#it’ll appear as a background character mostly but will not have any lines (it is silent)

[h3lgertime]

Creatures responded well so here is Gemino

[ordinaryschmuck]

What I Thought About "Yesterday's Lie" from The Owl House

Salutations, random people on the internet who absolutely won’t read this! I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons!

Here it is! The midseason finale of The Owl House Season Two! An episode featuring Luz going back to the human realm, is hyped up to heaven about how painful it'll be for the audience, and features more anxiety by how Creepy Luz is a thing. And BOOOOOOOOY howdy were fans not ready for this. I'm sure as hell not ready for when I wrote this intro at *checks time* thirty minutes before watching the official premier. Yup, the words you're reading right now are from me in the past, when everything was still pure and simple. Whereas future me is still probably destroyed by the events that transpired. Isn't that right, future me?

Future Me: Actually, it wasn’t that bad. The ending hurt, sure, but other than that, it wasn’t too painful.

Wow, that is some neat input! At least, I think it was. I wouldn't know because I literally wrote that after watching the episode. With the words you're currently reading being written at *checks time* twenty-six minutes before the premier...this whole intro is confusing, isn't it, future me?

Future Me: Sure is.

Yeah, it's definitely confusing. In any case, let's dive into this spoiler-filled review as we find out together just how painful this episode was! Take it away, future me!

Future Me: Will do! Major spoilers ahead, folks!

Now, let’s review, shall we?

WHAT I LIKED

Luz’s Room: We only see it for a short time, but everything about it just screams Luz. The pile of weird-looking stuffed animals, the witch hat in the center of the floor, and the fact that she has bunk beds, a single child's dream (Or so I've heard). It's a small thing, but I love it.

Vee: Here she is! The character previously dubbed Creepy Luz who now turns out to be yet another new addition to the ever-growing list of characters that we, as a fandom, would give our lives for. Because holy s**t was Vee the best type of expectation subversion. Showing us all the ominous ways of how she basically took Luz's place made fans assume that Vee was an evil doppelganger. Turns out, she was just a tortured soul that was desperate to live a new and better life and lucked out in finding Luz's. What Vee does is...questionable at best, but seeing what she went through with the experiments Belos pulled on her, you understand why she would do it. And I personally love it's that same background information that makes Vee resentful of Luz of all people. Luz's life is a relative dream come true, and running away from that would be insane to someone who spent most of their existence through imprisonment and experimentation. It's an intriguing point of view, even though it's admittingly flawed given how it's mostly Camila that seemingly made Luz's life bearable. But the flaws don't matter. What matters is that you can see where Vee is coming from, and to me, personally, I think she's understandable enough to make me root for her to have some kind of happy ending. Whether as Luz or as herself, I'm hopeful to see Vee get some semblance of peace.

Camila: *Round of applause* Don't mind me! Just taking the time to love how all them sons of b**hes who thought Camila was a bad mom are now heavily invalidated. 'Cause, guess what? Camila is a fantastic mother, both to her daughter and her daughter's doppelganger! Allow me to walk you through the highlights:

How Camila looks like she’s not okay with the fact that "Luz" is clearing out her weird stuff, seemingly acting too different to the Luz she knows. Added to the fact that Camila doesn't like it.

How Camila drove Luz to camp whether than letting her take the bus

The fact that Camila takes that box of junk back in, not willing to part with the tin foil sculpture Luz made.

The way she was willing to play along with the game she thought Luz was doing, supporting her daughter's creative mind that Camila admits to being glad to see.

And, best of all, the willingness Camila had to help this poor creature, despite the lies it lived.

It's that last part I really want to touch upon, though. Because an action like that shows just how much Luz's heart comes from Camila. The kindness and generosity of helping this poor creature, who she has every right to run out on, proves how Luz learned to be everything she is today through Camila's own loving heart. Vee was scared and hurt, and the second Camila saw that she was then more than willing to help because of it. It's something that Luz would do, and it proves that even though Camila didn't exactly get everything right, she's still a great mom where it counts.

“A new life”: A perfect line.

Initially, it makes audiences think that it has everything to do with replacing Luz. It's only through future context that we know it's about escaping the s**t show Vee once lived through that it's clear she's talking about starting over. It hits us with intrigue on the first viewing, only to hit harder with the feels during a second. Really well-done.

Luz in the Mirror: A well-done surprise that makes fans curious about how this even happen in the first place. Kudos to you, writers.

The New Portal: I don't mind that they found a way to build this off-screen. Showing Luz and the gang slowly building a new portal would have been a little too tedious to watch, and it's so much better to just start this episode out with it. Besides, maybe we'll get the slow and steadier version now that we've seen how quickly building one might not have been the best way to go, given how fast that thing fell apart.

Luz Between Dimensions: I have no clue what the hell that place she was in is called, but it's awesome! The overall design of the realm is the correct type of unsettling, like it's oozing with mystery, but it's somewhere that you probably don't want to be in for too long. Whoever designed it deserves all of the credit because I don't want to even think about all the hard work that went into making this look as well-made as it was.

Luz Resisting to See Amity: What? Luz and Amity are adorable, and seeing Luz's immediate thought about seeing Amity makes my shipping heart scream with glee. Don't judge me!

Hiding Luz’s Dad’s Face: Well, that was a fun story while it lasted.

So, it turns out that Luz's dad really was a part of Luz's and Camila's life at some point, but not anymore. As for why remains to be seen, as we don't really know yet if we'll see him make an appearance. I'd say that the odds are high that he will, given how much of a point this episode made about keeping his face hidden. Shows don't usually do that unless the goal is to hype up some official reveal, and I can't wait to see what comes of it.

Luz Telling Herself to Count to Five: Hey, more evidence for how I relate to Luz! I know how it feels to be all panicky about a specific situation, and I only got better when I took the time to calm down for a bit. Sometimes, I even tried the "count to x" method that Luz used...it never worked, primarily because it made me feel worse when people told me to do it, but I still tried it! Plus, there's also some narrative foreshadowing when after Luz says five, the realm shows her Vee, or Number V, which is a pretty cool detail you'll notice on a rewatch.

Luz Helping Vee: I gave Camila praise for helping Vee in the end, but that doesn't abstain Luz from her own set of recognition. The second that Luz realized that Vee wasn't really a threat and is far from evil, our favorite human does what she can to help and even makes a deal where they're both happy. Because, of course, Luz is that perfect of a protagonist who is more than willing to help others in need. And it's why we love her so.

Looking for Magic that Eda Left Behind: A pretty cool idea that gives Luz and Vee a chance to bond and giving us an insight into Eda's past antics and misadventures in the human realm. Not much I can add to it, though.

Gravesfield: It's surprisingly not as jarring as I thought it would be to spend an episode in the human realm. I thought for sure, after all that time in the Boiling Isles, there would be something off about walking around a normal environment for a change. Turns out, it's almost easy to get used to. Or, for me, it is.

But I will say that there's this neat use of colors when comparing Gravesfield with the Boiling Isles. In Gravesfield, the coloring looks dulled down and standard, which is a stark contrast to the bright vibrancy of everything we've seen in the Boiling Isles. It's a subtle way of showing how things are different, aside from the major discrepancies we could come to expect. And I think that's why I appreciate it much more.

Eda’s Called Herself Marylynn in the Human Realm: Hang on...hang on...do you mean to tell me that the crack theory about Eda being Stan's ex-wife is actually true?

...

...What even is this show?!

Vee Making Friends with Camp Members: This shows the most apparent difference between Luz and Vee. Where we see Luz is already fearing the many ways that could go wrong with interacting with teens, Vee revealed that she adapted to her situation and had a chance to make friends. The implications of this are worth discussing another time, but for now, I'll say that it's pretty intriguing that we gain this much insight into both Luz and Vee through such a small thing.

Belos Wanting to Learn How Basilisks can Drain Magic: ...Didn't Raine say that Belos was taking away magic? If so, I think we can figure out how he's doing it. The question now is: Why?

Jacob (The Curator Guy): This guy was a riot. At first, Jacob seemed like a threat with the way he trapped Vee and was apparently stocking her, but the second he goes off about his conspiracy theories, it becomes clear what type of character he is. And was it a blast seeing how much of a crackpot this man is. It wasn't cool seeing him wanting to dissect the precious angel that is Vee, but I still chuckle about things like his "Flat Eather's Certificate." So while he's not that much of a threat, he's still fun to watch.

The Owl Beast was in the Human Realm: ...How did that happen? When did it happen? And how the hell did Eda get out of a situation like that?! Who knows, but it's still a shocking piece of news to learn.

Luz Telling Camila the Truth: Hey, she faced her fear after all! Although, the results aren't as pleasant as when Amity faced her fear two weeks ago.

Camila is a Veterinarian: ...One insignificant reveal...managed to destroy so many fanfics. I mean, we probably shouldn't have just assumed Camila was a nurse...but what the f**k else were we supposed to think?! Sorry for seeing the scrubs, and the first thing that came to my mind was "nurse" and not "vet."

By the way, that had to have been intentional, right? There's no way that Dana Terrace didn't think we'd assume Camila was a nurse. She'd had to have put off a reveal like that just to trip up her fans. And if that's the case, then that is a major d**k move...but that's why I mildly respect it.

Two Human Brothers went to the Demon Realm: Turns out we don't have to be in the Boiling Isles to learn more about it. Because now we have more information about how two humans were taken to the Isles with the help of a witch, thus setting up a grander reveal if it turns out that one of the humans was Philip and the witch was Belos. Because if that's true...then there's more of a history between those two than we thought.

Jacob has a Training Wand: This helps me believe that it's highly likely for Jacob to make a return and to have a power boost for when he does. After all, focussing all that attention on the training wand is way too convenient for it not to come up again in the future. Meaning we're most likely going to get more pain from Jacob if he shows up again.

Camila Beats the Crap out of Jacob for Vee: ...Writers, don't make me choose between Camila and Eda on who's the better cartoon mom. I know Eda's technically not a mom...BUT I STILL DON'T WANT TO CHOOSE DAMNIT!

Also, the sandal...just...

Why the f**k does Camila have a sandal in her purse? I don't know. Is it still funny that she does? Most certainly.

Camila and Luz’s Talk in the Rain: Ooooooooh, I was not ready for this...

I wasn't ready for the crying.

I wasn't ready for the hurt in Camila's eyes when she found out Luz chose to stay in the Boiling Isles.

I wasn't ready for Camila asking if Luz hates being with her that much.

I wasn't ready for Luz profusely stating how it was never Camila's fault.

I was not ready for Camila to tell Luz that she'll try to do better.

And I definitely was not ready for Luz to barely have enough time to promise that she'll come back.

This episode wasn't the twenty-two minutes of nonstop angst that I thought it was going to be...but this short scene more than make up for it.

Luz Tries to Stay Strong: Yet another thing she unwittingly learned from Camila. Camila tried to keep a brave face when Vee was with her and Luz, most likely not wanting to tear either of them down in the process. Luz does the same thing here as she avoids talking about the details of what went down in her sort-of journey back home. And seeing her clearly fake smile slowly droop into an uncertain frown, it uh...it definitely tore me up inside.

WHAT I DISLIKED

I want to say it's perfect, but there's one major issue that really bogs this episode down.

Continuity Error in How Vee Replaced Luz: Having Vee take Luz's place the same day Luz appeared in the Isles is a smart idea on paper...if it wasn't for the fact that it's impossible.

Because Eda closed the portal door the second that she saw Luz, meaning that there's no way for Vee to go to the human realm. It's a major plothole that makes no sense, and it might just be the first time ever that this series wasn't so closely knit with its story. Which ends up taking a dive in quality in the process.

IN CONCLUSION

I'd say that "Yesterday's Lie" is an A-. Everything about Luz, Vee, and Camila is incredible, combined into a story that ends in tragedy and uncertainty for the future. That plothole may drag things down a bit, but everything else is handled so well that I'm not lying when I say it's easy to forgive and forget.

(And that's ten episodes in a row without a single stinker. HOW THE F**K DOES THIS SEASON KEEP WINNING?!)

[autodiscothings]

Hello! I am quite new to your page and I love how you draw Kolyat. ♥️ Also, would you care to share some details about your characters?

I’d love to, thanks for asking! Funnily enough, I did a personality quiz for them recently, so I can just copy/paste the results here. Most of my content for Mass Effect is centred around Kolyat Krios and Oriana Lawson: 

I write them here: [AO3] I draw them here: [ART TAG]

Everything I do with them is post-war, and them as adults in their 20s navigating the shit heap that is a broken, post-destroy galaxy, and how they cope with their own traumas. They both want to help rebuild, but do it different ways.

KOLYAT KRIOS

Kolyat Krios has a lot to live up to and change, but prefers to do it on his terms.

Kolyat is a methodical man, and gentle and patient with the people who need it most. He possesses an unexpected depth of emotional intelligence, and becomes a protector of the small and the strays, from a galaxy that often forgets about them.

While Kolyat can be even-keeled, if he is left to stew in his feelings, his anger will get the better of him, and he will react. He has a reputation for salt, and for his surliness; he also has a tendency to hide himself from others as a defence mechanism, and is slow to trust.

ORIANA ‘ORI’ LEE

You might know her as Oriana Lawson, but she’ll introduce herself as Ori Lee.

Ori is a warm, compassionate soul who loves to be around other people and enjoys her work as a colony developer/civil engineer for Kellam Industries. She is quick-witted and smart, and funny with it; her taste in fashion and makeup is impeccable, as is her comic timing.

She is very good at getting to know you, but you don’t get to know her. Ori keeps her cards to her chest, and only lets her guard down around people she trusts completely, and has a tendency to care too much about what others think about her.

FISH (the cat)

Queen of everything, ruler of them all- well, maybe just Kolyat’s apartment for now.

Fish is a foul-tempered gremlin of a tabby cat, with white socks and a white belly. Her iron paw rules the roost of her home; she graciously lets others share it. Fish loves her food, her nap spots, and her soft piles of things to sleep on. She likes listening to music, and watching the traffic outside of her window.

She is a former stray with both PTSD and trust issues, and for this reason she lashes out without thinking, and needs her own space. When she trusts though, she really trusts. It will take her forever to do it, but once you win her heart, she’ll love you forever.

BATESEDA ‘Bats’ T’LORI

The man, the myth, and the almost legend- at least, in his mind.

Bats was always told he had potential, and rather than stay with the Huntress squad who trained him, Bats left for the Citadel. He is a firecracker of a man who makes everything he does seem fun, always ready to crack something- a joke, his glass, a skull. Pour another one out, he has stories to tell, and they’re mostly true- if he remembers them right.

He has a tendency to go through frequent bed partners, and never keeps anyone around for long. Despite the crooked smile and easy living, there is an air of melancholy around Bats he is reluctant to explain, but something shows through the cracks every now and then. He will take things too far -the jokes, his drinking, his anger- and fall down the holes he put himself in. One day he will struggle to get back out of it.

ARJUN PATEL

A man who borders the line between squad dad and gross uncle, Patel is a treasure for any crew to have.

Patel is content to stay in the background, and is more savvy than he lets on, willing to play the bumbling, easy-going fool if it’ll get him what he wants. He is essentially Columbo with a cooking habit, but is willing to share his snacks- if he likes you, and that doesn’t take much. He is a man with quiet passions, and they shine brightly when he gets talking; his food, his wife and daughter, his interest in history… ask him about them, and his enthusiasm will be boundless- much like his appetite.

He has a tendency to be lazy, if he can get away with it. Patel can also overspill the TMI details of his life even if you’ve heard them before, without a clue he’s crossed a line.

SISO VITACUS

Like most of the squad, Vitacus came to the Citadel for a new life, and another shot of something. He recently split from his bootcamp boyfriend, and is really not looking for anything serious- at least, not at the moment. Vitacus is neither as funny as Bats, as serious as Kolyat or as happy as Patel, but he fits right in as the jack of all trades of the squad, content to play everyone’s middle man and all rounder.

He has a reputation for awful, neon suits, a love of dancing and shitty action movies, as well as a fondness for lurid drinks, despite looking like the kind of man who likes none of these things from first glance. Vitacus is a tall, stocky bruiser of a man, even for a turian.

Vitacus can also be a pushover and too laidback for his own good, and can drift along with the crowd than go against it. He’s unsure why he’s like this, but as far as he’s concerned, ending up in law enforcement is already an oddity- all his family are engineers and scientists.

BRATHAN ‘Brath’ SEKET

If ever there was a man you were unsure of -even after knowing him for years- it’s Brath. The usual rags to riches story, heavy on the rags; Brath fled the grasp of his abusive family as soon as he was able to, taking on jobs across the Terminus until he built up enough of a reputation as a gun for hire.

He got his money from less than savoury sources to begin with, but absolutely no slavery. He has a personal honor code he will hold the rest of the galaxy to, even if you don’t know the rules. Brath might give off the appearance of loving luxuries and living well, but to him it’s just greasepaint and stage costumes; he’s learning that on the Citadel, a Terminus boy like him will never fit in, anyway- the four eyes see to that.

He will hold a grudge for decades, and it will smoulder, too. Brath can be incredibly petty and keep receipts, and if things don’t go his way, he will make them- for better or for worse.

LAETITIA PHALIA

A woman with a firm grip of the ins and outs of both her work and her neighbourhood, Phalia is the person to know when you need something, and if you don’t she’ll soon tell you, anyway.

She looks strict, but only when she needs to be. Phalia is just busy! There’s always some charity, pot luck, clawball practise, afterschool homework club, Galactic Scout cookie drive, donation pickup and volunteer work activity happening in her life. Phalia is always doing something, despite a full-time job and being a single parent. She gives and gives, because that’s what she expects people to do, the kind of person who will give you her coat and freeze.

There is only so much of herself she can give away. Phalia has had the very worst happen to her in her life, and she survives by constantly moving, not looking back. She just needs to remind herself from time to time she deserves to be taken care of too, and can rest every now and then. Sometimes Phalia also has a tendency to hold people to the same standards she has, but is getting better at learning the difference.

DEREK

It's Derek, innit? Just Derek. Not his real name of course, but he thought it sounded fancy. He has a full salarian name, but his clan mostly ignore his existence - except when they want money.

The eponymous Derek has a fairly sweet soul, but it’s one slowly corrupting under a mantle of the music industry and celebrity. He has an addict’s personality, and bounces from fixation from fixation- but music will always remain a constant. He is good at what he does too; his production skills are perceptively complicated, and he is an absolute master at looping and finding rich, interesting samples; there is a reason he is in demand both as a DJ and as a producer.

Derek doesn’t have the best social skills, despite befriending people easily. He’ll pick them up and drop them, and will often self-medicate his mistakes. His ego can get him into trouble too, but finding real friends -and not hangers on- will help him realise he’s not the centre of the universe.

***

(The quiz is [HERE] f you want to see which one you got.)

[zoe-oneesama]

Are you gonna include/expand on the LGBTQ characters from ML in the SL AU?

I definitely want to at the very least have confirmed relationships (Rose and Juleka are gonna call each other girlfriend OUT LOUD, there will be no ambiguity). The problem I was facing is working it in organically? Like, not just blurting out their sexuality with no preamble? Specifically with Rose and Juleka since Reflekta I haven’t had an episode yet where they have significant screen time or are even in the episode. The background characters suffer from not enough screen time in general, which I’m trying to fix (like in The Pharaoh) but I’m trying to fix in ways that make some sense. I was hoping to work in more couple banter before the confirmation, but as I look at the episodes I have to work with it’ll probably end up going the other way around. 

(this ended up longer than I thought it would)

When I was laying out plot lines for SL I went in with the intention that Rose and Juleka would get together within the series and not be automatically together from the get go, as a kind of homage to how the signs of their relationship got stronger in later seasons. However, because of this I’ve totally missed the opportunity in Reflekta to lean into it which was totally my fault and I have some regrets over. I should’ve payed more attention to just how many episodes they actually feature in before I decided that so definitively. There will be many opportunities to show them together, but they mostly start in “Season 3″ as that has the most episodes where they are present and continue for the last three seasons. (Seriously they have more potential scenes than Myvan so it’s not a matter of straight preference)

Marc is unfortunately a very late entry to the cast because Reverser is pretty late in “Season 5″, so as far as he and Nathaniel’s relationship, it probably won’t get much spot light as a couple. But, as you’ve seen with Marianne in Mr. Pigeon, I’m not above pulling in characters earlier than they’re spotlighted in canon and I’m interested in at least exploring Marc’s admiration in Nathaniel, which I feel in canon was pretty much built into his intro. I mean, how’d he hear of Nathaniel or see his artwork enough to admire it if he’s never met him? How does he know Marinette? These are things that can at least be set up earlier and could give time to explore the “hidden” LGBTQ aspects of him, like him being based on someone who identifies as nonbinary or his attraction to boys. 

He does kind of suffer in that it’s a lot harder to fit him into random episodes since he doesn’t have an established tie to the class, so he’s pretty much stuck to episodes at the school - and not all of them are very Marc friendly (how do I make Marc work in Riposte, for example). Even though he (apparently) knows Marinette, you get the impression it’s as a School Friend and not a Friend I See Outside of Class. Like, maybe they have an elective together. At most I can find one episode per season until Season 5 where he could reasonably fit in. -_-;

Marc is also where I’d like to ask the community for some help as I only know one non-binary person tangentially in my personal life and am not sure the most respectful way to represent one. I’m straight cis-gendered and am not immersed in the community and don’t want to step on any toes or represent a group of people in a way that could be harmful, but gender identity is somewhere I am inexperienced beyond respecting someone’s pronouns and names. I want to be overt enough that there’s no ambiguity in his identity as non-binary but I want it to feel natural. With the person I know in my life, their sister told me ahead of time before they came to my house because I had known this person before they’d discovered they were non-binary and they’d made some drastic changes in their appearance and wanted to make sure we didn’t have an awkward encounter where I accidentally reintroduced myself or something XD Basically trying to make the transition more seamless.

Same kind of goes for Alix and Max - I know more ace people in my personal life so I feel a bit more comfortable writing them (I’m not fully sure why writing about sexual preference and relationships is easier for me other than just more exposure to that and that base rules of respect and boundaries apply to all relationships imo) but I’d like to hear more from people in those categories on how they’d like to be represented - as well as to find ways to do so organically and not just have everyone sit in a circle and blurt out their orientations. That works in Discord Chat Fics, not so much spoken dialogue. (My fav ways for characters to out themselves is definitely in the vein of “I’m too ace for this shit” but I’d like to hear other thoughts.)

I think my hesitation lies in the fact that everyone I know personally in the LGBTQ community I knew before they discovered their identities (like basically since we or they were children) so when they did figure it out for themselves, they just flat out told me. But I’m not sure how it comes up with someone you’ve just met, other then them mentioning their same sex partner or it coming up when they’re hit on or something. And that’s just sexual preference, I have no idea how gender identity or being ace/aro comes into a conversation naturally unless someone is point blank asked. These are the things in which I am Painfully Ignorant. 

[aimmyarrowshigh]

first lines meme

List the first lines of your last 20 stories. See if there are any patterns and choose your favorite opening line!

I got tagged by @deputychairman, who asked specifically about how writing drabbles and having such a paucity of words affected how I write first lines. And I was like, whoa, that is a super interesting question, actually, so let’s see if it has an interesting answer?

I just finished my drabbles for the day, so these are HOT SPANKING FRESH and I didn’t like, put extra effort in to skew the ~results, so let’s see.

1. “If we survive this—” Darcy yells over the din—“You are taking me on a way better honeymoon than Niagara Falls!”

I definitely generally try to set up the tone and the background setting/context in my opening line for drabbles, and I think this does that: it establishes that there’s some kind of disaster happening, Darcy is there, and it’s probably her wedding or close to it.

2. Darcy plops herself down in Sam’s lap. “I’ve been thinking.”

Two characters, tone (”plopped”), and hopefully some context -- this is a continued conversation, or a continued relationship in some way.

3. “It’s the man with the plan, Captain America!” Darcy sings. The next line is muffled around a cheekful of bagel and schmear. “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s sort of both, it’s the Falcon!” 

I really like to start Darcy drabbles with her dialogue, I guess! I think it’s because she’s such a voicey character that it’s really easy to set the tone of the whole piece with the tone of her words. In this case, attempting humor or some kind of teasing/levity.

4. “Let’s take shortcut,” Yelena says, tugging at Kate’s hand. “I am hungry, and we pass that banh-mi place this way.” 

This was definitely a drabble that I used my favorite “cheat” on, which is having the summary serve as a sort of de facto first line. So in that case, the first line would be, “Central Park shivers under the blue moonlight, new spring leaf-buds as afraid to be in the Park at night as any sane person.” In my hoping that people read that as kind of the “first line,” I tried to switch tones from ominous to casual by giving Yelena no fear (and a hungry tummy).

5. Over the next few weeks, Kate’s refrigerator empties of mostly-eaten pizza and too-old Chinese takeout containers, and in their places, Russian food appears. She’s got deli containers of Olivier salad and tomato eggplant. She’s got a foil-covered casserole pan of stuffed cabbage in sour red sauce. Potato vareniki floats in chicken broth in plastic-wrapped bowls, and there’s a hunk of black bread in the freezer. 

I am a fucking sucker for writing food whenever the opportunity presents itself. I think that the best way to establish characterization or tone for literally any length piece is to answer to question of “what do the characters eat.” I hope that the tone of this piece is “cozy, with a hint of culture clash.”

6. “I’m looking for an animal to associate with your character this time,” Emi says. “Not a color, like last time, like green. I think it’ll add to the eerie atmosphere if there’s always—I don’t know, a wolf or a bee or a scarab beetle in the background of shots of ‘Mari.’” 

This one is objectively not great. I struggled with this drabble because there isn’t really a FANDOM around Everything Leads To You, so I felt like I had to spend part of the opening line reminding anyone who read it what happened in the book (the focus of Emi’s set-dressing on the color green for Ava’s character in the movie).

7. Darcy looks through the telescope, makes a few adjustments. “There. Now you can see something interesting.”

Again, I think I wanted to establish a setting here by having her working a telescope right away in the first line. It also alludes to how she’s an astrophysicist since she knows how to work the telescope for whoever she’s with, and that the other person probably isn’t also an astrophysicist since they couldn’t do it for themselves.

8. “Supposedly, this bridge is the home of a terrifying giant goat-man,” Velma says. She adjusts her glasses. “Obviously, eyewitness claims to such are extremely dubious.”

Ha! I mean, everyone already knows Velma’s characterization as The Skeptic and also her tic of Adjusting Her Glasses, so I think I was mostly going for setting up the setting and maybe a bit of conflict here -- whoever she’s with is probably not also a skeptic, and/or the goat-man will show up, you know?

9. “Ahh!” Mallory shrieks as Jessi flicks a blob of soft dough at her. “You’re worse than Byron!” 

This drabble was difficult because of how many ships and characters had to fit into 100 words (8 characters, 4 ships). I definitely was intentional about mentioning both Mallory and Jessi in this line not because it was the opening line, but because it was sort of the only line that I could afford to either/both of them. Again, though, with trying to establish/ground the characters in their setting--making pizza! (So also again with the food.)

10. “I’m sorry.” The girl in the chic jacket and leatherette leggings looked genuinely so. “Your missing kid—they’re not just missing. Anymore.” 

I think this one was mostly about trying to establish both who the character is for the reader by how they dressed (Suze Simon) and also that the POV character doesn’t yet know Suze by having her just be “the girl in the clothes.” I HOPE that it doesn’t come across as My Immortal, but it might.

11. “It’s here!” Darcy sings, dancing into the Common Room. “The Hottest Man Alive issue is here!” 

LMAO oh my gosh, another “Darcy is in this drabble so therefore it starts with her talking” move. WHAT A WEIRD PATTERN. It was not on purpose!!!

12. Katy thinks that she finally knows Yelena well enough to ask. And if not, she might be fast enough after all this training that she can duck a lethal strike from a Black Widow, right?

I definitely wanted to do a one-two punch with the setup for this one, where “one” was “set up a question that needs to be answered within the drabble” (not just saying straight-up in the first line what her question is) and “two” is “maintain a comedic tone because Katy is generally a comic relief character.”

13. Katy opens the door to the Tower’s highest accessible space—the landing pad that used to be used by Tony Freaking Iron Man Stark—and immediately her hair lifts in the whipping wind. She bats it back into a ponytail, sputtering. Maybe this isn’t the restful thinking spot she—

Again, all about grounding the characters in a setting. I think that’s like, my biggest thing about writing in general. I always want it to be very clear where the characters are and what they’re doing within that space, because otherwise the conversations just don’t feel meaningful or real because they’re just happening like “on the page” or “hanging in space” rather than happening HERE AND NOW, if that makes sense.

14. Wednesday looks up at Morticia with the slightest frisson of apprehension in the set of her mouth. 

I think because the Addams Family are inherently like, counter to expectations, I wanted to start this by making Wednesday act very un-Wednesday-ish by showing fear. Like, I hope that it sets up the drabble with a bit of wrong-footedness, like “what is happening that could make Wednesday freaking Addams nervous?”

15. “Aha!” Phryne grins. “I think that means you must remove your vest, Jack.” 

This drabble I definitely had to go back and cut lines from after writing it up because it was too long. I feel like the opening suffered from that and it’s too simple and like, in your face. Womp.

16. “Well, this is fucking awkward. And disturbing. A little more awkward, though.” 

This is one where I think I’m relying too much on the reader knowing the characters and using that to establish who’s speaking -- like, if you see this show up for a Holtzmann/Patty fic, hopefully it’s immediately clear that it’s Holtzmann and not Patty? There’s a reason I only ever tag humor drabbles as “attempt at humor.”

17. When it happens again, Lizzie thinks— 

I am definitely noticing that I like to skew towards ambiguity in opening lines for drabbles when I can get away with it. Like, “when it happens again” doesn’t mean anything until you read further in and see WHAT is happening again. And cutting off in the middle of the sentence for tension hopefully adds tension and leads into that “what is happening again.”

18. “Well, look who it is at the lezzzbian bar!”

Again, I think I’m relying a lot on the characters being known to set up who’s speaking -- Britta or Annie for this line should be immediately clear as Britta. And also, hopefully it sets up that she’s a bit drunk.

19. Hana reaches up and rubs at her chest, just where bone presses against the skin between her breasts. She’s ill: she knows the symptoms. Her heart is beating too hard, too quickly. Her palms feel clammy. Her face is flushed. 

I like this one because it fits so well into its fandom (Delirium is about a dystopian USA where love is considered an illness, so everyone 17 and older is lobotomized to prevent their falling in love). I always like being able to use physical sensations that are kind of like... that could be read multiple ways, and Delirium is perfect for that because divorced from knowing that love just IS that way, the physical sensations of being around your crush DO sound like you’re sick, you know?

20. Nancy grunts and pushes open the rusty door to the old, forgotten warehouse. 

Definitely putting a character into a setting for this one, and hopefully creating a ~mysterious~ image since it’s Nancy Drew! I think I could probably have been more judicious with the adjectives in this one actually and just gone with “forgotten” instead of “old, forgotten.” I wonder if I needed an extra word after I wrote it up, lol.

This was super fun and interesting! I’m not sure that I have any SUPER STRICT patterns (besides, apparently, letting Darcy Lewis say things first in any drabble with her in it lol) but I like seeing that for the most part, I’m trying to be a good lil expositioner and establish my characters in a setting right off the bat since there isn’t room to do it elsewhere and, IMO, a story never feels complete without that worldbuilding groundwork.

I tag: @dracosollicitus, @fille-lioncelle, @bebeocho, @morethanonepage, @idontgettechnology, and @glycerineclown, because you all have very different writing styles to each other AND different writing styles to me, and I’m curious to read your answers!

[thechangeling]

I was the one who found him:

This is a little idea my brain just came up with. Helen and Ty oneshot right before the meeting at the Council hall at the end of LOS. I have such a thing for queer characters interacting with one another.

Helen was back.

The words kept swirling around in Ty's head, taking the time to fully sink in and be absorbed. Helen is back. She's here. She's finally here after all of this time.

There were many different confusing and conflicting emotions that he was feeling. He couldn't quite describe it or decipher it just yet. But he was mostly happy to see her. Perhaps a little anxious and wary of the change.

Afraid of when she would be ripped away again. It was all too much. Too overwhelming. Ty took a deep breath as Livvy bounced over to where Mark and Helen were gripping onto each other and whispering to each other in happy, tearful voices.

Mark and Helen had a special relationship, sort of like the one he had with Livvy. He had never been bothered or jealous in any way. He knew it was because there was something different about both of them that bound them together. They were both part fae and both Bisexual. They had a special bond the same way Ty and Livvy did. It made perfect sense.

Livvy ran over to Helen and Helen rushed forward, embracing her. There was more crying and excited chatter. Ty hung back, not really knowing what to do or say.

"Aren't you going to go say hi to your sister?" Kit asked from behind him. Ty felt an odd pull at his heartstrings at the sound of his voice. He turned to face Kit.

Kit had become a sort of constant lately. Ty had gotten quite used to always having him there. And he enjoyed it as well. There was something about Kit that made Ty curious, and all kinds of other emotions he had trouble deciphering. He liked having Kit around, liked hearing him talk, liked telling him about Sherlock, and all of his plans which sometimes now didn't even include Livvy. It wasn't as though Ty was trying to freeze her out, it was just that there were times that he honestly just wanted Kit to himself.

It was a little concerning.

And Ty loved to stare at him. There was just something about his face, the shape of his lips, his cheekbones, his tiny little California freckles. Ty wanted to touch every single one. Then he had seen Kit kissing Livvy and he had felt that same overwhelming, horrible feeling of despair that usually came with a horrible breakdown.

And he had been furious too. Furious with his sister for some unknown reason. Ty hadn't been mad at Livvy in over five years. The worst part was is he had no logical reason to feel this way.

"I'm scared to go see her," Ty admitted. "It's been such a long time since we last talked. I'm worried that she's different. That's she's changed too much," Ty explained. "I can't handle her being different."

Kit stared at him for a moment, then smiled a small compassionate smile. "But aren't you kinda different now too? So odds are she's changed as well and that's ok. If you're both different people now, and your old relationship doesn't fit any more, then make a new one," Kit explained. "I promise you, it'll be just as good. Trust me ok?"

Ty was so tempted to tell him that he would believe anything Kit said as long as he kept looking at him like that.

This was very dangerous. These things didn't usually end well for Ty.

He nodded and turned around, heading for Helen, too afraid to spend any longer with Kit. Helen broke away from Livvy and beamed at him.

"Ty Ty! Oh look at how tall you've gotten!" She exclaimed.

Ty shrugged. "Yes that tends to happen as someone ages."

Helen laughed. "I missed you sweetheart. Are you ok to hug, or do you want a high five instead?"

Ty paused, considering it. "I think I'd rather high five," he admitted. It had been a long time since he had last seen Helen, and he wasn't sure if he would be ok with her touch.

When he felt the skin of her palm touch his, Ty felt a momentary rise of panic. But then he felt the wave of familiarity wash over him. And the memories. Helen reading to him, playing with him when he was young. Listening to him talk about all of the things closest to his heart without any judgement.

Helen hugging him goodbye the day she was exiled, telling him it was going to be ok.

Telling him that sometimes life was just unfair and cruel. Especially to those who were different.

Ty felt a lump in his throat. He held on tightly to her hand, trying not to cry. Helen smiled.

"I missed you too Ty. So," she continued. "Who is that over there?" She pointed past him over at Kit. Ty attempted to appear neutral.

"That's Christopher Herondale," Ty told her. "Although he prefers to be called Kit. He's a decesendent of the lost Herondale line." Ty stopped, smiling slightly. "I was the one who found him."

Helen smirked playfully. "You were the one who found him huh? Does that mean you get to keep him?"

Ty froze, stunned.

"What?"

Helen shook her head. "No I'm sorry Ty Ty, I shouldn't have said that. I was just trying to joke around," she apologized. Ty was still unable to say anything. His breathing had become harsh. He didnt understand why he felt this way. So exposed.

Or maybe he did. Helen had indirectly forced him to confront something he had been trying so hard to avoid. Except he wasn't ready. He didn't have the time. There was too much going on.

Ty had never really thought about his attraction towards other people before, or any kind of romantic interest. Yes there had been both girls and boys that he had found attractive over the years but it was never significant. It was never really noteworthy.

He had never felt the things he was feeling now.

"Ty?" Helen sounded concerned. She gently placed a hand on his arm. "Are you ok?"

Ty shook himself out of it and tried to appear calm. In the background more and more people were entering the council hall and taking there seats.

"Listen," she continued. "After this, if you want someone to talk to-"

"Will you even be here afterwards?" Ty interrupted. He hadn't meant to sound rude, but he felt vulnerable in a room full of untrustworthy people.

Helen opened her mouth to respond, but the sound if Consul Penhallow's voice telling everyone to take their seats interrupted her.

Helen looked at him apologetically. Ty said nothing, just watched her walk back to where Aline was sitting. This meeting would determine her fate. It would determine if she could stay or not. Ty looked around the room at all if the cohort members with their signs, at the nervous faces of his family members.

There was a strong part of Ty that just wanted to leave. But he couldn't. It was important that he stayed for his family. He searched for Kit before he could stop himself and came up empty.

Livvy suddenly appeared at his side, pulling on his arm. "Come on Ty, we need to sit." Ty thought about asking where Kit was but then decided against it. It didnt matter. He didnt need to be there. Ty willed himself not to care.

He couldn't shake the feeling of panic and discomfort though. He couldn't help but remember Helen's words from earlier.

Does that mean you get to keep him?

Ty wished he had the ability to approach any of this with logic or reason. He wished he could find the right words and arrange them in a perfect pretty way, like a poem or a song. But in the end all Ty had was this feeling. This powerful all consuming feeling that had led him to sit in front of a strangers door for no reason.

No reason other then the hope of seeing his face again.

Does that mean you get to keep him?

No it didn't.

Not as long as Kit kept leaving him.

Author's note: I know I used breakdown instead of meltdown and that's kind of offensive, but at this point Ty doesn't know what meltdowns are called.

@ti-bae-rius @zfoxdraws @anxiousbookenthusiast @julieandthefandoms @eutony-in-whisper @older-brother-kit @dianasarrow @stxr-thxif @thelandunderthehilll @banesbitch @magnus-the-fabulous-entp-bane @swordwifes

[jinxvrse]

SALT CIRCLES

— in which the jinx dorm has a little infestation problem

characters / the jinx ensemble, han seoyeon

words / 4.1k

warnings / none — if i missed any please let me know!

“My friend is coming over soon, she knows what to do.” Yue had finally put her phone down for perhaps the first time in the last thirty five minutes.

“How odd,” Blue commented, Yue pretended not to hear it.

“So before whoever that is comes over can we go over what exactly is happening again because I’m having some trouble really understanding this whole thing.” Jiyoon’s anger was visible in her voice, fists bunched with a face nearly a redder shade than her ginger hair.

Rosie just swallowed the heavy lump in her throat, mostly scared that that thing was going to appear over her head again and swipe her into whatever land it came from.

“Isn’t it simple? Roro summoned a demon and now our lives could possibly be endangered.” Miran’s smile told Rosie everything she needed to know about her thoughts on the situation, her happy-go-lucky tone was the bigger tell despite her grim words.

Miran was most certainly excited about the prospect of something supernatural going on in their dorm, no matter how dangerous the idea of it was. She was always a fanatic for this type of stuff so it was no surprise to Rosie or any of the others that she couldn’t care less about the ‘could possibly kill us all’ aspect of this.

“It's actually not that simple but I don’t know the acute details of what Rosie did.” Yue spoke up, her voice still as monotone as ever.

“Oh and how do you know so much about all this freaky stuff? In fact it was your ‘thing’ she was using to get it to come here in the first place.” Jiyoon was surely irritated but back talking to Yue was something many people were too afraid to do.

The other girls bit their cheeks upon the interaction, the atmosphere of the room proving far too tense for the five of them. They watched in anticipation for Yue’s next moves, wondering if she’d stay calm this time or match Jiyoon’s anger, maybe more.

“Don’t misplace your anger with me, Kim Jiyoon.” Yue’s voice never changed, although anyone could note the venom sitting behind her words. “Believe me, I know a lot more than you do and you should just trust me and my friend on this one.”

The room eased a little without the threat of a potential fight happening right there in their living room but the situation at hand was far too distracting for them to completely calm down. With Blue curled up in a corner, Rosie and Miran attached to each other by the hip and Yue and Jiyoon standing far from each other in different corners of their room a painfully long silence would be overtaking the group before the mystery friend would come and deal with the issue.

It would be another thirty five minutes before Yue’s friend buzzed into their apartment. Each girl was eager to see who this person was, sitting on the very edge of their seats to see who would walk through the door. However, it was their surprise when a woman roughly the same age as them appeared behind Yue and not some wizened old crone who knew years of ‘demonology’ there to fight the demon away.

“This is Han Seoyeon,” Yue nearly shoved the girl inside the apartment, “and she is going to solve all our problems.” The rest of them greeted her with awkward and unenthusiastic waves.

Seoyeon had bright red hair, almost redder than the t-shirt Rosie had on. Both her arms were decorated with tattoos, some in colour and some just linework, but she was illustrated like a high school desk with drawings of crystals and flowers. One tattoo stood out the most to Rosie, a detailed bright purple amethyst drawn on Seoyeon’s left arm, just looking at it calmed her down almost to a point where she worried no more about the imminent threat living under her bed.

“What does Seoyeon do?” Blue put on a smile for the girl, trying her best not to appear antsy for their house guest.

Seoyeon returned Blue’s smile with one of her own, her pearly white teeth grinning back at the girl. “Officially I’m a bartender at a place in Hongdae, unofficially I’m a witch.”

Jiyoon let out a pained laugh, clamping her hand to her mouth out of feigned politeness. “I’m sorry, you want me to believe that witches are real?”

“And you’ll believe a spirit’s living in your house? I’m used to skeptics but it’s especially funny coming from someone who appears to be haunted from the energy I’m feeling here.” Seoyeon’s smile never faltered, there was a specific confidence that she emanated and it definitely inspired Rosie in ways she never thought she could feel.

“What? Do you need to see it in action to believe it?” Seoyeon found a seat at one of the dining table chairs, taking it as though it were her throne with her legs crossed and a hand coming to lean against her chin.

“You, Jiyoon, are feeling anxious above all but you’re hiding it behind anger because what if this thing really does kill you and you can’t protect Yoonsung and Jiah, your little siblings, right?” A smirk painted her pretty face when she saw Jiyoon contort in confusion.

“H-How do you know their names?” Jiyoon could barely utter out her sentence, this was probably the first time any of them had seen her lost for words in years.

“I’m a psychic, not a powerful one but I can find out a few things about someone if I focus hard enough.” The redhead tapped at her forehead, signalling a third eye. Rosie might actually believe one would appear in a matter of seconds but her forehead remained eye-free.

Miran let out a light giggle at seeing Jiyoon so dumbstruck, immediately pulling herself together with a serious expression once she caught Jiyoon staring her down.

“Now will you let me do my job?” Seoyeon stood up again, her head held high and her eyes scanning the room around her.

The girls had no qualms about anything she had to say anymore, they had just about seen and heard everything they needed to believe they were in this predicament and there was no reason to not let her carry out her investigation. Despite this they were still seemingly surprised when they watched as Seoyeon started to do her thing.

Little tendrils of pink and green fluttered through Seoyeon’s fingers, the distinct smell of burnt sugar surrounding the girls and filling up the room. The feeling was light on her palms, like fire without the heat, ticklish against the smooth skin. She watched as the girls’ eyes followed the magic jumping from her fingerprints.

Her fingers ran through the walls of the dorm living room, tattoos and veins glowing the same bright pink and green colour, each line fading and reappearing with her heartbeat as she walked. It left Rosie in awe, she never thought magic could really be real, not until seeing everything she had witnessed in the last twenty four hours.

She glanced over to look at her other members, their faces not nearly as shocked as her own. She could get behind Miran not being entirely surprised, seeing as she was always a believer and lived in her own little land, but the other two were more grounded in real life than they were. Rosie remembered how skeptical Jiyoon was of her story when she told her earlier that night or how Blue laughed thinking it was a joke. Maybe Yue’s insistence finally made them believe her but would they have done so without the older girl’s slightly threatening presence?

“The good news is it’s not a malevolent spirit, just a tricky one.” All the girls sighed in relief upon hearing Seoyeon’s words.

“What’s the bad?” Blue questioned, hands massaging her temples like this was all some bad dream.

Seoyeon exhaled deeply, there’s no way things could possibly get worse for them, right? “It’s not leaving for a while, it’s screaming at me that it loves this place too much.”

“So we just have to deal with a literal demon living with us?” Jiyoon groaned, barely hiding her annoyance from the other girls.

Blue simply laughed, the exhaustion was getting to her. Anyone could see so with her dark circles and slouched stance, after all she had been up for so many hours doing this and that around the dorm in an attempt to fix the problem herself. Seeing how her laughter continued on creepily in the background maybe she was going hysterical with everything going on.

“There are ways to force the spirit back to wherever it came from but I am definitely not powerful enough to do that, many aren’t.” Seoyeon casts her eyes over to Yue, lazily staring at her for a second before diverting her gaze elsewhere.

“I am so going to have to move out.” Jiyoon mumbled, the disbelief settling behind her eyes.

“Well for the time being why don’t you just give ‘em a name, treat it like a nice lodger and it’ll leave eventually.” She seemed so nonchalant as she talked, like this was an everyday occurrence in Seoul or whatever witch land she came from.

“That’s all I can do for you but before I go I have to ask, how exactly did you bring this spirit here?”

Everyone’s eyes fell on Rosie, the stares causing her to recoil back into her seat on the sofa. Their stares spoke a thousand words to Rosie and it only made her feel more reluctant to actually say anything, she’d much rather run back to the safety of her bed and pretend this was one hell of a dream.

“I saw this one video on TikTok that said if you’re lonely summon this spirit to be your friend for a couple hours,” Rosie hung her head low as she spoke, avoiding the likely judgemental stares from her group mates. “It was stupid I know and I didn’t even believe it would work but...I had to try it.”

She raised her head slightly, catching a glimpse of Seoyeon with a hand to her chest, a warm smile on her face. She wasn’t outright stating it but Rosie could feel her sympathy radiating off of her like sunbeams, she’s glad Yue called her over because at least someone in that house would try to understand why she would do something like that.

“I found a bunch of witchy stuff in Yue’s room and got to work.” She shot a apologetic glance in the Chinese girl’s direction, “if you want the details, I was using this diamond necklace of mine as a pendulum to communicate with the spirit and I must’ve let it into the house as we talked because the diamond was swinging all on it’s own like crazy.”

Rosie recalled the memories of last night, she was the only one in the dorms, the other four all doing things that didn’t seem to involve her. It was the third time that week, she was just tired of being left out and the feeling of loneliness had been boiling in her blood for far too long.

Jiyoon already had a best friend and the last time they’d had a genuine conversation outside of the practice room must have been months ago. Yue and Miran had become awfully close in the last few months, often leaving the others out of their shared world, and Blue had been out doing god knows what with someone she was never going to text back. Heck, even her own brother was barely responding to her texts, probably off somewhere getting high and pretending she didn’t know about his problem.

There was no need to wiggle her way into places she wasn’t wanted so she decided she'd find someone else to talk to, despite how extreme the solution she came to must’ve seemed to others.

Even if the spell hadn’t worked, there would have always been that thought settling in the back of her mind hoping that it did so that maybe she wouldn’t have to deal with knowing the fact that no one wanted her. A fact that had become as clear as day when she watched each of her members frown in disappointment at what she’d done when they had finally come home to a teary-eyed Rosie, an oddly humanoid shadow standing behind her to confirm her story.

“Well who hasn’t accidentally summoned a spirit in their youth?” Rosie hadn’t realised a silence had formed since her last words until Seoyeon cleared her throat, the lopsided smile still on her face. “Next time I’d recommend you use salt circles, it’ll protect you a little better.”

Yue rubbed her eyes, chuckling softly at Seoyeon’s joke. She flashed a smile at her friend before retiring to her room, the rest of the girls could chat with her or show her out because, quite frankly, she was tired and just wanted to go to bed.

Closing the door behind her, Yue sighed at finally being alone, flopping onto her bed and closing her eyes. Images of Seoyeon’s magic raced through her mind, the sight of the pink and green was oddly addicting, pulling Yue up from the bed and staring into her hands in front of her.

Each vein began to run an icy blue, backlit behind her pale skin. Tiny translucent wisps prickled all around her body, congregating within her palms like an ice that burned through her veins, taking over her entire body in a wave of cold fire.

She winced upon the feeling, not because it hurt, it was more of a tension within her hands, made her eyes itch, that was all. No, the problem was that she liked it, all of it, the feeling of power in her hands, like she could do anything. She could do anything but that’s what got her here in the first place, running to Seoyeon for help because she wanted to hide all of it.

Even though she promised herself she wouldn’t practice anymore, she was always a little bit curious as to how much magic she could gather all on her own. Yue was admittedly a little rusty, mostly due to the blockage that had built up within herself from the years she had abstained from all of this. It took her several minutes to get the candles to burst aflame but it made her feel...something, something that excited her just a little bit too much.

She stared into the flame of the candle closest to her, it flickered violently with just her gaze, the red wax dripping fast into the plate it stood on.

The minute she heard the click of her bedroom door opening she turned around, the candles had blown out immediately with the whip of her head. Darkness cloaked the room again leaving Yue and her visitor alone with just the sliver of light from the window to illuminate them.

She identified the other as Seoyeon from the shine of her red hair, “Don’t scare me like that.”

“Smells like pine in here.” The witch simply chuckled, crossing her arms and leaning the door closed with her back. Yue’s grateful it was her, god knows what she would’ve done if any of her group members had come in instead. Seoyeon’s intuition probably caught her practicing through the walls, she’s smart enough to see through them after all, her eye was always working overtime when they were kids.

“You know you could’ve done that in seconds, no need to call me over here in the middle of the night.” Yue rolled her eyes, it was just like Seoyeon to bring that up. It had been a long time since they’d interacted like this and she was still doubtful as ever to her own power.

“You know why I don’t do that anymore.” Yue responded through gritted teeth, “and besides, you did do that in seconds, you’ve grown a lot since I last saw you.”

“Seokyung’s better than me, but you were always the best out of all of us.” Seoyeon walked over to Miran’s bed, sat right at the edge facing Yue. “It’s clear Jiyoon wants the spirit out, Blue too.” She chuckled, “I don’t think the other two really want that though.”

There was a beat of silence following Seoyeon’s words, neither of them really wanting to address the rather big elephant in the room at that very moment.

“You could help them, Yue, you know that.” Seoyeon spoke in Mandarin, her accent still the same as when they were kids, hearing it warmed her heart.

Yue didn’t respond, her lips pressed into a thin line and her eyes boring into the witch’s. If she wasn’t going to say anything then Seoyeon was simply going to have to press harder.

“Listen, I know what happened was bad but you can relieve your group mates of the thing that’s stressing them out, not me, not anyone else, you.” The smell of burnt sugar began to fall into the room once again, combating the fresh pine of Yue’s magic. “There’s a full moon in two days, you gotta do what you do best!”

Seoyeon knows she can’t force Yue into doing anything, being her friend for over a decade told her that, but she can at least get her to try. Maybe if she could get Yue to open herself up to her own abilities, they could repair what was left of their fragmented friendship.

Yue’s eyes never left Seoyeon, she wanted to believe her, she really did. However, all she could remember was the flames, the haunting memory of the heat coming into dangerously close contact with her as they spread. The thick, black smoke circling the house, the deafening cries of her friend, the silent tears that fell as she watched it all burn.

“Stop, Seoyeon. I just can’t! Is that not enough for you?” Yue cried out, her voice just a decibel below a scream anyone could’ve heard.

Seoyeon knows she’s struck a chord in Yue, hanging her head low. She remembers the fire too. She remembers her heart dropping to her stomach when she saw Yue standing outside in shock, the sickening feeling of relief when she caught her father dragging her mother and sister out of the pile of ash that she called her home.

They tried to move past it, all those years they’d spent with each other far away from Luoyang. Seoyeon knows she’s moved on but maybe Yue hadn’t, that’s why she refused to even talk about what happened since they had left, why Seoyeon could feel that the other hadn’t practiced in so long.

It made her mad, if she could get over losing her home, her family, over something she didn’t even do then Yue could at least try and fix her own problems without running to her and then throwing it back in her face. She threw a hand to the amethyst on her arm, pressing over the tattoo lightly to calm herself, however, it was no use as the anger seething through her caused her to speak without thinking.

“And you call yourself a witch.” She muttered under her breath.

“I don’t!” The flames lit up again, burning dangerously high above their wicks, “Now shut up or get the fuck out of my house.”

Seoyeon waved off the younger girl’s anger, calming down the candles with the flick of her hand. She walked over to the bedroom door but before she would leave she turned to face Yue again, her bright red hair shining around her like a halo.

“You can’t fool me Yue, I’m a damn psychic.” Was all she said before leaving the room, leaving the door irritatingly ajar.

The dancer heard Seoyeon’s goodbyes to the girls through the door, a guttural sigh leaving her mouth when she heard the front done close. She got up from her seat on her bed, feeling all her bones crack upon the stretch, but as she walked towards the door she caught something upon the handle.

Staring back at her was a burned in sigil carved in the wood, each line a very familiar mark that had been seared into her brain from the moment she could see. It was for protection, something to ensure nothing bad could enter the room, Seoyeon must have etched it there on purpose.

“Typical.” She muttered, eyes trained to the mark on the door. She hadn’t seen or made one of those in years, all in hopes that her supernatural past wouldn’t follow her into her new life. Yue supposed she should thank Seoyeon for thinking about her even when she was yelling at her to leave.

“Hey, are you okay? You seemed off earlier.” Yue’s eyes broke contact with the door upon Miran’s sudden entrance, a small smile painted on the girl’s face.

She cleared her throat, grumbling a bit in an attempt to clear her mind of the negative energy surrounding it. She walks back to her bed and pats at the spot beside her, inviting Miran to join her on the blanket.

“I’m okay, just stressed. Y’know, idol shit.” Her laugh is uneasy but Miran’s presence is hardly threatening to her.

Miran frowned, clearly unhappy with the answer as she shuffled closer to her roommate, head resting on the older girl’s shoulder.

Yue noticed how quick she often was to figure out something’s wrong. Maybe it was because they had become inseparable in the last few months that Miran was always able to sniff out sad feelings, or maybe she was an empath that had snuck her way into her life on purpose. Yue goes back and forth on her theories when it comes to this stuff but there’s one thing she knows for sure and it’s that Miran would always be there.

“Just bad memories resurfacing is all, nothing to worry about.” She threw a smile Miran’s way and rested her head against the pillow, the other girl joining and curling up to her in a tiny ball on the bed.

“You can talk to me you know, I might not be able to solve all of it but I can help you speak through it and that might help.” Miran looked up at Yue, eyes wide and full of sincerity.

She knows Miran only wants what’s best for her, she’d never have offered if she didn’t. Still, there’s a stain on her heart that stops her from being fully honest with her, there were far too many things Yue hadn’t fully accepted for her to even begin to think about telling anybody else about them.

“Is this about Seoyeon and the demon? Is there something I should know? I won’t judge you if there is, it’s just that there’s obviously something happening and you seem to have way more answers then you’re letting on to and I’d hate for this to get between us as a group.”

Miran would not stop talking, her words were barely permeating through Yue’s brain as she gazed off into the distance behind her. She’s sure she’s seeing things when she spots the shadowed form on Seokyung on Miran’s bed, just to be sure she blinked and shook her head but when she opened her eyes again she’s still there, staring back at her.

Yue tried to shake off the visions, pinning it to her sleep deprivation but the sight of her former friend haunts her, leaving a sick taste in her mouth. She tried listening to Miran to distract her but it was no use as the image of Seokyung began to burn, flames lighting up the bedroom, flickering around her skin and burning away her features.

“Just shut up, Miran!” Her eyes widened once she had been brought back to reality, the flames withering away as she realised what she had just said to the younger girl.

Miran stayed silent, swallowing the lump forming in her throat and pushing back the slowly growing feelings of regret. The sight of her looking so hurt made Yue want to crawl into a corner and die, like she’d just wounded a puppy.

“Shit, Miran I’m sorry, I just need a moment alone.” She didn’t want to hurt her best friend anymore but just looking at her made her insides freeze up, “please?”

She didn’t say anything, instead removing her arms from Yue and walking out of the room. Once she heard the door click shut Yue slapped her face into her hands, trying her best to erase every bad memory from the last twenty four hours. Seokyung’s appearance had to be the spirit playing it’s tricks on her, what else could it have been?

Fuck, this demon was going to be way harder to live with then she thought it would be.

[snkpolls]

SnK Episode 71 Poll Results (for Manga Readers)

The poll closed with 176 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Manga Readers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll, click here.

--

RATE THE EPISODE 172 responses

This week’s episode keeps up the high mark of the previous episodes, with 98.8% of respondents giving the episode a score of 3 or higher (overwhelmingly 4s and 5s). Nice!

It was aight. 

It's cool

8.5/10 

great!

Very rocky imo in terms of animation, as the cracks are beginning to show but overall look like the backgrounds and music choices were top tier.

Really good episode, I was disappointed in the jacket scene but it’s not the end of the world

loved it

It was overall a great episode I loved it. 

🔥🔥🔥

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING MOMENTS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 174 responses

46.6% of respondents overall were most excited to see Eren meeting up with Floch and the others, with 23.6% of those respondents favoring the scene of Eren putting on his jacket specifically. 12.1% most enjoyed seeing the angry citizens shouting out the Survey Corps motto. 9.8% were thrilled to see Zackley’s death animated. 8% were psyched to see Pieck in disguise at the end, and 6.9% most enjoyed the moment where Hitch caught Armin red-handed trying to touch Annie’s crystal.

YOUR REACTION TO EREN PUTTING ON HIS JACKET? 171 responses

Eren putting on his jacket was a scene many obsessed over when it first appeared on page and many looked forward to seeing it animated. Most of the response choices were focused on various forms of swooning over Eren and his abs. Some (13.5%) stated that they didn’t really understand the dramatism and some others (another 13.5%) simply stated that they did not see much in Eren outright. We’ve gotten a lot of write-ins about comparisons to the pre-animated trailer shot of said scene. More on that in a later question. 

i mean i understand the thirst, but eh

Prefer manga :/

The trailer did it better 

Meh. Better in the trailer and the manga.

TF was that? Well it's still good in its own way. 

YES! YES! YES! YES! Y E S! 

both "HOOOOOLYYYYYY 😳" and "so dramatic and for what?"

Trailer/Manga shot was way better

Manga shot/trailer version are way better. Dissapointed

Trailer looked better :(

Mappa only made Reiner thicc, why Eren is so frain he has 1,85! He is so strong in the manga

I don't care

Manbun.........👀

He can have my babies anytime 😌💅🏻

Not as sexy as advertised; that’s okay, though.

That scene looked weird af ngl. It looked better in the trailer 😔

Me after THAT eren scene: 🤰🏻🤰🏻🤰🏻

Eren makes my dick rise

ON A SCALE OF 1-5, HOW HAPPY ARE YOU NOW THAT WE APPEAR TO BE GOING BACK TO LEVI AND ZEKE’S PERSPECTIVE NEXT WEEK FOR A BIT? 171 responses

Levi and Zeke’s chemistry has been the subject of praise for many, so it’s no wonder that 87.1% of respondents are rather excited to get back to seeing Levi and Zeke again. Wow!

ARE ARMIN’S FEELINGS FOR ANNIE GENUINELY HIS OWN? 173 responses

Armin’s feelings for Annie have been looked at under a microscope for a variety of reasons, which is why we’re asking if you believe that his feelings for her are genuine. A plurality, 49.1% think that they’re a mixture of his feelings for her, as well Bertolt’s. Slightly less (30.6%) believe that Armin’s feelings for her existed since before any of the recent developments. Only a select few believe that he either became interested in her post-timeskip or that his feelings are solely influenced by Bertolt. One person doesn’t think Armin has any feelings for Annie at all. And a few others just don’t care.

Bertmin simping for Annie and that apparently being enough for her to start considering him as boyfriend material is the fucking worst. I hate this shit. It's made me like both characters considerably less.

Uhh Armin where ya reaching?! 

He was interested with her even before it was revealed she was the Female Titan and now that he has Bertholdt's memories, he sympathizes with her too and wants to understand her more so maybe Bert's memories intensified his feelings

His feelings for Annie are mostly his own. Bert's feelings might be in there a little, but the feelings are still Armin's.

CONTINUITY ALERT! EREN HAS HIS HAIR UP IN A BUN IN YELENA’S FLASHBACK. THOUGHTS? 173 responses

Uh-oh, Eren’s hairstyle moment. It would appear that there might be a continuity error with Yelena’s flashback and whatever that means for the timeline. A slight plurality (37%) didn’t seem to care about this, actually. But 33.5% appeared to believe that it was a mistake on MAPPA’s part that might get fixed in the BluRay version of the episode. 16.8% also believe that it was a mistake, but don’t believe it’ll get fixed. 9.8% think that it’s actually a retcon and that Eren’ll have the man bun when Chapter 123 gets adapted in Final Season Part 2.  

I hope it gets fixed because it's bugging me.

I really wish it was like how it was in the manga. Eren looks good with his hair down in his 16-17-year-old phase. Despite the error, it wasn't a deal breaker for the episode.

He looks totally gorgeous with his hair up in a bun, please let this mistake be

Honestly I don’t mind it. It looks great either way.

Eren in a manbun is a total win for me!

WHICH PIECES OF INFORMATION MISSING FROM YELENA’S ADMISSION IN THE MANGA DO YOU WISH WOULD HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN THE ADAPTATION? 163 responses

As with almost all dialogue-heavy chapters in this series, there are cuts. In this episode, these cuts mostly affected the conversation between Yelena and Pixis. The most yearned for cut material was Yelena never telling Eren to go along with the plan and Yelena saying that she used Floch as a “go-between” between her and Eren. Others also noted missing lines about Yelena wanting Eren to stand up for himself, Yelena stating that Zeke gave the volunteers a hopeful future and the idea that her and Eren came to quick agreement. The plurality (31.9%) however, didn’t seem to mind any cuts. 

WHAT ARE YOU OVERALL FEELINGS ABOUT SOME OR ALL OF THE AFOREMENTIONED DETAILS BEING CUT? 161 responses

There is often a sort of expectation to have everything (or almost every) line from the manga adapted in the anime, so it’s interesting to see how people react to that sort of stuff. An almost 50% of respondents stated that they didn’t really care about the cuts, whereas smaller handfuls of respondents stated that the cuts either took away from the characterization of the conversation, or from the context and timeline-building purposes. 

I'm not thrilled about the cuts, but I understand MAPPA can only fit so much in on each episode, so I'm okay with it

the yelena/volunteers plot has always been wonky and hard to follow

I don’t think it’s a problem, they need to cut certain things. 

i literally never notice but i agree that it makes it harder to piece things together 

Meh

It might seem for anime watchers that Yelena didnt do much, and Floch and Zeke that did the most part, in their own plans. Floch to betray and Zeke in predicting Eren wouldnt be on his side in some way. Yelena helped Zeke a lot to where he arrived in the rumbling 

All of the above

ZACKLEY WALKS OVER TO HIS TORTURE MACHINE IN THE ANIME BEFORE MIKASA ASKS WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO EREN, RATHER THAN GLANCE OVER AT IT AFTER HER QUESTION. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE CHANGE? 170 responses

There was a partially comedic insinuation in the manga that Zackley thought about strapping Eren to his “art piece”. The insinuation is possibly still there in the anime, but in a different form. So we asked how you felt about it. Slightly below a half (48.8%) stated that they thought the subtlety was still there. 18.8% thought the subtlety was lost with the small change and 8.8% believed the change made Zackley seem less unhinged. 21.8% really didn’t care at all. 

Why is this a question?

The glance was funny as fuck in the manga, but might have been awkward to pull of in the animation

They're blown up tho, does it even matter?

DID EREN KNOW ABOUT THE BOMB? 170 responses

Whether Eren truly knew about the bomb is a bit unclear to this day and with how it endangered Armin and Mikasa. A plurality (40%) believe he knew about the bomb, but did not know about his childhood friends meeting Zackley. Slightly less (30.6%) think that Eren did not know about either the bomb or AM meeting the Artist. A minority (7.1%) does believe that Eren knew about both the bomb and meeting and 21.8% simply aren’t sure!

Even if he didn’t know, he obviously doesn’t care either way.

THERE IS SOME DEBATE ABOUT WHETHER EREN’S JACKET SCENE WAS BETTER ANIMATED IN THE PROMOTIONAL VIDEO OR IN THE EPISODE ITSELF. WHICH DO YOU CHOOSE? 170 responses

Here we go… The elephant in the room… Which Eren abs scene did you prefer? The Promotional video or the actual episode? A somewhat slight majority (57.1%) seemed to like the version seen in the promotional video more than the episode itself versus the ones who preferred the episode’s style (42.9%).

THE EPISODE MARKS THE BEGINNING OF FLOCH’S ACTIONS AS THE VOICE OF THE YEAGERISTS. HOW ARE YOU FEELING ABOUT IT? 170 responses

Floch has always been a controversial character and the developments seen post-time skip have not been any less debatable. You may floching love him or floching hate, but he’s here and he’s staying for a while. A plurality (48.8%) notes that although they may not personally be a fan of the character, they truly do appreciate the nuance his appearance gives to the story. Just over a quarter (25.3%) stated that as big fans of the character, they’re looking forward to all the screentime the Flochster will receive. In contrast, 20.6% despise the man and his questionable haircut and are also dreading the showcase he’ll soon receive.  

I hate Floch and will cheer again when he dies, but I enjoy his character.

I detest Floch but I'm not dreading all the screen time he'll take up.

Since he died in the manga, my hatred for him has cooled down somewhat now that I'm watching the anime.

I am once again asking for you to shut the fuck up, Floch.

WE KNOW NOW THAT EREN DID CONSPIRE WITH FLOCH TO BETRAY ZEKE TO ENACT THE RUMBLING. STILL, DO YOU BELIEVE HE DID IT BECAUSE HE HAS THE SAME BELIEFS AS FLOCH, OR WAS HE JUST USING FLOCH AND THE YEAGERISTS AS A MEANS TO AN END? 161 responses

An overwhelming amount of respondents (87.6%) stated that they believe Eren never truly saw eye to eye with Floch and his ideology and that Eren was simply using Floch as a means to an end. In contrast, 9.3% truly do think that Eren was ideologically similar to Floch and the “New Eldian Empire”. A select few thought you couldn’t just say one way or another. 

They both wanted to protect Paradis

DO YOU THINK IF THE YEAGERISTS, BESIDES FLOCH, KNEW ABOUT THE FULL SCALE RUMBLING BEFOREHAND THAT THEY WOULD WILLINGLY FOLLOW EREN? 167 responses

The majority (53.3%) feel that the Yeagerists would see a divide if they knew beforehand that Eren wanted to initiate the rumbling, with some sticking around for the cause and others possibly leaving because it’s too extreme. 25.1% believe that they all would have fully supported the rumbling in the name of their own survival. 15% believe that every Yeagerist already knew about the plan to commence the rumbling, and only 6% feel that they would most certainly have betrayed the Yeager brothers (and Floch) if they had known. 

I don’t know, this is a loaded question and I’m tired.

DO YOU THINK THAT, IF THE STORY ENDS PEACEFULLY, MIKASA WILL HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY IN HIZURU? 170 responses

While this plotline may not be going anywhere in the manga (or so it seems), the reminder of its existence is brought to light again as we revisit these older moments from the manga. 32.4% feel that Mikasa wouldn’t leave Paradis behind to start a life on Hizuru. 23.5% think that she wouldn’t leave Paradis behind, necessarily, but will still have a role to play in Hizuru. 21.2% think it doesn’t matter because Isayama has completely discarded (or forgotten) about this plotline. 12.4% don’t know what to predict (if anything) and only 8.2% believe that her future lies in Hizuru beyond the main storyline.

The last two options plus me not caring. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

hizuru is already rumbled, gone, but she will continue the azumabito clan in paradis

Is no one else gonna question Kiyomi's hair being sucked into her skull??? HELLO MA'AM???

Hizuru is likely flattened

WHICH SCENE FROM THE PREVIEW ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 171 responses

Episode 72 has already broadcasted as of the completion of this poll. For scenes that were most anticipated, 35.7% were most looking forward to seeing Levi and Zeke’s interaction in the forest. 33.3% most looked forward to Niccolo leaning straight from Gabi’s mouth that she is Sasha’s killer. 18.7% highly anticipated the Blouses learning about Gabi killing Sasha, and 9.4% were looking forward to Gabi/Falco and the Blouses gathering at Niccolo’s restaurant. Only a small amount were looking forward to Niccolo protecting Jean and Connie from drinking the wine.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

Man the animation was gonky 

no levi </3

So many faces of Niles are weirds !

Let hange aloneeeeeeee and happy, please

I have no word for this, but I feeling good

Shit is getting really real now! 

Everyone talking about Eren’s abs and I just wanna say the music in that scene was amazing!

I loved how it was all neatly put together and fast moving

Armin looked so good. Homie walked from point A to B and i SCREAMED. Thank you. 

i wish they included eren's warhammer escape from the prison, besides that solid episode all around, the people chanting 'dedicate your hearts' gave me chills 

I can't stand Hitch at all but MAPPA made her really pretty. Re: The jacket scene The trailer version was pretty much identical to the manga panel. But I liked the version that made it into the final episode too. People have been so ridiculous about MAPPA ""ruining everything"" this season, they should stop watching if that's how they feel. I thought Eren looked great and found the sun shining on his abs funny. The scenery was better in the episode, imo. I hope they don't cut Jean's line about booze not caring about what race you are. Lmao

Meh. It's not bad of course, I just find the rythm weird and I don't really feel many emotions watching the episodes. And I was so thirsty for the jacket scene, and it turned out weird too.

Mappa pls stop drawing eren like shit he is gorgeous in the manga

MMGH SOON!! LET'S GOOOOOOO

You friccin moron, you just got zooked!

i miss eremin </3

Wish they had shown how eren used his titan powers to escape.

I'm so not looking forward to the controversy that's gonna be reignited during the EMA talk scene. I'm actually dreading it, but we'll finally get the Levi vs Beast Titan scene so I'll be fine

112 will destroy ships 

I felt the animation was flawless as usual but the script was kinda boring, I expected more of these aspects: -Yelena, it was bland with the cuts -Hange, they cut something I cant figure what in this Yeagerists coup act that turned her scenes a little bit lacking? Idk something -Again the soundtrack in the episodes is so silent. The only episode so far I liked the ost beyond the Opening and Closing themes is Reiner episode. I miss the melodrama of Witstudio osts

Eren putting his jacket on in slow-speed whilst talking at regular speed is fucking trippy

Just happy to see Hitch!

It was slow and mainly plot driven. I enjoyed it despite the changes.

goddamn is that a hella well-animated explosion

more abs please

Great episode. Really ridiculous how many people overreacted about the jacket scene. It's ok to perfer the way the trailer did it but to those who say Mappa is ruining the adaptation because of minor things like this, calm down. 

I wish the jacket scene was better But over all the ep is pretty good

Boring, but then again so was this phase in the manga.

I really like the VA they chose for Onyankopon! His voice is very warm and genuine, which suits his character well

The sunset was so aesthetically pleasing 

yoooo just read ch. 138 and im crying in da club :(

These MAPPA episodes have been a low point for me. I’m trying to enjoy them because I love this story but it feels like a chore.

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 161 responses

Thanks again to everyone who participated!

[rdr2dd]

Goals, Moving Forward, Etc.

Because I’ve gotten a few comments/questions asking about the other projects I’ve mentioned, and also for the purpose of giving myself some clear goals to work toward, I want to nail down the direction(s) that this project is probably headed. Excuse the gratuitous detail, but as is likely becoming clear from my posts, that’s how I work best :p

Project 1: Arthur’s Hidden Family

Goal 1: Finding Eliza -

Accomplished, largely, so hurrah for that. There was a lot of background work to get to this point, even beyond the details I gave in the most recent post about it, so I am beyond glad to have finally gotten it done. This step has already laid a lot of the groundwork for future steps. And also, I’m just happy to finally have a face for her.

Goal 2: Conjuring up Isaac - No progress thus far, but I’ve done some planning on how I want to handle this. No files exist for Isaac, at least not that I’ve been able to find thus far, so any models/textures for him would be entirely non-canon/custom work. There’s no element of bringing hidden assets to light here, like there was with Eliza; having a workable model for Isaac would be purely for my own heart’s sake, and for the sake of being able to do fanart renders involving him. This probably involves:

Using Jack (4 yrs old) as a base model, as I’m not talented or experienced enough to sculpt these models from scratch. Facial features would need to be altered to find a resemblance to both Arthur and Eliza.

Digging through the files to see if there are even other young children in the game to draw assets from - Arthur Londonderry’s son comes to mind, but I’m not sure if he’s the right age range, and I’m honestly drawing a blank beyond that. If anyone remembers seeing any kids in the game, please drop me a note as to where you saw them. 

Possibly resizing/altering adult NPC assets such as hairstyles in order to give Isaac a fitting and unique appearance. This sounds like a headache, but may be reasonable enough to do. We shall see.

Lots of custom texture work, largely for his face, which will be especially hard/dicey if there aren’t other children’s models to borrow textures from. 

Goal 3: Finding the Time - Less technical and more research-oriented, I need to nail down a timeline that I’m personally happy with with regards to when in Arthur’s life the events with Eliza and Isaac occurred. Once this is done, it’ll make it easier to decide what to do with Arthur in any renders I may want to do with the three of them. Which ties into...

Project 2: The Old Guard (Expanded)

This was the project I originally had in mind when I started scrounging around for these files. I have an unreasonably huge soft spot in my heart for the ‘curious couple and their unruly son’, but also, just the young gang in general. Hosea back when he’d steal anything not nailed down? Dutch, young and idealistic and years before his downfall? Arthur, young and broody but not yet hardened? Little John, still feral and a menace? Badass, gorgeous young Grimshaw? Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes, please. Not to mention Bessie and Annabelle, who must have mattered so much to these characters, but who we hear and see so little about. I want to be able to do fanart renders with them, but that’s going to take a hell of a lot of work.

Goal 1: Nail Down the Timeline - I’ve started working on this, but there’s a lot I still need to do in terms of skimming audio files and digging deep in the lore. I want to get a general idea of when it seems folks joined the gang, that way I can get an idea of which models I even need to work with. Heavy focus on figuring out: 

When Tilly joined the gang, as I lean toward her being around quite early, but would like to review the audio. I know there are some numbers dropped in a few missions, with regards to when she joined the Foreman Brothers and when she left them to join the Van der Linde Gang, and I want to get this as accurate as possible. 

When Hosea went off with Bessie, and when she passed. We have some context clues, I just need to nail down the math and then feel out the dramatic timing for the rest.

What the deal was with Annabelle. Maybe I just have a passion for the ladies name-dropped once in the game, but good god do I love Annabelle despite knowing absolutely nothing about her. She should be a non-character, but this is a passion project, so there’s no way I’ll be ignoring her.

What to do about Sean. He couldn’t have joined until after 1889, but depending on what year I want to deal with for renders, I may need to account for him. That wouldn’t be a hardship, as he’s one of my faves.

Goal 2: Knock Out the “Easy” Models - By which I mean Hosea, Dutch, Arthur, and Susan. This will involve some custom sculpting work, but not a whole lot, as their base models for 1899 shouldn’t actually require that much alteration. I imagine I’ll be ironing out a bunch of wrinkles, smoothing out a bunch of normal maps, and then using the clone brush and a sampling of generic NPC face textures in order to create younger-looking face textures for this lot. “Easy” is definitely a relative term here, but I’m counting my blessings in that there are, at the very least, reference images for what this lot looked like in the early days. I still have no idea if I’ll be able to accomplish this, or how hard it will be if I can.

Goal 3: John - An intermediate difficulty step, for John alone. We have no reference images of young, 12/13 year old John, but we do have Jack’s 12 yr old model, and that will serve as a decent base to work from, hopefully. I’ll have to make sure to alter his features to be more in line with John’s, and will have to work heavily with his skin/face textures from there. Clothes will be another hurdle, especially as (referenced above), we see like, next to no children in the game for me to borrow NPC clothing parts from. I’ll need to work with what we get from Jack and otherwise resize and rework adult NPC clothing.

Goal 4: Bessie (and Others) - Stepping up the workload again, though in different ways. Bessie will be a task to work out, seeing as we have a single, not particularly great reference image of her facing straight ahead. It’s not much to work with, but it’s something to work toward matching. No two ways around it, she’ll be mostly custom work and mash-ups of generic NPC materials, but it’ll be a labor of love. Also sliding Tilly and (potentially) young Sean in here, as depending on their age there will be a lot of work to do on them, possibly including custom model work, and we don’t have references for what they looked like when they were younger. I’ll make do.

Goal 5: Annabelle - The holy grail in terms of custom work, or the ultimate slog uphill, we shall see. We have no reference images of her. No traces of her exist in the files. We hardly have any clue about how she died, let alone how she lived. And yet, I love her, or at least the potential of her. Hopefully all of my work on the ‘known’ quantities of this project will give me some hope of turning out a unique and fitting model for her, but who knows.

Project 3: Audio Directory

Goal ??? - On pause for the foreseeable future, mostly as I’ll need to do some networking before I’m totally comfortable putting this out there, and also because holy hell have I set up a bunch of other work for myself. The Dream(TM) was to find a way to set up a directory for folks to more easily find audio files on their own. There’s no way to host all of the assorted cool audio from RDR2 online, but it would theoretically be possible to set up a sort of file directory online, a list of file names and descriptions, to help folks browse their audio files on their own without having to reinvent (or in this case, rediscover) the wheel personally. I’m of the opinion that pulling apart the game files should be an all-hands-on-deck sort of situation, but there are a lot of folks who have already put in this work individually, and I don’t want to step on any toes. I also don’t want to be responsible for anyone mucking around with their game files and having trouble down the road, so I’d need to sort out a clear explanation of what precautions to take, etc. It’s a lot to consider, so I’m obviously open to input. 

Wrap-Up

If you’re still reading, congrats(?) and also, thank you. This is all a bunch of planning for some real pie-in-the-sky shit, but I felt that way about finding Eliza in the files about two months ago, so I have hope. If you’ve got thoughts on any step, please, hit me! I want to hear what folks want to see, though I can’t make any promises on what I’ll deliver. Got thoughts on the timeline or headcanons for the less-referenced characters? I’d love to hear. I would also love to hear from anyone with experience on projects like this; goodness knows I’m a self-taught novice. 

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Before Ever After

So we’re back and kicking off the salt marathon proper with the pilot movie, Before Ever After. Lets dig in shall we.

Summray:  Six months after the events of Tangled, Rapunzel is settling into life as princess of Corona, but is unable to enjoy it with the constant protection of her father's guards. When she and her lady-in-waiting, Cassandra, sneak out of the castle, they come upon some black rock spikes that magically bring back her long blonde hair. Meanwhile, a figure from Frederic’s past is out for revenage. 

Lack of Set Up

Right off the bat we got our first flaw. The show opens with a song reintroducing our main characters, where they are right now in the story, and showing off their goals and personal conflicts. All save for Cassandra that is. 

This is Cass. You wouldn’t know it from the pilot but she is the secondary protagonist of the show. (I’m sorry Eugene fans, like it or not she is) And that’s precisely the problem. She gets no introduction. She’s just there. Her entire motivations, goals, and interpersonal conflicts are suppose to drive the story line of the last season and a half, but we have no idea what any of those things are from her beginning episode.     

The show-runners have tried to excuse this with wanting Cassandra’s arc to be a ‘slow burn’ but that’s not how a slow burn actually works. A ‘slow burn’ is either a background element/character being established early and then reveled to be plot important later, (think McGucket in Gravity Falls) or a prominent character being given a seemingly shallow goal/motivation and then slowly peeling back the layers and showing more complexity behind that goal/motivation. (like Zuko in Avatar) 

Cass is neither of these things. She’s not a background element. She’s there from the word go and given the same amount of screen time and focus as both Raps and Eugene through out. But she’s not been established like Zuko either. We won’t know what motivates her until four episodes in, it’ll take another four episodes to show all of her important interpersonal relationships, and it’ll take a whole S3 seasons just to give us a clear goal. 

These are not things your audience should be left guessing about. They are what propel your story forward and must be made clear from the get go. 

Not a Flaw, But...

I don’t like that the series blends several different time periods and cultures together into a grab bag of world building.

Now this is an opinion, not a critique. What’s the difference?

A flaw in writing is a failure to communicate your ideas clearly to your audience. The lack of introduction for Cassandra, as mentioned above, actively gets in the way of the story the writers want to tell. That is a flaw. 

But this? This an idea that the creators wanted to use and they conveyed it quite well. They use various fashions to show off different characters’ personalities, anachronistic technology in order to make certain plot points happen, and visual cues from other cultures around the world to give a feeling of fantasy to the series. It’s very well done. I just don’t like it.      

I personally prefer a more anchored take on world building with an actual designated time period and place, even in a fantasy world. Once again is this just an opinion and there’s no right or wrong here. Just preference. 

And I bring this distinction up now to show that one can have both personal preferences and still give valid criticisms. The existence one does not invalidate the other. Some sub-sections of the fandom love to shut down any sort of critical examinations by acting like having a different opinion is grounds for dismissing critique entirely. 

That’s not going to fly here. Which brings me to...

Lack of Follow Through

Initially, I enjoyed the conflict presented here between Rapunzel and Eugene. Young couples just starting out often have disagreements on what direction they want their lives to go in. It’s very real and very normal and I know actual people who have been there or are currently there right now. 

Unfortunately there’s no follow through. 

The core conflict is never actually resolved on screen at any point in the show. The characters keep putting it off and then it’s suddenly forgotten about by S3. We the audience are just left to assume that they worked things out some where off screen. 

If the lack of intro to Cass showcases the series problem with establishing plot points, then the treatment of Eugene’s and Rapunzel’s relationship shows us the other half of that coin. The show often steps things up or makes a big deal out of stuff that is never again brought up or resolved in a satisfying manner. 

Failure to Learn 

It also shows the fundamental flaw behind the premise of the series. Rapunzel never learns. 

Oh she changes through out the show. The Raps we see here is not the Raps we end up with. But how she develops doesn’t involve her owning up to any of flaws that she presents. 

This conflict with Eugene requires showing the audience that Rapnuzel is not good with communication and by the end she is still not any good with communicating. However, Eugene, and by extension the show itself, just gives her a free pass. 

The show wants to be a coming of age story, but fails at the one thing required for it to be a coming of age story. 

Show Don’t Tell

Getting back to Cass, another problem with the show is it’s over reliance on exposition. In a visual medium, like animation, you want to show the audience the information they need to know when ever possible. You can have exposition from time to time, but you generally want to use it sparingly and not rely on it for really important stuff, like idk... say introducing an important character relationship. 

This scene actually showcases the issue quite well. We are told two things about Cass here.

1. That she collects weapons, indicating is a warrior/tomboy

2. That Cass is the Captain's daughter.      

The first one is shown to us, by seeing her collection, and the second is told to us through a single line. Of the two which would you think is the most important to the story?

You’d be forgiven if you thought her weapon hobby since that’s what the scene focuses on, but it’s actually her relationship with her dad. A dad we won’t see on screen doing anything until episode three, and won’t see him interact with said daughter until episode eight. 

Cassandra's relationship with her parents is supposedly a driving force behind her decisions in season 3, which in turn drive the main conflict, but we so little see those relationships that they leave little impact once they become important. in fact the audience is mostly just left scratching their heads and guessing what went down between them. That’s not a good thing. Once again, motivation, goals, and inter personal conflicts should not be left to viewer interpretation. They need to be established. This line does not establish what audience needs to know.   

Eugene Deserves Better 

On that note, Eugene is set up pretty well, but he doesn’t get the focus he deserves.He’s constantly shoved aside for either Rapunzel’s or Cassandra’s conflicts/goals instead.  

As the series goes on, this translates into him actually being subservient to Rapunzel herself while she goes around bullying, dismissing, and actively brow beating him until he complies to all of her wishes. And the line above is foreshadowing for that. 

The writers don’t consider Eugene a main protagonist, even though they should, and think that all secondary characters must comply to anything and everything the protagonists desire. Which it not how you should write characters ever. 

A good compelling protagonist won’t get everything they want and nor should they. Likewise just because a secondary character wants or needs something doesn’t mean their goals or desires should be ignored. 

The result of this line of thinking is to present an obvious power imbalance in numerous relationships throughout the course of the show, which are unhealthy and uncomfortable to watch. 

As for New Dream specifically, they go from being a cute couple who are learning from one another equally to a toxic relationship where one character is a doormat to the other. The fact that this is presented by the show as ‘positive character development’ and a healthy relationship that is to be emulated is one of the more repulsive elements to sit through. And looking back you can see the warning signs starting all the way back to here in the pilot. 

Lady Caine is Wasted   

Speaking of undeserved characters, meet Lady Caine. By all accounts she should be one of the main antagonist of the series. 

She isn’t. 

If Cass lacks set up, then Caine has too much. She’s given a complex backstory, sympathetic motivation, and a understandable goal from her first reveal. And none of it matters. 

She only appears three times in the series and each time she is cast aside. Her original goals and motivations ignored upon subsequent appearances.   

She is made to be the perfect foil for Rapunzel. Her opposite in every way. And is presented as someone important to the audience. Everything about her screams main villain and the show never delivers on its promise. 

This is Abuse

Another thing the show fails to acknowledge is calling out abusive behavior, routinely. 

In this episode alone, Rapunzel’s father 

Dismisses Rapunzel’s autonomy as a grown adult.

Repeats Mother’s Gothel’s lines about the world being a ‘dark and cruel place’ nearly word for word back to Rapunzel in order to guilt her into staying, there by preforming the same abuse as her former abuser

Is constantly feared by everyone, even his own daughter. To the point that no one trusts him with the truth for fear of what he may do. This is passed off as humorous until you remember he has the power to hang people and has done so for non-violent crimes 

Is hinted at being a totalitarian ruler who disproportionately enacts punishments upon poor people who need to steal to survive. 

Is hinted to have orphaned a child once and may have done so to numerous other children    

Abuses his authority as king to coerce his daughter into obeying him

And that’s only in the first episode. It gets worse guys. Much worse. 

Oh Look! Foreshadowing that Means Nothing

You can’t tell but that’s suppose to be Quirin. This winds up mattering not in the slightest. 

Conclusion

So in conclusion, Before Ever After is a false advertisement. A pilot is suppose to inform the audience of the premise of it’s show and give them expectations of what is to come from the series. Nothing that’s set up here comes to fruition and things that do wind up being important aren’t established properly. The only reason to watch is to find out how Rapnuzel got her long hair back and get the mystery of the rocks. As a singular episode it’s ok, as part of ongoing series it’s dismal. Which is the majority of this show in a nutshell.  

[danwhobrowses]

One Piece Chapter 989 - Initial Thoughts

And we are back from yet another break as One Piece looks to ease into the big battle Hopefully we’re past most the breaks and can get a steady flow of new chapters

Spoilers for Chapter 989 - support the official release as well

We will start as we mostly do with Pound, and he’s got the most tightest of receipts to prove his parentage, will they believe it? Possibly not, depends if they remember how Big Mom looked young

Also, I keep on forgetting that young Big Mom could get it and why she has so many kids...

So unsurprisingly, Kaido’s men fear the wrath of BM after Franky put a wheel in her face, all the while Nami sucks up to Franky in gratitude

Look at Franky’s face though, looking away like ‘only Robin is allowed to stroke my face’, also Carrot in the background

Meanwhile as I noted last time, Yamato declaring themselves as Oden to Momo (and Shinobu) does not go down well. Luffy uses ‘she’ in this text but I feel like that may just be a fan mistranslation

Oda really likes drawing BM as creepy as he can doesn’t he?

I guess there’s a positive in this that Kaido’s inhibited men are no match for the alliance and samurai, but there is the worry that there’s only the challenging lot left, I don’t feel confident for Hyou against the Tobi Roppo (where did Ulti disappear to, she was fighting Yamato)

I also keep forgetting that BM has only met a fraction of Luffy’s crew, meeting Franky does fall in line with her interest in different races, but Franky has no time to flirt like Brook once did

The balls on Franky (when they’re not in Robin’s purse or her Grab) to aim right at BM though, he fears no yonko!

The Numbers crash in though, before I mention them BM looked like she was gonna pull up a meat shield with that Homie there

The Numbers do look a lot like Oars, turns out they’re ‘failed’ recreations? Given their laughs Go, Ja and Ji I’m guessing they laugh in their number value

Strange though, BM seemed completely unfazed by the fact that Kaido got ‘Failed’ Ancient Giants from Punk Hazard, which means they likely came from Ceasar, who was researching Gigantification...for Big Mom...I feel like we’re missing something in between here

Alas poor Usopp and Chopper, Usopp’s showdown with the giants looks like it’ll have to wait

I do feel like we may’ve overestimated the Numbers’ threat though, we’ve seen about half of them and so far one has just been destroyed by Franky’s Radical Beam. What happened to Apoo as well?

WHAT KIND OF GAINS IS JIMBEI ON? He just reverse judo flipped a Yonko 3-4 times his size mid-air!

And finally something for Robin, that’s a long-ass Delphinium to keep BM busy and dizzy...though if she were still Miss All Sunday the end point would be in the ocean for sure

Usopp’s in a bad way, until Fusion entices him back to life XD Luffy would too if he were there, I wonder how Yamato would react though given how Oda has often split the fusion’s reaction between genders

Sometimes I have to wonder about Queen you know? Here he is, standing on an empty execution platform, Luffy pops up and it turns out, Zoro’s been next to him all this time XD

Zoro doesn’t want the commanders though he wants a slice of that Dragon for himself!

Queen does soon get their act together, it must’ve been an impressive catch too since Luffy was using his Rocket

Is it me though, or did anyone else find it odd that Queen had Zoro and Luffy in his mouth, took one look at King and his army of flying SMILEs and decided to spit them out? Like you could’ve bit them in half, or just kept them trapped, that feels like either it’s intentional or a strategic mishap

Unsurprisingly, Sanji’s Raid Suit saved him from fatal damage against King, though it doesn’t look like they’ll renew things just yet

Hyou giving us some death flags though, looks like the Samurai plan to support the crew in the tower climb

But we get our full crew ‘Hero Shot’ (as the gif is a reference to), Sanji jumped out of that raid suit quickly didn’t he? And now seeing Robin’s full outfit I just...trust me, I have 0 problems with Robin’s thighs but if that kimono was any shorter it’d be a jacket, same with Nami’s really

Of course the hero shot is only the current Straw Hat crew too, Carrot seems to have shuffled away from the spotlight, another time maybe, we know she’s still fighting with the crew and not the minks

But looks like the whole crew do plan on confronting Kaido, they just have to get through King, Queen, 2 Numbers and the flying SMILEs

So the tower climb will begin. Interestingly we still are missing the visual of Inu and Neko’s Su Long transformation, the longer they wait it out the more worrisome it feels that the Minks are gonna be crushed. I do feel that a lot of people will be upset by Big Mom’s treatment again, but I think it makes sense a bit, the crew are not heavily damaging her after all, they’re basically keeping her at a distance so they’re not caught in her attacks. Her angered presence also made it handy to dispose of the fodder among Kaido’s ranks. What most intrigued me though was the characters that quickly went missing from last chapter. I know I keep track of the characters yet to appear (how will BM’s delphinium bode when Marco and Perospero arrive?) but this one is very strange; Zeus and Prometheus disappeared from that one attack, we only saw Napoleon, likewise Ulti just up and disappeared too, is she chasing Yamato down? I hope so but of course there are still those other players in the game, does Hyou encounter a Tobi Roppo I wonder? or will that fall mainly on Yamato, Shinobu and Momo.  As for the crew I’m happy to hear that taking Kaido is at least planned to be a group effort, we’ll see how it goes in practice without another week break this time around

[unorthodoxsavvy]

Trying To Catch And Rescue A WILD Pigeon (fic)

This fic is for the wonderful @ttlmt who I know you all are already following wile they’re away as a coming-back present (and for a thank you for using their bad luck with timing of Phil uploading videos to give us not one but 2 new Phil videos while they have no service and cannot watch them).

Rating: G

Word Count: 1.6k

Characters: Dan Howell, Phil Lester, Steve the Pigeon, Scraggy the Pigeon

Ships: Dan x Phil, Steve x Scraggy

Find me on Wattpad

Phil was sitting on the couch, legs on top of Dan’s, scrolling through his twitter notifications, when one caught his eye.

“please help steve. his foot is injured and he might get really sick !!”

Phil went back to the photos and videos he’d shared of Steve for a closer look. They were right- Phil could see what looked like a piece of rope that had become tangled around the poor pale pigeon’s foot and it looked as if it was cutting off circulation. 

Phil showed the photo to Dan.

“Why don’t you put some more seed out and try and get a better look? You know he’ll show up if you do.”

So that’s what Phil did.

Phil sat right up against the sliding glass door, nose almost pressed to the glass and fogging it up slightly. When Steve swooped down to start eating, Phil could really see his foot. It was swollen and whatever had gotten wrapped around it was frayed, almost as if he’d had to free himself from being stuck on something but hadn’t gotten it all off, just managed to cut himself loose. It was bent inward slightly.

Phil sighed sadly. Of course he was going to help Steve, he loved Steve, but how?

Well, he knew the best thing to do would be to call an expert, so he moved outside to get comfortable and looked up the number for the RSPCA on his laptop.

The automated system picked up, stating that unless it was an emergency, than to please wait.

Was this an emergency? It wasn’t a pet, but it was in danger, Phil thought. He didn’t know how long it’d been tied around his foot, and he didn’t know how much longer Steve could hold out on his own- but this was a wild pigeon… it didn’t matter to him, of course- an animal in trouble was an animal in trouble. But he didn’t know the policies here, so he decided to send an email.

He expected them to confirm that it was not a big deal, and was surprised when the answer he received implored him to take care of Steve as soon as possible, as this was an emergency, and to call them right away.

Phil dialed again and waited for someone to pick up.

“Name?”

“Steve.”

“Steve what?”

“Oh my name! I thought you meant the pigeon’s name,” Phil laughed awkwardly, remembering that some places called pets in by their names instead of their owner’s. It wasn’t so far-fetched, right?

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Dan filming him on his phone.

Phil listened to the professional on the other end of the line, using his computer to look up things like addresses for offices to help and phone number for local vets, but they stressed that it would be best if Phil could catch Steve himself. Of course Phil agreed to, and hung up.

“What did they say?” Dan asked from behind the camera.

“They want us to catch Steve and bring him to a vet.”

“How the hell are you supposed to catch a bloody pigeon?”

“I don’t know!”

Phil started looking up methods to catch a pigeon.

“This one says to throw a towel over it, but that seems traumatizing.”

“As if you could ever manage to do that,” Dan scoffed.

“This one says to trap it under a box! How are you supposed to get it out from under the box! It’ll just fly away!”

Dan stopped filming and put his phone down to sit across from Phil at their patio table.

“Why can’t you just convince him to come inside or something? He’s already half way there.”

“How are we going to catch him inside?” Phil asked, but just then his eye caught a phrase on page 2 of his google search. 

“What if we train him to climb into a pet carrier,” Phil asked, focused on the page the link had brought him to.

“I mean that sounds more manageable than anything else you’ve found.”

So they went and bought a pet carrier.

Phil had Dan film him talking about his plan of putting seed in the carrier to lure Steve in gently as well as him explaining how he’d packed a towel in the bottom for maximum comfort.

Dan and Phil, though mostly Phil, over the next few weeks, made sure to try their best to only feed Steve and place heaping amounts of encouraging seed in the pet carrier. A new pigeon had shown up as well that Phil had named “Scraggy” because of her disheveled appearance, but she’d taken a liking to Steve. Phil knew he needed to help Steve get better so he could be reunited with his lovely Scraggy.

While this training was going on, Phil had taken to emailing various vets around the area looking for help. One responded kindly that they’d be willing to make an appointment for Steve. Eventually, though, they had stopped replying and Phil decided to pluck up te courage to make a phone call. It was for Steve, after all.

Phil had Dan film him again as he made an appointment for Wednesday.

Everything was set, and the only thing left to do was to catch Steve on that fateful Wednesday morning.

What could go wrong?

Wednesday morning arrive.

There was no sign of Steve.

Finally, after waiting around for hours, Dan spotted him in the tree.

“Get the carrier out,” Phil instructed.

“If he flies away when you come near it, how are you going to close the door?”

Phil’s eyes drifted in thought.

“Oh! What if we tie a string around it and close it by pulling the strong from inside?”

Dan rolled his eyes.

“Our lives are already a cartoon plot, might as well.”

And so that’s what they did.

Except, they didn’t have any string. Or yarn. Or anything, really. All they had were cords. 

Dan offered up his spare phone charging cord and started filming Phil tying it around the cage door.

“Alright, why don’t you pull it closed while filming and then I’ll run over and lock it shut.”

Dan looked up at him.

“Are you serious?” 

“Yes?” Phil smiled sheepishly.

Dan made a big deal of huffing and puffing about the plan but Phil knew that Dan would do it for him.

Phil sat the pet carrier full of seed laid upon the towel on their porch.

Dan crouched behind their ottomon watching as Steve slowly made his way into the pet carrier.

“Now,” Phil said when Steve was inside.

Dan pulled the phone charger.

Steve’s tail got stuck in the door but Phil was there in a second to push the door closed, and by that time Steve had already taken another step in. Scraggy was right behind the pet carrier, confused.

“Sorry Steve.” Dan zoomed in on the pet carrier. “We’re trying to rescue you.”

Scraggy waited patiently on the porch.

“Alright let’s head out.”

Phil walked down the street holding the pet carrier with Steve inside while Dan walked next to him and filmed.

The foot and car traffic were insane that afternoon, of course.

They made it to the vet without much incident, and the vet assistant met them at the door. They reassured Phil that Steve would “probably be fine” (which Phil didn’t like the sound of), and promised to call him with an update when they were done.

It was then Steve was handed over from the care of two bumbling idiots to animal medical professionals.

The two of them walked back home to wait.

It was only two hours, which, when you thought about it, didn’t seem too long, but for Phil it felt like ages.

Finally Phil noticed he had a voicemail, and had Dan record him while he played it out loud.

“I’m just calling you to let you know that the pigeon that you brought in to us is all done! He’s alright, we got the string off his foot, he did have to loose a toe unfortunately, but they adapt to that very quickly.”

“Do you want to pick him up now?” Dan asked after the recording was finished playing and Phil had finished talking to the camera.

“Yes, please.”

They walked back to the vet and picked up their bird.

They ended up needing to go in their lift to get back to their flat, which they had already ridden down to get to the street on their way out, and Phil wondered what it was like for Steve to ascend vertically without actually flying, and if he could tell they even were from inside the pet carrier.

Finally, it was Phil and Steve on the porch once more while Dan filmed.

Phil made a moment of opening the door to the pet carrier while the cacophony of London sirens clashed in the background. Phil had just put some more bird seed up on their feeder a moment before as an apology for Steve. To Phil’s surprise and delight, Steve flew up onto their railing area and then hopped down onto the feeder.

Dan and Phil laughed.

“I thought he’d be scared of me, but he’s just like ‘food?’” Phil bent down smiling to the camera.

Quickly he was joined by Scraggy, and the two of them sat in the feeder eating away as if nothing had happened.

Phil shuffled back inside.

Over the next few weeks Steve kept returning with Scraggy, and to Phil it looked like they were even building a nest. Phil knew that he couldn’t have Steve dependent on the birdseed alone forever and pledged to started weening him off the food.

Maybe some day in the future they’d have baby Scraggy and Steves.

And hopefully, if they did, none of them needed to be brought to the vet.

However, Dan and Phil had already proven to themselves that if that were the case, they were ready.

[querosermagrax]

How to create the perfect personal brand website

Recognition is critical in the global of on line business enterprise. If customers can find out a business enterprise based mostly on nothing extra than a emblem or photo meaning the company has embedded itself into the awareness of a purchaser. But how precisely is that beneficial to a corporation?

Personal branding is ready belief just as lots as it’s miles about recognition. For example, in case you up the visibility issue of your website profil pribadi or business enterprise it'll not be lengthy earlier than you've got got driven yourself into the collective popularity of the world’s online network. If a organisation or a person has labored their manner into a person’s mind they have already gained half of of the struggle. From here on out, each time your company or region of know-how is said, you are the person who robotically comes to mind. As a result, whether or not authentic or now not, these equal subjects begin to understand you due to the fact the last leader in stated challenge.

The only way branding will ever in reality artwork is if your enterprise corporation fights to remain prominently displayed. You by no means want your goal market to neglect approximately which you are available to do enterprise. Put yourself the front and middle in an try to reveal consumers exactly what your enterprise offers. Repetition enables as properly in terms of reminding clients of your endured presence. Be certain to region your photo of preference on every thing of your internet web page or anyplace your call may additionally seem. Do now not supply a patron the possibility to miss you by using the usage of shirking away into the background. It is critical to take into account that non-public branding is a sluggish device that works over the path of a steady term. You are not going to expand a recognition in a single day. That does not show up in the international of business business enterprise. You have to be affected character whilst coping with private branding.

In particular non-public branding differs from company branding within the feel that the preceding is whilst an character targets to make themselves the face of the commercial employer or a reputable professional in a fantastic vicinity. Personal branding has it many rewards, now not the least of this is the fact that, while a success, it surely does tend to humanize in any other case faceless organizations.

When selecting a image, make certain you choose one which shows your superb aspect - each truely and figuratively. It is important that you pick out a professionally photographed picture as you need to appear convincingly authoritative. Remember too that this picture can be used for years yet to come. Make high quality it’s a photo you can stay with throughout the unforeseeable destiny.

A commercial enterprise will become a achievement if it has dependable customers. For each proprietor of a employer, this is an essential fact of life. To stay related with the area of interest market and gain clients, a first rate manner to head is the internet site. A lot of time is spent on logo advertising and marketing through business enterprise owners. To identify clients unique techniques for advertising and marketing are laid and diverse channels are tapped.

If you awareness on advertising and marketing then it’s a long way feasible to draw reliable clients. When there is ideal stability maintained between values, goals, ideals, challenge and vision of enterprise, the logo way of life is created. This method pushing the brand on a non-public emblem net web page.

Why Is A Personal branding Website Important For Content Sharing For A Personal Brand?

For your private emblem, sharing of content cloth on the Personal Branding Website is as critical which turns into a effective device for personal branding. Awareness of your logo is viable inside the maximum superior way viable on the web with content sharing especially amongst customers and competitors. Whatever may be the modern day traits in the place you consider, you’ll want to preserve your self up to date.

To understand the maximum wide variety of customers, it’s a ways important which you have an powerful e-trade website. To enhance the private emblem call, focusing on incredible and updated content material fabric is important. If the internet web site consists of suitable key terms or the emblem name, it receives less hard for the customers to select out your emblem online. Customers ought to sense that yours is an appropriate product they were seeking out with the content supplied at the website.

How Can A Personal branding Website Lead To Sponsorship And Endorsement Deals For A Personal Brand?

By sponsorship and endorsement offers, the list of customers can see an increase. If there's a effective agency that likes to connect to your brand and also you too are involved then you will be a part of that organization and get linked. A expert net web site is constantly properly occupied with the aid of the targeted audience so take note of this issue. Identify relevant packages so that it will fit your internet web page and enhance communication with contacts. If you have got were given a personal blog then special social media websites may be linked to showcase your logo name.

Why Is A Website Important For Marketing For A Personal Brand?

To define your product from the relaxation of the competitors, you could want to maintain a logo life-style of your very own. Customers start believing for your values and the way you bypass about the commercial corporation whilst the emblem way of life is powerful sufficient.

It suggests that as a logo proprietor you’re committed and clear inside the primary values and most critical subjects for your company. Starting online is the terrific way to go to goal the location of hobby market and ensure better promoting, advertisement and on line advertising through the website online.

[joonsrack]

+Pairing: Kim Seokjin x Kim Namjoon

+Genre: SFW (this chapter), E2L, attempt at crack, slow burn, WIP

+Word count: 1.2k (this chapter)

+Chapter: Prologue | 1 | ?

+Rating: General audience (this chapter; rating might go up as story progress)

+Warning:  No warning for now, except maybe the fact that i’m trying my hand at crack

+Summary: 

Celebrity chef Kim seokjin needs to salvage his reputation after being dragged in the news paper as a heartless monster out to make people cry. Enters his agent with the worst idea ever and one Kim Namjoon, the worst cook ever.

(Or: Jin is a Korean Gordon Ramsay and Joon is the bane of his existence.)

+A/N: Hello. This is for the Luv Library Collab - Culinary & Cuisine, which was due like ten days ago.... anyways. This was supposed to be a one shot but i realized i wanted to explore this plot more, so it became a WIP. I’m really proud of what the prologue came out like, heres to hoping i can pull this off during the whole thing :P

Seokjin slaps the paper down on his manager’s desk, looking like the perfect picture of confusion and exasperation. The phone is ringing in the background, as it has for the past twenty-four hours, slowly dragging him ring by ring down into insanity.

“Why are you showing me this? How is that any different than all the other times?”

Yoongi sighs deeply, not looking away from the new lamp on his desk; the fifth one this month.

Some people stress-clean, some stress-bake; Yoongi stress-shops light fixtures.

“This,-” he stresses, “is very different than all the other times” He purses his lips for a moment, finally sparring him a look after wiping away at an imaginary dust from the lampshade. “You made Jeon Jungkook cry.-”

“ Allegedly! ”

“- He’s the nation’s baby. The public wants your head” He says, picking up the magazine and waving it lethargically around for emphasis. “There will be blood to pay”.

He throws the magazine back at Jin, Jin catching it in extremis. On the first page is in big bold yellow letters: Celebrity chef Kim Seokjin bullies nation’s sweetheart Jeon Jungkook. Then in smaller characters: Has fame gotten to his head? There’s a screenshot of the tweet taking up most of the front page, looking very dramatic for what it really is.

“He asked me to rate his cooking and showed me dog vomit, what was I supposed to do?!” Jin asks, voice reaching high proportions. He doesn’t whine. He’s an adult. 

“Not asking him if this was the digested version would have been a good start.”

“And be kind to someone with an anime profile picture? In which universe?

“Couldn’t you see the little blue verified sign by his name?”

“ Anime. profile. picture. ”

Yoongi doesn’t answer, and Seokjin can’t hold back a groan. All of this happened because of the devil that is Jeon Jungkook. He knew exactly what he was doing, faking those tears during that live. Now his fans are onto him, making his life miserable.

“I merely told him his food looked like shit, but his fanbase- they’re” He pauses, shivers. Yoongi gets this unfocused faraway look in his eyes, probably going through some serious PTSD of all the time Jin set off idol’s fans. 

The phone rings, cutting through what probably is some very violent flashbacks. Yoongi fiddles at the lamp switch nervously, turning it on and off a few times to help keep his calm.

It’s the ring too many, and Jin rips the cord out of the phone in a flare of exasperation.

Under Yoongi’s startled stare, he lets his body sag on one of the couches, using the magazine to shield his eyes. Artfully, mind you; he’s not being dramatic, he’s being emotionally expressive. This situation is emotionally draining, and he needs to lay down for a sec. This probably the biggest crisis since he started gaining popularity, bigger than the time he accidentally asked Brad Pitt for nudes on twitter (Accidentally meaning he was drunk. Or so that’s what the public believes).

There’s a stretch of silence, both men contemplating every decision that led them here, in this office, with this pesky problem that is Jeon Jungkook faking tears on one of his lives to get back at Seokjin for calling his food ‘ animal regurgitation ’.

“Do you think this is the right hue for my office?” Yoongi asks distractedly, breaking the contemplating silence.

Jin sits up, letting his weight rest back on his elbow. “In all honesty it makes your head look big.” 

Yoongi’s eyes go sharp, taking badly to Jin’s criticism. He purses his lips, eyebrow arching to complete the look.

“Anyways, I found a solution.” he says, an evil glint appearing in his eyes.

“You did?” Seokjin asks, fully sitting up as confusion and worry mix in his guts. His agent waited all this time to bring it up, that just can’t be good.

Yoongi nods slowly, a mean smile stretching his lips. “I was unsure if it was the right one until now, but I think it just might be the thing to help us out of our little situation.”

“Oh?” Jin says, gulping loudly.

    “Oh, no.” Namjoon says, looking quite pale. “Absolutely not. I’ll get sued. We’ll get sued.”

“Come on now, Joonie. Think about it. It would be a good opportunity to promote your new album-”

“Playlist.” Namjoon corrects Hoseok, who ignores him.

“-Plus it’ll make you look relatable in the public’s eyes.” 

“How is me being an agent of destruction in the kitchen relatable in anyone’s eyes?”

“Look, all you have to do is go there, try not to chop your fingers off, make sure at least one of your dimples is visible at all times, and then you’re done.”

“Ok but what about my dignity? How can I ever rap about having an automatic dick if the whole nation learns I’m a useless adult.”

“Oh baby,” Hoseok says, a playful glint in his eyes. “You broke three pair of sunglasses in front of your fans last month. They already know.”

Namjoon grimaces.

“This is on a whole other level of public humiliation, Hyung. Me, in a kitchen, cooking.”

Hoseok sighs, rounding his desk he was leaning on to ruffle through the papers covering it. He’s usually a neat freak but they’ve been very busy with his last release. He grabs something from under a pile of paperwork, letting out a victorious ‘hah!’.

“There,” He says, holding out a brown envelope to Namjoon. “-It’s the proposal. Read it, and think about it, but I sincerely believe this could be a good way to promote your album.”

“Playlist.” He corrects, more resigned this time. 

His album hasn’t been doing too well; not bad, but not good either. They’re having trouble gaining traction, his agency on the smaller side and struggling to be taken seriously. He’s grateful for everything Hoseok is doing, and this is no exception. He knows he needs to do this, dignity or not.

Until something catches his eyes in the first few lines. There’s the title of the show, the producer name, the dates of filming, a slight summary of what the show is about, and then:

MC: Kim Seokjin

Because life hates him. 

His heart goes double his regular rate, hands becoming sweaty under half a second. His clothes seem suddenly too tight, too warm.

He can still remember, on that faithful pre-debut evening, lounging in his bunk bed while watching his favorite youtuber talk about himself.

It was before Kim Seokjin went mainstream and landed himself his own cooking show. Back when Eat Jin, his channel, had under 400k subscribers, and it was mostly videos of him cooking his favorite food and then gorging himself. This particular video was a Q&A, and for some reason he couldn’t understand, Namjoon was fascinated by this man, so of course he was watching it attentively. He was funny, handsome, charmingly witty in his answers. 

But it only took one sentence from Jin for Namjoon to finally understand exactly why he was so obsessed with the man:

“I like it. When my mouth is full of food. Because when I swallow, a large amount of food goes down and it feels like I’m almost going to choke- I really like that feeling.”

Namjoon had dropped his phone from the top bunk, too busy having an epiphany to even notice the sound of it smashing on the floor.

His sexual orientation was never the same after that night. 

And now he was going to lose his dignity in front of his gay awakening catalyst.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep 23: Roland Freaks Out for 25 Straight Minutes

Oh man, took a break from the blog for a bit there because I gave myself a project to do that is 160ish color panels to draw by June 30th and um...it takes a while to do that, it turns out. Every time I’m like “wow I actually have enough time to make a buffer for the blog” I get so distracted.

But anyways, I started having some issues with my wacom tablet, my mouse is a nightmare, and so...I’m just gonna look the other way and write a recap and unplug all of the wacom stuff and just stay the hell away from whatever happened to that...tablet.

maybe It’ll be fine tomorrow?

*sweats nervously*

Thank God I didn’t buy a cintique, that’s all I’ll say. 

Anyway, lets go back to Yugioh. Where were we?

That’s right. Mokuba is checking in with my favorite Kaiba, Roland, who is currently just trying to keep the company running while the official Kaibas are flying to California.

And I’ll be honest, as I was typing this I thought “and why are they going to California again?” and it took me like...10 minutes to remember that Seto dropped absolutely everything and jumped on this massive plane in order to beat Rafael at cards to win the title “King of Games” which...Yugi had already lost to Rebecca about 2 years ago prior, but don’t tell that to Seto. Or Rebecca.

Also don’t tell Seto that the “King of Games” title originally comes from being possessed by a very emo ghost that has a tendency to set people on fire with Russian whiskey and has nothing to do with whatever shenanigans went down with Pegasus.

Honestly, I like to think that in the modern version of this show, Pegasus threw the “King of Games” line out there as like a corny joke, and when the teenagers started latching onto it like it was real, he was like “Oh what?” and left it alone because he just got his left eye ripped out of his face and was very distracted by the large amount of cultists in his basement that he suddenly needed to let go.

But youknow it’s the end of the world, Kaiba’s company is being bought out by a competitor, one of Dartz’ assassins are trying to kill both him and his brother, but he has to go to California immediately to play Rafael while he has the chance. Not sure how Alister got the tip-off that Kaiba would be flying back to California so quickly, but knowing the Kaibas, they probably jump on a plane several times a week.

I’m just still baffled that Mokuba’s doing this over a cell phone. That he was like “I better call someone.” and instead of calling the Airline or the Coastguard he’s like “I’ll call Roland💗”

I’m pretty sure Roland saw that phone ringing with Mokuba in the callerID and was like “NO NO NO NO NO”

(read more under the cut)

Luckily for Roland, everyone at Kaiba corp has to learn how to fly planes in order to pass the entry exam.

For reals though, that plane just casually bumped off a mountain like it’s in Diddy Kong Racing.

There’s a lot of levels of brother’s saving brothers in this episode. You have Seto who thinks he’s saving Mokuba, but in fact it is Mokuba saving Seto by keeping this plane afloat. And then in reality, you can take another brother step backward and say it was Roland who was saving Mokuba who was saving Seto by giving the phone to that rando, and take even another step backward and say it was this Random Guy who was saving Roland who was saving Mokuba who was saving Seto.

So in reality, no brothers were really able to save eachother, it was actually that one secretary at the desk who screamed “JUST PULL THE LEVER HARDER, I DUNNO” until it worked.

But just remember that the theme of this episode is brothers saving brothers, although Mokuba is too small to really fly this plane, and Seto is too crazy to stop this duel and Roland is not really the secret inept heir of the Kaiba bloodline, and only in my little headcanon.

And also, I just have no idea who that random secretary is.

Anyways, Alister made this thing happen on the field.

Hey guys?

How many guns do you need on a tank?

Like I...

That is a hilarious amount of guns on this tank.

Like every character designer part of me is dying right now. It’s when you’re learning Maya, and you finally figure out the duplicate tool, and you just--you just strap a billion guns on a spaceship. We’ve all done this.

But like...this gunship has a face, and that face has it’s own tiny Oricalchos.

All I’m saying is that Alister is having a hell of a time in his Maya 101 class he takes at the local community college when he’s not busy working for Kaiba Corp Airlines or busy killing people for Dartz. I want to know what grade he got on this project, because in my Maya classes the only people who were this dedicated were building weird ass warships for their games or building intense 3D My Little Pony fanfic.

Here’s a list I can think of from the top of my head of challenges Seto Kaiba either quit or completely failed outright (basically the times Seto has NOPEd out or been forcibly kicked out):

-Joey Wheeler’s many challenges and also Spanish Class (as mentioned above)

-Beating Yugi in a card game

-Not joining Pegasus’ tourney initially so he could go on a vacation.

-We’ll just assume he’s only taken like a bunch of random college classes but only got an honorary degree

-Chess (like he was a Grand Master at one point but wtv, cards exist now)

-Didn’t arrest the Big Five or remove them from his mmo so they freakin died in there.

-Being the actual owner of the Millennium Rod

-Every time Yami tells him that they should be friends

-That whole story line where he was dating a dragon in a past life

-fulfilling that prophecy of killing Yami in the present timeline to end the world

-attempting to blow up his own battle city tournament before it was over because he didn’t win

-Getting all 3 Godcards

-When a possessed Tristan appeared over a mountain top to duel everyone and Seto just went “I’m out” and simply walked away

-Flying a blimp from point A to point B without it setting on fire

-Getting his Dad to build an amusement park

-Just anything to do with Noah

-the existence of magic in general

-every attempt he’s had to rebrand Kaiba Corp as “funtime games inc I swear we don't make tanks anymore, stop looking at all the tanks”

-Seto Kaiba’s entire Destiny storyline this season that he has gone way out of his way to get away from.

And like I’m sure there’s more, but I feel like half of Kaiba’s MO is that he is either Too Good To Bother With This or he has Lost Everything Very Dramatically. Mokuba at least has the right idea, by being one of the few people who has beaten Yugi Muto by peacing out halfway through the duel and stealing all Yugi’s stuff off of Yugi’s side of the table.

Anyway, despite it being like...5 seconds since we saw Roland in a weird cyber room in what I assume was Japan, we now see him with his head pressed against the glass of this helicopter being like “BOYS NO NOT AGAIN WHY”

And youknow, Roland was just trying to do the right thing, but he accidentally made things a million times worse by just showing up.

And so Alister was like “well I better crash the plane now with this gust of green energy that destroys all mechanical equipment.”

Really not sure how Alister was planning to leave this plane after this duel was over. I don’t know if he thinks that far ahead.

this isn’t even a joke I made up, Roland really did run up to the pilot and was like “Just throw down some ladders! That should work!” and it’s like...Do you not see the giant ship covered in a thousand guns right now, Roland?

And then Alister and Seto decide to have a fight about ethics where they’re both pretty wrong.

I mean it’s not the exact line but yes this is basically what Seto said, point blank, and I was like “well...at least he owns it.”

So cards happen, dragons get played (so MANY dragons) and because we had to end this arc, Alister loses the duel as we kind of knew he would.

And then Mokuba, because he knows no other life, sees an asshole older brother in pain and just wants to adopt him.

Enjoy that trauma tossed onto your already megalith sized trauma pile, Mokuba.

Elsewhere, the legendary dragons have started syncing again, which is a weird thing that they can do that none of these guys have any control of.

Mostly it just irritates whoever is holding these cards at the time.

But behold! the glory!

The glory of three tubby dragons wielding a plane!

It’s what Kaiba always wanted but he had absolutely no idea he was doing it. Will anyone tell him that he managed to summon three dragons to fly him around the sky like a mamma bird? No. No one bothers to tell him that his wildest dreams just came true.

FYI There were other stills of more of the dragons and the plane, but I kept pausing on instances where it kinda looked like they were humping the plane so I gave up.

But, at least we all get to meet up, around the smoke coming out the back of this giant plane that now...will just sit here...until someone sues KaibaCorp over it, I guess.

Like a soccermom, now Roland gets to give the whole frenemy crew a ride with...copters or whatever.

I dont’ know how Roland got here, y’all.

This happens a lot with animated shows, youknow, there’s a lot of plot threads, a lot of scenes and episodes that get freelanced out and outsourced, and people who make these shows aren’t working on the whole thing at once, they’re just going off of director notes--so there’s a good chance they had no idea that Roland...just shouldn’t be here.

But it’s OK, I enjoy whenever Roland is panicking in the background. He’s good set dressing.

Seto does not give any more explanation of this corpse.

And then, sprinting as fast as he could out of his copter comes Roland, who does what Roland does best. It’s this moment where you would usually see a parental figure reveal how much they care and adore their little children. But because it’s Roland, and these are the Kaibas, he instead takes this moment to reveal exactly how inept he is at the very last second.

Never change, Roland. I love this massive green haired disappointment.

Anyway, I’m not sure when I’ll get the next update out, since I’ll be knee deep in drawing art I don’t need to draw, but just know I’m not dead. Usually I post fanart or whatever, but all I have is this Dartz I started drawing but he just has so much hair that I don’t think that one will ever get even remotely finished.

But anyway, if you just got here, this is a link to read these from the start.

[renwritesstuff]

first impressions

I submit to #MERWEEK2020, First Impressions. Samantha Traynor x FemShep

Sure the first time they spoke was on the Normandy SR-2, but that was not the first time they met.

October 22, 2183

“I thought you were allergic?”

“To free food and rubbing shoulders with the top brass?” A plump woman with a short bob of brown hair and blue eyes arched an eyebrow as she swept lipstick over thin lips.

“To bullshit,” Specialist Samantha Traynor clarified, her arms still crossed as she hunched in her desk chair. 

Specialist Mary Dietrich gave an acknowledging shrug. “You’re not wrong, but free food does wonders for keeping my bullshit allergy at bay.” She made a theatrical sniffing noise.

Sam pressed harder, “You know the ANN vultures will be there. Probably Khalisah al-Jilani too, your archnemesis.” She took a loud slurp of cold tea from the mug on her desk, racking her brain for more reasons why they shouldn’t go out tonight. “Also Staff Lieutenant Jeong and the rest of the smug quartermasters who love rejecting our grant proposals. You know we would be done with the new defense suite if Jeong wasn’t besties with Bautista in applied physics, right?”

Sighing, Mary made flicking motions to smooth out wrinkles on the sleeves of her dress blues. “Well now I want to go just to kick Jeong in the balls.” The orange holo screen projected from her wrist that was acting as a mirror disappeared as she set a glare on her fellow R&D mate. “C’mon Sam. Contrary to your belief, this is actually one of the perks of working on Arcturus Station. First on the victory tour to celebrate the end of the Eden Prime War! Oo-rah!”

Oo-rah, Sam groaned inwardly and more than a little sarcastically. Her nose wrinkled with her silent scowl.

Mary must have seen the face Sam made, because she stood up, hands on hips. “Suck it up, newbie! I will pull rank on you if it’ll make you leave the damn lab.”

Samantha squawked in protest. “I leave the lab!”  

Sometimes! To sleep!

Traynor.

Okay, I sleep on the couch most nights. To change?

...Traynor.

Well they shouldn’t make the laundry service so convenient then. To shower?

……Traynor.

Fine! L Wing has the best faucets! Not my fault the washroom is one door down! I am a slave to convenience, okay??? It keeps my mind researching and developing per my job title, doesn’t it??

“Sleeping and making tea don’t count,” Mary scoffed back. “Plus this is a big deal. Don’t you want to be able to tell your grandkids about meeting all the heroes who saved the Citadel and the Council?”

“...Do I have to?”

A laundry back was draped over Sam’s face, filling her vision with crinkling plastic. Mary patted her head through the bag. “Damn right, you do. Or you get to tell Lydia you made me late.”

Oh fuck. She had only met Mary’s wife Lydia half a dozen times in the 6 months since she started at R&D on Arcturus, but the woman made an impression. A stern, stoic Kodiak mechanic, Lydia had never cracked a smile once at any of the dozens of quips and small jokes Sam compulsively made. And Lydia had a voice like a drill sergeant that made Sam want to stand up straight before offering to do push ups please-and-thank-you-ma’am.

Pulling the bag off her face, Sam unzipped it to find her dress blues freshly laundered and folded crisply. She mumbled, “....I’ll be good.”

Arcturus Station was the pride and joy of the Alliance with a state of the art light rail to traverse the 5km diameter arms. At the center was a large convention hall that could hold 20,000 of the 45,000 population at one time. Surrounding departments had been cleared out to serve as food stations, coat checks and privacy areas to host the current set of guests. 

Sucks to be them, Sam frowned in empathy as she waited with Mary in the biometric security line. I can’t imagine having to clean up and stash all the rubbish we have lying around just so some fancy-pants donor can hang their coat up. Reminds me of a grammar school open house.

The overwhelming number of people made it hard for her to carry on a conversation with her coworker. Mostly human, with a few asari in sleek dresses and tuxedoed turians sprinkled in made up the meandering line that started at the light rail station. Background noise consisted of a dull roar of voices that grew louder the closer the two women got to the convention hall proper with just the faintest bass beat of music.

As they finally crested the last stairwell, the site of the grand hall was truly breathtaking. Large blast windows revealed a swirling backdrop of the Arcturus Stream nebula. Even the Arcturus mass effect relay was visible, the blue element zero core at its center flickering like a star. A few moving pins of light appeared next to the relay, more ships arriving to join the fleets already at Arcturus Station.

Decorated in heavy Alliance blue and gold, there were holo posters posted at intervals around the circular hall. Dramatic vid portraits of human heroes (with occasional notable alien Council SpecTRes appearing in between, no doubt a nod to the Council guests present) animated silently, larger than life. 

A red-headed woman appeared multiple times at different angles and wardrobes on the vids, clearly the focus of the event. In one image the woman was pictured with a straight backed salute wearing dress blues, another wielded a rifle in heavy armor, another was flanked by a group of men and women (human and alien alike).

Commander Annelise Shepard, First Human SpecTRe. Hero of the Citadel. Captain of the Normandy SR-1, the most advanced ship in the Alliance Navy.

The room was warm with all the bodies and Sam found herself clinging to Mary, who was busy texting Lydia to attempt to meet up somewhere on the crowded floor. The clamor of conversation barely dipped during a few speeches broadcast across the hall. Admiral David Anderson’s low bass voice welcomed the guests to the station and indicated there would be a meet-and-greet with the Heroes of the Citadel after cocktails.

Excited jabbering was all around them as people tried to catch glimpses of the headliner heroes. Sam was only somewhat familiar about the events from a few weeks ago, much of it still under top secret clearance. Just that all the recent geth activity triggered from the terrorist attack on Eden Prime culminated in the attack at the Citadel. A joint task force crew, helmed by the first human SpecTRe, was responsible for bringing the terrorist down and saving the Citadel and the Council at the cost of human lives.

It seems kind of far-fetched, doesn’t it, Traynor?

Like something I’d read in a story. Or play in a video game.

Ooo, I hope it has a character creator. And I can make the character super hot.

It took the better part of a half hour of crowd weaving to track down Lydia Dietrich, Mary’s wife. A tall woman with very short, slicked-back hair was nursing a beer while she chatted with a small group of fellow mechanics hunkered by the dessert table. While Lydia and Mary started a row of friendly bickering (“What took you so long?” “What took you so long?”), Sam wandered over to the desserts to seize an opening in the line.

Ooo, lemon curd tarts! Her fingertips drummed impatiently on her pant leg as she watched the pile of tarts diminish with each new tiny plate down the buffet line. Couples in front of and behind her were laughing and gossiping.

“Oh did you see the Commander? I saw Cameron snap a holo of her.”

“I thought she’d be taller.”

“Not sure why they felt the need to bring the quarian, too.”

“I mean, it was on the crew, right?”

She. She is on the crew. Even Sam knew that.

“Can’t believe General Williams’ granddaughter was there, too. I thought all that family knew how to do was surrender.”

“Maybe she and the quarian were a distraction for the real heroes to do the real work.”

Simpering laughter followed which made Samantha’s skin crawl.

“Not sure why they had to open this event to all the little minions at the station. We paid forty-five thousand credits a plate for this? While little desk-jockeys like miss-didn’t-even-do-her-hair over there can show up and eat our food?”

It took a glance backward for Sam to realize they were talking about her. She resisted the temptation to lift a self-conscious hand to her hair.

Poppycock, I know I look amazing. I always look amazing.

“I know, darling. Our tax dollars pay their salary. You’d think they’d have the courtesy to stand behind us in line. Like good help.”

Remaining silent, Sam continued the slow march to the dessert table. She did fire up her Omni-tool and do a quick scan while waiting, the extranet chugging a bit due to the density of guests. But she was satisfied with her results.

The long-awaited distance closed and Sam finally stood before a half-empty buffet table. The dextro desserts had been picked over, as had some of the hybrid mini-cakes and parfaits. It looked like everything was in the process of getting refreshed by the catering company. Several waitstaff with tall silver trays were making their way over from the back. 

But all that mattered is that there were still three lemon curd tarts left. All of which ended up on Sam’s dainty white plate as she swept out of the line. She felt a tug on her sleeve.

An older human woman in a far too tight evening gown scowled back at her. “I beg your pardon! Where do you think you’re going? How dare you take the last tarts? Have you any idea how long we’ve been waiting?”

Sam shrugged. “I’d wager about five seconds less than you as I was ahead of you in the same line?”

The woman’s date, a balding, rat-faced gentleman in a shiny tuxedo stuck a finger in Sam’s face. “Such rudeness! We actually paid good money to be here, so we deserve priority.”

“Perhaps she’s with the catering company, darling,” the wife simpered back as though struck with a thought. “She’s certainly dressed like them.” Her saccharine-smile was betrayed by cold, smug brown eyes.

An excited commotion could be heard behind them in line, but Sam didn’t dare glance away.

Remember, Traynor. Fixed eye contact. Bullies look for weakness.

She smiled back. “I wouldn’t say you paid Good Money to be here, did you?” She took a bite of lemon tart, savoring the acerbic flavor accented by a light sugary texture.

“What do you mean?” The couple replied in unison matching their haughty glares.

“You really should have better security on your Omni-tool. I mean, any old desk-jockey could just waltz right in and see that your asari mistress scored you free tickets. An asari mistress in the quarian slave trade, no doubt. Tsk tsk.”

The glaring transitioned to sputtering, confusion from the husband and outrage from the wife. 

“Oh don’t worry, I reported her to the authorities for tax evasion, too. I mean, how else will your tax dollars pay my salary, right? It's the only way I can afford to eat such delicious tarts.” And Samantha took another large satisfying bite before saluting with the pastry, turning on her heel, and walking proudly off to go find Mary and Lydia.

The couple stepped out of line to argue, hands gesturing wildly. They turned to leave when they walked straight into the source of the commotion: Commander Annelise Shepard flanked by Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams and Tali’Zorah nar Rayya. All 3 women stood, hands on hips, glaring back at the pair. The two fled the hall, pushing past other lines in a desperate bid to save their dignity.

Ash and Tali burst into laughter before spotting Garrus Vakarian waving them over to a photo op with the turian hierarchy. Shepard remained behind, watching the dark-haired lieutenant disappear into the crowd. Her eyes crinkled and she suppressed an airy laugh.

“What are you so happy about, Shepard?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re smiling.”

“Am I?” Commander Annelise Shepard tried for nonchalance as she helped herself to a fresh lemon curd tart. She sniffed the confection, intrigued. She had never seen anything like it, but she couldn’t wait to try it.

“You are. It’s been awhile.” The asari in a low-necked evening gown came up and wrapped a hand around Shepard’s elbow, careful of the sling that held her left arm hugged tight to her chest.

“Oh, uh, yea. There’s just been a lot on my mind lately.”

“Well, I’m grateful for whatever it was.”

“Me too, Liara. Me too.”

And for the rest of that night Shepard’s smile came a little easier.