#loved watching these 4 frames on my timeline

[energ00n]

APPRENTICE AU MASTERPOST [read before you send in an ask]

[If your ask is mentioned in the Popular Questions section I will ignore it so please do me a favour]

If you're interested in the AU, let this be your guide. I suck at writing but I'll do my very best. Just a warning this is LONG and I'll probably update it as I go.

Read the AU from the beginning >> ✧

I. What is Apprentice AU?

Setting

Some basic knowledges

Apprentice AU takes place in a timeline where all the original Thirteen Primes are ALIVE. They're the rightful rulers of Cybertron and each takes charge of an aspect in their society (religion, military, economy, etc...) keeping everything running.

To be efficient with this, they take bots themselves deem exceptional under their wings and train those into worthy leaders for Cybertron. And potentially, a new Prime.

Fun fact: Only one bot has achieved Primacy through apprenticeship and it's Sentinel Prime.

2. Story

The AU mostly revolve around Orion Pax and D-16, specifically their growing relationship while being Apprentices of Prima Prime and Megatronous Prime, respectively. Orion is one curious cogless mech who loves to run around wanting to find answers to cybertron’s energon problem while D-16 only wants to keep up the hard work and potentially become commander of the High Guard one day

Some art and comic I've made of them:

First meeting - First greeting

Chatter - Pastime - Watchful eyes

Orion's upgrade (< context)

Lord High Protector

Fanwork

Fandub

Fanfic

An Apprentice’s (Unofficial) Guide to House Garments

To see only art, use the tag #apprentice_au

Ask tag for filter is #ask_ene

II. What entails being an Apprentice?

Role

A bot can only have 1 Prime as their mentor, thus wholeheartedly devote to that Prime's purpose. During the apprenticeship, the bot will learn all their Prime offers and graduate once they are ready to contribute to Cybertron.

Example:

Prima is in charge of the Religious aspect -> Orion learns of ritual and duties that help with the church

Megatronous is in charge of Cybertron's military -> D-16 is trained to be a warrior/soldier

2. Garment

Once becoming a Prime's apprentice, you are obligated to adorn their House's garment. Mostly consist of one primary colour of the Prime and an accent colour + accessories.

^^^ All designs shown thus far ^^^

*Regarding Nexus: Nexus' garment consist on a golden visor with a star on the right eye. The Visor can come in any frame!! Not just the one showed above

All the garments are considered extreme honour, a blessing that reminds the apprentices of their devotion to their Prime mentors

There's a little made up rule between the Apprentices that only your special somebot can touch your garment, consider how important it is. Like a forbidden peck on the lips if you will.

╔══ •- Popular Questions -• ══╗

"Where is Bee in the AU? Whose apprentice is he?"

He WILL APPREAR. Eventually.

STOP ASKING.

2. "Why are Orion and D-16 cogless?"

For some time now bots do not come online with transformation cogs due to the planet no longer being as potent. If not harvested as sparks, the bots will develop a frame and sprout from the ground only as cogless.

In this universe, all cogless will need to obtain a cold cog and have it be activated by a cogged bot. This activation can also be called “Imprinting”, the cogless will receive various unpredictable side effects if they use the T-cog, these effects can range from mental to physical (ex. Feeling passing sadness of the activator, frame looking similar to the activator, etc….). The Activator can even write a singular command code into the cog, effectively bound any bot that uses it so it’s highly recommended that the cogless bots only get a cogged bot they trust to imprint on their cogs.

For cogless apprentices, it is tradition that their Primes will be the ones imprinting on their cogs once they’re deemed ready.

3. "How are the Apprentices chosen?"

Vibes

4. "Are the High Guard still there?"

Yes. They're intact and is mainly under Megatronous Prime's command. Starscream, Shockwave and Soundwave are D-16's personal trainers since Megatronous has expressed his hope that D will lead the High Guard someday.

Starscream isn't happy so he's a particular harsh trainer to D but he'll be a good guardian figure when D needs him to be. D has a nice friendship with Soundwave

5. "How is X in this AU?"

Look up the name in my blog, at this point I’ve probably answered whoever you’re thinking about before. (Bee, Ratchet, Drift, Arcee, KO, Smokescreen, Hot Rod, etc…)

I’m still quite new to Transformers so I would be very appreciative if you'd give me a pic, tell me a short description of the character and maybe suggestion on what trope they might play (anatagonist, mentor, etc...). Information is always welcome especially if the character is more obscured

Please don't ask me about other Primes aside from Prima, Megatronous, Sentinel and Zeta only when it's Sentinel related. Most of it I consider as spoilers. Once again tho, info and suggestions about them would be nice.

Alpha Trion would be fine too but there's nothing much to say about him.

6. "I don't have a question just want to say I like your art <3" "Remember to take care of yourself/take rest!"

Much as I appreciate the notion, I get these wayyyy too often and it's clogging up the inbox. I'd prefer it if you guys keep it in the comment and only send them in as asks if it gets too long

Also very weirdly but being reminded to take care of myself is kinda irksome to me, I rather not keep hearing it.

7. "Can we draw fanart/write fanfic/make our own OCs for the AU?"

On my knees, please do and pleaseeeeeee link me if you do, I want to see all that my stupid AU inspired. Tho I do have a few boundaries:

Dpax/Megop and Prima/Megatronous are SOLID. Please don't ship them with anyone else. Strict one-sided from others is fine tho! (ex: Bee has a one-sided crush on Orion) Tho JazzOp is an exception

Bottom Orion and top D-16 only

Orion is Prima's only Apprentice

Thank you all for reading!

[radioactiverats]

Mentor Starscream x seeker!reader (4/?)

Purposely getting yourself kidnapped by the Autobots so you can persuade Ratchet to teach you some first aid, as you're worried that Megatron's escalating violence against Starscream will one day leave him with injuries you don't know how to fix.

There's more Ratchet in the middle (because I love him as well. I want to hold both of them in my hands with gentol totche.)

Mashup of timelines as usual, but I def realized that when I imagine Starscream he's visually the G1 or IDW design, and when I imagine Ratchet it's TFP. I love MTMTE Ratchet but I'm not quite caught up yet haha.

Since you and Starscream were now sharing a berth, it was inevitable that he would find out about the nightmares. Every time you jerked awake, you would take great pains to quietly settle back into berth even if recharge eluded you. The reason was simple - you didn't want to bother Starscream with it. He gets very little recharge as is, and probably sees things every solar cycle that are ten times worse that what you're faced with.

Starscream doesn't comment, if he knows - another bot might have rushed to console you, but his brand of comfort was to apparently grant you the dignity of being vulnerable in private, especially since you were more or less chassis to chassis with each other in berth.

However, he finally can't hold back when you begin zoning out during training. "Earth to cadet, as the fleshlings say," Starscream snapped, waving a servo in front of your faceplate. You jerk awake, optics cycling before they zero in woozily on Starscream's faceplate. Pinched with irritation, but was that... concern?

You lightly smack your helm in hopes it'll get your processor back to optimum function. No such luck, but it was worth a try. "Sorry, sir."

He narrows his optics at you, taking in the exhausted slump of your frame. For a long moment, no one says anything.

Then, Starscream abruptly turns heel, his back to you. "Dismissed."

But - but you've been here for barely a joor, and - "Sir, please, it won't happen again-"

"And waste my time and yours?" Starscream says bluntly. You flinch, but he just presses on.

"You're in no condition to absorb the information I am giving you, which, if I may add, is exceedingly valuable to your success as a seeker. Recharge properly, and perhaps your processor will be able to comprehend simple instructions such as 'stay awake'." He sniffs, but glances over his shoulder at you - and his optics are gentler.

"We will try our luck again then."

Your first response is to sag with relief even as you watch him stride away, because he wasn't giving up on you. Your second response, however, is that of pure consternation.

The nightmares have gotten worse.

Ever since you had to personally patch Starscream up as he bled out on the floor of his habsuite, the nightmares have gotten so much worse. There are momentary flashes of hate in your processor for Megatron, but they are quickly tamped down by fear. Even your mind is not a safe place, after all, with Soundwave here.

The memory of Starscream, broken and battered at your feet, replays over and over. In some of your nightmares, he is exactly as you found him - gouges in his frame, ripped wires, leaking energon. But just as you thought you'd gotten used to the memory (he's not like that anymore. He's alive and well. He's not like that anymore.), your processor decided to play tricks of the worst kind on you. Offering all kinds of ways Starscream could be hurt, in full technicolour detail, optics shuttered and frame unnaturally still. Worst of all, you could only watch as your processor conjured injuries beyond your rudimentary expertise, that Starscream could very well succumb to because you didn't know how to save him.

That night, the image in your processor is so bad that you bolt upright with coolant already leaking from your optics. You swipe roughly at your faceplates as the memory continues to remain fresh in your mind, fighting to get your trembling frame under control.

You turn to look at the bot next to you, if only to reassure yourself that he's okay, assuming he would be in recharge - but to your surprise, a pair of glowing red optics meet your frantic gaze.

"Sir," You manage to garble out, through the layers of static distorting your vocalizer. "I'm sorry for waking you."

Starscream says nothing. His optics flick to the coolant that drips from your faceplate even as you try to assure him that you're fine, and suddenly, he opens his arms to you in wordless invitation.

"I- sir?"

It's not the first time you would have recharged in his arms. But... this? You hesitate, unsure whether this is too much to ask. Evidently, you've hesitated for too long, because Starscream wraps a servo around your wrist and pulls you gently but insistently to him.

"I'm here," He murmurs gruffly, in low, musical Vosian. And it makes coolant spring to your optics all over again, because ever since Megatron had taken charge, he'd quickly ensured that all his soldiers spoke only standard Cybertronian - a quick and brutal 'show' had made sure of that. You slip into recharge with the gentle lilt of Vosian in your audials, and for once, no more nightmares plague you. You're even more surprised to awaken not to an empty berth, but still pressed up against Starscream's warm chassis.

"Oh, good," Starscream had rasped, vocalizer not quite activated after recharge. "You're awake. There are some things I must see to, so I trust you will stay out of trouble in my absence."

You barely had time to even nod before he was gone. Checking your internal chronometer, you whistle quietly. Was it that late already? Had... had Starscream stayed on purpose, so you wouldn't panic upon seeing an empty berth?

You feel more recharged than you have in many solar cycles. However, your newfound energy and the warmth thrumming through your spark for your commander has only strengthened your determination to do something. Starscream might have kept the nightmares at bay last night, but you knew it wasn't sustainable. The only way you can bring some semblance of peace to yourself and him is if you can become confident in your abilities to repair him without external help.

Which is, admittedly, a lot easier said than done.

You knew you were about to do something really, really stupid.

The Decepticons had traded tales about an Autobot medic named Ratchet, before. The way they spoke of him with begrudging respect was enough for you to believe that Ratchet could work literal miracles, and that was precisely what you needed right now. But how could you possibly approach him?

You've heard enough about the Autobots, observed enough about them to know where they differed from the Decepticons. One major difference was that even when they took prisoners, they were not cruel. What if...?

You're too deep into this to give up. There's too much at stake here - despite the risk, if Ratchet was willing to hear you out, you might one day have a fighting chance to save Starscream's spark from flickering out. Which is how you found yourself trekking along the side of a dusty, abandoned road along some dry, sandy plain, not making any effort to hide yourself as you hoped for an Autobot to come across you.

But at the same time, what if they didn't let you go after taking you prisoner?

Before you can continue to second guess yourself, the roar of a well-oiled motor engine sounds behind you, and you almost laugh at how obvious you're being. A seeker, walking? The Autobot scout, Bumblebee, skids to a stop behind you, and you hear the smooth clicking and whirring of his transformation.

"Looking for trouble?"

Not particularly, You think, turning round to face him, but as Bumblebee falters, you realize you've spoken out loud.

This is the first time you've come face to face with the scout. You're about the same age, and for a moment, you both regard the other with open curiosity, like bots being introduced for the first time by a mutual acquaintance. In another timeline, you wonder if you could have been friends.

Bumblebee squints, looking unsure whether or not to drop his fighting stance. You make no move to engage, and simply stand there, servos dangling limply by your sides. This idea is really, really stupid.

"Defecting?"

You reset your vocalizer. "Not exactly."

"Still enemies, then," Bumblebee says, and he doesn't bother to hide the note of disappointment in his voice. Enemies. He doesn't even know you. You wonder if the divide between you runs too deep, even if only in name for you. Is there nothing more to you beyond faction name?

The bubbling hope of confessing to Bumblebee your real intentions abruptly withers. Why, indeed, would he help you if he knew you wanted to help the SIC of the Decepticons? Still, you hated to say it, but it seemed that Bumblebee had the privilege of naivety for a few more stellar cycles at least, under Optimus' kind guidance. Within the Decepticon ranks, you'd quickly learned that some bots simply didn't deal in kindness. You supposed it was back to the original plan, then.

"I've been out here for a while," You say, pretending to stagger a few steps. You are in the middle of a scorching hot desert plain, after all. Casting your hook, you hope to Primus that Bumblebee buys the act, because even to you, it looks phony as hell.

"I think I'm lost." Bumblebee, who was originally looking suspiciously at you, widens his optics as his little antennae twitch upwards in shock. Line.

You stagger even closer, pressing a servo to your helm. "Bumblebee-" You close your eyes and pray to Primus that the Autobots are actually nice. You really haven't thought any further beyond getting yourself captured. Maybe you wouldn't even get the chance to talk to Ratchet. But you're too far into your little one-man show to back out now. You crash to the ground, and with your optics offlined, hear Bumblebee's yelp of shock, the scuff of dry earth beneath his pedes as he races over to you. And sinker.

"Oh, Primus," Bumblebee mutters. "Why couldn't it just have been a fight? I can do that."

You're honestly hating this war more and more. Bumblebee felt so much like a little brother - you're torn between fighting to keep the laughter from bubbling up, and the need to scold him for letting his guard down so easily. What if it was a genuine trap you'd set for him? He'd rushed to your side with no regard for his own safety. Then again, this was exactly what you'd been banking on - you count your lucky stars that it was indeed Bumblebee you'd run into and not anyone else.

"Ratchet," You hear Bumblebee say into his comm. "There's a 'con here, but not in good shape." Just to really drive it home, you groan weakly from where you're collapsed in a heap on the ground. It must have worked, because Bumblebee's voice pitches upwards in slightly panicked urgency. "Yeah, yeah, I'll bring them through. Thanks, Ratchet."

Huh. You really hadn't expected it to be that easy. The tales you'd heard of the Autobot medic were from when you used to sleep in the barracks with the lower-ranking Decepticons. This varied from his rough bedside manner, his surprising ability to fight ("He had green, glowing optics," One Decepticon said with a shudder), his past as the 'Party Ambulance' (what.) to his relative fame amongst older bots as a highly respected neurosurgeon before the war broke out. Most strikingly, he'd apparently patched up Autobots and Decepticons alike on the battlefield.

"It's some medic code he has," Snorted the Decepticon next to you. "Stupid, if you ask me. Why fix up the bots who are out to get you?"

"Lay off the medic," Another bot admonished sharply. "You might not like it, but quite a few of us owe our sparks to him."

A couple of low, murmured agreements resounded around the room. There was undeniably a begrudging respect for him all around, and a fair number of the bots clearly didn't want to be the ones to take him out, if it ever came to that.

You were thinking about Ratchet even when the lights went out. Even though you'd never met him personally, admiration swirled in your spark for the bot with such a strong moral code that he would never falter in his actions. You'd always dreaded having to choose a side. Being with Starscream meant that you'd 'chosen' the Decepticons, sure - but it was Starscream you were loyal to, not Megatron. You'd resigned yourself to eventually signing your spark away to the cause, because you couldn't think of any other way to survive there. But perhaps, you think, you could be like Ratchet.

And now - as Bumblebee carried you through the swirling groundbridge, your spark thrummed at the possibility of imminently meeting him for real.

As soon as the roar of the portal closed behind you, your audials prick up as a low, gruff voice speaks.

"Are you hurt?"

"Not a dent," Bumblebee says. "Not sure about this one, though."

"Just the one?"

"Yup."

"Huh," The other voice says. "I'll tell Optimus to keep an eye on that area. Never know if the Decepticons are planning something."

You feel Bumblebee shrug, even with you gathered in his arms. One of these days, you really have to tell him off for being too trusting. Enemy or not, he seemed like a decent bot and you didn't want trust to be the thing that destroyed him.

A deep sigh. "Put them in the med bay and go refuel first."

"Sure thing," Bumblebee chirped, and you felt the cold metal of a medical berth against your wings. A few nanokliks passed, and you continue to remain still, pretending to be unconscious. Should you...? Ratchet, however, beat you to it. "Alright," He groused, as soon as you heard the door to his med bay slide shut. "Get up. I know you're not actually unconscious."

Your eyes shoot open. "How-?"

The bot in front of you looks unimpressed. "I'm a medic."

"Right," You mutter sheepishly. Sitting up on the medical berth, you take in the sight of Ratchet for the first time. Red and white, built and stocky. Rounded helm, pointed chevrons. You finally work your way to his faceplate. Glowing blue optics stare exasperatedly back at you.

"Sorry," You mumble, and Ratchet sighs again. He seems to do that a lot. Then again, he seems very tired. You don't blame him.

"If you're done," He grumbles, "I'd like to know why you got yourself kidnapped on purpose." There's an air of mistrust in his optics now, a tenseness to his frame that you don't like. In a way though, you're grateful that he's cutting right to the chase.

"I wanted an audience with you," You begin, haltingly. Ratchet's optics narrow slightly, but he doesn't say anything and just waits for you to continue. "I heard that you fixed up both Autobots and Decepticons before, because you have a code. And I know you're an Autobot - " You glance at the polished insignia on his chassis, "- but I'm kind of... like that, too."

Speech was never your strong suit, and you were glad Starscream often did the talking for you. His silver tongue had surely gotten the both of you out of a few tight spaces before, but you never dared to ask about the details. Fortunately, a sharp in-vent tells you that Ratchet has understood what you were clumsily trying to get across. He crosses his arms over his bulky chassis, optics roving carefully over your faceplate as he assesses the situation.

"So," He asks carefully, "What's your code based on?"

Ah. He'd seemed receptive so far, potentially persuaded to your own one-man cause, but here was the detail that might make him eject you bodily from his med bay.

"Starscream."

You watch as a range of emotions flit across Ratchet's faceplate. Eventually, it settles on confused and mildly horrified. "Starscream? Are you sure?"

"Yes," You say, feeling oddly defensive. Ratchet seems to pick up on this, and he unfolds his arms with an even deeper sigh. "A seeker," He mutters, optics flicking over your form as if really just seeing you for the first time. "How old are you?"

You tell him.

Ratchet pinches the bridge of his helm, between his optics, a bone-deep weariness emanating from his frame. "I'm assuming you're one of Starscream's students, then," He says.

"The last one," You add quietly. The Quintessons launched an attack on the Vosian Air Academy, and I was the only one who survived."

"...Ah."

Another hum, and this time, his optics are appraising, as if something had clicked into place. You, a youngling like Bumblebee, would not be sitting before him with your paint in near pristine condition, had someone not taken you under their wing. Literally and metaphorically.

"So what is it you want from me?"

"Can you teach me some first aid?" You blurt. Ratchet's brows furrow.

"I could," He says, confusion evident in his voice. "But what for? Don't the the Decepticons have a medic?"

"Well, yes," You hedge, "But, you know. Starscream."

That part he understands - it was no secret that the Decepticons had a brutal system of hierarchy that relied on shows of power. It made sense that Starscream wouldn't want to be seen in a vulnerable state. But there's still something he's missing.

"As far as I know," Ratchet presses carefully, "Starscream has not sustained any major injuries at the hands of the Autobots in recent stellar cycles."

You probably shouldn't be revealing so much information about the inner workings of the Decepticons, but as your hate for Megatron simmers into exhaustion, you slump on Ratchet's medical berth and decide to tell him anyway.

"Megatron... punishes him. A lot."

Ratchet seems slightly taken aback by that. Anyone with functioning optics could tell that the Decepticons were kept in line by fear, and it was no secret that violence ran rampant within the ranks - but to hear it so plainly that even their SIC was no exception? And to have you, trembling before him, desperate to help him, clearly knowing that rudimentary first aid was not enough for whatever injuries Megatron had inflicted - it must be worse than Ratchet had ever thought.

He checks his internal chronometer - you've been here for about a joor. Soon, someone is going to come looking for you, and neither faction is looking particularly appealing right now.

"We don't have much time. Hurry up and get over here."

Your helm shoots up as Ratchet pivots crisply away from you, suddenly all business. You leap off the medical berth, following him to a large table where he thunks down a heavy med kit. This Ratchet, intense, precise, laying a series of tools in front of you with deft servos, is undoubtedly the war medic that had earned every inch of respect he got. Now you understand why the Deceptions were so begrudgingly impressed by him.

Ratchet hesitates for a nanoklik before pulling out some even more complicated looking tools. Is this really happening? At your wide, awestruck optics, Ratchet huffs, a light flush of energon on his faceplate at your bursting admiration. "Alright already. Stop staring at me and pay attention."

Two joors pass before you hear the sounds of a commotion outside. Ratchet's audials flick agitatedly before he glances at you. "You'd better go," He murmurs, low and urgent.

Go? Just like that? Ratchet must have seen you freeze up in disbelief, because he snarls and springs into action for both of you, ushering you out of medbay and towards the groundbridge.

"I'm sure you know how to get back," He says, quick and curt, typing in a set of coordinates. The groundbridge shimmers to life. "Go," He orders, in a voice that brooks no argument. I'll handle this."

You give him one last, lingering glance before you step through the glowing green portal. Ratchet's staring at you too, something hovering unspoken in his optics. "Kid," He finally calls, as the sound of the commotion approaches. "No matter where this war takes you, be true to yourself."

You give him a jerky nod, overwhelmed but endlessly grateful.

With that, the groundbridge warps out of existence behind you, leaving behind a cacophony of Autobot shouts and abruptly plunging you back into the silent, sandy plain where you first met Bumblebee.

For a nanoklik, you feel so very alone.

But leaving Starscream was out of the question. Amidst all the uncertainty in the war, this is the one thing you're sure of. You leap into the air, transforming into your alt mode. If you were lucky, Starscream would still be on duty and you could sneak back before anyone had realized you were gone. You spiral through the air, picking up speed as night begins to fall. The flames of your thrusters illuminate the purple dusk as you add another burst of speed, your form now a screaming blur in the sky.

But before you can reach your destination, your destination reaches you first. Your only warning is a streak that blitzes into your field of vision before something huge and heavy tackles you out of the sky.

The impact completely knocks your systems offline for a nanoklik. Unable to even scream, you struggle to force your systems to reboot, gain back control of your frame as you hurtle towards the ground - but strangely enough, you quickly realize that you're not freefalling wildly through the air. Battling against the screaming winds at your back, you force your optics open to see none other than a furious Starscream, his servos gripping your arms with deathly force as he drives you downwards.

"Where the Pit were you?" He hisses, over the shrill whistling of air in your audials. "I've just spent the last few joors hunting every corner of this slagging dirtball for your sorry aft!"

As you plummet downwards, you struggle to make sense of his words. He was looking for you?

"What if Megatron got to you first?" He snarls, denta bared. "I told you to stay put! Do you treat my words like slag?"

You didn't think he'd catch you sneaking out, but you never imagined he'd be this angry. Both of you rocket through the clouds, the green environment of Earth swirling into your field of vision. Was this it? Had Starscream finally decided you were more trouble than you were worth? You wouldn't blame him. Shuttering your optics, you brace yourself for impact. His servos, where he's touching your frame, are warm. That's how you'd remember him, before you go out. Stolen moments of warmth with him. After all he'd done for you.

But over the screaming wind in your audials, your don't hear so much as feel his engines screech as he pulls up at the last minute. The warmth of his servos abruptly leave you, and your optics fly open as you are dropped a few meters above a patch of open grass and promptly eat ground. As you push yourself up with a groan, not so much sore but still ablaze with adrenaline, the realization suddenly hits. What Starscream did... Was not unlike how carriers and sires dealt with unruly seeker sparklings when they refused to leave the air. You shake your helm in disbelief, spitting out another mouthful of earth soil. Starscream... had quite literally grounded you. Huh.

You roll over to the sight of him seething above you, his ruby optics alight with rage, intake twisted in a snarl.

"Imagine," He hisses, looming over you, "When I learned you were being held captive by the Autobots - have you no sense of self-preservation in that scrap-filled processor of yours? Have I taught you absolutely nothing?"

His wings shudder with barely concealed anger as he begins to pace. "And of all the bots, it had to be that pit-slagged femme who blocked my way!"

Arcee? You're not too familiar with the Autobots, but you remember Starscream had literally shrieked himself into stasis after a particular battle with the Autobots over an energon mine, where a certain pink femme had foiled his plans at the very last nanoklik.

Wait. Arcee had blocked his way? You stare blankly at him as it sinks in that the commotion you heard earlier... was in fact Starscream singlehandedly blasting his way through the Autobot base to save you.

"Oh," You say.

"Oh?" Starscream screeches, wings twitching furiously. "Oh? That's all you have to say for yourself?"

You still can't bring yourself to speak as you gaze up at him. And slowly, a smile splits your faceplate. You can't help it. You smile big and bright up at your commander. "What?" He demands shrilly. "What is it?" He does falter, rage dropping momentarily from his faceplate and muting into confusion when you start to laugh. Relief, adrenaline, admiration, all at once.

"It was worth it." You gasp, through your fit on the ground. All this was worth it for Starscream, who'd against all better judgement risked his own helm to come looking for you, because he was worried. You'd carefully filed away every detail of Ratchet's instruction this afternoon. With the knowledge he'd bestowed upon you and extra bandages in your subspace, the gamble had paid off, because the chances of you preserving Starscream's spark had skyrocketed if the worst came to pass.

Starscream just stares at you, a hysterically giggling heap on the ground. "It was worth it!" You shriek, because Starscream is the one who found you and for now, you are safe.

You finally come back to yourself after a few cycles of wheezing almost soundlessly in your relief. You're sure there's coolant smeared over your faceplates and you look like a mess, but you don't give a frag - not when your stupid plan actually came to something. "Sir," You sigh to Starscream, who's still frozen above you, optics tracking your faceplate as you finally simmer down. "I'm going to have the best recharge of anybody today."

Unexpectedly, this douses Starscream's anger. He studies you carefully for a nanoklik. You take this rare moment to shamelessly drink in his handsome features - the sharp, defined ridges of his cheeks, the brightness of his optics, and the disapprovingly flattened line of his intake (okay, but still). Did he think that the nightmares, the war had finally broken your processor? It had happened to a few of the Decepticons. That would explain the flicker of worry in his optics - but he seems to find what he's looking for in your faceplate, so he simply sighs, all of a sudden looking more tired than you've seen him. He extends a servo to you.

"Get up."

You gingerly put your servo in his much larger one, feel his fingers close around yours as he pulls you up with much more gentleness than you're sure you deserve.

"I won't ask," Starscream begins. His optics flash. "But I will find out sooner or later."

You nod, trying for serious, but you must still have vestiges of a smile on your faceplate. Starscream stares at you and plants his hands on his hips.

"And don't think this will go unpunished. You think sneaking out is funny? Not when I'm through with you. You'll have done so many circuits of the 16-point roll that your wings will have dropped off by then. Sneaking off? Primus help you if it happens again. You think I'm coming to drag your sorry aft back home? Hah!"

I mean. He would come for you, but you wisely keep this to yourself as he gesticulates wildly to prove his point, even if both of you know it's more for show than anything.

Finally, he finishes his tirade with a huff. "It's dark," He says shortly, and glances at you. In the dark, his optics cast a soft glow on your faceplate.

"Eugh. Primus, wipe that stuff off your faceplate or it'll stain." Two large servos come down either side of your helm, and you can't help but flinch as Starscream swipes his thumbs over your cheeks to clean the coolant off. Still admonishing you, but his voice is forgiving and wraps around you like a warm blanket. "Stop squirming."

Finally, your faceplate relatively un-smudged, Starscream breaks apart from you. You try to soak in this moment as long as possible, wishing it could always be like this. Just the two of you, under a sky full of stars. This planet's view of the solar system could really be beautiful. You glance back to find Starscream looking at you, also looking reluctant to leave. However, he has to play the bad guy. He always does.

"Come on," He says, but it's gentle. "Let's go."

Previous / Next

[hoodedjelly]

Sleep walk BTS post!

will go in depth with my process and put better quality drawings in here!

Before any of this i was listening to several fiddauthor/ford playlists to hear a song that really got my brain moving. Funny enough i didn't get Sleep walk from one of the 100+ song playlists i was listening to, it was in my oc playlist (thats a mad scientist who would've thought). Originally i wanted to make a fiddauthor animatic (who knows maybe i will), but THIS SONG just caught my brain in a way i couldn't refuse.

So i technically started working on it the late night of September 27, exactly a week ago! which yes yes i hear you all in unison go "WHAT???" to that, and all I have to say to that is.... I have untreated adhd and lots of caffeine in my system! (honestly felt like ford sometimes while workin on that animatic)

Started it off with some notes, then thumbnails. I had my tbob AND J3 open next to me stood up with clips for reference (prob looked a little insane looking back but its fine)

now for the rough animatic! i did this in Adobe animate 2022 (i'll get back to that later) the only thing that really got changed was i wanted to add the diner scene from j3. i realize now that it messed up the timeline i was going for with the animatic but i like to think things are out of order because of the state ford is in, things start to merge together.

After i sat with this rough animatic for a bit, i wasn't sure if i was going to make it in Adobe animate (what i usually do) or make it all in Clip Studio Paint. I wanted this animatic to be way more visually interesting then i usually do, so CSP it is. But! i only have CSP Pro, so i had to draw and export every single new frame from this animatic.

it was a little tedious at first (again never done an animatic like this before) but i got used to it! I edited it all together in CapCut and thats really it!

The missing J3 pages from TBOB spoke to me in a way that im not fully comfortable talking about to my followers. I put a lot of myself in this animatic then i'd want to realize, it's very important to me. The night when i uploaded it i was literally shaking with anxiety (and caffeine-) but the overwhelming support for it is really amazing, thank you so much! if you have any more questions please ask away i love talking about the art process.

Below im going to talk about the code and put HD backgrounds!

thank you for dyemro on here for cracking the code first! now i can talk about my insane little thought process about it

So i never planned to add a code until halfway through with the animatic. i was watching ThatGFFan videos and him talking about gravity falls codes got my brain cooking. i wanted something sweet and simple (i realize with dyemro's post it wasn't as simple as i thought, give me some slack it's my first time). like what you should with making codes you start at the end. And i wanted something that was a nice send off for drawing ford be fucking miserable for 1 minute and 30 seconds.

so i got this. (honestly every time i look at this drawing after finishing the animatic it makes me real emotional)

There are 4 codes in this whole animatic 0:02, 0:15, 0:30, and 0:58

wanted the first one to be REAL noticeable so people can stop and be like "wait... theres stuff in here". people usually think to use the bill symbols, but no! from the description theres a little hint to use the Author symbols

doing that code it leads to: imgu r.com /a/uZa iVfu (and if you know that double line a under a letter means capitalization + im a dumb dumb that used a code image that didn't have a Z so thats just a normal Z)

it makes a LINK! > imgur.com/a/uZaiVfu <

now enough of that boring stuff, heres some HD screenshots and backgrounds of my fav parts

[aurieeeeeenyx]

time travel mechanics in link click — intentional inconsistencies? closed loops and parallel timelines (theory)

Back in 2021 or so, I wanted to make a post about the time travel mechanics in Season 1, and how they seemed to be inconsistent in certain episodes. I never ended up making that post, and the idea slowly faded from my mind, but I want to make that post now (armed with all the new information we've received since then) before Bridon/Yingdu arc episode 4 comes out because of the episode preview when Lu Guang says this:

In Season 1, the time travel seems to operate on the principle of a closed loop. This is especially evident in the Doudou arc, when Cheng Xiaoshi sees himself in the past (while he's in Doudou's body) and realizes that he was always there; the "changes" he inflicted weren't really changes, because by the time he dives back from the future his actions in the past have already happened. This is also demonstrated when Xu Shanshan walks into the photo studio and interacts with Cheng Xiaoshi in S1E8, and we later find out that it was in fact Cheng Xiaoshi in Xu Shanshan's body interacting with himself. And again, with the ploy to use Xu Shanshan in order to lure Liu Min/Red Eyes to the photo studio. We also see this closed loop phenomenon happen in Season 2, for example when Cheng Xiaoshi possesses Lu Guang's body to go save himself in the past.

So I've always been a little bothered by the earthquake arc in Season 1. If the dives into the past have already happened, why does Chen Xiao come to the photo studio in the first place? If Cheng Xiaoshi (in Chen Xiao's body) won the basketball game and gave those kind words to Chen Xiao's loved ones, why does Chen Xiao remember otherwise?

I've wondered before what happens to the clients when Cheng Xiaoshi is possessing them—do they just not remember anything? Are they even aware of themselves being possessed? Why is no one concerned about missing memories for hours at a time or not being in control of their own body? Emma sort of skirts around this when she tells Cheng Xiaoshi, "So you were the one who sent that message" in S1E11, implying she's aware it wasn't her who sent it. For the sake of argument, though, I'm going to pass the general non-reaction of the clients to being possessed as a handwavey "the brain justifies it somehow later" thing and ignore it.**

That brings us again to the question: Why does Chen Xiao remember the past differently to the one Cheng Xiaoshi experienced/changed? Maybe the past isn't set in stone after all? Maybe, instead of just being a closed loop, the time travel in Link Click is operating on multiple systems?

In 2021, right after I watched Season 1, I was going to dismiss this as just an error. The writers slipped up and bungled their time travel mechanics a bit, and therefore the earthquake arc is different on accident. But we've learned since then that nothing is unintentional in this show, so why is that arc different from the others? (Also, I want to note, there is that moment in S1E4 where Lu Guang's face does that weird warping thing; coincidence? Maybe, but maybe not...)

My theory is: the time travel abilities that Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang have operate differently.

DISCLAIMER: My knowledge of photography and film is extremely limited, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

There's always been a lot of film imagery in this show—obviously, since the whole premise is based in photography—but as early as the Season 1 OP, "Dive Back In Time," we can see the repeated use of rewinding film rolls as a metaphor for going back in time.

Note also: Lu Guang dropping the photo and it transitioning into a film roll, and Cheng Xiaoshi being tangled up in film rolls and being "inside" the film in the background/trapped in the frame. I'll get to this later.

The thing is, once you record something on film, you can't change it; you can only rewind and play it again. This tracks with the closed loop theory: no real changes can be made, because they have already happened. So how is it possible that "changes are still happening," as Lu Guang says in the YE4 preview? It's likely that Vein (and Liu Xiao and Xia Fei) are involved, but I don't believe that's the root of the issue. And, I don't think it's just the ever-nebulous "butterfly effect," because in YE1 Lu Guang says this:

I used to think that even a flap of a butterfly might cause a hurricane strong enough to ruin the world. I was wrong. The power of time is still far beyond our imagination. The future may not change due to a ripple of the past. Not at all...

(Yes, Lu Guang is a notoriously unreliable narrator, but I've decided to trust him on this one. Not to mention, butterfly effect shouldn't exist in a closed loop system.)

I've seen lots of excellent analyses illustrating the discrepancies this season, from the very first scene of YE1 (different furniture positioning, cracks in photo frame glass, bloodstains, presence of curtain, etc) to the changing positions of clothing, buildings, time of day, food, and so on in YE2 (go check out hyperfaexation's excellent YouTube video on their Shattered Memories theory for more details). The fandom is constantly theorizing about how many timelines there are. But while we've been asking ourselves how many timelines exist (five, ten, more?), we forgot to stop and ask: why do they exist?

The existence of multiple timelines doesn't fit into Season 1's time travel premise. In Season 1, it was always Cheng Xiaoshi that we were watching. Whereas Cheng Xiaoshi could be said to live "in" the film when he dives, perhaps Lu Guang is cutting the roll short at the point which he dives back to and splicing a new roll onto it. This could explain the scene from "Dive Back In Time" that I referenced earlier, with Lu Guang outside the film and Cheng Xiaoshi in it. It's not exactly that Lu Guang is diving back in time; it's more like he's diving out of time, into a parallel timeline and leaving this one behind. Maybe this season, we'll get to see more complicated time travel mechanics that result from the intersection of different powers. (And, while we're at it, maybe we can get an answer to why Cheng Xiaoshi has golden eyes for a few frames in YE1 when they're running away, because seriously what's up with that?)

**Another explanation for the non-reaction to the clients' possession could be the interaction of different timelines, but I'm not really sure how this would pan out so I'm not going to elaborate too much.

What does this have to do with the earthquake arc? Why would Lu Guang have a (slightly) different power than Cheng Xiaoshi, if he inherited it from Cheng Xiaoshi as we are led to believe? What happens to the discarded film, the abandoned timelines, when Lu Guang casts them away? Can Cheng Xiaoshi ever be saved? I don't have answers to any of these questions, and maybe I'm overthinking (ha) all of this and it really is just a writing inconsistency after all, but I want to believe Link Click's writers know what they're doing with this and all we can do is wait for the reveal.

[mephistopheleswasrobbed]

So, since Peaceful Property is supposedly not a BL this gives me the opportunity to go full Pepe Silvia on it.

Therfore, allow me to present all of my evidence that Peaceful Property/On Sale is gay, actually:

1

In a clear parallel both Home and Peach in their introcuctory scene punch another person because they're scared of ghosts.

Home punches his (at that point about-to-be-) ex girlfriend.

Peach punches Best, his ex friend/colleague. Or is he? Because as so eloquently pointet out by respectthepetty here, Best is a little shady and Pangpang doesn't seem to like him. So until we get evidence to the contrary, I'm choosing to theorise that there was something between them, even just a one-sided crush.

Which means that we begin the show with both our main boys literally punching their respective romantic past in the face.

2

When their landady comes to collect the overdue rent, Pangpang assures her that a billionaire will fall in love with her handsome brother any day now.

While she is saying that, the camera focuses in on a news report speaking of the death of a wealty man

Attention is drawn to the fact that someone will inherit that wealth (emphasised by showing the dead guys oppulent mansion),

and then we see Home, looking like the epitome of stupid rich within that mansion.

Thus the show draws a clear line from Pangpangs satement about a billionaire falling in love with Peach, to Home about to become said a billionaire.

3

After realising that he's going to be even richer than he already was Home videocalls his friend in the US

Two men, sitting next to each other on a video call? They must obviously be a couple. Which means Home has gay friends (good ones at that, seeing how this Dustin Trust is the first one Home calls after receiving the news). Also one of them calls Home "Thai boy" and that's also pretty gay. This is admittedly not my strongest argument but we're in "not a BL" territory so I'll take everything.

4

He doesn't know why at this point but Home is clearly drawn to Peach from their first meeting, coming back TWICE to assure him they will see each other again.

5

More to the point, we see Home interact with Kan a total of five times in the first episode. When they're first introduced, at the will reading, when she tells him about the houses, at the Fan Singsing exorcism and back at the mansion after the real exorcism. The first three happen before Home and Peach meet for the first time and Home is flirty towards Kan in all three of them.

However in the last two encounters, after meeting Peach, he makes no further attempts at flirting with her.

Now, I'm sure this will change in the next episode, but for now I'm taking it as evidence that his attention has shiftet.

6

Pangpang tells Home to trust her brother and he gets a Look.

When he asks Peach a question and doesn't get an answer quickly enough, he tries to kick him which is kinda cute and also somewhat reminicent of schoolboy-with-a-crush behaviour.

Now, I'm not sure this is anything but throughout this whole scene Peach is framed between Best and Home. And I'm choosing to read it as Peach being currently at a stage between his past (Best) and his future (Home, and also Pangpang next to Home). This tracks insofar as Best is left of Peach and (at least in the culture I'm familiar with, not sure if it's different in Thailand) one would usually draw a timeline from left (past) to right (future).

(The previous picture already demonstrates this point but I think the green light reflection over Peach's eyes looks cool so I'm including this one, too)

After the sucessful exorcism Pangpang hypes up her brother. She and Best celebrate with Peach while Home stays behind them and looks at Peach contemplatively.

And this, my friends, is the moment he falls. Followed by the realisation that he likes him now, although whether he's aware that he like likes him remains to be seen.

7

Home then goes home (hah) and procedes to watch edits of his newfound crush, alone in the dark.

This, along with some ghost talk with Kan, makes him remember a conversation with his grandfather where said man told him to figure out the meaning of "home" before he can help him sell houses. Peach is helping him start to realise the true meaning of his own name.

8

The next time we see Home he's just casually laying in Peach's bed, watching him.

How long has he been there? How long was he going to just watch Peach if he hadn't turned around? What made him decide to just hop in bed with and stare at Peach in the first place? Who knows. (Well gay thoughts for the last question obvs) Whatever the answer, this is not very my-feelings-are-purely-platonic behaviour.

9

Now Peach is punching Home. If the first two punches were there to signal the end of two relationships, this third on is here to mark the start of a new one. Puncher + puncher = luuve (and more punching)

10

Of course Home had to come convince Peach to team up with him right away even though it is the middle of the night. Because he's excited about this and he can't wait. Ahh, puppy love.

And then he rises his eyebrows at Peach suggestively and we end on them standing across from each other, a bed in their middle.

Because that's where they'll end up. (Although maybe not this specific one. Not sure how Pangpang would feel about that.)

And that's all for this episode.

I realise that this has been quite Home-focused, but that is simply because Home has fallen first. Peach is too busy worrying about ghosts and rent money to be falling in love. For now.

[yingdu-lover]

I never knew I would be so passionate to say shit about link click ☠️🤣 I mean, it's so angst, life philosophy, metaphor, symbolism shit that I almost forgot to sit and enjoy but NOW when the ' meticulous construction of plot, intertwined parallel narratives and themes and intense philosophical symbolisms' are away, I CAN FINALLY BASH IT BWAHHAAAHAHAHAHA to my heart's content.

so, @whispersoflullaby and I decided to watch THAT godforsaken special episode and we have been inventing creative slurs in our mother tongue since then

Cheng Xiaoshi dives into the body of someone called Sanren laoshi who(via qiao ling) hands them a very...questionable photo.

I SWEAR TO GOD I AM NOT HOMOPHOBIC (maa kaalir dibbi) but that masked person/the very obvious sexual partner of the host is a...MAN?!

they do not seem to be an AFAB person. and also, for some reason that person's voice felt like lu guang's?????????? (I played it repeatedly but that 'look, look, look!' felt very much in lu guang's voice!)

idk is there any sober explanation to this or what the fuck 😭😭😭😭😭

the case is (head to toe) weird. it felt very weird and doesn't feel to have any significant connection to the main story. how is this canon?! I mean whatever special episode...Lan studio produced it, right? it has proper OP and ED... that made it look extra funny 🤣

I didn't question my life choices watching this episode! Not for one sec I felt the urge to cry, stupid things were happening in the most stupid and corny anime way possible. They failed their mission (100% cheng xiaoshi's fault) and the lines are so fucking hilarious

"during summer vacation people either

1. sleep to their heart's content

or

2. focus on their hobbies

or

3. post shoddy videos (a man taking pictures of a girl in blue underwear standing in a pool)

what should I do during summer?"

the host's request was to rectify the fuck up and say

"I really like games more than the sea!"

😭🤣🤣 so stupid everything was. And also the underwear thing...HUGE focus on hosts'....

'flexible' and 'cute'?

and ofc

" look, look, look, look, look! you have been staring at me for a while, what? falling in love?" ☠️ broski...sex is over now fuck off and pls kindly wear your trousers or somebody weird will pounce on you like this.

Cheng Xiaoshi's inner eiden was threatening to dominate when he said "oh? Sanren laoshi is not single then?" the zesty voice 🤣☠️ PLZZZ

☠️ why the episode was so weird, horny and hilarious lmao. don't mind grammer I just can't comprehend what I watched. hianime comment section 😭 some are saying wtf but others going like

"samajh nahi aya par link click hain to pura dekha aur accha laga" ☠️

"not quite sure what I watched but this show is peak and I watched it whole-"

noooo you should join us ☠️, link click has made me cry like a pathetic fox howling and all, now it's a slacking episode, I'm gonna call it names ☠️😭🤣 it feels SOOO good to not to intellectualise link click and cry with every fibre of your being

but a few serious things........

1. they wear those summer clothes...the happy visions/memories shown in 'The Eye' are the same

2. Lu Guang really feels...NON TRAUMATIZED? at least I got this feeling. he is just a chill guy, and extra silly, more expressive (I FELT THAT) can it be that it was...in the og timeline? IT FEELS LIKE ONE

this is the actual 'dumb time traveller photo faggots doing silly things together ' in a real sense (the misconception most of us had before we started watching link click???) it's silly through and through trust me

before watching this my brain was so hacked by profound depression (caused by nothing other than link click, surprise!) but I feel 🤣🤣🤣 so good now. had a good night's sleep. I passed out writing the half of the post and now I am writing at 4:30 am ☠️

anyways, I have never seen anyone discussing this episode before so I did it 😭 I am in love with the silly things actually! man I love this head emptu no thot vibe, and those questionable frames ☠️ and that masked man! hsjsjkkakekrisjznfkk why was all of these needed at all! but I loved that 🤣

[saturdaysky]

First Lines

I was tagged by @mithrilwren to post the first lines of my last ten fics! What a fun trip down memory lane this was.

1) fray (Ludinus/Essek; feelbad manipulation + an intentional gap between wants and needs)

"Such a fanciful tradition," he chides, watching the light play on Thelyss' bright braids. The candlelight of his bedchambers paints them fetchingly gold. Thelyss sits with a prim tiredness on the bed, holding still while Ludinus slips the buttons of his high collar back into place. They have begun to take all of their meetings here, in recent months.

2) discretion, written with @mllekurtz (Caleb/Essek; power dynamics and clothing)

“You wore this to the court today.” The words do not feel quite real coming out of his mouth.

3) growing sunlight (Caleb/Essek; a post-canon homecoming)

Caleb shuts the door against the afternoon sun, sealing them into comfortable privacy. The curtains on his windows are likewise shut, but light seeps through them anyway, casting the room in a warm, muted glow. Dimmed daylight will gather here for hours; like a little bubble of sunset just for us, supplies his mind. He is too glad to resist whimsy. Essek's visits always make him so.

4) if only for a moment (Caleb/Essek; time travel, grief, love, a leave-taking)

It was supposed to be five minutes into the future, but Caleb is pretty sure he fucked that one up. The lurch in his stomach tells him so, as does the treacle-like quality of his perception, and the way the spell writhes in his mind.

5) the end; to hold the sun (Caleb/Essek; a Calamity AU set minutes before the city falls from the sky)

It is done. It is done.

6) brothers (Beau & Essek talk about their estranged brothers; canon-with-a-twist AU)

Essek's shoulders are tense in a way that's gonna ache later, his frame drawn tight against the endless blue sky above the bay. He leans on the salt-crusted railing and stares out at the armada gathered for the peace talks. "I am still a Thelyss," he whispers in Undercommon. "They cannot take that from us." To Beau's ears, it sounds like a prayer.

7) sanctuary, a claiming (Caleb/Essek; werewolf/witch dark fairytale AU)

The night is red. Above the Wildwood, Catha’s gentle silver eye has waned into sleep at the end of its long cycle, leaving only the ruddy gaze of its sister to light the forest. Tomorrow, Catha will wax anew into wakefulness, but tonight, when magic is strong and bloody in the air, Ruidus’ dark creatures come out to play.

8) a shape made by our hands (Caleb/Essek; in a decaying timeline, Caleb meets Essek as a child.)

The spell is almost up. He’s gotten what he came to this timeline for, and when he returns to his own, this reality will decay into nothingness like an echo. The clock ticks unrelentingly in Caleb’s head; he estimates he has at least an hour. Maybe two, maybe less; time magic is an inexact science, as it turns out.

9) fulcrum (Caleb & Trent review proper torture techniques)

He is deep in the bowels of the sanatorium and has been for three days. Caleb is doing his best not to let that fact peel him out of his head.

10) poisoning the well (Caleb character study, ft. Trent's incessant, inescapable praises)

There is the splish-splash-splash as the Nein travel through the drenched Aeorian tunnel, and then Ikithon’s voice slithers into his head, parting the layers of Caleb's privacy with ease and blotting out all other sound.

I tag @mllekurtz @ariadne-mouse @chronurgy @burningdarkfire @annundriel and anyone else who wants to do it! Tag me in, I'd love to see your first lines.

[bendersmind]

From '69 to Release (Giggity)

Is "giggity" still funny? Did I mention I'm fucking ancient? Because I am. I saw the premiers of South Park AND Family Guy my dudes. That's how old.

Speaking of cartoons, I've been watching "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?" for the past 2 days. You should too. It's on Tubi, my favorite source for both garbage films and weird cult shit that only I (and a small amount of freaks) watch. It's great. This has NOTHING to do with my Ghost post, I just thought you should know.

Well, not nothing. The relationship is that Scooby Doo premiered the night of the Ghost show where Nihil fucked everything up. Behind the cut you'll find some potential spoilers for "Sister Imperator #2" based on the released preview pages. If you don't want to read it come back to this post after it's released. It releases on April 16th and will make the following post ENTIERLY meaningless and wrong. So let me waste a bit of your time . . . under the cut.

Alright, so information from the preview is kinda iffy. The biggest thing, which isn't probably related to the plot of the issue itself (something about some suspicious dude following the circus Imperator is in) but it's important for lore purposes.

There are a few things we learn.

A man we presume is Nihil has been touring away from the main circus on and off for 2 years.

At this point in the story, Imperator has been with said circus for those 2 years.

The man we assume is Nihil has at least 1 brother.

Said brother has a bunch of kids already

Okay. So lets look at number 3 and 4 as being the "point" of this post. 1 and 2 set up Imperator and (probably) Nihil's relationship.

Nihil tells us that his brother has several "pups" when Imperator accuses Nihil of leaving a bunch of French maidens sad after he left. The implication is 2 fold, Nihil's brother is a ho (and I say that with love; nothing wrong with being a ho) and he doesn't wrap it before he taps it.

The last frame of our preview shows us a dinner table with circus folk and 3 women each with young children. 2 with babies and 1 with a toddler. This occurs sometime between '53 (the start of Imperator #1) and '69. It's not super clear how old Imperator is when the comic starts but she is probably 10-13. She leaves home after her stepfather murders her sisters and presumably when she was a teenager. It's hard to say when, but I'd say 15/16ish. This means she's somewhere around 20 when Nihil comes back from France. Per my timeline this would be around '60. Nihil would be around 20 then as well(based on his death being in 2020 at 80). Let's assume that they are close in age(and Imperator aged gracefully, Nihil . . . not so much).

The toddler looked to be around 3ish (I legit know shit all about kids so please correct me if I'm wrong) and is potentially Papa I (or maybe my favorite pre canon theory, Mystery Papa); the babies are likely Papa II and III. I'd like to correct my already partially incorrect post from a while back; Papa I, II, and III are confirmed to be brothers; and based on the current information we have, Nihil is probably their uncle. It'd make more sense as to why he was cool with just murdering them.

Sister Imperator #2 will probably give us more of an idea of the family structure for the Emeritus bloodline and exactly how many brothers Nihil has. Based on what I'm thinking both Nihil's father and Nihil's older brother are dead by '69. This would open the line for the next oldest son (or daughter; we actually don't know anything about female descendants in the church). That would be Nihil.

When Nihil's bid for fame failed miserably after the show at Whiskey A Go-Go he was clearly replaced. By who? Probably the next in his father's line. And so on up until the last son of his father and then on to the oldest son of the oldest brother of the last generation of Papas.

Lord in hell that's a clusterfuck of a sentence. Basically, it'd go to Nihil's older brother's oldest son. This could be either Papa I or Mystery Papa (2008 - 2011). We just don't know yet.

I think the most interesting part of this whole thing is the "old world circus" that the church comes from. The biggest question for me is where does the circus "end" and the church "begin". That is to say, how do you go from circus performer to clergy? Is everyone in the troupe an agent of Satan? Or were the Emeritus line stashed into traveling shows to hide them from potential assassins?

That would actually give us an explanation as to why Copia and Perpetua were split up and raised apart. The current theory is that Mrs. Psalterian is Marika from the comic and thus the person who raised Copia. But where was Perpetua? Someone suggested with all of his Venice carnival schtick he was raised somewhere near Venice. I think that's a fair assessment. While the Ministry is (in canon) located in Linköping, Sweden, Italy is REALTIVELY close. Also Europe has the fucking trains that get you goddamn anywhere so it isn't even like living on different coasts of the US. (Fucking Europe and your . . . excellence)

Anyway, the raising of the twins is neither here nor there; until we get some more about Perpetua we'll be lost in the surf. I really look forward to seeing how he works with the crowd. Whatever we get it will certainly be interesting.

Points of interest: What is the structure of the Clergy exactly? Why has Marika always called Copia "Cardi"? Was his name when he walked into the story we are seeing "Cardinal Cardinal Copia"? Is the circus "Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show" from "Something Wicked This Way Comes"? Does Nihil already know the nature of his family? Has the church always been hidden in a traveling circus or was it in other itinerant entertainer groups(bards, theater, fakirs, etc)? Was there a magician Papa? Please tell me there are puppets! I fucking love puppets.

[midnight1nk]

⭐️ WELCOME TO MY MIND PALACE ⭐️

.・-: ✧ :--: ✧ :-・.

📢 UPDATES 📢 

To avoid spam in my inbox, I'm gonna settle a ground rule here: if you sent an ask as an anon, put a star emoji like this one, ⭐️, at the end OR if you're a frequent anon, sign as which anon are you (like "pizza anon" or "theorist anon")!

[Jan. 06, 2025]

.・-: ✧ :--: ✧ :-・.

Greetings, my dear fellows! The name's Ink, your local bi goober who is a sucker for single (and tired) parents with their adorable kids.

⭐️ I grew up watching SMG4 since 2014 and I feel like I'm going to explode if I don't share my theories with the fandom. (Listen, I've been itching to say 'and that's just a theory, an SMG4 theory!')

⭐️ While I am a fandom artist in my main account, this blog is only for my SMG4 theories and related stuff. Sorry, no art requests.

⭐️ Usually neutral/positive to most characters and ships but I do love SMG34 (and I will talk about them a lot)!

Feel free to drop a question/comment to my askbox! Thanks for dropping in.

Now with that settled, hear me out...

TAGS TO MY CURRENT THEORIES:

⭐ #goop!SMG4 // #👁️

[what-if scenario of the keyboard goo still being inside of SMG4, Venom style]

OTHER TAGS:

⭐ #horus hc 4

[cyan and magenta heterochromia-eyed 4 hc // edits by yours truly or featured in other people's art]

⭐ #🧿

[...?]

⭐️ #ink reviews

[SMG4 episode reaction and reviews]

⭐️ #ink rambles // #mind palace ramblings

[me going insane and sharing my thoughts with the world. the other one is a more deranged side, this is what happens when you have a theorist checking every single frame on episodes and notices some shit]

⭐️ #ink episode concepts

[SMG4 episode ideas i came up with, Masterpost]

⭐ #ink answers

[answering my askbox]

⭐ #fanart for ink

[we just got some fanart, we just got some fanart,i wonder who it's from? (also on Ink's Fridge)]

⭐ #ink fridge

[overall stuff i really like that needs to be in a museum/immortalized (full collage in Ink's Fridge)]

⚠️ DISCLAIMER FOR ALL THEORIES, EPISODE CONCEPTS, ETC. ⚠️ 

While I do create theories, episode concepts, and other posts, I want to be respectful to the crew behind SMG4.

I don’t want any of my posts to influence/forcefully change any intended plans for the future so please don’t harass anyone working on the show just because whatever I said wasn’t true. It’s just a reminder to be kind and respectful.

If they somehow see my posts, uh hi, keep doing what you do and I hope for the best! ❤️

.・-: ✧ :--: ✧ :-・.

[ ⚠️ TERF Proship Zionist DNI ⚠️ ]

oc (ink) ref sheet, ink's fridge, theory archive, and more below cut....

INK'S FRIDGE

all of my top frames from the show, memes, and art I received/inspired by what I wrote are featured here

fanart credits from:

@/theo-doodle-draw [birthday bash '24 fanart] [baby star]

@/bowlolol [goop!4 timeline fanart]

@/change-name-later [4 tried to cheer 3 up w/ boombox] [Mr. S]

@/34saveme34 [heterochromia 4]

@/bow-and-aro-child [heterochromia 4]

THEORY ARCHIVE

⭐ #once upon a perfect smg4

[twisted parallels of IGBP and "Once Upon an SMG4"]

⭐ #wotfi 2024 predictions

[self-explanitory lol]

⭐ #puzzlevision 2

[Final battle with Mr Puzzles, made before WOTFI '24 arc. Origin of Eye of Ra/Horus theory, Goop!Four theories]

MEET INK/KOI

my OC/persona

(really messy ref sheet I know)

[missfinefeather]

I'M SO GODDAMN HAPPY! HOLY SHIT!

Breathe Kelsie, BREATHE!

Okay, this frame right here, I think i have seen this somewhere before, like it was stuck in an edited video or something, but my mind wrote it off as like, a fan edit or something. I DIDN'T KNOW SHE WAS IN THIS GODDAMN MOVIE!

Okay, I need to talk about the movie now uh, where to begin with that.

I honestly thing the brotherly relationship between Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles is one of my favorite aspects. They are friends in the game, but you don't see them be as close as they are in this movie. As ironic as it is to say considering he went revenge crazy, this Sonic is the most well adjusted Sonic in any timeline I think, because he's not some vagabond that sometimes hangs with his friends. They truly are family in this movie, and it just gave this movie a genuineness that really endeared me to the flick.

Jim Carrey gave a steller performance as both Gerald and Ivo Robotnik! It's amazing he can make characters so goddamn silly, but also so heartfelt or even scary at times! Even at his old age, he has so many acting chops!

As much as I like Tom and Maddie, I'm glad they seems to take a backseat more and more as this series goes on. They are better support character tbh.

Yeah, this is a movie with a lot of heart, and I love it for that!

And now I'm looking forward to Amy in Sonic 4! I wonder who is going to voice her! They are already portraying her as a baddass, and that's exactly how she should be portrayed! ^^

Next time, I'll be liveblogging El Goonish Shive! Probably Saturday but don't count on it! After that, I don't know. Maybe I'll liveblog something on the list, or maybe I'll waste the next few months liveblogging the Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog or something. Heck if I know, we'll play it by ear.

Now I've got to watch a gajillion reactions, or sleep. Whatever comes first!

(Sonic 4 Coming Eventually!)

[theheightofdishonor]

I watched Secret relationships and had a blast. It's so unhinged, and gave me all the toxicity and messiness that i've been missing in dramas lately. And I liked the way they'd frame a situation a certain way only to then reveal like further details. It was really well done at the beginning. Near the end, it wasn't as clever but still not too bad ig.

That being said I was left with so many questions. I even ended up rewatching the entire show just because the timeline in their university days didn't really make sense to me. Timeline and all my questions below lmao because this got hella long

Timeline

1. Jaemin "meets" Daon

2. Daon meets Su Hyeon

3. the ring convo has to happen here, there's no way that happened after Jaemin and Su Hyeon start 'dating'.

4. This is the catalyst supposedly for Jaemin to convince Daon to stay distant from Su hyeon

5. Church conversation where Jaemin and Su Hyeon meet for the first time? and Jaemin convinces Su Hyeon to 'date' him

6. Daon finds out they're dating

7. Su Hyeon flirts w Daon while still in a 'relationship' w Jaemin (the scene on the field)

8. Christmas

9. Despite the earlier coldness towards Su hyeon in moment 7, they still are or become close again enough for Su Hyeon to be the person that Daon calls when hes drunk - and for Jaemin to know that Daon would call Su Hyeon

7. Jaemin arranges for Daon to be assaulted and for Su Hyeon to go abroad.

This still leaves so many questions.

Like Daon kissed Su Hyeon back in ep 6. But in a way that atleast to me suggested that they've kissed before. But based on the way they act, it couldn't have been prior to Su Hyeon and Jaemin 'dating'. And it should definitely have been brought up if it was during the 'dating' period? I guess it could've just been like a second of residual feelings but it'd be so much more fun if they had previously issued.

How did Su Hyeon and Daon actually meet? I wanna knoww

Its weird that Daon says Su Hyeon left him when he needed him the most. Like in the context of having been sexually assaulted, yes it makes some sense that he'd want someone who's close to him at his side. At the same time though, everything we've seen of present day! Daon's feelings about this situation shows that this situation had left him scared of Su Hyeon. Not to mention the stuff about Su Hyeon 'tormenting' Daon by flirting with him when he was in a 'relationship' and how other things must've happened for Daon to be so sure that Su Hyeon will show up at his house that first day when he rejects Su Hueon at work.

AND that shit where Daon says he'll never take Su Hyeon asck def implies they was something more happening unless it was a mistranslation.

What did Daon mean about leaving a person the second he loves someone else? Like is it about developing feelings for Su Hyeon when he liked Jaemin? Or liking Seong Hyeon when he again had feelings for Jaemin? There's also the realistic possibility that there were other people he was involved with (the multiple people talking ab how Daon opens his heart too easily to others) though idk how much considering Jaemin's interference.

Why and how is Jaemin so close to Su Hyeon's mom. And what's a relatively short period of time. Like between them 'dating' and Jaemin conspiring w/ Su Hyeon's mom to send him abroad, it was maybe a couple months, definitely less than a year. And Jaemin still calls her up and refers to her familiarly 7 years later.

I also just want to know why either Jaemin or Su Hyeon like Daon. I don't really understand the initial attraction or the intensity of obsession in either case, honestly.

Jaemin's initial rejection of Daon made so little sense to me, even at the end. The two possibilities I came up with were that a) he still didn't want to date Daon for the same reasons as before or b) he wanted to preserve the bet to keep Su Hyeon away from Daon from fear that they might get close again. However, if it was a, then there still wasn't a need to let him down so harshly. And I don't know how valid that fear of losing Daon is because I think if Daon know Jaemin reciprocated his feelings, then the chances of him developing feelings for another guy is far far lower. Jaemin could've easily began to date Daon at this point considering how close they are and how long they've known each other for and it would've been easier than ever to keep Daon at his side. If it's option B, that's still stupid considering Daon's present day attitude towards Su Hyeon and also the fact that he's far closer to Jaemin and if Jaemin and him were dating, he would most likely choose to believe Jaemin over Su Hyeon as Jaemin himself points out. Like, you could've easily won here, my guy.

[magentagalaxies]

KITH related things in my room that just make sense

bc i just got done cleaning/redecorating/etc. and i think it's hilarious that i have multiple framed photos of the kids in the hall

My entire closet door

which is of course home to the iconic "buddy cole timeline" (recently updated since i just realized i hadn't put anything since march 2024) but also this meme i made and printed out right when i finished watching the show the first time

and beneath it a display featuring a production still from "terriers", a fan-letter asking if they're ever bringing buddy cole back after his first appearance, and the first page of a never-aired sketch called "recruits" (which includes the typo "mark and scoot")

2. "Buddy Babylon" and "One Dumb Guy" on my bookshelf

(Buddy Babylon is also autographed by Scott and Paul)

3. Two different copies of Bruce McCulloch's book "Let's Start a Riot" (my mom got me the paperback for my birthday the year before I met Bruce, and the first time I met Bruce he gave me an autographed hardcover so now I have doubles lmao)

4. Autographed vinyl of the Mouth Congress EP "Ahhhh the Pollution" displayed on my wall with a printed out quote from Buddy Babylon

4. Autographed vinyl of Mouth Congress's first album "Waiting for Henry"

(I do not have "Valley of Song" on vinyl yet but I'm sure I will soon, I'm just waiting to see if they're pressing it on color-vinyl bc the WFH vinyls are gorgeous)

5. Various KITH related photos and other mementos on my corkboard

(I listed them all but the paragraph was so long so I'm leaving it as an iSpy mystery lmao. But I will shoutout @ofkithandmckinney for the lovely drawing and letter in the top right)

6. A framed photo from "Brain Candy" next to my antidepressants

7. And last but certainly not least, a framed production still of Tammy sucking on a pickle in front of the Queen of England

(not pictured: the fake-knife I got from the citizen kane sketch and six different binders filled with KITH-related scripts (one is an original draft of brain candy, one is a mix of sketch scripts and materials for directing the buddy cole documentary, two are 100% sketch scripts, and two are different drafts of a screenplay scott wrote. all these items are on shelves in my closet tho so they count as item number one)

[tams-writeblr]

Love in a hopeless Place 8

Synopsis: She was barely grown up, when she stepped into the bar that was the center of Zaun's resistance. The people she met there would forever change her life, and one of them especially. Silco x reader/OC; first-person POV; overall rating: E for Explicit; canon-compliant (though I might make a stretch on the timeline here and there to make things fit my symbolism); age gap! (younger female, older male); 9 chapters; 45k; cis female reader/POV; no beta-reader; completed Chapter ratings/warnings: T for Teen, no real warnings, just a little nudity and horniness. Wordcount: 1k Author's note: You wanted something fluffy? Be my guest! Comments would be appreciated!

Today's music recommendation: Dashboard Confessional - Stolen

<- previous | next ->

Act II

Chapter I

Part 2/4

"Hey sleepyhead, now it's really time to get up!"

I growled and turned my face into the sheets, trying to stay in the comfortable warmth of the bed a little longer.

"Geez, I've never seen anybody sleep so well. It shows you were a sheltered little Daddy's girl."

I huffed and threw a deadly glance at the figure that dared to pull me out of my sweet dreams.

Silco now was in trousers, and a fresh, red shirt hung unbuttoned around his frame. His hair came loose, making him look younger. The shadow of his stubble was still there. "Our bath is ready," he announced.

Exchanging the warmth of the bed for the warmth of a tub suddenly didn't seem as bad anymore. As I crawled out of the sheets, the muscles of my thighs feeling sore, he handed me a worn-out bathrobe. Right, the bathroom was in the hallway.

He still checked the outside, before shooing me down the hall and into a tiny room with no windows, sparse lighting and old, rusty appliances.

The tub was nothing more but a zinc vat, and imagining Silco alone in this thing involved fairly tucked-up legs.

As I let the bathrobe glide to the ground sloppily, Silco neatly placed his clothes on the toilet lid. I felt a little awkward watching him get undressed now that the heat of the night was gone.

He stepped into the tub first, offering me a hand, so I'd join him. At least the water was pleasantly warm. My back to his chest, we sat down, and some water instantly spilled over. It was really narrow but also cozy just sitting there, quietly enjoying each other's company. Silco washed my back, my neck, my arms. He left me shivering as he went on to kiss every part that he just hand cleaned. He continued teasing the sensitive skin of the crook of my neck, even after playfully telling him to stop it.

I was getting on my knees vigorously and turned to face him. As I punched his chest half-serious, I sent a wave out of the tub. "I told you to stop it!"

"Wow, careful kid, the good warm water," he chuckled, taking my wrists in his hands and pulling me in for a kiss. "My neighbors won't have any for the rest of the day because of us."

"I don't care." I returned, sticking out my tongue.

Silco clicked his tongue. "Damn, you are a brat, aren't you?" He pulled me in for another kiss, that quickly got heated. "Wow, careful kid. You're quite insatiable, aren't you?"

I rolled my eyes teasingly and gave him a sly smile. "I can't be helped with such a handsome man naked with me in the tub."

"No, no, no, you're getting a few days off, to recover."

I pouted and put my chin on his shoulder. "Man, I hate it when you're right. I really do feel sore."

He placed a hand on my back. "There, there, I'll try not to be as handsome."

"Impossible," I moaned dramatically, embracing his hug. We stayed like this until the water had run cold and somebody kept knocking on the bathroom door.

Silco got fully dressed and told me to sneak back into his apartment. "I'll be right back. Just look through my nightstand and take something to wear, you like."

I nodded, tiptoed through the hallway, and back into his room. In the tiny drawer right next to his bed, I found his shirts and sweaters neatly aligned, but there were no comfortable pants to be found. I got into my yesterday's underwear and just slipped into a gray sweater that at least managed to cover my ass. While waiting for Silco to return, I went over the books in the massive case on the wall. Tipping the backs with my pointer, I browsed the titles and found a great variation of literature. Very few seemed to be actual fiction books, most of them were political commentaries and manifests, socio-economic stuff and even some books about bookkeeping. I was also surprised to find a whole shelf full of chemistry books. As I scanned the fictional books more intensely to get a sense of what he might find entertaining, the apartment door was opened, and Silco, fresh as a new coin, entered.

He just rolled up his sleeves as he noticed me standing there.

"Have you read all of these?"

He shrugged slightly and stepped next to me. "Mostly. I dropped some when I didn't like them, but other than that, yes."

I didn't know many people that were that bookish. A lot of people, I knew, couldn't even read. I myself wasn't that bookish, had always been more into numbers. "Which is your favorite?"

Silco snorted. He ran a digit over his lower lip, fixed onto the back of all his books. "That's a tough one. I don't think I have one."

"Then which of them would you say I'd have to read?"

He pointed to a book with a dark blue cover - a real tome.

"The ABC of accounting?", I raised an eyebrow. "You serious?"

"You want to be better than Claus? He's not keeping his books very serious, so you need to." He looked at me with a crooked smile. "Not quite the answer you were hoping for?"

"I know the basics of accounting. Gimme something better."

He pointed at a similar book right next to the first one.

Advanced accounting.

"You think you're hilarious, right?"

"No, I don't have a good sense of humor. No, seriously, if you're interested in any of them, just take it and read it. It's not the secret library of Piltover, I don't care. Just don't mess up the order."

"Ah," I stretched. "I think, I'll pass for now."

He ruffled my still damp hair. "Are you hungry? I don't have much here, but better than nothing."

Indeed, I was starving.

[mybreadsmybutters]

top 10 men?

LONG long list with extensive explanations under cut. you are forewarned.

1. aidan gallagher. continually charmed and enchanted by whatever is deeply wrong with him and the weird fucked up shit he has going on with his clinically insane dad. he wrote rpf about HIMSELF. who is doing it like him. who COULD do it like him. he needs to come out as gay immediately. at least bisexual. to improve his image. he even makes BAD terrible music. incredible guy all around. i watch his content the way people watch isis beheading videos.

2. my real life actual grandpap. he is so definitely in hell one of the worst people ever. his number one political philosophy was being a hater and fighting anyone who looked at him wrong. i miss him everyday. perhaps the most insane person i will ever meet in my entire life.

3. idk if you wanted real men but the rest of this list is probably gonna be fictional characters due to the fact that i know about ten people. anyways number three is my beloved best friend seasons 1-3 five hargreeves of the umbrella academy. WHAT a character. what if you were a cis guy who could time travel and definitely liked killing people but also were obsessive and crazy and also had a fucked up weird thing with the woman who dragged you out of the apocalypse after you spent 50 years alone and also your body wasn’t your own because your dna got swapped with that of the most prolific murderers of all time and also you were stuck in the body of a child that might’ve been You at some point and everyone is patronizing and doesn’t believe you AND you watch your family die over and over again across every timeline as you constantly fail the ones you love. what a guy. five hargreeves you will never be replicated. also homewrecked his brother with the woman whose parents he murdered like 4 timelines back and then immediately convinced everyone to kill themselves but he did that in season 4 so i dont Really count it but it was still awesome. he’s experiencing types of body dysphoria that i cannot ever fathom i projected onto this guy so hard as a little in denial 13 year old. also when i was 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 and 21 he just kind of lives in the back of my mind perpetually.

4. JOE GOLDBERG FROM HIT FRANCHISE YOU. oh man i love that fucking freak and his mommy issues and the fake woke feminist facade and nightmares in the suburbs and the Knight in Shining Armor carried out to its most horrific prolific potential UGH. i want to pin him on my wall and frame him in glass like a butterfly. he means everything to me. EVERYTHING. so many neurotic tendencies and problematic behaviors spawned from exposure to his character at a critical age. wow i love that guy forever.

5. stefan salvatore vampire diaries. first ever vampire with a binge eating disorder (kills people pathologically) THAT is intentionally narratively framed as an addiction. ALSO in some weird fucked up forced-fated-cursed love triangle forever when his soulmate is clearly just his brother. my number one favorite vampire forever. did i mention he has no sense of humor. oh MAN i love that guy.

6. FICTIONAL ANIME BOY LIGHT YAGAMI. I LOVE SERIAL KILLERS WITH AN ABSOLUTELY FUCKED MORAL COMPASS WHO HAVE A WEIRD THING WITH THE DETECTIVE INVESTIGATING THEM. also see the entire death note musical. where is the justice when the guilty all go free… what would it be if i saw the world like him like a synonym… he is ensouled in the same way JD heathers is

7. fictional anime boy kusuke saiki… man where do i even begin. he’s blonde. he’s a sadomasochist. started world war 3 in an alternate timeline. weird fucked up thing with his brother that is ambiguously sexual. holds a gun at one point. wears a labcoat. wears his hair in a PONYTAIL at one point. foundational to my adolescent sexual awakening. also the entirely fanonical dynamic he has with fellow anime boy makoto teruhashi is world changing to me.

8. mildly famous comedian gianmarco soresi who i am parasocial with. i hope to be as mentally weird about things and be an attention whore and obsessive weirdo when i am 35 too. also first ever visibly gay straight man i think which is just endlessly fascinating to watch.

9. CHARLIE DAY

10. perhaps my most controversial and vaguely revealing choice for this list but one i stand by… porn star and tik tok influencer noahwaybabes. voice of a generation. also i think he’s so stupid hot like in a way that pisses me off. also i find him vaguely annoying but i think that’s because he’s funny and hot which is a REALLY unfair combination. also because he just is annoying due to being a tik tok influencer. probably steals off twitter but i dont use twitter so i dont care.

HONORABLE MENTIONS!!!

youtuber pyrocynical who was not included in this list due to the fact that i hate him and he sucks.

jd heathers who JUST barely did not make it on. im sorry that annoying tik tok influencer who i jerk off to sometimes won out but when it comes down to brass tacks i thought including even more fictional characters would make me seem like a huger massiver loser than the other option

[phoenixspencer]

Hello! I love your gifs! How do you make yours so clear and high quality/What's your process? <3

Hi!! Thank you so much!! I've never really had to explain out my process to anyone and I don't know how much detail you need, but I'll try my best and try to be as thorough as possible just in case!!

For my D:BH gifs, the process starts out with recording my own game play. I have a gaming computer that already had the GeForce Experience app downloaded, so I use that to record my game play. It records at 1920 × 1080p, 60 frames per second, so the files can get... rather large 😅 The video of my playthrough of the Russian Roulette chapter (~11 minutes long) was just under 4 GB. So its not light...

From there, I figure out what in particular I want to gif (for the timestamp roulette series, I let a random number generator figure out whereabouts I'm looking). Once I know that, I open up VLC and use it to isolate that particular shot + a little more on either end.

After I have the shot(s) I want to gif isolated, I open up Photoshop. I use "File" > "Import" > "Video Frames to Layers" and choose the video I want. You can do this straight from the video of your playthough, but I find that the shorter the video is, the easier it is to work with in this step. I trim my video more, to about a click or two outside of the specific shot I want. Like so:

From there I delete any extraneous frames from the "timeline" section that comes up.

Then is cropping: my go-to crop uses the "W x H x Resolution" option - I put 540 px in the first box, 300 px in the second and leave the third blank.

After that, I have an action in Photoshop that does the next steps for me (to make things quicker), but what it does is sets the frame rate (which will have to be done again after saving the gif because Photoshop hates everyone apparently), converts all the layers into a single object, and sharpens the gif. I've only been gif-ing for about a year and a half, and before that I had exactly zero experience with Photoshop at all, so all the numbers from these steps are still the same as the numbers I pulled from the tutorial I used when trying to figure everything out. For those, you can look at this absolutely AMAZING tutorial, by hayaosmiyazaki, specifically steps 7. gif speed and 8. sharpening.

From there, I start adjusting the colors. From what I've noticed, I seem to do a good bit less color adjustment than some, or maybe even most, other gif makers. It's honestly all about personal preference, so play around with it and find what you like! I personally like to stick as close as possible to the original colors, while still brightening the image up enough to make it clearer and more legible. So, for a majority of my gifs, I only apply an "Exposure" layer, a "Brightness/Contrast" layer, and a "Hue/Saturation" layer (from the "Layer" > "New Adjustment Layer" menu.) The numbers here change dependent upon the lighting in the shot.

For example, here's a before and after of this shot I just did so I could type this out and make sure I got every step 😅 For this one, I did Exposure +1.0 (no change to Offset or Gamma Correction), Brightness +20, Contrast +10, and Saturation +5 (no change to Hue or Lightness).

Once I'm satisfied with my coloring, I go to "File" > "Export" > "Save for Web (Legacy)". I watch the gif there to make sure it looks how I want, maybe go back and do a few tweaks to the coloring if I'm not quite happy, check the file size and then save it!

Tumblr's maximum file size is 10MB so if your gif is over that, you won't be able to use it on tumblr - in order to fix that, you may have to delete a few more frames. Or you can crop it to so there's less pixels in the "Save for Web" pop-up by changing the numbers in the "Image Size" section

And now, once I have my gif named and saved. I go back to "File" > "Open" and open up that gif. From there, I go to the little three lines icon in the top right corner of my "Timeline" section, click "Select All Frames" and then click the three dots on one of the frames and change the frame delay. For my DBH gifs, I do 0.02 seconds cause it looks best to me. Depending on how many frames per second your recording software does/what you personally like speed wise, this may be different for you. This is also different for gifs from live action or other media (for those, I prefer 0.05 seconds - it looks the most realistic to me.)

Then, I just save again, overriding the file from before I changed the speed, and voila! That's my process!

I hope this helps; if you have any more questions, my ask box is always open!! And again, thank you so so much 🥰 I'm so glad you like my gifs!!

[gayofthefae]

I feel like what people don't understand is there's a difference between not seeing Byler and not seeing Mike's feelings for Will. We've got another season for that, baby. But the outcome is looking to be Byler. I mean for the outcome to be Byler he could DEVELOP his feelings in season 5 episode 7 it does not matter the outcome will be the same. It's a ship but it's also a prediction. It doesn't have to have ramped up yet like that.

Much of us made this prediction based on pattern recognition, arc analysis, recognizing that the show treats and frames them the way they do the other couples then were motivated to watch Mike more closely with that future in mind, at least that's what I did.

"I think Mike is straight" or "I don't think we were supposed to see that he had feelings for Will this season, I just don't think they put that in there", I agree! I DON'T think this is his season for it to be shown! That would have taken away attention from Will! I think it is built for a rewatch, or rather, to only be seen through a knowing lens - which includes people who used that lens on their first watch because of their own predictions. I don't think it's supposed to be visible this season either! Same page! But that is not that same as saying they will not end up together.

Honestly, none of us know his timeline of self awareness - and we won't until season 5. When I first predicted Byler it was season 4 episode 2 and to my knowledge, Mike and El were still very sturdy and I had no clue how they were gonna execute it, but how they execute it or convince the audience that Mike isn't in love with El isn't my job. I trust that the professional writers, of which I am not, are smarter than me in that sense and have come up with things I couldn't fathom in that regard, so I couldn't tell you how they'll do it. I can, however, tell you that they will.

It's based in trajectory, so it isn't disproven by visibility. Predicting a twist reveal can't be disproven by the fact that it "doesn't seem like it's true". That is the definition of the words "twist reveal".