn’t into any of that, or that Nance and your brother are the real anti-social ones

Rio: Yeah, but that was a while ago now

Rio: I doubt anyone would say anything but it’ll probably be weird you showing up at fam functions again for a while

Rio: but only in a way that ultimately benefits you, they’ll think you’re growing up and being all mature

Buster: Fuck’s sake, I can hear everyone now, the bullshit they’d have to say

Rio: Yeah, it’ll make you wanna die

Rio: but I’ll make it worth it

Buster: You already have, I’ll do it for you, I’d do anything

Rio: You know I will for you too

Rio: Including ditching your sister as much as is possible without being a total bitch

Buster: She’s still as heavy a sleeper as she always was

Rio: That is a theory we’re going to have to test

Rio: There’s zero chance I can promise to be quiet all weekend

Buster: Me either, but I like our odds after my solo tests

Rio: That was so 🤓 sounding but also 🤤

Rio: Rude

Buster: Call it preparation, that’s who I am here, like

Rio: I know who you are

Buster: Good, don’t forget ‘cause of who I have to be

Rio: Up until very recently you were still treating me like you hated me, remember

Rio: I can handle it

Buster: You’ve never been here, however I’ve treated you at family functions is still toned down, Nance doesn’t hate me for no reason, you know

Rio: I’m not her though

Buster: I don’t want you to have to handle it anymore, that’s all

Rio: You have to do what you have to do

Rio: You live there, I don’t

Rio: Say what you want to your friends

Buster: Okay

Rio: It is okay

Rio: I mean, what’s the alternative?

Rio: I understand why you have to

Buster: Like you said, this age is shit, there won’t be an alternative until we’re older

Rio: Yeah, if you even think about treating me like this when you go to Uni

Rio: I don’t care what your friends think about me

Rio: it’s not like I plan to just take it anyway

Buster: You didn’t have to be so hot about it or get me thinking about how incredible the future is gonna be when the present is torturous enough

Rio: Yeah I did

Rio: can’t have you forgetting how you really feel about me

Rio: Maybe you can just stay at Uni forever

Rio: it’s practically expected you won’t keep in touch or come home enough

Rio: we can be together every day, with no one around to interrupt us

Buster: That’s settled then

Rio: 😄🥰

Buster: What time’s your flight?

Rio: [a time early enough that the party won’t be on and we’re keen

but not so early Nancy will be like umm can you not come then lol]

Buster: You really want me to keep feeling a type of way about you, yeah?

Rio: That should be obvious by now

Rio: You can’t get sick of me ever

Buster: It should be obvious by now that I won’t

Rio: Don’t

Rio: Everything’s changed for good

Rio: I have

Buster: Even if I still wanted to pretend, I can’t, I barely could before, it’s not gonna happen, Rio

Rio: Me either, I’m scared I can barely pretend as much as we need to to stop doing it in private

Rio: never mind fully going fucking back

Buster: You’ll do what you have to as well, I know you and what you can handle even if I don’t like that it’s the way things are

Rio: I’m sick of thinking about what I have to do, what I need is you

Buster: You’ve got me, whether you’re here or not, whatever else is going on in your head or what bullshit is happening around us, I’m with you for it

Rio: I love you

Buster: I love you too

Rio: What kind of thing do Chelsea girls wear to house parties then?

Buster: Nothing you ever would

Buster: It's really bad, like

Rio: 😂

Rio: Okay, I’ll look good and stand out instead of trying to match the energy then

Buster: There really ain't no alternative in this instance, babe

Rio: You won’t be into my cosplay, noted 😏

Buster: Not unless it was the school uniform you were planning on nicking, anything else they wear isn't gonna do fuck all for either of us

Rio: Obviously I have that outfit

Rio: If you can think of any valid reason I’d have that packed, like

Buster: Insisting on costumes before my birthday is a weird flex but I've done worse

Rio: They’d be fuming at the lack of notice

Rio: plus I’d never convince your sister to leave her room if she has to wear a stupid costume

Rio: next time

Buster: I do wanna see what you're gonna wear for me when you're not also dressing for a wedding/Easter egg hunt

Rio: Good thing you aren’t the only one who can rise to the challenge under pressure

Rio: I’m pretty sure I know exactly what you like, as I’ve had to dress to get your attention for years now

Rio: It’s how much attention you want your friends to be paying me too

Buster: However you dress all eyes will be on you anyway, from the moment you walk in, I can and will give you every compliment on what you’re wearing and how you look, obviously, but it ain’t stopping there

Buster: It’s everything else too, from the way you move to what you do and don’t say, it’s exactly what I like ‘cause I’ve got good taste, and if they’ve got any, they’re gonna wanna rise to the challenge of trying to get your attention

Rio: You’re the one who always knows exactly what to say

Rio: I’m so lucky

Rio: so they can try, no one but you registers for me

Buster: It’s not luck, what I say is in direct response to you and how you make me feel, the try hard girls ‘round here who haven’t ever registered for me would be lucky to get a second of eye contact Buster: You know you deserve every word and gesture

Rio: I’d attempt sympathy if I didn’t know how bitchy they were

Buster: Don’t or I’d have be more serious in offering it to the paperboy

Rio: 😏

Rio: I think I feel bad enough for both of us, it’s fine

Buster: No it ain’t, you’ve got fuck all to feel bad about, he wasn’t good enough for you, end of

Rio: I can still feel sorry for him

Rio: Obviously it was the right thing to do

Buster: He’ll feel sorry enough for himself for not keeping hold of you, as he should

Rio: Bless him

Buster: He’s not someone to waste any more of your time thinking about, like I said, it’s his loss

Rio: I’m not

Rio: All I really think about is you

Buster: As long as you’re not feeling sorry for me

Rio: I have a bit more self-esteem than that, babe

Buster: If you don’t now you will when you get here

Rio: You wouldn’t risk it if I wasn’t worth it

Rio: Likewise

Rio: There’s no pretending you aren’t just

Rio: everything I want

Buster: It’s not a risk ‘cause we won’t get caught, but I’d want you even if it was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done instead of the only thing that makes sense

Rio: You know what I mean though

Rio: even if we never get caught

Rio: it could still be a total headfuck

Buster: Nothing’s gonna change my mind, however much of a headfuck it is, we’ll handle it, it’s not gonna be worse than what we’ve already had to

Rio: Seeing you before was honestly tortuous

Rio: as much as I’d dread what you would say, how much you’d ignore me and I’d have to ignore you

Rio: I also wanted to savour every second of it and it was never long enough

Buster: Seeing who you’d bring nearly killed me every time, and them, but as much as I wanted them to fuck off, it was the thought that you’d follow ‘em out if they did that I dreaded most, ‘cause yeah, for all the family functions, there was still never enough time even with every second I then spent reliving it later

Rio: I never did though

Rio: I couldn’t miss anything, even if all I missed was more ignoring

Buster: Don’t act like I could ever really ignore you

Rio: Didn’t you sometimes believe it

Rio: Think you were convincing yourself that there was something there that wasn’t

Buster: I sometimes believed you wanted me to

Rio: Exactly, we both must’ve ‘wanted’ that on some level some of the time

Rio: even if we really wanted the opposite, both could be true, you know

Buster: I don’t just do whatever the hell I want, contrary to popular belief, you know

Rio: Of course I do

Rio: This is big

Buster: I knew what I wanted then, now and always

Rio: I just wish things were simpler

Rio: but they aren’t, and I can and will handle how they are

Buster: How I feel is the part that is, and I’ll do whatever I can to keep the rest as simple as possible for you

Rio: This is better than what we were doing, that’s a start

Buster: Yeah, but I can do better

Rio: I don’t know if I can handle better 🥴

Buster: I definitely don’t believe that, babe

Rio: We’ll have fun working out who’s right

Buster: I am, but you won’t mind being proved wrong

Rio: I need it to be the weekend NOW

Buster: I can’t give you that, which is making me angry, so where are you now?

Rio: Home

Rio: Meant to be doing homework

Buster: Anyone else meant to be doing it with you?

Rio: Even if there was, you know they aren’t

Buster: [Obviously call her cos you miss her and are extra]

Rio: I love hearing your voice

Buster: It was starting to feel like forever since I’d heard yours

Rio: Day to day is so normal and boring without you I don’t even know what to do

Buster: I’ll have to keep doing what I can to make sure you’re not bored

Rio: The problem isn’t you it’s everything else

Rio: you’re never boring

Buster: Which is exactly why it’s a problem I can solve by helping you forget about everything else

Rio: I love you

Rio: so, do you actually like any of your friends or what’s the craic

Rio: I’ll be less rude to those ones if you do

Buster: Of course I don’t, what’s to like?

Rio: I don’t know, I’ve never met them

Rio: I know the people Nancy particularly dislikes, if only by name

Rio: but they’re actually your quote unquote friends, some of them might be okay, to you anyway

Buster: Come on, don’t underestimate yourself, you’ve met me and admitted to checking my socials regularly

Buster: You’ll be as good a judge as I am who to avoid at the weekend and who you could take a shot with without risking that boredom again

Rio: I was mainly giving you a chance to talk about it

Rio: I doubt anyone else is asking

Buster: And I’m giving you the chance to make up your own mind, I already said don’t feel sorry for me

Rio: I will regardless

Rio: and you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to

Buster: I know I don’t, like you don’t need my permission to treat any of the partygoers however you want to, whether I reckon they’re a cunt or not

Rio: You don’t need to be sarky about it

Buster: You don’t need to be patronising about it either, like, how that shit is is how it’s been for long enough that I know what I’m doing

Rio: I wasn’t being patronising, I was trying to talk to you but I won’t fucking bother then

Buster: That’s an impossibly quick turnaround from me not having to talk about it if I don’t want to, but fine

Rio: We’ve talked about stuff like that before

Rio: I told you how I don’t feel like one of them properly either here; so what, you suddenly don’t want to talk to me about anything important?

Buster: What do you want me to say? I’m not drunk now and I’m not Nance

Rio: Fine

Rio: I have things I should be doing anyway

Buster: Don’t be like that, you know I wanna talk to you about everything, it doesn’t mean it’s that simple

Rio: If you didn’t want to, then just say that

Rio: You don’t need to turn it into a whole thing and act like I’m the idiot for asking

Buster: That’s what I do, or did, before

Rio: Old habits and all that, sure

Buster: I’m sorry, to start a new one

Rio: Okay, we can rewind to before that whole part of this conversation

Buster: No, you’re right, we should talk about it, otherwise what I said about being able to do better, anything I’ve said to big myself up, is bullshit and I might as well get a paper round too

Rio: There’s nothing wrong with a paper round 😏

Rio: I’m not asking you to be ‘perfect’

Rio: whatever that even is

Rio: I just genuinely thought you might want to talk about it, that’s all

Buster: As a kid, but however immature that lot are, I ain’t one any more and I don’t wanna be dragged down to their fucking level, ‘cause I’m above it

Buster: So are you, my definition of perfect at least, I wanna be someone who deserves you, not the kind of cunt who feels so powerless all he can do is bitch and moan about it, but I know lashing out at being backed into a corner ain’t no better this time or what I want either, not when you’re the target

Buster: There’s usually something I can actually do, options I have, that’s who I am, but keeping the two worlds separate isn’t gonna work now that you’re the centre of both

Rio: You already deserve me, no conditions

Rio: but I’m not going to hold you to the standard you have to be with your friends, or judge you for doing it, I’d do the same

Buster: I told you they bring out the worst in me, there are no standards

Rio: How else are you meant to fill your time

Rio: We’re teenagers, not adults just because we’re not kids

Rio: You don’t have to judge yourself that harshly for it

Buster: Why not? Everyone else is, including you not long ago

Rio: It’s not something your parents can really get on board with

Rio: and only because you were being a twat to me, that’s not necessary to the rest of it, surely

Buster: I didn’t mean them, but whatever

Buster: It was all connected, part of what I had to do

Rio: No one’s gonna thank you for being a prick, especially if they can’t see your reasoning and motivations

Rio: Maybe she should be able to but she’s preoccupied with her own feelings towards it all

Rio: If you’re fed up of feeling like the bad guy, you have to find time when you ain’t, or of course you’re gonna feel like that’s who you actually are

Buster: I know

Rio: I don’t think you’re the bad guy

Rio: Ava doesn’t

Buster: She doesn’t yet, there’s loads of time for it though before I’m done with school and everyone there

Rio: Respectfully, I don’t think you’ll have to fail to protect her from bullies

Rio: Not that it is that simple, but you know what I’m saying

Rio: She’ll be, what, 12/13, when you get done with school, it’s not gonna happen

Buster: That’s not the only way to be a prick is all I’m saying

Rio: Go on

Rio: Why else do you reckon Nancy doesn’t like you now

Buster: Old habits die hard, like you said, and I’ve formed plenty she reckons are bad hanging out with them and if you’ve got things you should be doing it’d be quicker to speculate on what she don’t hate about me by this point

Rio: She’s probably jealous, though it would not be worth pointing that out

Rio: even if she thinks they’re the worst, you still have people to do stuff with and she doesn’t

Buster: Everyone who meets me is, difference is, she knows it’s not effortless, I keep my schedule full, with the good as well as the bad and put work in while she’s doing fuck all but feeling sorry for herself and jealous of what I’ve got

Rio: I think she tries, or at least did try

Rio: but it wasn’t exactly working for her so why bother at this point, right

Buster: You can’t just try once and give up, yeah I scored first time but it took ages before I knocked someone out in the ring, ‘course you’re gonna get nowhere if you don’t make what you want happen

Rio: I don’t think she wants it though

Rio: you’re making the best out of a bad situation, yeah

Rio: but she’d rather not, that doesn’t mean she loves being friendless, just it’s slightly preferable to being friends with people she doesn’t like

Buster: Nobody’s saying she has to be friends with them, the whole school ain’t against her, she’s got other options

Rio: I’m not saying she’s fully in the right, no way

Rio: She just can’t see further than what they say right now

Buster: I’ve done what I can to make her see sense

Rio: I know

Rio: I just don’t think that’s gonna happen, I’m sorry

Buster: Don’t worry, I wasn’t holding my breath or anything, I know which battles are worth picking

Rio: You’ll get there, just probably not for a while

Rio: She needs to sort herself out, it’s literally not your battle

Buster: Tell me something I don’t know, like

Rio: You clearly do feel a bit responsible

Rio: even if you could have done some things different, doesn’t mean this wouldn’t have still happened and she wouldn’t still feel like this

Buster: She’s my sister, I do have a responsibility to look out for her, but that don’t mean she’s not responsible for making it worse for herself after I’ve done everything I can to try and sort it out

Rio: I don’t disagree

Buster: Good

Rio: I’ll keep talking to her anyway

Rio: even if it doesn’t achieve much either

Buster: If anyone could get through to her it’d be you, I haven’t forgot about any the shit you managed to talk me out of when we were younger

Rio: I wasn’t that much of a fun sponge though thank you

Rio: I said yes to plenty of things too 😏

Buster: Just the things I should probably thank you for, if it wasn't more fun to focus on what you've said yes to, especially recently

Rio: It is more fun to say yes to you, especially recently

Rio: ‘scuse me whilst I enjoy the flashback 🤤🤤🤤

Buster: It's only gonna get more fun

Buster: I can't believe you're actually coming here but the frequency of those flashbacks will keep it feeling real

Rio: Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate from all the fantasies and daydreams from before though, they felt so real

Rio: [pic] that should help

Buster: It’s definitely proof I didn’t need that you won’t have any problem living up to the years of dreams I’ve had

Rio: That’s all I want right now

Rio: I can prove to you how worth it this is all going to be

Buster: It’s always fun to give you what you want, as long as you know you don’t actually have anything left to prove, I knew how worth it this is and would be before you’d ever even touched me

Rio: I have to keep proving it, I can’t take this or you for granted

Rio: I never thought this would actually happen

Rio: I’m not going to waste a second being second best, trust me

Buster: You won't, trust me, there's nobody you could come second to, this is happening 'cause we're joint first and I've never met anyone else I could say that about with a straight face

Rio: It makes perfect sense, when you think about it

Rio: Who else?

Rio: There’s no one else like you and no one else like me

Rio: We’ve both tried

Buster: Exactly, and now the only regret I have is how long I spent fighting against it

Rio: Even if I could fight it longer

Rio: I don’t want to, it’s exhausting

Buster: We don’t have to, Thank Christ, keeping it a secret will seem loads easier by comparison

Rio: Seriously

Rio: not to mention it has all the potential to be kinda fun and pretty hot

Rio: because we won’t get caught, so we can just enjoy the thrill for what it is

Buster: I object to kinda fun and pretty hot, but when we don’t get caught and you’re enjoying the thrill I’ll get you to be much more enthusiastic, like

Rio: 😅

Rio: I’m not as good with words as you, poor baby

Rio: it’s so unfair

Buster: Nah, I object to that too, you’re incredible with words and actions

Rio: Actions, I’ll agree to

Rio: Words I’ll work on

Rio: not everyone likes that

Buster: There’s nothing you need to work on

Rio: 🤏🥺

Buster: I don’t have a single complaint

Rio: I just wanted to hear you say that 😋

Buster: I’ll tell you how perfect you are as many times as you want

Rio: ‘til you can’t speak

Buster: Losing my voice is the only thing that’ll stop me

Rio: Challenge accepted

Rio: I can make it happen before that point

Buster: I’d still be able to use actions to tell you though, the actual challenge would be anyone or anything stopping me doing that

Rio: I definitely can’t pack handcuffs

Rio: LOVE to see their faces at the airport, like

Buster: We’ll think of something else to use that either you can pack or I already have in my room

Rio: I can’t believe I’ve never been in your room

Rio: still weird to think about

Buster: Yeah, like you said, some of the fantasties felt so real

Rio: I wish I could stay in there with you

Buster: Once Nance is asleep you can

Rio: I know, I just don’t wanna think of you on your own

Buster: You won’t get a chance to think about anything like that, don’t worry

Rio: Okay, so what DO I pack

Buster: Your necklace, obviously

Rio: I haven’t taken it off

Rio: it’s so gorgeous 😍

Rio: never met a boy with taste

Buster: Good ‘cause I haven’t either

Buster: You’ve met me, didn’t you think I had taste before?

Rio: You weren’t buying me jewellery and I wouldn’t want to know if you were anyone else

Buster: ‘Course not, but since when is that solely the benchmark for good taste? You’ve seen what I’ve bought myself

Rio: You can have good taste for yourself and terrible taste in girl’s stuff

Rio: You’ve seen what your friends think is hot in the opposite sex

Buster: Other lads can and they do but don’t underestimate me, babe

Rio: No more

Buster: I just wanted to hear you say it

Rio: What else do you wanna hear me say?

Buster: Right now? Everything you probably shouldn't get into the habit of saying even if Nance is out of the way

Rio: [Audio examples of that]

Rio: Can’t call it a habit yet, we’re safe

Buster: You sure? Sounds like it could be becoming a habit to me

Rio: You aren’t going to keep an eye on me to make sure?

Buster: That’s already a habit, you know that, can’t keep my eyes off you

Rio: I don’t mind some codependence

Buster: That’s a relief ‘cause it’s arguably either too early or too late for you to try and change me

Rio: I don’t wanna change you

Buster: ‘Course not, why would you? We’re perfect for each other as is

Rio: and you’re perfect

Buster: You are, but yeah, I’m keeping up

Rio: You are

Rio: on both counts, thank you

Buster: You ain’t seen nothing yet, babe, but you will, when you get here

Rio: Call me? So it doesn’t seem so far off still 😖😩

Buster: [obviously will even though he did earlier because what is chill]

[taptroupe]

finally we are here. EVERGRACE CHAPTER 10 PART 3 LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO but this time it’s actually serious

i even  made an animated visual this time!

but this kinda spoils the later part of the chapter so please enjoy it once you reach the part in my tumblr post. thank you. also warning this is pretty fucked up and violent and has slight implications of asphyxiation maybe

“So, Morpheus is up there, right?”

“Yes. We’ll be taking a gondola from near here, and then climb a stairway to get to him.”

“Guess it would be tiring to walk the whole way.”

“[something someting] it’s a normal stairway, but it goes up this hollowed out tower, and many parts of this tower are still untouched [think this was mentioned over in the second part in fact]”

“And Morpheus is at the very top?”

“Yes.”

“Man, he must really enjoy that God complex.”

“I’m not sure about that... The Tower’s peak is the closest to the outside world, after all. The Cycle...”

As soon as the word “Cycle” left her mouth, she gasped and looked at Darius.

[...or did Darius gasp, leading to Medina to stare at him?]

“If he were to free this world, captured by the Cycle... That’s certainly a fitting place to do it, wouldn’t it?”

“Are you saying my country’s been caught up by this Cycle?” of course orlaidnfids is saying this bit

“That’s what I remember hearing, but... I’m not sure of myself.”

wellll once they got down the stairs they saw the funny looking pillars of the soaring tower. you know the ones you brute force the fuck out of lol i sure did

As they descended to the end of the stairway, they came across some strange pillars. The four evenly spaced round pillars were of white, red, green, and blue. And at the wall nearby was a door that certainly wouldn’t be opened by hand.

“if it hasn’t changed, then this should work...”

Medina stood near the colourless pillar, and like she had hit the leaf relief, fired palmira actions at the coloured pillars from her arm. [must be her alcrest powers]

Red fire Palmira. Green leaf palmira. Blue Ice Palmira. 

Then all the lights turned off, including the colourless pillar. And once more, Medina launched leaf palmira at the green pillar, turning it on again. And the colourless pillar turned green toooooooooo........ AND THE DOOR OPENED WOW EVERGRACE WIKI GET YOUR WALKTRHOUGHS HERE LOL

“alright everyone get in and ride this bad boy”

medina ushered the two guys into the small room that opened up. there was a lever near the wall and she activated it, closing the door. with a small bump, the lights in the room dimmed, and started to move or something

“So this is... A gondola, huh?”

Darius asked without a shred of ill will, as he looked around the room. Medina couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.

“First time?”

“Not like that, but I mean... Rieubane is pretty amazing. We haven’t reached this kind of technology in the time period where I come from.”

“Time period?” orlainde and Medina both ask.

“Right, in the place where I come from... Rieubane’s already been destroyed for 100 years now. How I’m here, how this can all still be here... I don’t really understand it.”

“Ah, Sharline did talk about the Darius who was a young boy... Perhaps time’s been shifted between the outside and in here.”

Medina continued on.

“In this closed country, perhaps we’ve been left behind by the passage of time.”

“It’s been a year since that incident that our country was blocked off, right? And you said that it’s been a hundred years out here... So perhaps, a day here equals 100 days outside.”

oralindade did the math. I did the math. This is his math. could it be? 100 days outside means 1 day inside?

if sharline and darius are separated by 13 years, then... that is 4745 days outside, but converted into rieubane days that’s like, almost 50 days! but didn’t the others say sharline was only there a few days ago?! not over a month...?!

“What did you say?! Wait, my friends... No, the starving villages and cities...!”

“Hey, hey, it’s just something I thought up! It’s just a guess.... Gah!”

The gondola stopped with a sudden, loud noise. The three were probably knocked to the ground, and Medina looked at the gondola with a worrying glance.

“This is the first time this has happened...”

Medina pulled the lever and opened the door to a dark room.

“looks like the plans have changed. it seems to have stopped lower than usual.”

“So, we can’t go up?”

“No, this is the highest point. We’ll walk from here.”

[i wonder what she meant by that? is this the appropriate destination? probably the “first time” bit was how it stopped suddenly perhaps.]

Darius stepped out and looked carefully around the room. No sign of monsters, but the sound of the wind outside the tower could be heard from far away. There was a door-like opening with an arch, with rubble strewn about.

“If we continue in from here, we’ll reach the beginning of the staircase.”

As Medina continued onward, she was stopped suddenly by Darius.

“Thanks, but... I have a bad feeling about this. You should walk behind us.”

this WHOLE bit about describing a room is so hard. i’m just gonna machine translate this and pray to god. it’s like a room.. it’s dusty... fanshaped with weird things everywhere..... experimentation tools like the room of the legendary mercenary... two doors split off, and there’s a tower with an iron grate near the centre of the room... idk there’s a light near the back, and an open door near there too. this is alot and i can’t even figure out where this is in the game. SORRY LOOK OKAY LOOK GUYS HERE’S

Going through the strange doorway, Darius follows a narrow dark path. He motions for orsdfjsdfds and Medina to stop as he peers through the iron grate. I can kinda understand the layout of the room now hahaha

A glowing bluewhite pillar stands in the middle of the room. There are female soldiers with blonde hair and purple skin standing side by side or something.

you know. them

beyond the female soliders was a transparent like wall, like the one they saw in the human laboratory. and beyond that wall was a girl sitting on her knees - a girl with red hair.

with a gasp, darius pulled back from the grate.

“darius, what’s wrong?”

orladin rushed to him, with quiet footsteps. darius replied back in an equally hushed tone.

“it’s sharline.”

“huh? just by herself?”

“It seems like it. she’s in a... strange tube while the soldiers stand around it.”

SHARLINE IN THE TUBE WEDNESDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

now you may watch the video at the top of the page.

“that’s an experimental cell and transfer device that my grandfather made, and those are ‘ferugu’ patrolling around it - also made by my grandpappy”

orlsjfid looked around the room the three were in. 

“hey, there’s a lever on this wall. will this open the grate?”

“i haven’t been here often, so i’m not sure...”

“how about this one..?”

darius notices another lever on the wall opposite.

“i really don’t know, but... perhaps if we both activate the levers, the grate might open up, then.”

“We’ll try it. I’ll be counting on you two.” Darius says, warhammer in hand, already facing the grates.

orladidifns stands near one of the levers, waiting. and asks:

“so.... how did morpheus activate this grate, when it takes two people?”

“i don’t think he’d really have a reason to come here. and if he did have something here, the transfer device would’ve taken sharline up to his experimental lab, anyhow.”

“i see...”

“i wonder if sienna is nearby?” “we’ll probably figure it out as we go up.”

oljskfjksf stands silently near the lever now.

“the first plan of action will be to rescue sharline, right?”

“right, otherwise she might be transferred away.”

[koitsu wa ugokan darou was hard to understand but i think that’s it. the alternative is that he’s referring to darius just moving on from this debacle if they didn’t wanna save sharline lol]

cranking the levers to a steady rhythm, the grate slowly rose up from its position, and darius followed the path briskly (worried that the grate might unexpectedly fall on him haha). and in no time at all, the female soldiers took notice of him and readied their swords.

darius kinda like. deflected some of their attacks because they’re pretty slow? might’ve dodged a few by ducking. ignoring their sluggish moves, darius turns and runs to where sharline is.

『Darius!』

i thought it was an interesting choice to have double quotes like that so i’m keeping it in and i’m lazy to figure out how to localize that emphasis for an english audience. bbut the following line makes sense as to why.

across the shimmering wall, a muffled voice could be heard. sharline hit the wall with her fists, trying to break free. darius shouted.

“Get back!”

seeing the warhammer in his hand, sharline backed up against the wall. with a tight grip, darius swung at the light wall, shattering it into pieces. 

it was for a moment, but the shattered pieces seemed to glitter as they danced in the air. 

At the moment, a heavy thud reverberated. A sound much like the dropping of a grate. 

Followed by Medina’s cries.

“Darius, behind you!” Sharline shouted.

darius swung around and could notice the panicked faces of medina and olksjfsjf beyond the grates. olskfjlsfjlsf seemed to be shouting something that he couldn’t make out. and furthermore, the female soliders were getting up, ready to face him again.

But at that moment, darius felt a familiar warmth against his back.

“I just knew you’d come to save me, Darius.”

Sharline smiled, with a smile wide enough to reach her ears. 

A cold smile, as her arms dug into Darius’s neck.

“Under my master’s command, I stayed here all nice and put. Y’see, my master really wants to see the Crest up close... So why don’t you come with me?”

It was Sharline’s voice, yet what came out of her mouth wasn’t anything like Sharline at all.

[use of omae below]

“You... You’re.... What monster are you...?”

“I’m Sharline.”

It was like some kind of inhuman strength fought against Darius as he struggled to break free. A strange pattern emerged from the sparkling debris of the cage, marking the ground with its shape...

Darius hesitated for a moment before he closed his eyes shut, and struck Sharline’s torso with his elbow.

It was like hitting rock. She continued to press on.

>be me >at the soaring tower >bringing my comrade and a nice lady who lives here to the top floor >sees my sis in a tube >she’s super weird >asked her specifically to get back so i wouldn’t accidentally hit her >she’s free of the tube >we get out, things are looking better >she busts out the stranglehold >mfw

just wanted to the lighten the mood with a funny thing based off a tweet liv made once. back to work

He scrambled to find his knife, but his fingers only touched an empty sheath - a thought arose in Darius’s frantic mind, that the knife must’ve fallen out during his battle with the Legendary Mercenary.

“You know, if you thrash around like that, it’s only gonna be pain for you. Y’see, there’s only one thought in this head of mine - and that’s to kill any naysayers. Sooo, if you don’t come along with me, I’m just gonna tear you to bits like that!”

[lots of wa and yo and no and ne suffixes here. like much more than usual, and sharline’s speech pattern is really cheerful and interjected with bits of things. in short, Energetic Elder Sister Of Kill]

The female soldiers approached them, with sword in hand. Darius tried to swing them away with his warhammer, but a thin hand pulled his arm back with the strength of iron shackles.

“I just wanted to get you there quickly safe and intact, you know... If you’re not going to listen to me, I guess I can’t expect you to act like a grownup either, huh?”

With a giggle and a smile, the monster that took on Sharline’s shape tightened her grasp around Darius’s neck.

Darius tried to use the momentum to lunge to the side, hoping to knock Sharline to the ground, but her feet would simply not leave the floor - as if planted to the ground.

“Oh yes, your friends are over there, aren’t they? But you probably won’t make it in time.” 

Using his one free hand, he tried to grab the sword of the nearby soldiers, but it was no use... Palmira actions wouldn’t work either, at such a close range... 

Darius readied his warhammer as the female warrior swung down her sword. But, at that moment, something behind the warrior swung and struck it, sending the warrior flying.

Behind that warrior, in front of where the grates were, was a strange figure cloaked in black armor with a large knife.

All Sharline could let out was an “Eh?”

Darius, shaking free of her momentarily slack arms, plunges the sword into her, channeling Palmira power into the blade. Though the attack landed, he feels a dull impact at the tip of the sword, and the recoil sends him back. His armor makes sparks against the ground, and his back is er.... the skin peels off his back, it probably really hurts that’s kinda a lot of detail novel

But with the power of luck, Darius pushes the sword in deeper, and finishes the monster off. Sharline staggers backwards, shrieking some noise that could never come from a human... 

you know i don’t actually get the intricacies of this bit here and i’m here to write about darius and sharline being best friends not to see them beat each other to death so i’m freeballing it. contact me if this pisses you off somehow

darius lands a hit with the warhammer to her collarbones, her red hair seems to fly, and sharline crashes into a white pillar and falls. it was as if the red hair fell out in bundles, skin like porcelain and i’m not digging how she’s described as white skin and thin arms at all but this bit at least it implies it’s porcelain BECAUSE SHARLINE’S SKIN IS CRACKING AND PEELING OFF 

it was like reddish-brown sand scattered and spilled to the ground, like a leather pouch deflated on the ground. and as if a dust of white fog, sharline’s clothes  and the mountain of sand it rested on...   all disappeared.... 

My God. Fucked Up Bit. this is going out because it’s already plenty long. DAMN

THANKS SNAZZ FOR HELPING WITH THE “DARIUS TRIES TO THROW SHARLINE TO THE GROUND” BIT THOUGH

[captaincatwoodson]

3 Events in 3 States: 2014 race reports

State No.1: PA (beginning May) UPMC Health Plan Pittsburgh Half Marathon. PR'd again for this race with a finishing time of 2:29:09 (11:22 ave. min/mi), training was heavy in the cross training department with more weight lifting added to my regiment.

I competed in the the Pittsburgh Half Marathon, in Pennsylvania, in May as well as the Rock Hall Triathlon, in Maryland, later that month and the Decker's Creek Trail Half Marathon, in West Virginia, in June.

State No.2: MD (early June) Rock Hall Sprint Triathlon.

Sprint triathlon consists of a 750 meter swim (0.5 mile), a 20k bike ride (12.4 miles), and a 5km run (3.1 miles). This was my first triathlon ever (I’ve done plenty of biathlons and multi sport events but nothing like this)! I dove into training, very confident in my biking and running fitness/endurance but I hadn’t done any swimming (pool or open water) in years so knew I would have my work cut out for me.

To help tackle the swim part, I got a swim coach. Good news: I was ahead of the game than most people. My form was spot on (guess I remembered something from swim and dive team all those years ago). Basically I just needed to get use to being in water again then work on my breathing for competitive, open water swimming. No big deal, right?? I had swim lessons 1-2x a week and followed this training schedule as best I could, customizing it to my daily schedule.

Weekday Training: Mon = biking, Wed= running, Fri = swimming, Tue & Thu = weight lifting, yoga and stretching

Weekend Training: alternated b/w swimming then biking, biking then running, swimming then running

Race Day Recap - Swim Segment: I didn't have a wetsuit but luckily I didn't need one as the water turned out to be really warm. I wore my bike shorts and a quick dry, compression-like fit, no sleeve shirt plus my swim cap and goggles (which fogged almost immediately and were useless after that).

The Chesapeake Bay was our open water arena, up to this point all of my swimming took place in a pool (trained over the winter) and I attempted to make up for this by for swimming longer amounts of time and going further than the race distance to help build up my endurance. Nothing can really prepare you for open water swimming, other than actually swimming in the open water though. The temperatures are different & vary greatly plus the current can really exhaust you if you’re not use to swimming with a current.

In training it looked like I was trying to run/bike in the water, and apparently I don’t use my arms as one would expect a swimmer to do but rather I’d use my legs much more heavily. I also predominately used the back stroke while training as my goggles kept fogging up. Another big difference between pool and open water is pools are clear and have that nice line at the bottom to see where you're going, and you are usually in a lane so you have bumpers to keep you on track. Open water doesn't have that advantage lol.

At one point it was just me and I hadn’t even made to the first buoy, a kayaker rowed over to me to try and help me maintain direction, but foggy goggles and back stroking in open water makes for difficulties maintaining course. I pretty much swam in the least efficient way possible: little spirals looping round and round trying to head toward the buoys. For a TRI, each sport has a time limit in which you must complete as well as a time limit for the whole race. I wasn't going to make it in time for the swim so I ended up accepting a lift back to shore. You're allowed to continue on to the other segments of the race if this happens but your time chip is removed to keep things fair.

Race Day Recap - Bike Segment: as soon as I hit land, I was golden. I ran to the transition area, dried my feet, put socks/shoes on, grabbed my helmet and put that on as I walked outta the transition area. I had to borrow a bike since I was unable to bring my own This of course goes against the "don't try new stuff on race day" or "do on race day what you do in training" lol. I did test ride the bike the day before the race to at least familiarize myself with riding with drop bars (I ride with flat bars) and the shifting mechanics (I have the trigger shifters). All in all, while I generally dislike the type of bike I had to ride, I did really well and fortunately the course was relatively flat meaning I didn't need to shift often.

Race Day Recap - Run Segment: just like I had to walk the bike out then hop on and I ride, I had to dismont a bit before the transition area, run the bike to my spot then take off to do the run! I didn't to do much from bike to run since I don't use clipless pedals/shoes but I did grab some water on the way out. The running was pretty chill, again relatively flat with a couple rolling hills. I kept a pretty even pace till the end when I kicked it up and just flew through the finish line.

Training Time Trial: finished all segments in ~2 hours with the swim in 30 min, bike (15 miles) in an hour and run (5km) in 30-32 min.

Race Day Times: finished everything in less than 2 hours but did not complete the swimming; I did about 10 min of swimming before I was scooped up, I finished the bike (14.53 miles) in 53 minutes and finished the 5k in 31 minutes - absolutely crushing the last couple hundred yards. I mean I was running so fast and so hard, the Race MC did a double take and made a funny comment on how fast I was going. My times are rough estimates since I didn't have my time chip and I’m not sure how long my transitions in between in segment were.

My goal going in was to finish and to be at or under 2 hours. My goal moving forward is to improve my swimming game, really build up that endurance and improve my aerobic and anaerobic training.

State No.3: WV (a week later, June) Decker's Creek Trail Half Marathon, half number 6, first trail race

This was a great race to end the summer with, primarily a trail course (couple paved spots), gradual downhill grade, and I finished strong with my best half marathon PR yet. I crossed the finish line with a time of 2:15:03, (10:19 ave. min/mile).

Training for this was different than what I had done for the Pittsburgh Half (a road run). Instead of a lot of hills with the focus on the incline, I worked on controlling my pace and form running down hill. I also needed to run on actual trails and get use to that vs. the paved road I am accustomed to.

Fortunately, Pittsburgh has a number of trails pretty accessible for training. 1-2x a week I'd run 3-6 miles on trails and 4-10 miles in a cemetery lol. I've found cemeteries are great place for race training due to its variety of hill training, little to no car traffic, and mixture of grass and pavement course. On days I couldn't get outside, I'd hit the treadmill to get some speed work and general mileage in. I up'd the weights in my weight training and focused on compound movements such as with the bench press, dead lift, bent rows and squats. I attempted some Olympic lifting as well, using dumbbells or kettle-bells to keep good form.

[straynstay]

this is my stupid “theory”

Alright, so here's my dumbass theory on 부작용 (Side Effects) M/V

DISCLAIMER: this is only my opinion and I might be completely wrong, so don't take it too seriously, this is just speculation, but bear with me and my weird mind cause this is gonna be a long trippy journey lol

First of all, Yellow Wood refers to a poem by Robert Frost called "The Road Not Taken" and this is my main source in trying to understand this whole concept of Clé 2. The poem refers to some existential questions that concern the human being, such as life and death, one's choices and the unscapable passing of time. The narrator faces two possible ways to go, but he has a hard time chosing one, feeling sorry that he can't travel both, but eventually he decides on one even though he spent a long time trying to see where the other leads to. Yellow Wood is mentioned right at the beginning [Two roads diverged in a yellow wood] and it’s considered a metaphor for our “autumn years”, when we get to "harvest" everything we "cultivated" when we were young, and it's also a time to remember and reflect upon our deeds. We see the yellow wood (a tree) that symbolizes this "passage" on the teaser as soon as they step out of the elevator. This means that SKZ is now more mature and wiser than they were before, and are looking back on their choices (Hellevator, anyone?). However, they know that for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction, and these reactions are the Side Effects of their choices.

NOW THIS IS WHERE THIS GETS CHALLENGING BECAUSE I NEED TO EXPLAIN THIS MESS THAT'S INSIDE MY HEAD, HOLD MY HAND AND LET'S GO CRAZY TOGETHER!

we all know by now that this MV is focused on Hyunjin, right? we'll talk more about this later on, so let's analize the elements on the video first

The opening scene shows a bus with a lion (Miroh, anyone?) and a license plate that says "AD 2540". The only explanation for this in my point of view is that this is probably Anno Domini (referencing a long distant distopic future). Anyways... we also see some sort of security system being displayed on the screen as if they're being constantly watched (it shows up again when they trespassed the road and it reminds me of Miroh too)

We see them not taking the bus, since the MV is the development of their second choice on the teaser, and walking together with Hyunjin behind them. What called my attention is that not only we see two freaking moons (alternative universe, parallel universe, alternative reality??), but we see that the road is blocked!!! how did that bus stop there if there's no open road? Besides, the elevator seems to go down on the teaser, so they were actually up in the sky? it seems like it since it looks like there's more of that elevator structure upwards

It's morning when they begin their journey by themselves (there's reference to morning as well in the poem, and it symbolizes new beginnings, new things coming), and this is where SKZ are heading: a new path

We see them with nine dancers wearing black clothes and a mask, probably signifying their double selves that have taken a different path because they mirror their moves like a shadow

The cart's gas is almost ending, but what makes them stop is a flat tire, weird, huh? as if they were supposed to end up there somehow...

Felix sees something outside the cart that makes him happy and interested, but Hyujin seems to breakle his bubble (would he be hipnotized??) and they fight, probably because Hyunjin knows more than he shows... what could Felix see on an open field that's so appealing? Maybe whoever is watching them is also manipulating their reality? Don't know...

Throughout the MV we see the scenes changing to yellow shades and in this one we clearly see the duality between SKZ and their doubles

Don't know if it's on purpose, but here's another feline on the door

Moving on!!

After being forced to stop, they face a closed road and they seem to be pondering how to take this road. Seungmin grabs a camera and Hyujin is quite pissed that he's taking pics. Why? Here again I think that Hyunjin is probably the one that's more "lucid" in this whole alternate realities thing, but why taking pics would annoy Hyunjin so much? Would pictures mean evidence? Hmm....

Once they start fighting, we see shades of yellow again taking over the scene. In reality universe stories we know that once you decide something, other possibilities open while some close, and to me the yellow symbolizes the side effects of their actions, the paths they’re closing and opening according to their choices.

They step on a map that shows a yellow area, the elevator, open road, and the closed road they're at, so they're probably trying to figure out their own path without guidance of any sorts, they're gonna find out their way out by themselves

SKZ drives until it's dark, and Robert Frost has another poem that is called "Acquainted With The Night" that deals with themes such as isolation, insomnia, existence, and depression. The narrator says he's outwalked the furtest city light/ and he's heard an interrupted cry/ not to call me back or say good-bye/ and that a clock against the sky proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right/. According to the Owlcation website, the "poem echoes the descent into a dark place where time has no meaning and words are useless [...] there may be a sense of hopelessness, a sense that some kind of threshold has to be gone through to regain confidence and light". Jisung is looking at a city (light) that seems to be up in the clouds, probably the place from where they came down on the elevator, but now they have to face this hard dark path to reach the light again, to go up once more.

They see the bus they didn't take and they are seen by the driver through the rearview mirror, but the bus doesn't stop for them, showing they can't go back to walk the path they already left behind (although we see SKZ on the bus too, the ones on the left side of the screen on the teaser, I'll call them v.2). Some say that a bus is a metaphor for our own internal conflicts and experiences like our emotions, thoughts and memories that are "passengers" in our bus (= mind), but SKZ is not the one driving their bus, hence they're not in control of themselves. SKZ v. 1 is outside, being left behind while SKZ v.2 are just passive passengers, sleeping soundly and unaware of what’s happening on the outside.

We see them on the road with a storm behind them, symbolizing that a huge disturbance will happen. Frost also has a poem that can be related to this, it's entitled "Storm Fear" and it shows how the human mindset can be changed by the environment the person is in. We see this in Felix's part in Side Effects: I won't change, always yeh / I used to shout that, but why am I / According to my surroundings / Countlessly being changed? As a verb, we see storm on the dictionary as "moving angrily or forcefully in a specified direction", and that's how they run afterwards (although I don't get why Minho has his back turned - maybe denial? I don't know)

And here we can clearly see that there’s a distortion of their reality (and a fragmentation when  부작용 shows up on the screen). 

Soooo.... what does all of this mean? 

In my opinion, they're being affected by their choices. In Miroh we see them saying It's not hard in this rough jungle/ It was me who ran into it, I'm okay/, but in Side Effects we have I threw myself with trust in me/ But why am I being swayed?/ But why am I just being hurt?/, meaning that probably the path they chose was harder than they thought and they can't live up to their own expectations, wondering if they can actually do everything they screamed they could (we see this in Felix & Hyunjin's lines in Side Effect). In Miroh, Jisung says that they're running through the maze like a beast and avoiding all the familiar paths because it's a new challenge, but this challenge now is weighing them down and their bravado (atittude intended to intimidate) can't last anymore now that they're more experienced and going through hard times.

The way I see it, they're now in some sort of a limbo, an in between place (a maze, Miroh), constantly facing multiple paths that may lead them to the exit (they had an Entrance song in Clé 1), but they're on their own, trying to figure everything by themselves, and they're still lost and confused because they're chosing unfamiliar paths. They're changing, although they're trying to fight against it and remain the same as they were before, but it's impossible not be affected by the surroundings (they're being watched and controled). 

But in my interpretation, they're gonna figure out that taking the harder and uncommon path is gonna be worth it, and I say this because of Frost's "The Road Not Taken". The poem ends with the narrator saying that:  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- (the man facing his own internal issues)   I took the one less traveled by, (he's breaking patterns for not walking the same road everyone else walked on)  And that has made all the difference (by 'rebelling' against the system, doing what few people has ever done, he's securing his individuality and free will).

 And that's how Stray Kids are gonna break free and be in control of themselves again.

If this long dumbass theory is right or not, Clé 2: Yellow Wood to me seems like SKZ is trying to show they're more mature and independent, even though they have to face hardships and confusion in a path they wanna take without help to show us their true colors (and that one of them is probably a huge Robert Frost fan lolololol)

Now a couple of things I don't quite get in this MV: why is Hyunjin the one that's more aware of everything? why was he on the grass on the last scene? was he dreaming? foreseeing their future? what?! and why SKZ is looking at him in a weird way? (especially Jeongin, who hugged him in the cart and smiled too much.. Jeongin was the one on the control room in Miroh, maybe he's working on both sides?). And the key at the end is another path they might walk? another road to "unlock"??? are they unlocking worlds?????

I NEED ANSWERS STRAY KIDS!

[carnistcervine]

The Storm AU

Last AU I’mma post for now. I think this is enough AU spam for now. :’D

(I still have dozens more lol)

*The Gaang gets caught up in a sudden freak storm while escaping Azula.

*While flying away from her royal evilness, they start coming upon a strange patch of ocean with what looks like bony-white hands sticking up from the water.

*Remembering hearing about the Sea of Lost Souls from his ship days and about how it was filled with the cursed spirits of drowning victims, Zuko warms the group to fly around.

*But Azula is closing in, so they have no choice but to fly over, and a freak storm starts.

*The storm blows Azula's ships back, but the gaang end up crashing into the ocean and wake up in an alternate universe where the war never happened.

*The group wakes up on a Fire Nation vessel, and at first they think they've been captured.

*Naturally they don't trust Captain Zura or her crew and assume that it's a Fire Nation trap or something.

*Nevertheless, Zura is horrified by the accusations the Gaang throws out, and the Gaang are utterly bewildered by the FIRE NATION of all people offering kindness and hospitality.

*In this world, there was no century old war. And by extension, no Air Nomad genocide.

*In fact, the Air Nomads are just fine and still very much around.

*The Fire Nation are not enemies of the Avatar, instead they are the Avatar's staunchest allies.

*Instead of trying to spread their influence by conquering the world, the Fire Nation uses their good fortune to give aid to nations in need.

*Not that other nations always accept the aid. Some leaders(particularly those in the Earth Kingdom) see themselves as being "too good" for handouts.

*Also, the Gaang have all been missing for quite awhile in this world. Aang has been missing for over a century, Zuko has been missing for three years, Sokka and Katara have been missing for over a year, Suki and Toph have been missing for months.

*Iroh is Fire Lord, Lu Ten is alive, and Azulon is still hanging in there(He old as fuck tho).

*Also, Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai aren't evil. Ozai's kind of a dick, but he actually loves his children and isn't vile enough to burn Zuko.

*The Gaang aren't sure what's going on, but they do eventually go to confront their parents.

*Sokka and Katara are beyond elated to see their mom alive. Hakoda and Kya are equally happy to have their kids come home safe and sound. Kya is horrified to find that her children thought SHE had died. She's also horrified by her children's stories of their prosperous tribe being raided and stripped away by the Fire Nation.

*The Kyoshi Warriors are quite happy to have their leader return in one piece. The Kyoshi Warriors are equally stunned and horrified by Suki's stories of refugees, and a line of genocidal, megalomaniac Fire Lords that wiped out the Air Nomads, stripped the South Pole, and raped the Earth Kingdom.

*Zuko is nervous about going home. When he ultimately makes the trip home, he's given a very warm welcome by his family, save for Azula. While Ursa and Ozai are happy to see their son alive, they're horrified by the disfiguring scar he's received. They press Zuko for answers, but he doesn't know what to say/isn't ready to talk about it. Fire Lord Iroh is outraged, someone hurt his beloved nephew. Azula takes the opportunity to completely mock and taunt her older brother over his new scar. Zuko ends up holing himself up in his room, self-conscious and unwilling to talk to anyone.

*Toph doesn't want to go home and avoids doing so for as long as possible. She has the distinct feeling that nothing will change. When she eventually does return to her family, she finds that she was correct. Toph doesn't say anything of her travels with the Gaang.

*Because Aang vanished when he was twelve, the Avatar was never revealed to the world, and all anyone knows is that he's been missing for about a century.

*When Aang returns to the Southern Air Temple, the only people who knew he was the Avatar have died long ago. Without that heaviness weighing on his shoulders, Aang quickly makes new friends. Being as Aang is already a mostly-realized avatar, and one that cannot access the avatar state, he "neglects" to mention that he's the Avatar and just lets everyone believe that he's a normal airbender. While the monks are quick to accept Aang back to the temple, they do have some serious questions about that nasty scar on his back, and why his chakra is blocked. Aang avoids the topic for a long a possible. However, one day he forgets that he's trying to be just an airbender and waterbends. He's pulled in front of the monks and comes clean about being the Avatar who vanished a century ago. When they start talking about training him, Aang is quick to say that he's already learned all four elements and even mastered the avatar state. ...Until his chakra was blocked after being killed by a lightning strike in the avatar state. The monks are horrified when Aang mentions being killed in the avatar state. Aang then goes on to explain, or over-explain his whole journey with the Gaang, the Air Nomad genocide, the Fire Nation's conquest, all that fun stuff to these poor horrified monks. They end up interrupting Aang, having heard enough of his nightmare-scenario and send him to his room to have some (drugged) tea as they try and figure out what to do with the poor boy.

*While Suki's life just goes back to normal, the rest of the Gaang find themselves trapped by newly overbearing parents/guardians. Although for Toph, they just double down on being overbearing.

*The monks keep making Aang drink "calming" tea, and insist on constant healers and meditation to try and unblock his chakra. Aang hates it every time they try, because it causes him to have flashbacks or suffer a panic attack. They mostly make him stay in his room, and only let him go outside with supervision. Aang hates this, as he really just wants to go see his friends, but the monks keep him trapped in his room and making him drink tea that makes him drowsy.

*Hakoda and Kya insist that they aren't punishing Sokka and Katara, but the two are no longer allowed outside of the South Pole, and they have body guards constantly watching over them. The water sibs are happy to be treated like celebs at first, but quickly grow tired of being treated like they're going to vanish if someone takes their eyes off of them for a moment.

*Toph's parents become so much worse. Now she's under constant surveillance and barely allowed outside of her room. She's not allowed outside the house, period. She's only allowed an earthbending tutor to go over with basics with her, because benders who don't use their bending go mad. Her parents often mumble amongst themselves about how they wish they could take that 'earthbending curse' away from her. The thought of losing her earthbending is the most terrifying thing Toph has ever considered and genuinely leaves her paralyzed with fear.

*Even though Zuko voluntarily hid inside of his room, it seems to have been decided that he's not allowed outside of the palace and must have guards accompany him at all times. His family constantly pressure him to explain what happened to his face, and Zuko just shuts down even further. When he finally comes out of his room, he's rather annoyed and upset to find that not only are guards following him everywhere, but also he's not allowed outside of the palace. His family now treats him like he's made of porcelain, and Zuko explodes in frustration, claiming that he's more than capable of defending himself. Because Zuko refuses to explain how he got his scar, his family starts to wonder if it was self-inflicted.

*Sick and tired of being treated like porcelain and smothered, the Gaang all run away from home and start a new life on the run from their parents.

[euphoriacrossing]

So while I sit here trying to get normal balloon spawns...

I may as well write a blog. I am using a guide post on how to catch normal balloon spawns to try and get more cherry blossom recipes. Well I am only half using it.. I am camping on the beach waiting for normal balloon spawns instead of going there every 0/5 ending minute. I'll share the guide on here after this if I remember, but I already got one new cherry blossom recipe just by camping on the side of the beach that balloon spawns are coming from and ignoring the bunny day balloons, so I think this could work, too.

Anyway, now story mode is over, but I still have so, so much to do that it's not even funny. I am making it my main priority to save miles up to buy all the different paths and stuff. I think I have three left to buy so roughly 6,000 miles to earn. But saving miles means making less bells as Nook mile trips are where I made the most, I think. And now I can't take them because I have no miles/am saving miles and so I don't have the bells to pay off my house or to build a new bridge or any of the things I am saving for. But in part the fact it is harder to save bells just makes it feel like I have more to do and that is comforting in a way. I want the appeal of this game to last forever but I know my brain doesn't work like that. Still for now it's the best distraction I have and I'm grateful for it.

Having the ability to make paths is tough because it's just another million decisions to make and hope I get it right or can redo it better or whatever, so that Euphoria becomes the island I dreamed it could be. Right now I have a lot of dirt paths and I think they look okay. But I plan on redoing them someday with either custom paths or maybe just the arched tile ones... I like that path style. Still I started when I just had dirt so I just kind of kept going that way.

It looks alright, I think, especially at the entrance. I haven't finished a lot of the paths on either the right (residential) side or the left (wooded area/orchard) but I have mostly finished the center which is shops and such.

(So far I've gotten a normal balloon spawn every 5 minutes! So it works to just hang around the beach and then look for the spawns at every 0 and 5 ending minute. Edit: Aw, nope just didn't get that last one... I am probably doing something wrong then. Oops Edit2: Definitely doing something wrong. Didn't get a spawn again. Oh well I'll check the guide again once I finish this post. I am also watching for wishing stars so it won't be a total waste.. though I haven't seen any of those either. Last edit: Guide said spawns don't happen every time AND I just got another regular balloon, so maybe I'm fine? I hope I am not just wasting time.)

I am moving most of the houses before I do the paths on that side which is ANOTHER expense for sure, but after seeing a couple of my friend's islands, I knew I could make the houses probably a bit straighter and I decided I want them not quite as closer together as I want everyone to be able to have a yard. One of my friends has houses that are PIN straight and have little yards to them. I don't think I can accomplish that. But I do think I can space them out far enough to fence them in and have little yards.

So I started with the last to move in which was Marina. I put her in a space both by the beach, and by my house because even though she just moved in we're absolute besties. No but honestly, I love her. She sings like everywhere she goes and it's adorable.

I would move Beau next but I think he might stay close to where he is. Unfortunately if I have to move him a little bit I first have to move his house out of the way and then move it back because you can't move buildings just a tad, you have to find a whole new spot. This is why I had to move the whole museum to a new spot as it was slightly out of line and i couldn't just move it to where it lined up. I wish i had known this when i put things there. I didn't take care placing anything because I knew it could be moved. I only ASSUMED it could be moved a small amount as well especially since I assumed correctly that you were paying for it. But no, so oh well, now I have to come up with new spots for things, that's fine. Luckily both Nook's Cranny and the Able Sisters I got in perfect alignment with resident services like I wanted to so they're all on one straight path.

Anyway, I hope I can get it looking like i want it to. I thought that decorating it how I wanted would be the hardest because I still need to find all the furniture. But the paths might give that a run for it's money when we talk about difficulty level if you include trying to get all the houses in the right position and such.

But as hard as I've been "working" (it's definitely still fun or I wouldn't do it) I have found plenty of time for play as well. Yesterday morning I visited a friend for her KK Slider concert. I luckily have a good group of friends from a discord I'm part of and a lot of them are from other countries so they experience stuff before I do and things like that. So a bunch of us visited her for her KK concert and we did some of that...

And then things got a little wild...

Lol, it was fun. I thought for a second about the state of the world but I didn't panic thankfully. I just saw a bunch of us coming together from across the globe, some of us in quaratine, almost all of us at least ADVISED not to go out unless necessary. The world is a scary place right now, but the fact we could still come together from across the globe to be silly and enjoy a game together makes me feel like everything might be alright. I mean, it would still be cool even if these things weren't going on, but the fact they are abd socialization is becoming more difficult than ever, it's cool to see an alternate means of that in action.

I can't believe I took no pictures of her super straight houses, ugh, if I go again, I will have to, they are literally perfect.

And the weirdest thing about all of this to me is how included i feel in all of this. We're all on a small AC discord together and it seems like a lot of them have maybe known each other a while. But unlike a lot of other places it doesn't feel cliquey to me. I've always been welcome to come to their islands, and they have always been very courteous when any of them have come to mine. They act as happy to see me as they do anyone else. And I've only known them a short time so it would usually feel strange to call them "friends" but it doesn't. Now obviously they could feel differently but if they do they don't show it. I am incredibly grateful to have found them. I really couldn't ask for a better group of people to play with.

I actually was invited from this tumblr. Likely after I made some kind of post about not feeling like I belonged in the AC community or something similarly emo and whiny, I'm sure. So I am surprised I was invited at all, but I am so thankful I was. It was just what i was looking for in the AC community.

(Yes! I learned cherry blossom umbrella! Balloon hunting is going fairly well considering I only had like two of the cherry blossom DIYs total before I started and now in about an hour I've doubled that.)

I do have some facebook friends and such I have play AC with, and I am also grateful for them as well of course. It has brought us closer together and I am thankful for that. I have one friend who we constantly send each other gifts like if we accidentally got two of something or a DIY we already have or just if we think something is cool, it's really fun. I enjoy mail as much in game as I do in real life.

But yeah, I was nervous when this game first came out that I would be stuck playing just with my sister. And don't get me wrong I love playing the game with her, we always have a good time. But sometimes you need socialization beyond your own family and I really saw this as my one chance to connect since I'm not very social, I am very anxious, and I just struggle with these things. I may have been right about it being my best chance at connection because I can hide a lot of the awkwardness in game. Very thankfully though, I found people who accept what I can't hide in game. And who accept me. For some reason that's just been really hard to do. Every community I am a part of I feel like an outsider until now. But yeah, I am looking forward to a continued friendship with these people and continuing to enjoy the game moving forward.

I guess I've rambled enough. I still need to get more balloons, but I can't write here forever. Though... I frequently do write far too much here and I wonder if it get read. If it doesn't I don't blame ya. But yeah. I will leave you with this adorable pic I took while Marina was singing... you can't really tell she was singing, but still, she's adorable either way.

(And don't you love this dress? I have it in I think 4 different colors, I just love it.)

[black-out-wonder]

Never Judge A Book: A Sanders Sides High School AU // Chapter 3

Here’s the next one! I will be the alternating point of views depending on the chapter, but I will make it very clear whose point of view it’s supposed to be! I hope you enjoy this one, I had a great time writing this one!

Pairings: Eventual Prinxiety, Intrulogical

Warnings: Lots of flirting, sex jokes, sex mentions, Remus being himself lol, let me know if there are any others I missed!

Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // You are here // Chapter 4 // Chapter 5

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

Remus snickered at Roman hung up on him, “Aw, he’s too sensitive for his own good.”

Logan’s eyes darted from the book in his hands to him, “You shouldn’t tease him so much. He takes everything you say seriously.”

In retaliation, he leaned across the table, lowering his boyfriend’s book with his finger. As a result, their faces were centimeters apart. Logan was used to this, so he kept his deadpan expression. “And you don’t?” Remus purred, grabbing his tie. “I seem to remember a particular time-”

That finally broke the stoic boy, making the blood rush to his cheeks, “Ah, nope, don’t say it, forget I said anything.”

“Remus Prince!” The librarian snapped, appearing from behind her desk. “How many times have I told you to maintain decorum when you’re in here?”

“Many more times than I care to remember,” he retorted, releasing his grip on Logan once he saw her face grow darker. “But I suppose I can remember this time.”

The librarian rolled her eyes, mumbling something along the lines of, “You’ve said that before…” and “If only this wasn’t a high school…”

Clearing his throat, Logan adjusted his powder-blue tie, “Do you have to cause chaos everywhere we go?”

“Don’t act like you don’t enjoy it,” Remus teased. 

With nothing to retort, he looked back down at his book, beginning where he left off. Instantly growing bored, he started picking at his black nail polish, knowing he was going to reapply tonight anyway. At a certain point, he started flicking the pieces in Logan’s direction, aiming for his book. After a few moments of this, the other boy sighed, slamming the book shut, “Alright, let’s go. You’re very clearly not enjoying yourself.”

Remus held his hand over his heart in fake hurt, “Oh, how you wound me so! Of course, I was enjoying myself! I love just sitting here and flicking nail polish at my boyfriend-”

Logan shot out of his seat, “Let’s just go.”

He squealed, following after his boyfriend with a wide grin. He knew he would be able to get them out of here. The librarian didn’t care what you did for study hall as long as you were quiet, and that included leaving as long as you signed in at the beginning. “So Roman has an infatuation with Virgil Clark you say?” Logan questioned, a thoughtful look on his face.

Remus grinned, rubbing his hands together, “Oh, he totally does. I just have to get him to admit it. He’ll probably have sex with him before he tells me anything!”

“I’m sure that’s not the case,” he said as he pushed his glasses up his nose. “Roman may be irrational at times, but I’m sure he would not do something like that. He would probably admit it first.”

“He really won’t,” the punk sang. “He’s my twin, I know what he would do.”

Logan scoffed, “But I know human psychology and logic, so logically, he would come to you first.”

“Roman is outside the world of logic, we both know this.”

“Not to that extent.”

“How do you know, huh?”

“I wear a necktie, remember?”

Remus smirked, “Oh, why of course I do. How could I forget?”

Logan pinched his nose, “You are incorrigible at times.”

Remus shrugged, “And yet you’re still here.”

The other boy refused to reply after that, leaving Remus to his thoughts one more. People said that he needed to have more of a filter, but where is the fun in that? In fact, it was beneficial to be open to his thoughts. That was how he was able to snag Logan, he thought as he glanced over at the said boy.

To be quite honest, he didn’t expect this to actually happen. It had been six months and they were still together, much to the shock of Remus. The only people who stuck with him this long were his family because quite frankly, not everyone enjoyed his brand of humor. When he first asked out Logan, he expected it to be a screw and that was it. Yet, both of them grew attached to each other, no matter how much they may disagree on topics. And who would’ve expected this pair?

A grey-haired punk and a dark-haired, pastel, band nerd. Most people would’ve thought that his boyfriend was innocent before they got together, but that was not the case. The pastel wearing boy had a sharp tongue and an even sharper temper, and that translated into a lot of things. 

As the pair walked past a classroom, Remus noticed his brother out of the corner of his eye. He may have severe intrusive thoughts, but he was typically hyper-aware of his surroundings, which meant he could find Roman whenever he wanted to. And what he saw made him double over in laughter. Logan stared down at him, worried that he had officially lost his mind. “Do you mind sharing what has made you, um…” he grabbed a stack of vocabulary cards from his pocket. “Uh, “go fucking bonkers”? Is that right?”

He tried to calm down, he really did. But hearing his typically stoic boyfriend say “go fucking bonkers” was so dan funny to him in ways he couldn’t describe. He was sure that the people in the class could hear him at this point. “L-Look in the cl-class,” he managed to say.

With a raised eyebrow, he did as he asked, peering into the window of the door. He sighed when he saw what made Remus laugh. It was his Roman with Virgil Clark pressed against his side. He could clearly see that his boyfriend’s brother wanted to stare at the boy but refused to out of either pride or shame, he couldn’t tell. All he knew was that his cheeks were pink and he kept glancing at the boy. Logan pulled away from the door, a smirk plastered onto his typically stoic expression. “My brother’s getting laid!” Remus exclaimed, clapping excitedly.

“I believe you may be correct this time.”

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

Taglist: 

@bookwyrminspiration @fandoms-winkitywonk @soul-of-a-vixen @thgjclw @jessicakennedy957 @common-placee @infinitywarkilledmysoul @virgilsinferno @out-of-context-epiphany

[nat-20s]

@brushes-of-sage prompted: 

“I’d say just honest to goodness Ten and Donna fluff (or hurt/comfort, like the Doctor is sick or something and channeling his inner whiny child and Donna’s trying get him better whilst staying sane or something - it’s been done before but nothing better than more lol)”

this is...decidedly not that but it IS injured ten and hurt/comfort so close enough? Maybe? Anyway:

The Doctor wakes up with a soft bed underneath him, a sharp pain in his leg, and a hand holding his own. All in all, far from the worst way he’s ever come to. He hopes. Sort of depends on who’s on the other end of that hand, he could potentially be in quite a bit of trouble. Following the arm up, he finds that it’s attached to a rather bleary-eyed Donna. Definitely one of the better outcomes.

She’s staring off into the distance, not yet noticing that he’s conscious, so he squeezes her hand and says, “Hey.”

Whipping her head towards him, she blinks at him for a few moments, sucks in a breath and lets it slowly out, then asks, “How’re you feeling? Is your shoulder all right?”

The question strikes him as slightly odd, as he remembers breaking his leg before getting knocked out, but he can’t recall anything happening to his shoulder. Still, he replies, “Yeah, fine,” which earns, for some reason, earns him a quick smack to aforementioned shoulder. “Oi! What’re you going around thwacking an injured man for?!”

“I am thwacking said injured man for being a bleedin’ idiot! Again he sees a situation that he could work through in some other way and again he throws himself into the line of fire! I’m getting really tired of your self sacrificial attitude, mister.”

“I am not...that self sacrificial-,” is all he gets out before Donna is plugging on ahead in her light berating. “I mean, christ, it’s bad enough that you were walking for four miles on a broken leg you didn’t tell anybody about, but then you went and got yourself shot and I had no idea what the effect of that gun was and you didn’t wake up and you kept not waking up and even if I did have any sort of medical knowledge fat lot of good it would do on a time lord and I had no idea if you were going to come back or regenerate or just die and I was helpless to do anything about it and and-”

The Doctor sits bolt right, suppressing the wince caused by jostling his leg, and takes Donna’s hand back. “Woah woah woah. Taking me back to the TARDIS was the right call, I’m all right! See, all in one piece! Just a stun blast and a broken leg.”

Donna doesn’t quite manage to suppress all of her sniffling, but she does manage to give a half-hearted glare at him when she replies, “Oh just a broken leg, like that means anything. For all know about your stupid alien body Time Lords might be like horses.”

“Horses? How?”

The glare fell away to something more settled and conversational. The Doctor liked settled and conversational. Less risk of being shouted at. “If a horse breaks its leg you have to put it down.”

“Wait, really? Why? Seems a bit harsh.”

“I don’t know! Do I look like I run an ranch? Just something I heard from Hettie.”

“Never went through a horse phase?”

“Was always more of an astronomy kid myself. Having a granddad with a telescope and a healthy imagination will do that. Made me kind of the odd one out at age 12, let me tell you.”

The Doctor gives her a soft smile at that, unable or maybe just unwilling to disguise the fondness in his voice as he says, “Seems like that worked out pretty well in the end.”

Some of the tiredness drains from her features as she matches his affection with her own. “Yeah, ‘spose it’s not half bad, is it?”

They spend a few minutes in silence, both ruminating while Donna rubs her thumb along the knuckle of his own. The Doctor is in the middle of wondering whether the TARDIS was put in idleing mode or if she’s actually taking them somewhere when Donna pipes up, not looking at him, with a disconcerting set to her jaw. Her thumb freezes as she says, “You know, when I turned the offer to travel with you the first time, I said it was because you terrify me. Which, okay, you can in fact actually be rather fearsome when you want. Still not a fan of that, by the way. But what was really terrifying was not just that you were willing to take revenge, but that you were willing to die for that revenge, completely unnecessarily. I think I knew, even then, that if I was going to travel with you, that you were going to become my best friend. I also knew that there was a not insignificant chance that awful things were going to happen to you, and I was going to have to watch, and I can’t imagine anything more horrifying than that.

Now I’ve watched you throw yourself into so many situations that hurt you. When we fought off that psychic blob thing at the infinite hotel? When you shot yourself with the time reavers?  When you went and tried to blow yourself up on the Sontaran’s ship? These sort of things are happening frequently that I have to wonder whether….”

Donna looks at him again, searching for something in his face that he most likely can’t provide. “Whether what?”

Donna tilts her head in a way that at first registers as pity, but quickly reveals to be pure and simple worry. “Whether you just happen to have some of the worst luck in the universe or if you’re actively seeking out ways to make yourself suffer.”

He wants to instantly refute, tell her “no, of course not, it’s just circumstance,” but lying to her is useless and to himself even more so. But it’s also not like he’s trying to die, not right now. That wouldn’t be accurate either, as he’s quite genuinely the happiest he’s ever been in a while. So, he goes for what he thinks, or at least hopes, is most honest, even if it’s not really...an answer. “I just. I need to help people Donna. I need to protect them. I can’t...I can’t continue to watch people sacrifice themselves for me, continue to get hurt in my place. If that means that getting shot or stranding myself or even dying, then so be it. Better than the alternative.”

Her gaze doesn’t move. There’s a good 20 seconds where his words rest between them. And then Donna says, “Well that’s tough. Because if it comes down to me or you I know who I’m choosing.”

“And that’s fine! I understand, I mean, your granddad would kill me if I ever-”

“No.”

“No?”

There’s not a hint of humor in Donna’s expression when she tells him, “It’ll be you. You’ll be the one to make it out. I mean, that’s always been true, right? That whole immortality thing gave you the leg up from the beginning. When I say that I’m planning to travel with you forever, I’m talking about my forever. I’m not watching you die, that’s part of the agreement.”

The Doctor feels his hearts start to beat in double time, but whether it’s with an instinctive fury at the concept of Donna dying or incredulity at what she’s saying, he’s can’t say for sure. “Well I’m not letting you sacrifice yourself for me. Absolutely not. I won’t allow it.”

“Too bad! ‘Allowing it’ has nothing to do with it! If you’re in the line of fire I’m gonna be right there with you, and the only way you’re gonna stop it is to not try and get yourself shot in the first place.”

The Doctor glares at her, and she matches it for a few moments before sighing and saying, “’Sides. You can’t...you can’t atone for things in the past by destroying yourself. Not that I’m saying you’re doing that, but if you are, well, it doesn’t work. Moving forward, putting as much good into the universe as long as you can , I think that’s the way we have to go. At the very least we have to be around to do damage control, right?”

He glares for a few more moments but the fight leaves him just as quickly. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ll try. Harder. To not get myself hurt or dead. I can’t promise it’ll never happen but. I can do better.”

Donna positively beams at him, and it’s frankly ridiculous how much better it makes him feel. “That’s all I ask. So, how long does it take for a time lord leg to heal?”

The Doctor gives a one shoulder shrug and tells her, “Couple of hours.”

“Liar.”

“Fine. Couple of days.”

“Well then. Sounds like time for a movie marathon.”

And marathon some movies they did.

[new53]

password?

When he woke up, Dick immediately knew something was wrong. He was laying on his stomach, his head turned to the side and so he had a great view of the grey pillow next to his face, except his own bedsheets weren’t grey. He twisted and sat up.

The comforter bunched together near his knees was silver-and-blue striped and the walls were an eggshell white. The curtains were pulled aside and letting some light seep into the otherwise dark room, so he knew it was morning. The room was mostly neat, with a pair of pants thrown on the ground near the laundry basket and a towel on the floor near the bed.

There was a picture on the bedside table, and Dick grabbed one, bringing it close to his face so he could see through the dim light.

The picture was of a man with a little girl on his shoulder The man had Dick’s own face, but his hair was long, pulled back in a loose bun, and Dick’s own hair hadn’t been that long for years. The little girl had dark skin and darker hair, and the photo had caught her mid-laugh.

Dick had never seen her before in his life.

He put the picture down and picked up the phone laying next to it. The background picture on the phone was the same girl, and the phone unlocked with Dick’s fingerprint.

He frowned.

He scrolled through the recent calls, glad to see names he recognized--Babs, Wally, Gordon. No Bruce, though, or any of his siblings.

The most recent text was from Kori. Dick opened the message thread and read it.

ok have fun--see u at thanksgiving

He scrolled up a little and found the beginning of the conversation.

Kori: i have service for a little while!

Dick (?): okay great!

Dick (?): hows everything?

Kori: the negotiations are going pretty well...there’s always more to do but everything’s winding down

Dick (?): when will you be able to come home? Mar’i misses you!

Dick (?): okay, i miss you too

Dick (?): also Simon keeps knocking down our door….bring Jess back!!!

Kori: lol

Kori: i miss you too

Kori: have you been giving mar’i a kiss from me every day?

Dick (?): ofc!!! I’m a GOOD father

Kori: i know you are.

Kori: jess says if we leave in the next few weeks, we’ll be back on earth in november

Dick (?): omg they’ll all flip out if you make it back for thanksgiving

Kori: don’t tell them!! I want it to be a surprise

Dick (?):  i promise i won’t!

Dick (?): i might have to tell simon though

Dick (?): for my own peace of mind

Kori: don’t unless you absolutely have to

Dick (?): I won’t. Hey, i gtg--babs is calling & it’s mar’i’s bedtime. Ttyl

Kori: ok, have fun--see u at thanksgiving

Dick closed out of the thread. The next text was from Wally, and below that was Babs and then Gordon, and then Simon. Dick clicked on Simon’s contact.

Why would he be texting Simon Baz?

Dick was fairly sure it wasn’t amnesia, especially because the date lined up with what he remembered it being. He got up from the bed and pulled on jeans and a black t-shirt, both of which fit him perfectly.

He inspected his closet, and found a fake wall inside. It only took a moment to figure out how to open the wall, and inside he found a sleek grey suit with bright green detailing. It was similar to his Nightwing outfit and yet clearly wasn’t a version of Nightwing. Dick touched the mask mounted on the wall behind it and spotted his escrima sticks on the floor next to the boots.

He withdrew from the closet and left the bedroom.

He was in an apartment with two other rooms, with the doors closed. The bathroom door was open, and the living room was simply furnished and the kitchen yielded nothing. Dick retreated back to the rooms and opened the room that must be the master bedroom, as quiet as he could.

There was a double bed and a compter set, in this room. The computer set was large and familiar, in an Oracle-y way, and there was a wheelchair parked next to the bed, and someone sleeping, the covers drawn over them. Dick took a few steps forward, just to double check, and he saw red hair poking out of the top of the covers, glasses on the bedside table.

Babs, then, he assumed, seeing girl clothes in the open closet. He left the room--closing the door behind him--and crossed the hall, pushing open the last door.

The room was darker than the others, since the curtains were thicker. Dick lifted the phone still in his hand and shined the light into the room.

There was a dresser, and a toybox on the side of the room, with toys scattered on the floor, and a bed along the side of the wall. The light from the phone revealed a tiny shape on the bed, the blankets near the ankles.

Dick crept closer, careful not to step on the toys. It was the little girl from the pictures, the little girl who, when he squinted, looked a little like him and a little like Kori.

I’m a good father, the other him had said, in reference to her.

In this universe--for it must be an alternate universe--he was a father, and this little girl was his daughter.

Dick swallowed and left her room, guilt for stealing that little girl’s father away swirling in his chest.

He went to the window in the living room and peered outside; he was definitely in Gotham and Dick remembered apartment shopping in this building in the past. He was glad to know where he was, and he glanced at the time.

Finding his way back to his own universe seemed prudent, and since it was a Sunday and Dick was sure he didn’t have work, he left, taking the keys next to the door with him.

When he was outside, he texted Babs, in case she woke up.

Went on a little walk...didn’t wanna bother you. Be back later.

He hoped this universe’s Babs was like his own and liked to sleep as late as she could so that he’d have more time to figure out a solution, or at least find out how he got into this universe in the first place.

He knew where to look for answers, too, which was convenient.

He drove there, bracing himself for any possibility. Anything in this universe could be different. Already, this universe’s Dick was a father and a different superhero than Nightwing. Who knew what else would be off?

Dick parked on the road beside the long gate up to Wayne Manor. He was glad to see it was intact and not burned down or anything.

He pulled out his phone as he walked and googled Martha Wayne. She was still dead and had been dead for a while, and then Dick did a quick google of Batman to make sure he was around.

He was, though Dick couldn’t find any pictures. He repocketed the phone and walked along the outside perimeter of the gate. In his universe, there was a cave-entrance in an old well behind the gardens. Dick scaled the fence when he neared the spot, and easily found the old well. In his universe, it was hidden by a low hedge, but in this universe, it was behind a dog-shaped topiary. Dick grinned at the sight and swung his legs over the side of the well, lowering the rope all the way down. He could see the bottom from where he was, so he felt confident in sliding down the rope. He landed on the boards that were holding up the bottom. In his universe, the bottom would be kicked out and then you free-fell until you either grappled away or caught the rope hanging on the ceiling. In this universe, there was a discoloration on the rounded wall and Dick kicked at that instead. It was a small door, about half Dick’s height but wide enough that Clark could get through and it opened inward. He sat down, putting his feet through the door and shuffling forward using his hands to walk. He closed the little door behind him and the tunnel fell into darkness. Dick reached for his phone and shined the flashlight ahead. The path seemed to slope downward, stretching farther than he could see.

There wasn’t anything to do but go forward, so he did, tucking his chin under his phone. He got a few feet ahead and then his phone buzzed wildly, and Dick startled, falling on his butt and dropping the phone into the ground beside him. Dick scooped up the phone and grabbed it, turning the screen to face him.

Wally was calling him. Dick debated not answering, but he figured if he knew Wally it must’ve been through heroing, and maybe Wally could help him out, if the Batman thing fell through. Dick answered, deciding to play it neutral until he figured out what Wally knew.

“Hey,” Dick said.

“Hey!” Wally said, chirping cheerfully. “Whatcha doin?”

“Just taking a walk,” Dick said, looking around the damp cave.

“Sounds nice,” Wally said. “Hey, listen, I’m really sorry but I’m gonna have to cancel dinner tonight. Apparently it’s an important anniversary for Iris and we’re having a family thing or whatever. I can’t get out of it and I suggested that you come along since you’re basically family at this point but for whatever reason Barry thought you’d bring the whole of the GL Corps with you and you know how he gets.”

“Yeah,” Dick said. “Sounds fun, man. Don’t worry about dinner. You can make it up to me some other time.”

“Thanks, babe,” Wally said, sounding relieved. Babe? “Have fun on your walk, I gotta go. Love you!”

“Love you too,” Dick said automatically and Wally hung up. Dick looked at the lockscreen. Hm.

Dick put the phone back under his chin and got back on his hands, inching forward. The ground was curved into a steep decline and after about ten minutes, the path ended and Dick tried to put his foot down and it fell into the air, the ground gone. Dick caught himself and the phone, scooting back. He sat down, shining the light at the hole in front of him. There was nowhere to go but down, and there was nothing he could find to see how deep the drop was nor was there anything to slow down his fall.

Well. Dick always thought it was better to just jump right into things.

He pocketed the phone and dropped from the side, free-falling and calculating. The above-cave entrance was lower than the one in his universe, and assuming the ground was around the same distance--Dick tucked into a flip, rolling onto the floor and bracing his back against the landing.

He sat up and heard running water. He stood, rubbing his back. He got back out the phone and shined it all around, the light cutting through the darkness. He was in a pit about ten feet deeper than the regular cave floor, with sand on the floor and an underground river thirty feet to his right. Dick went to the pit walls and scaled one easily. The cave’s lights were motion-detected, and once he was on the main floor they turned on, and he turned off the phone’s light and pocketed it.

This Batcave looked mostly the same as his own, although as Dick walked to the computer he noted a few changes. The chair behind the computer, for one, was different, and the training mats on the side were much bigger than the ones at home. Dick spotted the tell-tale signs of heat-vision damage along the walls and there were colored towels stacked in a cabinet next to the training mats. The dinosaur was painted all over in purple graffiti, and the giant playing card had a hole burned through the face of the Joker. Jason’s display case looked different. Dick went over to it, curious about this change above the others. The costume inside looked like a mini version of the Batman suit, although it was sleek and mostly black, with white highlights. There was a domino mask instead of a cowl, and the plaque at the bottom read: BELOVED SON AND BROTHER.

Dick thought that that seemed much better than “a good soldier”. He touched the case and wondered what happened to this universe’s Jason, assuming that even was Jason.

The smattering of vehicles near the cave’s entrance were obviously different but Dick didn’t go inspect them, choosing instead to go to the display cases along the wall by the changing area. The first one was obviously Batman, even though all the yellow was replaced by dark grey. Made for a darker Batman, Dick thought. The second costume was nearly identical to Clark’s, except it was slimmer and fitted for a woman. He wondered what Kryptonian woman would have her super suit in the Batcave. Kara, maybe?

The next costume was a deep purple and black one that Dick recognized. Sure, Spoiler looked a little different, but Dick knew her when he saw her. He was glad to see her. The next display case was empty. The one next to that one was a sleek black costume with a hooded jacket overtop, and a red mask that pulled over the face and had stitching like Cass’s Batgirl mask across it. The main costume had a deep red outline of a bat, and it was fit for a slimmer person, probably a girl. Dick squinted at it. It looked like Red Hood, to be honest, but it also looked like Cass. It made him vaguely uncomfortable so he moved on to the next one. It was a Supergirl outfit. Dick raised his eyebrow and looked back at the other Kryptonian suit. Both had the crest of the House of El on the front, but the second one had a skirt and was very clearly Supergirl. Dick was sure he’d seen his own Kara wear a suit just like that one before.

The next one down was again Kryptonian. The body of it was like Clark’s, except there was no cape, just a leather jacket. Instead of red boots, there were combat boots that matched the jacket. Dick smiled. It reminded him of Kon’s old suit, and he wondered again why there were Kryptonian suits in the cave. He moved on to the next suit, which was like the one he’d seen in Jason’s display case, although it had a cowl that covered up the entire face--like Cass’s Batgirl suit. There were only two costumes left, and Dick nearly felt tears well up when he saw them.

They were, very clearly, Nightwing and Flamebird, and they were both very clearly around Damian-sized. Dick was sad to think that none of these suits matched the one in the other him’s closet--clearly Dick didn’t belong here. But Nightwing still did, and somehow that made Dick feel a lot better. He reached out for Nightwing’s suit. It had a cape and full face mask, which was a little ridiculous, but it was still clearly Nightwing. Dick smiled at it.

He found a pair of latex gloves with the medical stuff and went to the computer, powering it up. It asked for a password and Dick paused. He know his own Bruce’s password, of course, which was PENNYWORTH, with each letter changed to whichever one reverse alphabetized it--KVMMBDLIFS--then each letter changed to the corresponding number--11-22-13-13-2-4-12-9-6-19, and then seven added to each number. 18-29-20-20-9-11-19-16-13-26. The number added to make the final password changed every time Bruce adopted another kid, and over the holidays it was the same thing but MARTHA instead, and sometimes to jazz things up it was MARY or CATHERINE or JANET or CRYSTAL or SHIVA or TALIA or ELAINE instead of that. Dick had all of those memorized and could run a new one in a matter of minutes, but he didn’t know what this Bruce’s password would be. He tried the MARTHA and the PENNYWORTH variation, then the TALIA one. None worked and Dick knew that he wouldn’t be able to get into the computer until he either figured out more about this Bruce or asked someone. He tried WAYNE and THOMAS, which also didn’t work. Dick huffed and considered fingerprinting, then dismissed it because this was Bruce he was working with.

He leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms. He remembered the Kryptonian suits and leaned forward, trying KRYPTON, KAL-El, JOR-EL, KARA, ZOR-EL, KRYPTO, and everything else he could think of. He tried CRYSTAL because he remembered seeing Spoiler, then he tried JASON because that had been the password while Jason had died. Nothing worked and Dick had overrode the lock-out system but he thought an alarm would sound if he did it wrong anymore. Stupid paranoid Bruce.

Somewhere above him, Dick heard the telltale sign of the clock opening. He jumped to his feet and grabbed a grapple from where it was laying next to the keyboard, grappling up to a ledge near the top of the wall. He laid on his stomach and hoped the area would be shadowy enough that nobody would see.

Two people slid down the clock pole, one after the other. Dick recognized them with a jolt.

“He’s not even down here,” Damian complained, jumping off the pole and crossing his arms.

“He’s probably at work even though it’s Sunday, the asshole,” Duke said.

“He’s the worst,” Damian said, and Duke nodded.

“We’ll have to surprise him at work,” Duke said. “Call up Lois.”

“You call up Lois!” Damian returned. “She probably already knows where he is, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Duke said. “He’s probably moping somewhere.”

“He’s always moping somewhere when Lois is gone,” Damian scoffed. “They make me sick.”

“They’re married, weirdo,” Duke said. “Jeez. Come on, let’s go back up.”

Duke turned and Damian leapt onto his back, hanging on like a monkey. Duke screeched and tried to hold him up, but Damian climbed up higher and swung his legs around his shoulders, holding on to Duke’s head. Damian was laughing like a maniac and Duke spinned around, Damian’s laughter turning to joyful shrieks and Dick heard Duke’s own laughter underneath.

He smiled at the pair of them, wished he could leap down and swing Damian over his shoulder or give Duke a noogie or something.

Instead, three people came pattering down the stairs. Dick recognized Steph and Kara immediately, but the third person...he seemed familiar but a little off, somehow.

Damian brought the spinning to a stop and pointed at the trio.

“Duke! Invaders!”

“What kind of invaders?” Duke asked.

“Sisters!” Damian cried, and Duke charged at them. All three sidestepped.

“I take offense at the ‘sisters’ comment,” the other guy said.

“Sorry,” Damian said, and he sounded genuine. “Sisters and Kon.”

Kon? That person didn’t look like Kon, but Dick supposed that if the cloning process had been different, somehow….

“Thank you,” Kon said.

“Sure,” Damian said, and he made to climb down Duke’s back. Kara was there in an instant, basically picking him up and setting him down. She pat his head and he hissed at her, then he pointed at Steph.

“How dare you come down here without the love of my life?” Damian said accusingly. “Where is she?”

“Olive got to her first,” Steph said, her voice sing-songy, and Damian cried out in outrage and charged up the stairs. Kara high-fived Steph.

“Anyone get in contact with Cass?” Duke asked.

“Last I heard, she was in Korea,” Steph said. “Something about Slade or Shiva or someone.”

“Awesome,” Duke said, his tone saying the opposite.

“Don’t worry,” Kara said. “Today will still be special.”

“I know,” Duke said. “But it’d be cool if she could be there.”

“Yeah, well,” Kon said. “You know.” They all nodded and Dick was reminded of how his family talked about Jason in his universe. Was Cass their Jason? Was Cass Red Hood? It would explain the costume Dick’d seen, and actually--if Steph was Spoiler, Kara was Supergirl, Kon was Superboy, Duke was that other one, Damian was Nightwing or Flamebird, and the other person--Olive?--was the other one, that fit. And the last one--Lois and Bruce were married. If Lois was Kryptonian--Dick squinted back down at Kon, and yes, he looked like Lois’s twin brother but fifteen years younger. Explained why he looked different than Dick’s universe’s Kon. Dick wondered where Tim was, wondered if the display case he’d assumed to be Jason’s was actually Cass’s. No, no, it had said “son”, hadn’t it?

Regardless, the idea of Cass as Red Hood twisted inside Dick. His Cass would rather die than kill, and barely even got along with his Jason. What could’ve happened to her that would make her into Red Hood?

From upstairs, Dick heard Damian yell, “Baba’s anniversary surprise isn’t going to surprise itself!” and the older siblings looked at each other and went up above, ribbing each other and laughing, the tone shifting considerably.

Dick wondered if there was something he could do to get Cass to show up to this thing, because he knew how much Bruce appreciated it when Jason went to family functions, but it wasn’t Dick’s place to interfere and moreover, Cass was in Asia.

When he was sure he was alone, Dick flipped back down from his ledge and went back to the computer. Knowing what he knew now, he tried ELAINE, LARA, ELIZA, ALLURA, and ELLA. Then he typed in SIBYL, remembering that they’d mentioned an Olive and the only Olive in Dick’s universe that was around Damian-sized was the daughter of Calamity. None of the passwords worked. Dick contemplated going upstairs and trying to look around a little, but they were all up there and who knew how different the manor was in this universe. He tried SHIVA idly, not really thinking it would work, then he tried the names of all the dads he could think of. Dick was forced to conclude that he’d have to go upstairs to get anywhere. He crept to the stairs and started up, but then the door from above opened.

Dick froze.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m doing it,” the guy in the doorway said. His voice was vaguely familiar but Dick couldn’t see his face, until the guy took a few steps down and saw Dick, who was just standing there, useless.

The guy--Klarion the witch boy (what)--reacted before Dick could, in that he pointed his hands at him and then everything went black.

----

Dick woke up.

The first thing he noted was that Klarion, Steph, Kara, and Kon were gathered around him, arms crossed. The second thing he noted was that everyone was in costume. The third thing he noticed was that he was tied up.

He groaned.

“I hope I didn’t ruin your surprise for your dad,” he said, and everyone exchanged a look.

“What are you talking about?” Spoiler asked.

“I thought about asking you guys for help to get into the computer but I didn’t wanna take away from your dad’s anniversary present,” Dick said, aware that he wasn’t really explaining anything.

“Shut up, Gordon,” Superboy said.

“How long have you known our secret identities?” Spoiler demanded.

“Dick Gordon doesn’t know your identities,” Dick said. He felt like the last little question about this universe’s Dick was answered, the why wasn’t he a Wayne? Well, he still didn’t know why he wasn’t a Wayne, but at least he knew this Dick had grown up with a good father. “I mean, he might, I certainly don’t know, but that’s not the point. The point is that I’m from an alternate universe, and in my universe I’m Nightwing, and the first Robin, and Bruce Wayne’s oldest son.”

“Who the hell is Robin?” Superboy asked.

“It came from me!” Dick said. “My mom used to call me that.”

“Okay, well, why should we believe you?” Supergirl asked.

“Could Klarion, like, magic test me, or something?”

“I could try,” Klarion sniffed, and he sent a little stream of black sparkles at Dick, who ignored them.

“Please, I’m just trying to get back to my own universe, and I really don’t wanna disturb your anniversary thing.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Spoiler said. “None of your concern.”

Dick frowned--in his universe that would absolutely be his concern--but he didn’t say anything.

“Yeah, his energy signature’s way off,” Klarion said. “I’m pretty sure Z could do something about it, but I don’t know how to do that.”

“It’s fine,” Spoiler said. “We can call up the JLD and see if they can help.”

“Sure,” Dick said. “Anything.”

Superboy frowned at him and Supergirl and Spoiler started up a silent conversation. Klarion crossed his arms. Teekl meowed. A swirly light appeared behind them and Dick started.

“What?” Superboy asked.

“Turn around,” Dick said, and Superboy glared but Spoiler and Supergirl turned, just as voices started coming from the swirl.

“Are you sure this is the right one?”

“Absolutely. I matched your energy signatures. This should do it.”

The first voice was one Dick recognized--his own. The second voice Dick also recognized--Zatanna, maybe.

“Untie me,” Dick hissed, and Supergirl slashed the ropes with her heat vision. Dick stood and went to the swirl. He could vaguely see shapes on the other side, as if looking through tinted glass.

“Zatanna?” he called.

“Dick?” she responded. “Dick Grayson?”

“How do we know it’s the right alternate universe?” Spoiler asked, standing behind Dick. “I mean, what if it’s a third universe, and it’s all screwy?”

“I’m pretty sure it was an even exchange,” Zatanna said. “Go on, Gordon, step through.”

The other Dick came through the portal, and Dick sized him up. His hair was long, like Dick’d seen in the pictures. It was pulled back in a man bun. He was wearing a Metropolis Knights shirt that Dick recognized because there was a spot of discoloration along the bottom of the shirt from when Dick’d stained it.

The two Dicks looked at each other.

Dick Grayson took the phone out of his pocket and handed it over.

“This is yours,” he said.

Dick Gordon looked at it and smiled, handing Dick Grayson his own phone back. He recognized the lockscreen, and the little crack in the corner of the phone.

“Time to go back to reality,” Grayson said. “Did you have fun in my universe?”

“Not really,” Gordon said. “I don’t love how your dad operates.”

Grayson laughed, and Zatanna said, “Dick! I can only hold it open for a little longer.”

“I’m coming,” Grayson said. “Say hi to your kid for me, yeah? I didn’t talk to her, but….”

“I will,” Gordon said, smiling. Grayson moved closer to the swirl, then turned back to the three superheroes and Klarion, still standing there awkwardly.

“Hey,” Grayson said. “What was your password, underneath the code? I couldn’t figure it out.”

Spoiler looked at her siblings, then she said, “It changes, obviously, but, today it’s Pancake. The name of my dog.”

Grayson nodded and grinned, waving one more time and stepping through the swirl, and into his own Batcave.