#might add some art explaining what i mean later

[molluskzone-moving]

furry tattoos are always so fascinating to me because i love seeing all that you can do with them. most people just draw the tattoos like fur patterns that have been stickered onto the body without taking into account how that wouldnt really work on fur (which makes sense bc tattoos on skin look cool so it also looks cool to just stick that onto a furry) but i personally really love seeing variety in tattoo applications and thinking about how it would work in real life... what i do personally is that if im designing a world in which all the characters are anthros (there are many ways to do this but ill imagine its something pretty generic for simplicitys sake), i will have a few different kind of "tattoos" that are popular.

the first is literally just bleaching + dying the fur in fun patterns (or just dying it if the character is white or tan to begin with). this would probably be seen as similar to having brightly colored dyed hair in our world, but id imagine its slightly more "extreme" depending on the styles. this is obviously not permanent and it will either fade or shed out. this is one of the more realistic options, as its something we do with our pets in real life! maybe kids and teens too young to have proper tattoos would do this to their fur, along with adults whose jobs prevent them from permanent body modification.

the second is having tattoo parlors specialized for tattooing on naked animals such as sphinxes or xoloitzcuintli (which may or may not actually exist depending on how you build your world and justify domestic dog and cat breed existing but thats a different discussion)... i think they could also probably tattoo other animals if they first shave their fur completely off and only leave skin: maybe punks or people really into body mods keeps parts of or all of their fur shaved off specifically to show off the tattoos. the third option (which is my personal favorite, and also the most unrealistic) is a sort of fantasy tattooing where the tattoo gun is somehow able to inject dye into the fur root and permanently change the color of the fur as it grows in. while this really couldnt happen in real life i love justifying it as something that has somehow been invented in furry societies... id imagine the tattooing procedure would be pretty painful and expensive, but would look very cool. and since this procedure would change the fur colour completely, if the character has long fur they would need to keep the patch of fur where the tattoo is shaved down to keep the design clear (kind of like people who "paint" onto their buzzcuts with hair dye: the dye looks weird if their hair grows longer, even if the dye itself is still in the same design). id imagine there are some people who would keep their entire arms or legs shaved down to show off tattoos, and leave certain parts of their body fur long for aesthetics. im actually unsure as to how realistic this option is, as my "research" (aka googling "is it possible to tattoo a dog) did not yield any results (all the photos and website articles were about either people shaving and dying their dogs fur or saying "YOU SHOULDNT TATTOO A DOG ITS CRUELTY" which is true but also i just wanna know if its *possible*)

the fourth option is also a realistic option, as its something we do in real life: freeze branding on animals with dark fur! people do this to horses and cattle in order to identify them, and the freeze brand makes the hair that grows there permanently white. like the previous option, this one would also require the fur to be shaved or trimmed down to make the design more legible, especially if it was more detailed. id imagine this would be a cheaper and simpler option that the fantasy idea of permanently dying the hair at the root, but its very similar in that it would keep the hair that grows there permanently altered. i think this would be pretty popular due to it being cheaper and quicker than other options. also, if you regret the design you could just dye your fur regularly to make the brand not visible any more. one downside of this method that i could see is that maybe its seen as less special because artists might have a few different brand they use on multiple people: maybe some groups see it as a poser thing. custom designs may be possible, but it would either require the artists to have a few different pieces they would arrange in different positions, or for them to create a custom brand for a specific customer which i imagine would get pretty expensive. also, while i was researching freeze brands for this post i discovered that people have actually attempted freeze brands on all sorts of animals, including sea lions and scaled animals which is very interesting (though the brands last significantly longer on animals with fur compared to fish or animals that shed their skin)

[thecertifiedboykisser]

Ok, big post with all evidence pointing to ratio being from amphoreus and some pointing against it.

Some leaks are in here!!! Be warned!!!

1-design stuff

Some notes, the style of clothing is very similar, most if all chrysos heirs have the same eye stuff that ratio has some just aren't colored (you can see it on some of the models in the trailer or the art at the end of the first trailor)

Spirals are a big thing, as well as the belt with the fabric (idk what it's call im sorry) and it draping over their legs. The blue stones and gold stuff.

Might be a bit of a pull but in the 3.0 live stream, dr.orange kinda looked like him, but I might be going insane.

Mydei and him have very similar eyes as well (I'm using mydei as a ref point bcs he's the only male from amphoreus we have splash art for to work with) same shape, puplies similar shape

I'm sure there's other design stuff and I might add it later. But for now this is all I got.

2-story elements

Now, this is more the lack of story, ratio has nothing but crumbs for his lore, where he's from, anything about him. Even his character storys aren't told from his own perspectives. The only time he really talks about himself is when he's referring to his goals or his love of books and baths.

He also doesn't have any clarification on where he's from other than the Intelligencea guild, and that's just a faction. There's no mention of his home planet at all.

On the official wiki. There are some that are classified as cosmic but we know the home of (boothill, acheron, Sunday, rappa[iffy, we know some details, like it was under dr.primive, but we don't know it's name so idk]) and some that we don't because it doesn't matter to there lore bcs there wanderers. Like sparkle, blackswan, and argenti. But dr.ratio doesn't fall into any of those categories. His home planet is vaguely mentioned as they have a bunch of stuff on him, but that's it.

It seems to matter to his lore, as you'd want yo know all about this great doctor, yet he's a complete mystery. And the quests don't help either.

He's not made for penacony or the space station. He even calls himself a supporting character, his character story was about others and guiding the trailblazer through helping them. He was solely there to help aventurine in penacony. Barely anything for himself.

That lack of knowledge tells me what I need to know. Either he's purposely keeping it a mystery, or it's gonna be figured out later. I mean if he is from amphoreus, he probably keeps it a mystery bcs how the hell is he gonna prove it's real.

3- What proves it's not real.

So, there's all this evidence, but it's lacking or doesn't make sense in some areas. Most of these points were brought up on tiktok by @/veritasratioenjoyer they make some really good points in their post, and its what inspired me to make this:)

So. It's stated in the livestream that the people of amphoreus have no concept of the outside world, meaning it's very unlikely that he's from there, considering how well known he is and that he follows the path of the erudition.

Veritasratioenjoyer explains it alot better than me so go check there video out.

If you have any more to add, feel free to in the reblogs! I do read them all:)

[aakaneeee]

well people. . It's time, aka Akane's monthly revival because there's Luka content. And gosh do I have a lot to say about this. Except.. I'm not going to market these as theories, but as predictions. I think as an og fan I've seen enough to be this confident in my abilities LOL

Quickly, I'd like to address the lyrics and the title, because I will reference it later and I don't want to have to explain mid-prediction.

Wiege has two meanings, and both are so fitting:

1. Cradle. It feels.. perfect, for me. It makes so much sense. Luka was a cold child.. but I'd like to say only physically. I feel like he genuinely warmed up towards Hyuna and Hyunwoo as a child. And I'm going to bring an idea that might get me a bit of backlash but.. I've gotten worse, and that is, that Hyuna is at fault for Luka's approach on his feelings. (Audience boos) From the little we know about Hyunwoo, I feel like Hyuna treated both him and Luka.. at least a little bit similarly. Or at least, Luka couldn't discern a difference, if there was any. Luka is a tube baby, he probably doesn't know (and I am not babying him here, I'd like to add!) what "siblings" he has. For him, affection might just be all and the same. Yes, it wasn't Hyuna's responsibility to teach him, but I feel like a hint was there "Your life is mine", and she could've explained, in a way. But, back to our discussion, Hyuna was Luka's cradle. She burns as bright as the sun, while he's colder. But most importantly, she was his only true friend (Considering I don't think his relationship with Hyunwoo was extremely close, even though they were 'friends'), someone he thought truly cared about him. Hyuna was Luka's cradle, holding him close, comfortable... until at one point, he outgrows that cradle (Hyunwoo's death).

And the second meaning, beginning. In the picture we got, Luka is centered, he's in the middle.. but he's so small, and overshadowed by the tree. Luka is the best performer of the ANAKT, always first, but has no friends. But perhaps, he was better that way. Then, Hyuna comes, and it's a new beginning. He's finally not alone. What I've noticed in the new banner, Luka is missing, but across the tree trunk, in his place, is a taller shadow. Perhaps, a shadow of who Luka was, hopefully still left in there. Or, the other way around, it symbolizes his real self being left there.

And the lyrics:

When I close my eyes,

Play in paradise.

These, to me, remind me of the interview where Luka said his favorite game was hide and seek. In a way, his whole ANAKT life was a game of hide and seek: hiding all the time, but no one trying to seek him. Until Hyuna did, and found him. Something that intrigues me is the "paradise", which to me sounds like what Mizi once said: Dying in competition means returning to the Great Anakt, which I suppose is to them like Heaven.. or Paradise. This will be important later, so remember it.

And now, my predictions for the HyuLuka episode

! First of all, I think the song will be lullaby-like. When I first saw this teaser, with the lyrics, as weird as it sounds, it reminded me of Richard's song in The Hero in TAWOG, a song that always gets me to cry for some reason, and I've been really stuck on that . It would be interesting, because it would fit Luka's voice (as does everything else), but probably not Hyuna's, even though 6FU; would eat it.. which to me, sounds like their "love", where Luka loves her, but it isn't returned. I'd love to see more German in it than just in the title. And considering the nostalgic, pastel, very cutesy artstyle (that reminds me of the memory part from Jordan River animation!), it seems very viable. But the art style is also noisy, which gives an unsettling vibe. It feels like a 2020's dreamcore wallpaper.

I might be crazy, but the hand holding the flower (with only 3 stamens, like the 3 friends) looks dark-skinned, like it would be Hyuna's or Hyunwoo's, but I doubt it would be his, considering it's the account's profile picture. If this is some kind of reference to.. perhaps, an unrequited Hyuluka but the other way around, with Hyuna still not over Luka.. probably won't happen, but God, would that be awesome.

So, how do I think the round will go?

First of all, I have to say, I'm not sure if this will be a round or a Mizisua type episode.😭 I'd say "oh the wait time is way too small" but also... do you guys remember the production announcement of Round 7? Yeah. You can never be sure.

This isn't necessarily a prediction, but more of a suggestion of what could be: It would be SO cool if it would be both.. in a way, merged. This idea just appeared in my mind and I was like OH. MY. GOD. Imagine if almost the whole thing was just them, as children, having fun, a whole backstory.. but then, when Hyunwoo dies, it pans on his face, and then it's back on stage, the loser's face instead of his. It would be so heartwarming, and then DEEPLY DISTURBING and traumatizing. I also really want some Luka and Heperu backstory so I can hate Heperu even more.

On the topic of the loser... It's going to be Luka. I'm an insane Luka lover and it was hard to get accommodated to this idea, but there is no way that he will survive. First of all, the shadow in the account's banner, in place of Luka. It's implications... are quite obvious. Second, the pattern of characters shown in Sweet Dream, and he is next. Third: "In my arms, you would be protected." I feel like Luka would consider the competition "In his arms". I don't think he would break his promise: hear me out for a second. He wouldn't let Hyuna die this way, because I feel like his sense of possession over her also comes with responsibility and protectiveness. And fourth, the Paradise lyric, to me, is a foreshadowing of his death.

I also think he will die by self sacrifice. First of all, there's no way Hyuna could defeat Luka by pure odds. Yes, her stats are better, but lets be honest, her mental power would NOT be as good infront of Luka, and also, the aliens wouldn't vote her. She's a rebel, wanted for so much time, with technically no guardian: they wouldn't want her to defeat their prince, probably. And second, I have made two categories:

The "perfects": Sua, Ivan, Luka

The "rebels": Mizi, Till, Hyuna

See something similar? Both the perfects that are dead, have died by self-sacrifice. The only other dead character, Till, has been shot while reaching for his freedom, so you can't say this is for all characters. And let's be honest.. Patterns are usually being followed in this series. Id also like to add, even though it's a reach, that in a tier of how 'perfect' they are, it'd be:

1. Luka

2. Sua - not so obvious self sacrifice

3. Ivan - obvious self sacrifice

So, I'd say that Luka's might be even more backstage, as if to sabotage himself in a way that seems viable. It also kind of goes in line with his character, he's not one to break facade on stage.

I think this episode will be quite a deep-dive into their true selves. We know the least about them, so this will be GREAT. I'd love to see a more morally gray Hyuna in this. (Since I'm genuinely kind of tired of only Luka being villainized in the ship, which honestly..  is kind of in line with the other perfects. Let's let Mizi, Till and Hyuna be little freaks too) I also want to see atleast a little bit of Hyunwoo, like a little snippet of his mind, what he saw in Luka.

In conclusion, I'm SO happy and hyped about this HyuLuka episode, they're so mysterious and I really really want to see more of L- I mean, more of them. Getting 2 episodes where Luka is present one after another is literally THE dream to me. Basically, Wiege is killing me and I'm gladly letting it.

@4listr Since you asked to be tagged and also, @rockwgooglyeyes I REALLY want your opinion on this

[sunny-days-and-warm-mournings]

It is finally finished!! I am done and is so happy!!!

This is an AU exploring the concept of Sūn Wùkōng/Dàshèng as a Yaksha and Tu Di Gong, rather than being a Yaoguai Warlord during his later years reigning as the Monkey King.

This AU follows the beginning (with some changes here and there) up until Wùkōng's shenanigans with Ao Guang, then he went on a separate path from Wu Cheng'en's novel.

In this iteration our favourite Monkey explored the realms as he burned up time, but then he took a particular interest in the humans' ways of producing food. Since Dàshèng was so used to the grandeur and bounties of Huagoushan (being surrounded by such lush forests and mountains that never withered nor died) he sort of took pity on them before deciding to help them grow their crops much better.

But this is just the very much shortened summary of the beginning of this AU, and I have compiled some research and even more lore in my Google Documents just to expand on this idea more.

This— Westward To Tathāgatagarbha Lore Google Documents

This is the Google Document of my AU, which I highly recommend for you to read! It explains all the other details and such on this story! I did my best on making them but there would be still mistakes that I have yet to find, but it should be decent!!

This is a more casual look for Dàshèng/Wùkōng for this AU as well as some brief pointers! I made this before the portrait so some things might have changed.

(Don't mind him holding a cup of beer it's fine.)

Taken from the server (with some hints for the next half of the archives/docs) which instantly kickstarted this whole thing haahahjjjss, but it really was so fun talking about it to others! They gave me more inspiration that I can handle.

And what is Tathāgatagarbha you ask? (Brief)

In Buddhist philosophy, Buddha-nature is the potential for all sentient beings to become a Buddha or the fact that all beings already have a pure buddha-essence within. "Buddha-nature" is the common English translation for several related Mahayana Buddhist terms, most notably tathāgatagarbha and buddhadhātu, but also sugatagarbha, and buddhagarbha. Tathāgatagarbha can mean "the womb" or "embryo" (garbha) of the "thus-gone one" (tathāgata), and can also mean "containing a tathāgata". Buddhadhātu can mean "buddha-element," "buddha-realm" or "buddha-substrate"

The Chinese translated the term tathāgatagarbha as rúláizàng (如来藏), or "Tathāgata's (rúlái) storehouse" (zàng). According to Brown, "storehouse" may indicate both "that which enfolds or contains something", or "that which is itself enfolded, hidden or contained by another." The Tibetan translation is de bzhin gshegs pa'i snying po, which cannot be translated as "womb" (mngal or lhums), but as "embryonic essence", "kernel" or "heart".

The term tathagatagarbha first appears in the Tathāgatagarbha sūtras, which date to the 2nd and third centuries CE.

There will be more to this in the future when I'm finished researching more about it.

Also, speaking of people that inspire me, I'm calling my dear friends here who I think might like this: @digitalagepulao @kaijufluffs @sketching-shark @lavaflowe @sixteenthchapel @jttw-monkeybusiness and @hcdragoncat !!

Special thanks to Pardal and Grandpa Sun for getting me to write more of this too :D I had such great fun!

I have so much more to add to the docs and here but this is all for now :) and honestly this is one of the greatest projects I've started aside from the older ones. I'll come back again soon with more additions and art! And lore (And maybe some interactions with a few West Heaven occupants??)!!!

[talenlee]

How To Be: Vivien Reid (in 4e D&D)

In How To Be we’re going to look at a variety of characters from Not D&D and conceptualise how you might go about making a version of that character in the form of D&D that matters on this blog, D&D 4th Edition. Our guidelines are as follows:

This is going to be a brief rundown of ways to make a character that ‘feels’ like the source character

This isn’t meant to be comprehensive or authoritative but as a creative exercise

While not every character can work immediately out of the box, the aim is to make sure they have a character ‘feel’ as soon as possible

The character has to have the ‘feeling’ of the character by at least midway through Heroic

When building characters in 4th Edition it’s worth remembering that there are a lot of different ways to do the same basic thing. This isn’t going to be comprehensive, or even particularly fleshed out, and instead give you some places to start when you want to make something.

Another thing to remember is that 4e characters tend to be more about collected interactions of groups of things – it’s not that you get a build with specific rules about what you have to take, and when, and why, like you’re lockpicking your way through a design in the hopes of getting an overlap eventually. Character building is about packages, not programs, and we’ll talk about some packages and reference them going forwards.

Magic: The Gathering is a fascinating nerd franchise. It is probably as a single entity responsible for the most paid high-level fantasy artists in the world making a living these days, and that art is being made in service of straight up enjoyable, indulgent nerd garbage, a sort of prestige pulp presentation. What’s more, thanks to the way that ideas of inclusion and diversity being marketably valuable, that means it’s also a game with a bunch of high profile fantasy art characters designed by top-level character designers to get that same high quality fantasy art that has multiple characters that are non-white, women, and non-white women. That gives us Vivien Reid, a character I can tell you about as a backstory about a lost world and a planet of ghosts, or as a selection of about four cards that are pretty good and one major story spotlight that absolutely sucked pants because nobody making it seemed to understand what would make the story good.

Examining Vivien Reid

Just to get things out of the way, up front, let’s all just take a moment to appreciate that Vivien Reid looks incredibly cool. As a character, the aesthetic of the character is just top down, ‘cool and good nature-archer badass character,’ and she’s got this added aesthetic element of ‘a bunch of cool ghost animals hanging around her.’ The point of a Planesewalker in Magic: The Gathering is that they’re characters who need to project a lot of identity immediately and then have that projection explained by mechanics. Vivien? Bow. Ghosts. Badass. Bang, that’s everything.

This is a problem, we’re going to get to it later. For now, let’s just put together our list.

Vivien Reid has a bow

She fights with ghosts.

She’s physically adept, she has all her arms and legs and presumably her fingers and toes.

If we look into the source material in Ikoria’s Sundered Bond, we can add something to her characterisation and personality, but that book sucks. Sorry, I mean, it is also extremely bad. It’s a story about a plane full of monsters where Vivien goes to befriend a cop who doesn’t even name his pet. Based on that, let’s forget Sundered Bond.

If we look at Vivien’s cards, we can add to it that she supports people, leading calls, and improving their ability to fight. Also, we can point to the way her abilities tend to work: Typically, Vivien gains loyalty and spends it in a big event. She can summon more monsters sometimes, she can start fights, sometimes, and she can wreck enemy weapons or magic, sometimes. There’s quite a bit here, like, there are many things you can fold together.

If we look at her voice and fictional presence in the game, as expressed by the flavour text on other cards, there’s an extra thing, which is… Vivien is really intelligent? Like, she has a lot of information in her head, and a really driven curiosity about things in biology. She’s on numerous pieces of cards doing flavour text that explains really specific details about animals, with a sort of Steven Irwinish ‘oh gosh isn’t this fun and funny’ kind of vibe. This voice also shows that she’s good at projecting her personality and her interests, which also suggests a brilliant charisma, too. There’s even some philosophical reflections on civilisation and power, which could be the foundation for a lot of wisdom.

Point is: Vivien has a surprisingly good explanation for a mental stats.

Bending Like A Reid

Hmm, let’s see about the things that are going to be easy and consistent with this particularly broadly spread set of build options. First of all, her equipment isn’t remarkable. Armour, just use the best you can. Use the gear that improves your non-armour defenses and works well for the class you wind up picking.

Weapon on the other hand, that gets thorny. Because obviously, Vivien uses a bow. But Vivien’s bow lets her fire ‘monsters’ at people, which isn’t what you can normally do with bows. You may not have ever noticed someone launch a witch or whatever with a longbow. For builds that use implements, normally I try to make sure the ‘weapon’ they use is actually an implement, usually by using Swordmage tricks. Thing is, bows? Nobody’s set that up already. There’s no feat obviously set up to say ‘hey, you can use a bow as an implement,’ which is weird.

All of which is to say, any implement based Vivien is going to use an implement that probably looks a lot like a bow. And to be fair, Vivien’s bow doesn’t behave like a real bow, it has no string.

Glossary Note: Conventionally, the term used in D&D for this mechanical package is race. This is the typical term, and in most conversations about this game system, the term you’re going to wind up using is race. For backwards compatibility and searchability, I am including this passage here. The term I use for this player option is heritage.

We can sort out Heritage pretty easily at least. Vivien isn’t a heritage that deviates strongly from the human base. In pure fundamentals, she’s a Human, they say she’s a Human, and that means that if you want to minimise the choices you have to make, she’s a human, take human, pick the stat you want and go for it.

Still, there is room for another detail here: The Wood Elf. Wood Elves are like Elves, get all the same features (with some swappable powers, you very much do not need to know about because you’re not going to take them), but their stat spread can be Wisdom and Dexterity. These are going to be the important stats to all the builds, because turns out those are both going to be important stats for my pre-built packages for you here.

Build 1 — The Bread

First of all, the simplest way to represent VIvien Reid is with a Ranger. She is a lady who walks through the forest, is connected to nature, and she shoots things with a dangerous longbow. Easy enough, just focus on the Ranger elements of her character. The bow ranger is less good than the two-weapon Ranger, but there’s almost nothing bad in the Ranger’s options.

The ghosts are a little more tricky to get. Again, operating on the assumption of the easiest way to do it, there’s the Fey Beast Tamer again, one of our all purpose powerful themes. If you want to play with more spirits, like to make sure it feels like there’s multiple elements going on, you can also multiclass Shaman with the feat Spirit Talker. Taking Spirit Talker lets you summon a Spirit Companion, which blocks a square, it’s a fine power (we’ll talk more about it) as a feat, and then you can use it with the Watcher Spirit to grant an attack to someone in a melee space.

Between the Fey Beast Companion (you’re taking the Owlbear right) and the Spirit, you can even block a fairly substantial bit of space on the battlefield. You just need to retheme your Baby Owlbear as something more appropriate to Vivien like a ghostly leopard or a ghostly jaguar or a ghostly ocelot or a ghostly puma or a ghostly caracal or a ghostly bobcat.

Build 2 — The Eggs

Vivien is literally referred to as a Shaman, and in 4th edition, the Shaman summons spirits that can stand in the way of enemeies and keep them from entering squares, supporting allies, and even granting attacks. The Shaman is a good Leader, it’s a powerful character, and like, I don’t say this often, but all the Shaman builds are cool and good. The Stalker brings damage, the Protector is a pseudotank and can even foist marks onto the Tank, and the Watcher can grant attacks. Straight up, pick one that looks like it looks good to you.

The way this works is that you summon a ghosty beast and plant it next to things, then attack through it. You can attack with your own melee weapons, but through the Spirit with the right magic items – meaning you effectively have two forms of melee reach. People can attack the Spirit to get rid of it, but that involves spending a bunch of damage on a thing you’ll just re-summon and they need to kill it in one hit or they achieve dick nothing. If you’re mostly focused on the animal spirit part of Vivien Reid, then this is the side to focus on. The Spirit Companion is like an unkillable wall, a thing that you can plant down in places and force people to move around it, or you.

The Shaman’s biggest weakness for representing Vivien Reid is that they don’t use bows. In fact, they kind of can’t use bows. In fact, I went through a lot of hoop jumping and tried to find any way that, using only extant game pieces, the Shaman could use bows. Turns out that nope.

If you go bard, or monk, you can do something like that? And those aren’t bad tricks to pull off? But the actual archery element, the idea of using ranged attacks as a Shaman, rather than implement attacks, is just a hard no. It’s weird to hit a wall like this in a game like 4th edition where so many options got SOME support.

Build 3 — The Breaded Eggs

Okay, so if the Ranger does the good bow attacks, and the Shaman brings the spirit…

Why not a Ranger and a Shaman? After all, the Ranger build suggested multiclassing Shaman. Rangers need Wisdom as a secondary stat, and Shamans can take advantage of Dexterity to have a good armour class in their lighter armour. What if you take a Ranger and Shaman and kind of … moosh them together?

I like Hybrids but Hybrids are complicated, and I think ‘approchability’ is the best thing I can give you, a stranger, in trying to build things for this game system that, statistically, you do not play. The thing with Hybrids is you can do some cute things by sticking together (say) two Defenders to have a wide variety of Defender options, or two Leaders to have some interesting combination of Leader options. Strikers it doesn’t tend to work, but there you have a Hybrid as an ‘interesting, but weird, representative of its role.’

What we’re looking at here for Vivien is a Hybrid Shaman-Ranger, where I would recommend making her a 80% Ranger, and the remaining 20% is just Shaman. Shaman has a lot of minor action powers, it has a lot of things it can do without spending much effort to support it, so if you focus on a good Dexterity to support your attack and a decent Wisdom to support the attacks there, you have a Ranger who can occasionally heal, block a square, and have utility powers like Claws of the Eagle or Spirit Sacrifice.

Now, this is asking to add the Shaman utilities to the absolutely gonzo arrangement of options for the Ranger, but importantly, it will feel like Vivien throwing ghosts at people.

Junk Drawer

You know what summons things and attacks at range…? The druid does that. But joking aside, there’s also the option of just using the Hunter, which is a ranged control type. It’s very simple and straightforward and doesn’t do anything weird there. I don’t like the idea of turning her into a Beast Mastery ranged attacking Ranger – I think that’s a very basic binch version of what Vivien is, but if you want something that’s as simple as possible, it’ll be that.

Conclusion

Vivien is a very cool character but that coolness is purely just projection. We’ve had a few stories with her that hold together more or less through ‘hey, she’s neat and look at how cool she looks.’ This is perfectly good for a character that exists to offer flavour to a mechanically complex strategy game. But it also means there’s a vibe that the character’s design projects, and the challenge present here is can you convey that with your build. The important thing is to look at the picture you’re using and ask yourself: If I show this to someone, are they going to go ‘oh, that’s your character? Dope.’ And not, ‘oh, is that your character? I didn’t know she could do that.’

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[ladykailitha]

The Eddie Munson Guide for Dating an Oblivious Jock Part 3

Sorry this is taking me longer than normal, I’ve had major cramps the last three days that have knocked me for a six.

Part 1 Part 2

*

Step Five: Flirting

“Shouldn’t you be doing that the whole time?” Max asked.

Eddie shook his head. “Not really. With the low self-esteem they’ll only get flustered and angry. And that’s the last thing you want. It’s why flirting with Steve in the Upside Down didn’t work. He was only confused and upset.”

Max nodded. “So how do you flirt?”

Flirting is an art that can be hard to learn because was works on one person might not work on the next. Pet names are a good place to start, compliments are always a win, but with that you have to be careful not to compliment something they’re insecure on.

“What do you mean?” Max asked.

“Say they think they’ve put on weight,” Eddie explained. “And you compliment their figure, depending on the person, their mood or who they’re around they might take offense to it.”

“So complimenting their looks is a no-no?” she asked.

Eddie shook his head. “Stick to things they can choose,” he said. “Like a new shirt that looks good on them, if they’ve gotten a new hair cut. Their shoes.”

She nodded. “I can work with that.”

Eddie walked into Family Video and stopped short. Steve was wearing a tight grey Henley and his hair was shorter on the sides then he usually kept it.

“Looking fine today, pretty boy,” Eddie said flouncing up to the counter where Steve was putting together member card applications for Keith to review later.

Steve blushed, running his hands nervously through his hair. “You think it looks okay?”

Eddie reached over and tugged a lock so that draped in front of Steve’s face dramatically. “You are totally rocking it.”

He straightened up. “Me and Will went to the barber yesterday because he wanted to try something new and well...”

Eddie softened. “And you didn’t want him to feel nervous about it so you got your hair cut, too.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re a good dude, Stevie,” Eddie said, wrapping his finger around the loose lock of hair.

Steve blush deepened and reached his ears. “You’ve never called me ‘Stevie’ before.”

“You like it?” Eddie asked, leaning further into his space.

Steve nodded. “It sounds sweet coming from you.”

“Holy hell!” Max exclaimed. “He’s totally had the hots for you.”

Eddie smiled at the memory. “Yeah, but he didn’t know it at the time. He had just realized he liked boys, too. It was still too new for him.”

“Must have been scary, too,” Max agreed.

In addition to compliments and pet names, once you’ve figured out what they like add a little touch to your flirting. Nothing overt. Don’t be grabbing his ass right off the bat. Save that for when you’ve finally bagged your jock and are dating them.

They were watching Thirteen Ghosts at Eddie’s and were sitting next to each other on the sofa.

“The special effects are a little goofy on this one,” Steve said. “It makes it hard to be scary.”

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed, leaning into his space. “But the story is good and you can see why it might have scared audiences at the time.”

Steve chuckled. “I guess.”

Eddie patted his knee. “I’m going to grab another beer, you want one?”

Steve smiled at him. “Sure.”

Eddie used his knee to stand up and he could feel Steve’s eyes follow him. He came back with two bottles and popped both their caps with his rings on his left hand.

Steve huffed out a laugh. “Handy that.”

Eddie grinned. “Says the man who’s strong enough to pop the caps without any aid.” He handed the bottle to him.

Steve blushed and took a sip. “Brawn over brain I guess.”

Eddie bumped his shoulder into Steve’s. “Hey, now. I thought we were past that bullshit talk of you not being smart.”

Steve ducked his head. “I know, I know. Interest not intelligence. But some times it’s hard when people still in high school are light years ahead of you.”

Eddie paused the movie and grabbed Steve’s hand. “Hey, sweetheart.” Steve looked up. “I get it. You’re talking to Mr Three-Time Super Senior here. But no one dogs on my intelligence.”

Steve frowned. “I never thought of that. I guess it is weird that it’s only me.”

“It’s why I’ve been training them out of it,” he said seriously. “It’s not fair that literally no one else gets that kind of treatment. Not even Argyle and Jon get called dumb.”

“Huh,” Steve said. “Yeah. Okay. I’m going to start calling them out on it, too.”

“You do that, babe,” Eddie said.

Steve’s smile was incandescent. “Thanks, Eds. You’re the best.”

“Only for you, Stevie.” Eddie murmured. “Only for you.”

“That was a lot of touching,” Max said. “Does it have to be that much?”

Eddie shook his head. “Just do feels natural. I like touching Steve arm when we greet each other and then giving it a squeeze. It signals I’m happy to see him without everyone else cottoning on to the fact I’m flirting.”

Max nodded. “What about hugs?” she asked.

“That’s the next step,” he said. “You’ve got to start small and build up to those kind of touches. Because the light touches are flirting. The bigger ones? That’s signaling intent.”

Step Six: Touch

Now that you’ve been flirting with your jock and initiating touches, they should be comfortable with the idea of touching and receiving your touch. So start to go a little bigger. Lingering touches, pressing on their lower back when you both walk to the door. Holding on to their hips as you squeeze past them in the kitchen. And of course the ultimate touch hugs.

“Wouldn’t the ultimate touch be sex?” Max asked.

Eddie blinked. “Says the girl that thought cuddling was gross.”

She blushed. “I mean, it’s all gross right now, but we are going to get to that point sometime in the future, right?”

He shrugged. “I guess. Everyone goes into sex at their own speed. Some never have sex or even want to. It’s whatever works for you.” She frowned, frustrated. “Look, sex is great. But trust me when I say rushing into it is a bad plan. Also doing it outside a committed relationship is fine, lots of people enjoy that. But sex with a partner is...for me anyway, better. You get time to explore your likes with theirs and meeting in the middle. But like I said it varies from person to person.”

Max sighed. It wasn’t the cut and dried answer she was looking for, but then again, nothing in life ever was.

“So hugging?”

“Yeah, hugging.”

Eddie showed up early for D&D like he always did, but instead of grabbing Steve’s arm like he had before, he hugged him. He expected it to be a quick thing, you know. Since he had surprised him and all.

It wasn’t.

The second Eddie went in for the hug, Steve’s arms were wrapped around him and pulling him in tight. They stayed like that for a few minutes before Steve took a step back, mumbling an apology.

Eddie gripped Steve’s arms and leaned back so he could try and see his expression. It was closed off and guarded.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he cooed. “You okay?”

Steve nodded. “I guess I needed a hug more than I thought.”

Eddie frowned at that. Steve was always giving hugs to Robin and the kids. Hell even the other adults got Stevie hugs, Jonathan, Argyle, and Nancy.

Oh.

Oh.

“You know you can hug me anytime you need it, don’t you, Stevie?” he murmured running his hands up and down Steve’s arm.

Steve looked up at him with such awe and wonder, that it made Eddie’s heart ache.

Steve surprised him a second time by immediately launching himself into Eddie’s arms for another hug.

Eddie let his hands wander. One cupped the back of Steve’s head, while the other slid down to the small of his back. He buried his head into the crook of Steve’s neck.

“Hey,” he whispered. “I can cancel D&D if you’re not up to hosting. Or even move it elsewhere.”

Steve let out a whine at the latter suggestion. “No, no. I want you here.”

“What the fuck?” Max practically roared. “Was he okay?”

“It came as a shock to me, too,” Eddie admitted. “I talked to him about it later and he told me that he wasn’t if he was allowed to hug me because of me being gay.”

“That makes no sense,” she said firmly.

“He didn’t know what the line was,” Eddie explained. “Because with girls you only hugged them if you were dating or really good friends. Argyle is a natural hugger and initiated the first hug so he knew that okay. Nancy and Jonathan were already at that level of affection.”

“But he didn’t know how to initiate it with you?” Max asked, a slow understanding dawning on her face.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Once I hugged him, it was like a levy breaking. He amped up the affection to eleven.”

“Okay,” Eddie said. “I’ll be here.”

Once everything was set up and everyone had arrived, Eddie called them over. “Steve isn’t feeling good today, so we are going to be respectful little shits and try and keep the noise down to a dull roar, is that understood?”

Everyone nodded.

“Good.” He turned to Steve. “If you need anything let me know, otherwise you just rest, okay?”

And without asking if they were in combat they all took turns checking in on Steve, most of them found him asleep, passed out on the sofa. But when Mike peeked in, Steve was sitting up, but he his arms wrapped around his knees and staring off into space.

He immediately ran for Eddie. Eddie stood up and quietly walked to the front room. He knelt on the floor in front of Steve and began rubbing his calves. After a moment, Steve came out of his trance.

“There you are, sweetheart,” he murmured.

“Oh, are you guys done?” Steve asked, moving back so that he could place his feet on either side of Eddie.

“Just taking a break,” Eddie said with a shake of his head.

“Oh,” he said again. “Do you guys need anything? Snacks, drinks, lunch? I could make sandwiches.”

“We’re good, Stevie,” Eddie asked, his hands now on Steve’s knees. “I’m a little worried about you, though.”

Steve ducked his head. “It’s nice having people here. It’s nice having you here.”

“We could move our monster fest night over here if you’d prefer that?” Eddie asked.

Steve shook his head vigorously. “I like going over to your place. It’s homey.”

“Homey, huh?” Eddie teased gently.

“Warm, comforting...safe.”

Eddie surged up and grabbed Steve, pulling him into a hug. “Then you’re always welcome.”

Steve sighed into his embrace. “Sorry I’m so needy today.”

Eddie leaned back and cupped his cheek. “I want you to need me, Stevie. So if you get like this. Call, come over, send out of the cavalry to find me. I don’t care, just let me in.”

Steve nodded. “I promise.”

Eddie stood up. “I’ve got to get back. Why don’t you join us? Not in the campaign, just pull up a chair and watch.”

Steve’s face grew the most beautiful and heartfelt smile it cracked something in Eddie’s chest wide open.

He knew that he would never love someone as much he loved Steve. And with any luck (and with every indication) Steve felt the same.

“You know, all I’m hearing with this one is holy hell Steve needs all the hugs in the world,” Max cursed.

Eddie laughed. “Something like that. I think we forget, even you and I whose families and home life have been shit, that’s Steve’s was, too. An abusive and toxic father and a distant and neglectful mother. Even if he never hit Steve, emotional abuse is still abuse.”  

“I think I’m going to tell the rest of the party to start initiating hugs with Steve more often,” she said. “I think we forgot somewhere along the line that he’s been through the same hell we’ve been through only a way more active a participant.”

Eddie laughed. “I think he’d like that. A lot.”

Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Tag List: @spectrum-spectre @estrellami-1 @zerokrox-blog @this-is-mycrisis @swimmingbirdrunningrock @gregre369 @goodolefashionedloverboi @chaoticlovingdreamer @maya-custodios-dionach @messrs-weasley @val-from-lawrence @plyerice27 @thedragonsaunt @chaoticlovingdreamer @sapphirecobalt-1 @a-little-unsteddie @i-must-potato @danili666 @carlyv @artiststarme @steddie-there @wonderland-girl143-blog @itsall-taken @thebrazilianatheist @rozzieroos @whalesharksart @mightbeasleep @theotalksalot @avacrebs @sassysleeplord @exhibit-no-restraint

[amerricanartwork]

I saw your lilypad art post, and I got curious: why do you enjoy lilypad? it's not a common RW ship, so I'd be interesting to hear what about it you enjoy!

Hear me out, guys... I must explain myself before I get onto the Lilypad essay.

I made that original comment because, at the time, I wanted to just get the aforementioned headcanons out as soon as possible. Understand, my reluctance wasn't because I didn't want to talk about Lilypad, but rather the exact opposite: I had so many feelings about it, yet had put so little effort into expressing them in a coherent, presentable format that I just knew it'd distract me for the next week or two if I let it rent too much space in my conscious thoughts. But now that little comment has left me with several people asking me to share those thoughts, and, both thankfully and unfortunately, I simply can't resist indulging in thoughts about the characters I love—!

Keep in mind, I haven’t finished Saint campaign yet, and even then I’ve found like less than half the broadcasts in Spearmaster campaign yet, so there’s likely some extra canon info I may be missing that could add to or change some of what I say here. I also apologize if some of what I write here seems really out-of-character. I try not to let my passion for my little headcanons and scenarios make me disregard the canon, but even so, I might slip and think up some weird things occasionally. Nonetheless, I feel like I’ve got enough of the picture to start confidently enjoying this ship, so I’ll talk about it anyway! 

As always, feel free to add to these ideas if you can! Without further delay, enjoy this 3381-word essay, with a few initial headcanons sprinkled in, on why I adore Lilypad!

Oh, and just in case, if you couldn’t already tell, major Hunter campaign spoilers below.

Quetzalli on Loving Lilypad

I’m gonna start this out with a preface: I can generally find the appeal in a lot of different ships and the art other fans make for them, but for me to ship something enough to actively draw it and make my own headcanons about it and such (outside of, perhaps, gifts for other people), it usually has to contain a variety of “ship tropes” that I personally fancy. Many of my most-favorite ship tropes tend to be the ones that aren’t just cute, but that carry narrative significance and seem poetic in some way, usually because they can facilitate character arcs in the involved characters. The more of these a ship has, or the more ship tropes I can portray it with without it seeming too out-of-character, and the more I like those specific tropes, the better. This principle is a major reason why I’ve gravitated towards Artimand as my main slugcat ship, but for now, I’m going to focus on which of these I see in Lilypad — in canon content, other fan-portrayals, and my personal headcanons — that, as opposed to other iterator ships, has currently won me over.

I’m gonna describe the main general things I like seeing in this ship. Some of them are more due to fandom portrayals than what’s in the canon, but they all play a big role in my current love for Lilypad. 

Synergy

I’ll begin with how I really appreciate just how much synergy Looks to the Moon and No Significant Harassment are shown to have, at least in fan content! I always like seeing pairings where the characters aren’t just romantic, but also work really well together as a team or even just as friends. After all, just because the characters may be romantically in love doesn’t mean they must only show it in explicitly romantic ways. To me, Lilypad strikes me as a relationship where Sig and Moon would make an amazing team in many aspects of their lives, whether it's collaborating on projects, sharing their interests, or trying to maintain order in the rest of their group. And their compliment is just really sweet to me, though I’ll get to that later.

A Shoulder to Lean On/The Lady

One of my favorite ship tropes is “character with a lot of weight on their shoulder who finally gets to lift it off and be ‘normal’ for once when around the other”. I’ve always found it sweet when characters like this, especially ones who are normally very selfless, finally get a chance to indulge and enjoy themselves for once! And once again, this is another thing I imagine in Artimand too, and you could project this onto Trafficlights given Suns’s implied high status, but I think it works especially with Lilypad, given Moon’s role as group senior means she objectively has a lot to manage all the time with no permanent escape from it. Even beyond the whole Five Pebbles rot drama, Moon probably had a lot on her plate just in terms of maintaining order between the rest of the group and setting a good example to the younger generations, especially as the group expanded over time, not to mention trying to find the solution herself. Combine this with how I picture her to be the kind of person who cares a lot about her image as a “proper” and  “dignified” leader, and someone who often sacrifices her own desires to promote the group’s welfare, I just find it really soft for her to have someone to lean on, metaphorically (and in a worm-off-the-string scenario, literally), and who better to go to than her best teammate, who knows the power of a good laugh and will stop at nothing to have fun with those he loves? Not to mention, since I headcanon Sig as slightly younger than Moon (2nd gen, specifically), I just find it rather cute in an ironic sense that the older, more serious Moon is soft around the younger, far more chaotic Sig, especially as Moon would go through the realization that she actually kinda likes this little troublemaker! 

This also comes back to something I mentioned in the tags of that beepsnort post, which is that one of my other favorite ship tropes is “guy who loves/is good at making people laugh x girl who has a REALLY weird/embarrassing laugh”, and that just works so well with Lilypad! It’s admittedly a very headcanon-based thing for me, but given how I’ve already explained my perception of Moon as very proper and serious, I imagine one of the best ways Sig takes the weight off her shoulders is by being the only person who can consistently make her laugh so hard! And with the beepsnort headcanon it’s even cuter, because of course Moon would be super embarrassed every time she even so much as gives a half-chuckle at one of his jokes, because Sig is relentless when it comes to getting the giggles out of her, and he won’t stop until she’s rolling and shaking on the floor of her chamber, her beepy-snorts filling the room! My GODDD I love this trope so much, and for beings who are inherently such workaholics, I think getting to genuinely relax and have fun for a bit, once she gets over the initial shock and embarrassment, would be something Moon would really come to value.

Inverses Attract/The Tramp

I’ve mentioned it in my last Artimand headcanons post, but one of my absolute all-time favorite ship tropes is the classic “opposites attract”, although I prefer the name “inverses attract”. As I like to portray it, the trope not only involves characters who are opposites personality-wise, but those being opposites of the same core aspect, and ultimately helping balance each other out by offering the other half of the equation to each other (hence the name “inverses”). The trope I just wrote about above is how Sig helps Moon to relax and have fun, but as I try to do with all ships, how does it work the other way too? Well, I really like to imagine Sig learning to be more openly serious and dedicated! Don’t get me wrong, Sig is a hard worker (it’s pretty much the nature of all iterators), but given he seems to pretty strongly reject the quest for the Triple Affirmative, I imagine the next problem would be in him finding a new purpose to strive for. And what better new purpose than in standing by and protecting the group senior he thinks he just might wanna be more than friends with?

It already works because Moon, of course, would work to keep Sig in check and make sure he doesn’t go too overboard with his shenanigans. But just imagine how inspired he’d grow over time seeing Moon work so hard to keep the group together and keep them striving for their purpose, even if he doesn’t agree with it. I imagine it’s why Sig’s methods are still rather controlled rather than purely chaotic, and there’s a reason to his rebellion. Thanks to Moon, rather than slaving away at a seemingly impossible solution until his mind collapses with his structure, he’ll use his talents to, at the very least, keep the local group together as long as possible, because even if they’ll all be gone one day, that doesn’t mean they have to go alone!

It’s why I’m also labeling these two tropes together as “the Lady and the Tramp”, yet another ship dynamic that gets me every time! It’s a specific instance of “inverses attract” where the noble, proper lady finds a taste of freedom and courage from the dangerously charming tramp, who from her finds a new sense of purpose and honor! And in my opinion, Lilypad is most definitely the best opportunity for this dynamic among Rain World ships!

The Fated Couple

Slow-burn couples seem to be pretty popular in many fandoms, but what about a really slow-burn? There’s something just so romantic to me about the idea that Moon and Sig, from the moment they met, have always just clicked so perfectly, and have been by each other’s side so constantly ever since, to the point it seems practically inevitable to everyone (except them of course) that they’ll eventually get together romantically. Of course, there are two main roadblocks to their romance being 1.) their whole objective and purpose for being created is kind-of fundamentally opposed to strong attachments like love (I mean, if Karma 3 is Companionship, wouldn’t romantic love be considered the worst example of that?), and 2.) even if they did reject this purpose, being massive immovable structures with the only humanoid part stuck deep inside a box, a budding romance seemingly couldn’t really go anywhere anyway. In fact, because of these roadblocks much of my Lilypad imaginings take place in the ever-popular “worm-off-the-string” scenario, especially since the next couple of reasons for why I like the ship play a lot into the themes I like to incorporate in this story concept. 

However, these issues towards such a romance are also what make it so sweet in the end! Just think of Moon, alone in her chamber, beginning to worry about how she’s actually kinda sorta, maybe, hypothetically, possibly, just a little bit starting to like the carefree and charismatic Gen 2 in the local group as even more than just a work partner and a dear friend, but oh no, that’s indulging in a Karmic Sin, and as group senior she can’t just throw away their purpose like that and set such a bad example to the rest! What’s she gonna do?? And then on the other side, Sig puzzling in his chamber, pining so hard for the group senior yet seemingly unable to confess, because, even disregarding Karma 3 and the fact that giant immobile calculators aren’t about to be snuggling any time soon, why would someone as perfect and powerful as her want someone like him, so dismissive of their core purpose and unorthodox in his methods? Is there even a point in having these feelings at all, when they might very well end up simply fading to dust along with the rest of his structure?

Maybe, they both think, it’d be better to just keep these feelings to themselves and quietly love from a distance. That is, until…

Moon’s Collapse and the Slag Reset Keys

The fourth reason is, of course, the most steeped in canon. It goes back a bit to the “shoulder to lean on” concept, but even aside from that, there is something just so romantic about this on both sides.

Firstly, from Moon’s perspective. There’s no doubt that the collapse must have been very traumatic for Looks to the Moon physically, but I like to think about just how much it’d affect her emotionally, too. I mean, being so painfully destroyed by your own brother, with seemingly nothing that can be done to stop it and no one to help you? And then consider how lonely it must have been in her final moments. The only comfort she does get is from Spearmaster’s visit, and even then she sends him off to go deliver her final words, which has still got to be really depressing. And finally, think about how betrayed she must have felt, trying so hard throughout her operation to help her citizens and the local group and be kind to everyone, only to have it be repaid like this, forced to collapse in on herself, being buried under her own body, unfathomable pain all around, and with not a soul to help her.

So then, think about just how shocking and heartwarming (literally, if you think about it) it must be when that lovable Gen 2, always so playful and carefree normally, is the one to give her a second chance and being her back when all hope seems lost, and using such a unique delivery method no less! I mean COME ON, Sig literally brought her back to life, how could one NOT fall in love with someone who did that for them? It links back to the “shoulder to lean on” idea, in that, for once, someone finally looked out for Moon and gave back to her for all the kindness she gave to the world. Think about this as the moment she truly realizes she’s in love with No Significant Harassment, and how tragic it’d be knowing now, it’s too late to say it. But, even so, if he’s willing to go this far to make sure she’s okay, then maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance her love at least wasn’t alone.

Now, my thoughts about this from No Significant Harassment’s side (which also kinda turned into a mini NSH appreciation paragraph that links back to the earlier Inverses Attract and Lady and the Tramp segment), I think it’s very poetic to see him going out of his way to take his messenger concept, originally used for no more than a trivial prank and at most a very experimental and unfinished alternative communication method, and turning it into a noble last-ditch effort to rescue the one he loves. It doesn’t just clearly show how much he cares for Moon that he worked to save her when no one else did (and if that’s because the odds of being able to do anything seemed very low to the rest of them, that makes it even more sweet) I think it shows off a lot of Sig’s character beyond just being a jokester. Like, I’d seen this kind of personality for Sig in the fandom content before, but this action and the other broadcasts are what first made me truly realize not just that it is based in canon, but that, more importantly he’s not just stupid or unfocused, he’s rebellious. He doesn’t joke around because he just doesn’t care, it’s because he’s independent, he’s got other places he wants to go and plans that don’t fit into what most of his peers are used to. He makes light of the world because he sees what others don’t, and it’s honestly pretty frickin’ funny how blind others can be most of the time (case-in-point: him making a slugcat from a messenger, which no one else thought to do because those creatures seemed too “dull” and “primitive” to ever be capable of such a thing). So think about how significant it must be when he’s openly taking something seriously. This is where that dynamic of the Tramp, and how Sig would benefit from this relationship is really highlighted. I just adore it when the easygoing, carefree character finally finds purpose in their lover, and springs into serious action like they never were before! And it makes sense too given what I said about them not getting together before: seeing Moon collapse would show him directly that even beings as durable as iterators don’t last forever, so if he’s got these feelings for Moon, he’s got to make a move while there’s still a chance! And what better way to show his love than to bring her back when all hope seems lost? Which brings me to the final aspects I’ll talk about here, first of which is…

True Love’s Kiss

Yes, you read that right. The real reason I love the slag reset keys as a plot element so much is not just because it shows Sig’s secret strength of character, not just because it finally gives reward to Moon’s kindness, but because it is a real fairytale come true! 

I know this sounds crazy and probably totally unrelated to Rain World, but think about it! You guys have probably seen Snow White and Sleeping Beauty before, or at least one of the two? Isn’t the whole trope that the beautiful princess, fairest maiden in the land, gets cursed through some means or another to die (or in Aurora’s case, fall into an indefinite sleep), which is only undone when the strong and brave prince, riding upon his noble steed, awakens the princess by giving her true love’s kiss? I already love both those movies on their own for various other reasons, but after my description, is this starting to sound familiar in another way?

I mean, with everything I’ve said about Moon in this post so far, there’s no doubt you could perceive her as the “fair princess”, who through unfortunate circumstances is put to a premature and indefinite death. And there’s no doubt Sig fills the role of the brave prince by working to save her with the slag reset keys, which in this metaphor are undoubtedly the “true love’s kiss” that ultimately conquers all, always longed for, and finally delivered! And hey, given Hunter is the one to carry the keys to Moon, a small yet courageous beast who stops at nothing to meet his goals, Sig even has his own “noble steed”! And even if Hunter is technically the one to actually deliver the green neuron, and the death the “princess” succumbs to wasn’t out of genuine malice towards her, I think the sentiment is still there and the parallel is close enough! 

But yes, as strange as it may sound, the fairytale parallel is the main reason Lilypad resonates with me so much! Those classic fairytale-esque romance tropes and that poetic storytelling found in Disney’s first feature-length animated films has always been dear to my heart, and is even more so now that I’m older and can truly appreciate the beauty of them. So now, even in my fandom experiences, ships that win my appreciation over all others are often those that manage to embody those classic romance tropes and themes as best as possible, and frankly, even Artimand loses ever-so-slightly to Lilypad in this regard! Or, as I also enjoy calling them, “Lifeline”, for reasons that are probably obvious now. 

And it’s even better when you consider…

Some Things Never Change

Another trope I’ve recently begun to love is the idea that some phenomena in the world never truly disappear, but simply manifest in different ways, sometimes unexpected ones. And given the whole Triple Affirmative quest and the Ancients’ mass ascension philosophy, this idea is something I especially love seeing in Rain World content. Even the canon events show this idea, but think about how wonderfully it would work with Lilypad beyond just the slag reset keys, especially taking up that “worm off the string” iterator AU concept some have explored in this fandom already.

Just think about how sweet it would be when Moon and Sig, operating primarily through their puppets now, get to finally hug and kiss and be with each other so directly now! Think of the way Sig would speak to Moon about how, even after her collapse, she's still somehow beautiful as ever, and Moon returning with how even all the trouble the group has faced hasn't put a dent in his charm! And it's even sweeter when you consider it’s against everything their creators stood for! Think of Moon, after everything she’s been through and how much she’s probably changed at this point, now willing to give some of these “worldly attachments” a chance, because you can never truly get rid of them, but she knows better than anyone that you won’t be around to experience them forever, so why not enjoy it while you’ve got the chance? And it’d make sense too, not just for her own benefit, but for Pebbles and the rest of the group’s sake too! She’s always strove to set a good example for them, and since their original quest has left them with nothing but pain and trauma, why not show them that maybe all these attachments aren’t so bad after all?

I just think it’d be really interesting to see Moon joining Sig in that rejection of the Triple Affirmative, and what better way to do that than by finally embracing that love they’ve felt for each other for so long? Because love never truly dies, it just appears in new people. And maybe they don’t have to spend their whole lives as grand iterators, the vast infinitely-advanced mechanical deities who embody perfection in almost every way. Maybe, even just for a bit, they can just be people, falling in love just as their creators did all over again!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

And with that, I think I’m FINALLY done here. HOLY COW, this is easily my longest post yet, and I hope it doesn’t disappoint! Part of the reason it took so long was because I was trying to find the perfect way to express all these ideas without it just spilling out onto the page in some weird half-coherent mess. But eventually I just said “ah screw it, let’s just ramble about this ship and see where it goes!” and my god, did it go far! And I still managed to somewhat organize it, so yay!

But aside from that, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who asked for my thoughts on Lilypad, and everyone who made it to the bottom of this essay! I’ve never really gotten a chance to openly ramble about one of my favorite ships to the rest of the fandom like this, so seeing that some fans, even if it’s ultimately not a huge amount, actually wanted me to do it was such a welcome surprise!

I hope you all enjoyed the drawings and the art! I’ll be around in case someone wants me to write another ship essay or something! And who knows, it’s likely I’ll find more reasons I like Lilypad as time goes on and I see more fan-content and find the rest of those broadcasts! But at least this was a starting point! 

Expect more LIlypad content to come in the future, but until now, thanks again for the opportunity!

[yanderepuck]

Just a small little drabble~

I torture this boy enough so here's some fluff

You have been wearing long sleeves and long pants for the majority of your time at the mansion. But summer is coming and there is no way you're going to survive doing chores around the mansion that way. There's no ac!

So as it gets warmer your sleeves and pant legs go up. You know you can't dress like this when you go into town, but you might as well be comfortable at home.

But this made you realize that none of the residents have seen your tattoos. You really only have black line art of some small things. You have them on your arms, shoulders, a few on your legs. You thought nothing of it until one of the guys said something.

Some of them were confused as to what they were, others only knew of people in prisons getting tattoos. There were a lot of questions you had to answer. But once you explained none of them seemed to have an issue with them.

Vincent was very intrigued by them and kept asking to look at them. He would ask why you got each one and if it had meaning. Half the time it was just because a tattoo shop was doing a flash event and you went in and got something.

One day you fell asleep in the parlor after working and when you woke up one of your tattoos was colored in. You stared at it for a good while. Very confused. But the color washed off almost immediately when you bathed that night. And decided not to think more of it.

This happens a few more times when you fall asleep in random places. No one has said anything about doing it though. And it's a different one each time.

A few days later you are in the library reading a book fairly late. You feel yourself dozing off but you force your eyes open wanting to finish that chapter. No luck. You fall asleep. Only to wake up a few minutes later to a tickling feeling.

You groan softly and force your eyes open to see what is tickling you. It better not be King licking your finger again.

You look to your right and see Vincent kneeling next to your chair coloring in one of your tattoos.

You get a burst of life suddenly. "So it's you!"

Vincent jumps, thinking you were still asleep and then laughs softly. "You caught me."

You're guessing this is his version of a prank. It's so pure.

You let him finish coloring it in. "There! All done," he smiles and lets you look at it.

Holding up your arm, you smile to see your little line art colored in.

"You could have just asked me, you know," you chuckle and sit up.

"Yeah... But you always make a cute face when you first see it."

You hold your arm back out "You can color the rest if you want."

"Really?" He gets excited and starts to color in the others.

He reminds you of a little kid using a coloring book.

"When I first saw them I thought about how they would look colored in," he switches between colors to add details "It's like a fresh canvas everyday."

"I never thought of getting them filled in. But now you're making me consider it."

He finishes coloring all the ones on your arm. "Perfect," he smiles as he looks at his handiwork.

You move your arm around to be able to see it all "I love it," you rest your arm down carefully so you don't mess any of it up. "Now I know who to go to if I want some color."

~~

Tag list ~

@kissmetwicekissmedeadly @fang-and-feather @xalxtusxiao @namine-somebodies-nobody @ana-thedaydreamer @evil-quartett @ameyoruakiikemenseries @yrenesposts @p1nkpandomium @tele86 @damekathearasi @lokis-laugh @candied-boys @breadmercury @azulashengrottospiano @xenokiryu

[byghostface]

//long rambling

There is a vent in the last part (about pro ship:/+ wired shipping + block list) it's naturally negative so reading at your own risk.

So in the new Batman and Robin issue #7 Nika's sister making an appearance, got me thinking of other possibilities for sibling characters to come back.

Mostly I’m thinking about Respawn since he is Joshua Williamson's own character. And He made Respawn appeared in the last issue of Robin(2021), he also brought back Mara in that run too (just some appearance in the later issue).

And now Joshua Williamson is writing Batman and Robin, so naturally he can bring some characters back in this run. He had said in an interview that he might have figured out a way(try) to bring back Maya.

Throwback to 2022 of this old wip/art I made, is about what I think the emo teens of Lazarus squad dynamic would look like.

I imagine Nika and Respaw are irritated/tolerate with each other but would stay for Damian because Nika is Damian's girlfriend and they want to stick together. Meanwhile, Damian likes to include his half-brother in some fun activities (Respawn is acting reluctant bc of his own issues but he actually likes to have friends and feel include).

I haven’t finished this art bc I was going to add more wips (with other characters like Rose and Hawke) to make it a post. I didn't finish this art back then bc I was afraid Talia fans would be mad at me for drawing Respawn.

Trust me, I hate that Talia gets associated with Deathstroke like this, but I think Respawn is a confused/mistreated teen character and Damian (bless his heart and soul) still wants to be his brother regarding the whole mess. I will explain/talk more about my thoughts on Respawn as a character and his situations once I finish these drawings and get ready to post them.

Writing/typing words is harder than drawing for me personally. Drawing is like channeling my energy into a picture and forming an atmosphere and hopefully people will understand what thoughts and feelings I was trying to convey. Writing is using more brain powers to choose the correct and cohesive words, so people would not misunderstand what I'm talking about. Especially when English is not my first language, and even so I normally don't talk(write) much in my mother tongue either…(I'm not a quick thinker, it took me a longer time to think things through, writing literally exhausted me physically and mentally more than drawing.)

It doesn't mean I don't enjoy writing, it's just not my first choice to convey thoughts… but considering I can't draw everything I have in my mind and it takes even longer time to finish any art, I just need to write down things first from now on. Tumblr is the only place I can think of that has this longer text feature blog post and I'm more familiar with this platform format. So I will still be here posting my fan content.

.

(↓Vent, if you want to avoid being block by me then read down below.)

I must say I will forever hate respawn x flatline as ship, cus I know who started this ship and their reasons behind it—Don’t let the new character develop naturally as the story goes, let’s put them in made-up weird situations first so I can prop up my own ship!😍 And get both of the new characters out of the way, since no one would defend them so I can fanon the hell out of them by making them look bad all around!🤞 (What if I stone you first hand🪨🪨💥)

And I will continue to dislike/against any shipping Damian's sibling to Nika. I simply don't like the unnecessary sibling conflict just for romance tropes! So go away boooo I hate you‼️ Not to mention the ignoring of different age range multi-ship hide behind poly… that's straight up proshipping I hate you even more!!👎

Also for people who said Nika should be crush on Damian's mother instead of him… I hate you twisted proshipper rotten smooth brain‼️‼️ She dating a boy her age and has mutual connections with him, why would she crush on her boyfriend's mother instead?? Just because Nika is a big fan of Talia??? So you telling me young ppl can't idolize adults normally without being labeled as romantic nowadays huh??( Not saying you can't crush on adults, but why crush on your boyfriend's mom? ) Your weird ass mind is showing with this ass hc be fr. Again, why would you imagine that? You just wanted to push a fake narrative of Nika being wired so you could have an excuse to make Talia and Damian dislike her (which is not true), but in fact is YOU are the weird one projecting your twist thoughts/hate onto Nika‼️💥🪨🪨

I will start to block ppl who are shipping/liking respawn x flatline (+proshipper) and STILL interact with me, read the room!! My art is not for you weirdos‼️Go away BOOOO💥 🪨🪨🪨💥💥

Can't believe I need to type this all out cuz some of you weirdos will still do these things and think is okay to interact with me and my post/showing in my notifications BOOO👎🪨🪨💥🪳🪳🪳🩴🩴🩴

(sorry for venting about random weirdos/Nika haters again, and thanks for reading.)

[comingdownwithme]

Hello!! You, your (amazing) artwork and your headcannons have single-handedly gotten me back into the Creepypasta fandom, I cannot describe the reaction I had to seeing your artwork but everything you draw just feels so good to look at? I’m not explaining this very well, but your art style is so pleasing to my eyes, there’s just something about the shading, the lines and the way you capture emotions/expressions it’s just; chef’s kiss (I had a question I promise lol)

What made you draw Toby and Jeff as a ship/what are some past/future headcannons that you have for them? Or just in general if you want to use this as an excuse to ramble about them go for it, anything you say about them I will listen!

Secondly, what is your general headcannon for the rest of the Creepypasta’s? Also it might be because I’ve been out of the loop for a few years but I didn’t really realise there were ex-proxies now, if it’s something you’ve come up with for your story that is insanely cool to read about (anything involving the like, political(?) state of the proxies is fascinating to me).

This has gone on longer than I thought it would, many apologies! I hope you’re having a good day!

I'm?? So honored that my art and headcanons have influenced you?? Skjdjd IM SO GLAD YOU LIKE MY ART AND MY CONTENT, REALLY MEANS A LOT TO ME AND ADDS A FEW MORE YEARS TO MY LIFE SPAN LMAO

As for what got me to drawing Ticcijeff, honestly? It started out as simply drawing the two characters I liked when I was a kid back at the archaic era of 2015 Youtube interacting, then it kinda... it snowballed from there– 😭

They both make me happy individually, so I figured bringing them both together would give me twice the serotonin (which did tbh) alongside the parallels of them both being reborn through fire, and my growing interest in these two were only enabled further by the few good Ticcijeff fanfics on AO3 lmao

As for headcanons? I'm just gonna,,, link some posts abt my dynamics for them and their lore and background so far because if I wrote all my thoughts abt them here we'd be here all day. (though there's absolutely more to come)

About their Childhood friendship

Another post about their childhood friendship! (Featuring the two's dynamic, Jeff's intrusive thoughts, and some additional background info on Jeff)

About Jeff and Toby meeting years later

What happened following the previous post

As for general headcanons for the creepypastas? Their world is a little bit more fucked than our own. Strict rules are set by authorities, there's a tight curfew in place for the safety of people, and death and missing persons cases have become common enough in recent times that it's become a morbid part of normal life.

Unbeknownst to the lay person though, the killers and criminals roaming the night aren't the worst one could encounter. There are incomprehensible- even malevolent horrors that defy the rules of the universe, that cross the boundaries of logic and reason, and even the dead won't stay dead for long in this world. In a twisted universe plagued by death and unknown creatures, even the scum of humanity have to carve a place out for themselves and survive.

Soooo uh, yeah, that's a gist of it lmao, but I'm gonna dump some specific headcanons too for the creeps, especially for each characters like I did here for the girls and here for Jack and Ben eventually!

Also, as someone who's been out of the loop for years (I just joined the fandom officially this year, the only social media site I had back in 2015 was YouTube 😭) I HAD??? NO IDEA EX PROXIES WERE A THING WHICH IS HELLA INTERESTING

I'm definitely gonna write down and flesh out the proxies and their relationship with the Slenderman, but thaaatssss for another time 👉👉

[snowsdelulusketches]

I have a new obsession...

Uh, in case y'all ain't interested in my new obsession (lol). I'm alive! I forgot again to exist, but I will try to post more regularly now that my life might be a bit more balanced. 🫡

There is an art piece below that is Six related! (Long-ish post ahead.)

WARRIORS. GODDAMN. I watched the movie purposefully, just to absorb some knowledge before listening to the album. The album is a complete and compelling hit without the context of the movie.

Swercy is so tragically iconic. I agree that Mercy in the (concept) album comes off a bit direct, always inserting herself into the situation. But I think the musical is a lot of "supporting women's wrongdoings." Okay, I'm joking. But, for the record, it is how it went in the movie. Mercy (in the movie) sees this group and wants to follow them, and she does. They... almost taunt her (?), and Swan takes her in (as a generous way to put it).

Definitely not controversial opinions aside, I love Cleon. I love drawing her, and I love every song she sings in. Still Breathin' is one of my favorite songs, she liderally fits the leadership role so much.

I love how Cochise is kind of vague. You can interpret her character as you wish, and it is sort of refreshing. That way, you get to redirect how she impacts the rest of her sisters and how she takes certain events and deals with them.

Cowgirl... they could never make me hate you. You have been severely traumatized by that "hot dude", it's okay. Nah, Cowgirl is very relatable in the sense that she almost goes with the flow and is a loyal but fun woman (that's how I saw her, but please, add your opinion)!

Holy shit, Swan would be such an unreliable narrator. She is so insecure but immediately snaps into any role she needs to be. Leader? Head to the graveyard, I'll get a plan cookin'. Girlfriend needs a compliment? You're more than beautiful! More than what they made you out to be, and whatever lies ahead doesn't define you! Sister? When we get somewhere safe, that's when I can finally let myself process everything and lower my guard just enough to see how scared you all are. But she is also so scared of not doing enough. She "knows" Mercy's first instinct is to leave, to find something new, something better. She most certainly double-thinks every single thing she does during the events of the album. Her heart is heavy with pain, but she's got a silly family and a sillier girlfriend.

Rembrandt and Fox's friendship and little moments mean way too much to me. The fact that they both share the "when you woke up today you didn't think you could die, neither did i" line in Derailed hurts. It hurts because only one of them makes it out, and neither of them thought the other would be lost in this uncomfortable night. Rembrandt is so hesitant and on-guard during the Bizzies' group song. Fox realizes a little later that, yeah, it's a trap. Poor Cowgirl and Cochise...

Ajax is so amazing. Like, you ball of anger and aggression, I love you so much. When she and Mercy start singing Mercy's "solo" in Sick of Runnin' my heart like... shattered or something. I could be completely wrong, but if Ajax and Mercy had met in any other circumstance, Ajax probably would've found her hilarious. Ajax is relatably impatient. Every time Swan does something, she has to ask, and when she doesn't get an immediate answer, she pushes more. She's great.

I drew a comic for the finale, but I really don't like the way it turned out (I used a different drawing app), so I might post my redraw of it? I don't know how long that'll take either. Uh, I might have some art lingering, just so y'all aren't drained of any snow-art.

Not yet, Cathy. Anyway, this strange arrangement is merely due to the fact they are both called "The Survivor," and this was the first thing I thought of.

I imagined Cathy explaining her story and Ajax going through all the emotions, all of them.

Thank you for reading, if you got this far.

[claire-starsword]

Status Update On The Final Conflict Sprite Hack, alternatively titled, The Thrilling Saga of Promoted Julia, or even, Claire, Give Fucking Context To The Dumb Shit You've Been Posting Already

don't worry besties, i keep the world's most ridiculous hacking notes for this stuff, and i'd really like to share some of them now. Ever wanted to know how messy a Game Gear ROM can be? Ever wanted to read a mad scientist's ramblings about it? come on a journey with me.

(note that i'm not gonna explain much of the technical stuff for now, i'd love to document everything about this game eventually but that's a big task, tonight is for funsies only. so just stare at these bytes like they're eldritch abonimations for now because frankly, they are)

Anyway it all began more than a year ago, when I started digging data on this game. I started with palettes because those are kinda easy to understand, and i honestly don't recall how i got to the map sprites from there, but i did, and thus registered it was in my mad scientist ramblings.

and on that beautiful note, i kinda put aside this project for a whole year, until going back somewhere around last october to try to make a script to imitate the game's compression and thus finally be able to insert sprites. As you might know, it took a christmas miracle to finish it. And because I was and am still afraid of how many extra bytes my battle sprites are gonna take, i shifted my attention to map sprites first, since those were obviously going to be much simpler. *ominous silence* I mean, I already had all these addresses above, right? I'd just have to replace them all, and then go find Julia.

and yeah! that's the last post I made about it on New Year's Eve, I had fun, I bragged about the compression working well only to regret my hubris later because it very much ISN'T, we're desperate for extra space in this land, I championed centaur rights only to again regret my hubris because they're currently the only ones with no promotion sprite, I'M SORRY OKAY i'm trying to fix it we're really lacking bytes in this land

but anyway, it was still going great. Not like the centaurs change much after promotion anyway, the art was still an improvement, and thus I filled the whole memory block. Everyone was there. Except Julia.

It feels clear to me that the devs just ran into the same problem, ran out of space right at the last character. Still sucks that they didn't place her at the next block, but hey, whatever, I easily coded a sprite ripper now that I knew how to deal with the compression, she couldn't be that far, right?

of course she was i'm making a post about it

(note: "hooded" mishaela was me misremembering things. i meant this simpler sprite of her, as opposed to the one with a visible face that shows up for most of the game. The fact that this one is the one stored in a coherent way makes me think it was the first one they made, and only later they decided to give her a better face as someone who was gonna have so many scenes)

this is the mess I was looking at, and here's the full sprite for comparison. I have nothing else to add, I understand having separate eye tiles for the animation and I accept that some stuff just got thrown in the end of unrelated block to use the space. But the chair tiles??? no idea what's up with those. For all I know the entire image is just spread around like this.

I haven't looked though, because I had other priorities at the time.

to summarize the next ten billion annotations, this block had a bunch of out of order pointers for every spell effect in the game, including some blank pointers god knows why. Because my script for ripping stuff is amateurish and jank as fuck, i also couldn't tell how many tiles exactly each image has, so this took a lot of trial and error.

There were way smarter ways to find Julia btw, and i'll get to them soon. Still, do i regret this? Of course not. I was gonna want to scrub the whole ROM for unused data one way or another, and knowing all these addresses paves the way for a lot of future changes should I decide to make them. It's pretty nice to know this much about the game. Now, do I regret doing all of this in a single sitting, in a single sunday, ten or so hours of looking non-stop at some garbage bytes?

yeah

i have a few regrets, yeah

remember kids, sometimes it's good to step away from your complicated project a bit.

Anyway, the smarter way of doing this that I mentioned earlier is to use a goddamn debugger to track where the game is reading stuff from, especially since I already knew where the function that reads and decompresses images is located. I'm not very experienced with using the debugger, and even so it wasn't too hard to find it. The pointer led to block $38000. If you're keeping track of these numbers, you might realize this is before the place I started, not after. Despite that starting block.. really looking like a starting block. You know, with all the first characters. Why is there stuff before it? The likely answer is that things got messy the more stuff the devs had to put in, but I also like the answer that they just hated my guts personally.

Anyway! I put my little scripts to the test. Attempted to rip all the offset in the block. First ones did not work, and are likely not even graphics, because again, this is a mess. The 23th came out broken, and eventually I figured out it was a tileset for Galam Castle, see I told you there was a reason I was messing with maps all of a sudden. The reason was, a tileset can be in the middle of the characters. Actually, I have already found way two tilesets, both in the middle of unrelated stuff. I have yet to see a block consisting of mostly tilesets. They're just, around.

Who cares though. After this tileset, finally the clouds parted. There it was. The joy of my life, the light of my eyes.

i was so stressed between searching for Julia and dreading the upcoming task of redrawing 50 or so enemies that I don't care much for, that it completely slipped my mind that eventually I would get to redraw Adam for this game. I legit screamed his name when I saw him, absolute joyful moment, you had to be there.

So yeah, stole Julia's thunder a little, sorry woman. She was there though, very last character on the block, after a bunch of NPCs. Not wanting to mess up this far, I was a bit more careful than I was with the previous block, taking the time to count how many bytes I would need before inserting stuff.

the byte economy is harsh and unforgiving.

anyway, it was always obvious that i would have to learn how to reallocate sprites to other blocks, but this made it clear that i would have to start looking into that like, now. And I would have to find a block with enough space to receive new stuff too, which was looking unlikely with how many things were shoved around in all of them. I tried to save space on this block by messing around with the castle tileset first though.

I saved a total of 50 bytes.

Yeah.

Without much idea on what to do, I just went looking for Mishaela's sprite since it was one of the few missing at that point. Hilariously, she's all alone in a certain block that contains no other graphical data as far as I can tell. It's just her there. I really don't understand why they gave her two sprites, and I would guess it wasn't a very organized decision.

And that's when it hit me, like, yeah, society really has no use for two Mishaelas. It wouldn't hurt much if I reassigned her to use a single sprite, and used this space for Julia instead, right?

So uh, Mishaela's sprites are 557 bytes.

You see Julia's sprites above? Sum up all their sizes together.

The byte economy is harsh and unforgiving.

Small setback though, I could reallocate one of NPCs in her place, as some of them had compressed better.

And that was it, I found the table that points each character to their respective memory block and index, I tested it by bullying Max because of course, and then I assigned the thief NPCs to Mishaela's address. See it all makes sense in context.

And at long last, several weeks after doing the whole rest of the team, I could finally see the final force member.

And my beloved Adam.

And even other NPCs, like Cynthia's grandpa abo-

...

anyway, yeah, it's still a work in progress.

[oh-koenig-my-koenig]

'Fit for a King' - WIP - “If you have had me on my back, we can also be on a first name basis” (König POV)

Fit for a King - Masterlist

König is talking to Ridgeback that he doesn’t want fem!sergeant Müller on the next – her first – mission with KorTac, Ridgeback is not having it, so he makes König talk to Müller about it, cue social anxiety meets superiority complex that comes with being this tall and buff, Müller puts him in his place and… what can I say? He’s turned on by that. And it gets them to talk with each other (finally). (2k words)

CW: NSFW, imagining explicit scenes, pervy!König

a/n: I'm still writing scenes whenever I think about them, so there still will be chronological skips and context missing in between, but I'll update the Masterlist in the order that they happen in (also gonna add some general info about the characters to the masterlist soon). This is a scene in his POV as I wanted to give the whole story a dual POV thing in general, I hope you like it! (two chapters are still in the pipeline for today or tomorrow, from Müller's POV again) ((also still working on a way to incorporate the german translations better))

“If you have had me on my back, we can also be on a first name basis”

(NSFW)

“I don’t want her on the mission.”

“She’s going. End of discussion.”

“Fine. But I’ll have to see if she can stand her ground first.”

“Meaning that you’ll actually talk to her?”

Ridgeback can’t see the scowl under my hood.

“Yeah.” What I mean is ‘fuck, no’.

He grins at me.

Ridgeback calls after her in the training room. “Müller, a second of your time?” – “Yes, sir.”, she says stepping away from the weights she was working with. “The Colonel is unsure about your… skills on the battlefield and I was wondering if you could maybe demonstrate something to change his mind.”, he explains. She pulls up her eyebrow and gives me the sideeye. “Didn’t he read my transcript?”, she asks. I don’t say anything, but Ridgeback looks at me, waiting for me to explain myself. I clear my throat. “Uh yeah, I read it, it’s just uh-“ She looks up at me and the words don’t come out my mouth. I feel the heat in my cheeks. “What if like a big guy comes up to you and like… attacks you?” Wow, so eloquent. “You know that I’m a sniper, right? Most of the time I’m not gonna be around any ‘big guys’ except for present company.” God damn it, why did I ever start this topic up? She’s going to make me put my shoe into my mouth or however that saying goes. “Uh yeah, correct, I’m just saying, what IF.” She looks at me like I might be a bit crazy. Maybe I am. She confuses the shit out of me.

Then she shrugs her shoulders. “Okay.” and struts over to the mattresses for combat training and martial arts. I follow her, waiting what she’ll do. “You also read that I’m trained in field combat and Krav Maga?”, she asks again. I totally did not. I laugh it off, not sure if I should take her seriously. She gets in position looking up at me in all her 5’8’’ cuteness. “You ready, big guy?”, she asks me, tauntingly. I cross my arms and shrug. Before I can register her moving, she has gripped me, one hand fisting the fabric of my shirt and the other one latching onto my wrist. Just a moment later I’m in the air.

She flips me. She tosses me over her own back with enough force to move a little Volkswagen. And she actually goddamn flips me. As my body gets slammed into the mattress, my back colliding with the floor, I can feel arousal lick up my spine, making me hard in an instant. “Ah, scheiße1.”, I mutter under my breath. All I want to do is pull her with me – or better even – her trying to hold me down as she gets on top of me. Scenarios flood my brain, smutty and perverted. How she would tie me down, strip me, tease me. Take her seat on my face, make me eat her out. I groan. I would feel her heat on my face, lap at her wetness, take everything she would give me. She would stroke me, edge me with her soft hands and nimble fingers while pressing her pussy into me, maybe she would even try to fit my length into her mouth. She would grind on my lips and tongue, she would let me give her the pleasure she seeks until she comes on my face and I drink up her arousal, her wetness staining my hood.

The imagination alone makes me leak at the tip. Ahja, du kleiner Perversling2. I scold myself in my brain. Has it really been that long since I had a woman? Like, biblically. I guess it has.

She stands over me, setting a foot on my chest, her boot digging into my pecs. “So, can I join you, Colonel?” I’m kind of glad that she didn’t call me by my name just now because I fear that I would have come a bit in my pants. At least a little bit. I raise my hands defensively: “Fine, fine, Müller.” I clear my throat. “You can handle yourself, as you demonstrated just now.” She laughs and the soft and sweet sound taunts me. “I can even handle more than just myself.”, she adds confidently and steps away from me, holding her hand out to help me up.

I resist the urge to pull her down and jump up on my feet again. Now I’m towering over her, a whole foot taller. Oh, to have her run from me as I chase after her, would be so sweet. Hör auf3, the voice in my head fights against the pervy thoughts. Something about her taps into something primal inside me.

Ridgeback’s short clap gets my attention. I almost forgot that he’s still here. “Well, I think this got resolved. See you tomorrow then.” Müller waves goodbye, and I lift my hand too, not able to tear my gaze away from her. She looks back at me and I wish I could’ve just talked normally to her instead of behaving like an ass. I sigh inwardly.

Killing people, turning them to pulp, is easier for me than talking to them. Really talking, not just barking orders. And she makes me feel like for the first time in forever that I wish it was the other way around.

"Would you spot me, Colonel?", she asks me then. I sigh, in- and outwardly this time. "Please, just... call me König.", I tell her. "People who had me on my back already can refer to me on a name basis.", I joke feeling the heat in my cheeks flare up again as I see the confusion on her face. Get a hold of yourself, Mensch4. "Also, I made myself look like a complete ass in front of you, you deserve to let the title slide.", I say further, not stuttering as much as before, and she nods slightly. "So, is that a yes or a no on the spotting, König?", she asks plainly. I swallow down how it makes me feel hearing her say my name in that cute accent of hers and return her nod.

She goes over to the weight rack and starts to fit plates onto a barbell. I help her by lifting the barbell from the ground to give her easier access. She’s satisfied with 50 kilos on each side and then goes to lift it up the squatting rack. Oh, she’s going to do squats. With 120 kilos. I’m so double fucked.

“You ready?” I nod and stand behind her holding out my arms. I’m a head taller than her, so I can look at myself in the mirror in front of us as she is not obstructing my view. My eyes are on her again though. She has wide black training pants on, but her hips don’t leave much to the imagination. Her torso is clad in a compression shirt, with a sports bra underneath. Everything is covered up, tightly packed to not be hindering while working out. Yet in my mind it looks like the sexiest thing anybody could ever wear. And that is before she starts to squat right in front of me. I curse under my breath and push away the pervy thoughts. Just be normal for once. She doesn’t need you lusting over her right now, after you just insulted her like that.

I follow her movements hovering my arms beside her, ready to take off the weight if it’s necessary. But she’s squatting the weight no problem. After a few reps she sets the barbell down on the rack again. “Okay, I think, we can add some more plates.”, she says already hefting another 20 up. “Goddamn, you’re squatting more than half the team here.”, I remark. “Really? I’m a bit rusty to be honest.” Rusty? Heilige Scheiße5. She continues: “I wanted to build up strength again because I’m gonna be more actually in the field, but I don’t wanna squat this kind of weight without somebody to spot me.” I nod behind her and she gets ready for the next set. There she is, squatting my body weight like it’s nothing. It’s so fucking attractive to me, I can’t help it.

“Wouldn’t some of the others help you? Spot you?”, I ask as we set down the weight again. My hands stay on the barbell for a moment longer until she meets my eyes in the mirror. “I mean, I talked to Aksel and Nikto a bit, you know, Scandinavians unite, but eh- I didn’t wanna bother them. I think this is the longest interaction I had with anybody in the base. They’re not really talking.”, she explains with a shrug. I hold back a groan. This might be at least partly my fault because of the way I treated her the first few days. “So, I didn’t really have the guts to ask somebody to help me.” She shrugs again, but I see a hint of sadness and apprehension behind them. “But with what you pulled today, I didn’t have those reservations.” She grins at me a little bit.

“I’m sorry.”, I say then, the words sticking to my tongue, not slipping out my mouth easily. It’s not like I don’t feel sorry, I really do. I’m just not one to apologise easily. “Don’t worry about it.”, she tells me. “You’re not the first superior to doubt my abilities.” I feel a pang in my chest. Yeah, yeah, I can be a bit of an asshole, but it’s just setting in now how the whole situation must make her feel. And I want to take it all back. “Yeah, I… I know how it must look like right now from your point. I’m sorry really. I was an asshole about my doubts and I went about it in the most jerk way.” She turns around, her hands on her waist as she looks up at me like ‘Are we really still talking about this?’. The sass.

“It’s okay, Col- König. I accept your apology.”, she reiterates. She must see the doubt in my eyes because she says, with emphasis: “Really.” – “Okay. Schwamm drüber6.”, I say and extend my hand. She takes it and shakes it. Even through the thin fabric of my gloves I can feel the warmth of her palm and it makes me wish I wasn’t wearing any to feel her skin on mine.

“I’d head to dinner now. You wanna join me?”, she asks. “I get it if you can’t, you know, rank and all.” I scoff. “Nobody is asking for our ranks when we’re knee-deep in mud next week, so forget all about that.” She grins at my answer and jogs to the hallway. I follow her with big strides. “I don’t even know why they made me Colonel.”, I tell her as we walk down to the mess hall. She giggles and the sound makes me feel all floaty. And I kick myself again – in my mind – for not just talking to her. Or maybe just ask her to train with me. Instead of making it seem like I’m out to get her. “Maybe your reputation? And of course, the unique set of skills.”, she suggests. “I have a reputation?”, I’m surprised. “Yeah, kinda.” We enter the mess hall and get in line for a plate of beef stew. “Like what?”, I want to know as I stand just a foot behind her. “I’d rather not say.”, she evades. “Also, I don’t think that that’s who you are.”

“What do you think I am then?”, I ask her as we sit down. Other people are already here and I see a few surprised faces, including Horangi’s. “Really really big.” She laughs and I chuckle with her. “That’s just because you’re so small.”, I counter. “Psh. It’s not about the size.” I can see a hint of mischief sparkling in her eyes as she says that. Was that innuendo? “It’s not?”, I tease her. She leans forward and whispers like we’re sharing a secret: “If I were you, I wouldn’t be so cocky about it. Even a mouse can fell a tree, if she only knows how to.” I laugh at her remark. “Touché.” – "Maybe that could be my callsign: Mouse.", she jokes. "I like that.", I say fully grinning behind my mask.

scheiße: shit

ahja, du kleiner Perversling: uh-huh, you little pervert

hör auf: stop it

mensch: literally 'human being', in this context more of an exesperated 'dude!'

heilige scheiße: holy shit

Schwamm drüber: literally 'sponge over it', meaning let's forget about it

[intercal]

here's your computer post ya freakin nerd

tl;dr hash algorithm art

left: sha512 empty string, using the nibbles (4 bytes) choosing a color from a 16-bit color palette right: sha384 empty string, using the openssh "randomart" algorithm choosing a color from a 16-bit color palette

technical stuff below the cut

problem

one of the common issues in computer science and systems administration is comparing hashes. but the problem arises when you, the human being, have to compare two hashes. hashes come in the form of a very long hexadecimal string. It might look something like this:

da39a3ee5e6b4b0d3255bfef95601890afd80709 (sha1)

e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855 (sha256)

cf83e1357eefb8bdf1542850d66d8007d620e4050b5715dc83f4a921d36ce9ce47d0d13c5d85f2b0ff8318d2877eec2f63b931bd47417a81a538327af927da3e (sha512)

these strings of text can be very long, and expecting a human being to check the exact match of 128 characters in a row (in the worst case) is unreasonable. it is unlikely to happen, but you can also get very very very close hashes. I remember seeing a twitter post (can't find it for the life of me) that showed two hashes that were different, but a cursory glance at them made them look extremely similar, eg:

e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae9800998b934ca495991b7852b855

versus

e3b0c44298fc1c14d41d8cd89961b204e9800998ecf8427ea495991b7852b855

it's pretty hard to tell at a glance that these are different. they have the same start and end prefixes, and there are some parts in the middle that are the same. but they're different! that's important! that means you've hashed different data, but it looks the same!

proposed solution

generate some art.

openssh does this. when you generate an SSH key, they give you a "randomart" (which is one of the algorithms I used above) of the key. From the comments:

If you see the picture is different, the key is different. If the picture looks the same, you still know nothing.

(source)

which I would say imparts some wisdom already. all you can use this for is determining if a hash is different. you cannot use it to determine if they're the same. what I've done is added a new dimension for what determines something being "different": a color palette. if you take the two extremely similar hashes from the example and generate a piece of hash art using the nibble method, they look like these:

first on the left, second on the right. they look pretty similar, but then you add the element of a color palette and you get visibly different images.

this is not a perfect solution by any means. I completely made up the two example hashes, and actually ran into an issue where my program chose the same color palette for both of them - I had to tweak them. but I think it adds some more value to it.

methodology

this is just an explanation of how this all works. I'm going to avoid posting source code for now because it has my real name attached and I don't like that. maybe I'll strip my name and post it later.

image generation algorithms

there are two image generation algorithms that I have chosen: direct representation using each nibble of the hash, and the openssh "randomart" algorithm (linked at the bottom).

nibble algorithm

the "nibble" method takes each nibble (hex digit) of the hash, laying them out on a grid, and choosing the color that it should use on the selected palette. since all palettes are 16 colors, each value 0x0..0xf is represented. for example, taking the sha1 hash da39a3ee5e6b4b0d3255bfef95601890afd80709, the first row of the image would start with palette indexes 0xd, 0xa, 0x3, 0x9, etc. if we are using the red palette, the first row would start with blocks of these colors: #dd0000, #aa0000, #330000, #990000, etc. it's a direct representation of the hash, and completely lossless. the main downside is explained above - if you have two extremely similar hashes, it will yield two extremely similar images.

randomart algorithm

this has been derived using the openssh randomart algorithm. when you generate an SSH key, you will get some kind of "randomart" that looks like this:

the algorithm is as follows:

start a pointer (called a "worm") in the center cell of a 0-valued matrix (in our case, the matrix is 9 rows by 17 columns).

look at the bottom two bits of the first byte of the hash.

if the bottom bit is 1, then move the worm right - otherwise, move it left. if it cannot move in this direction without exiting the matrix, then don't move left or right.

if the top bit is 1, the move the worm down - otherwise, move it up. if it cannot move in this direction without exiting the matrix, then don't move up or down.

wherever the worm lands, increment the value of that cell.

continue this through the value of the hash, two bits at a time.

this is your output matrix. assign colors (or ascii characters) as you see fit.

I think this is a neat way of doing it, provides a simple piece of art, and two different hashes will, usually, look different.

the main weaknesses that stand out to me: this is a lossy algorithm that could create ambiguities - there are sequences of bytes that could hypothetically produce the same image twice (I am too lazy to come up with these, so that is an exercise left to the reader). additionally, I have noticed that this algorithm tends to drive the worm into a corner, and creates lots of diagonal streaks on its journey. unless the worm hits a wall, it can only ever move diagonally, for better or worse. it looks okay, but I think we can do better.

overall, I think this is a good basis for a new image drawing algorithm, and I might play around with that in the future.

sizing the output image

the images are just a matrix, each cell treated as a pixel, and then I size it up to 32x32 pixel blocks. the number of rows and columns are determined by the art algorithm used, and maybe the hash type (depending on which algorithm is chosen).

for the randomart algorithm, I just use 9 rows by 17 columns - this is what they use in openssh, but I want to play with this because you get pretty boring/dark randomart for hashes with fewer bytes. md5 hashes usually just look like black rectangles with a few lighter blocks, not very useful.

for the nibble algorithm, I tried to make the art as square as possible. for example, sha1 hashes are 160 bits long, or 20 bytes, or 40 nibbles (each nibble = 1 block in the art). 40 nibbles can be sized as a 40x1, 20x2, 10x4, or 8x5 matrix. I opted for the 8x5 matrix, but I want to make this customizable in the future. here are the image sizes I choose for all the hashes I support:

md5 - 128 bits, 16 bytes, 32 nibbles - 8x4

sha1 - 160 bits, 20 bytes, 40 nibbles - 8x5

sha224 - 224 bits, 28 bytes, 56 nibbles - 8x7

sha256 - 256 bits, 32 bytes, 64 nibbles, 8x8

sha384 - 384 bits, 48 bytes, 96 nibbles, 12x8

sha512 - 512 bits, 64 bytes, 128 nibbles, 16x8

choosing the color palette

each palette is 16 colors. there are 8 base color palettes: red, green, blue, black, cyan, yellow, magenta, and white. red palette is #000000, #110000, #220000, ... #ee0000, #ff0000. blue is #000000, #001100, etc. Black and white are the only ones that I think may introduce some ambiguity - black goes from #000000, #111111, etc to #ffffff. white goes in the reverse order, #ffffff, #eeeeee, etc to #000000.

the color palette is chosen by taking the sum of all the bytes in the hash, mod 8. for example, the sha1 hash da39a3ee5e6b4b0d3255bfef95601890afd80709 is broken into the parts 0xda, 0x39, 0xa3, ... 0x07, 0x09. These are added together to get 0x92e, or 2350 in decimal. 2350 % 8 = 6, so we choose the 6th color palette (zero indexed) of RGBBCYMW, magenta.

more ideas

rotating or reflecting the image based on the input hash might yield useful results

adding more color palettes may ensure fewer "similar" images

doing something using a noise algorithm (perlin noise, simplex noise) to generate image matrices using the hash as the seed.

further reading and sources

Hash Visualization: a New Technique to Improve Real World Security (Perrig, Song, 1999)

openSSH randomart algorithm (fetched 2024-05-23, commit hash fc5dc092830de23767c6ef67baa18310a64ee533)

thanks for reading!

[ask-yonaga]

JOURNAL ENTRY #145

06/23/XXXX

>> "I found a thing washed upshore today. >> It was small, rectangular, and absolutely soaked! Had a buncha cute little buttons too! >> So I picked it up and messed around, and it started glowing! By now I’m wondering what it does more than what it is so I click around and start hitting the little buttons, until it starts showing me other little rectangular shapes.

>> I click on those and not a whooole bunch show me anything cool, just pictures of plants, colors, ya!

>> Then, I clicked on a blue button with a small one of these things in it “t”, and there was a bunch of small phrases! It looked cool so I clicked around until it let me make one of my own.

>>I hit the “post” button when I finished writing, nothings happened yet. I’ll be watching it!

>>Im not sure what father might do if I show him, soo I’m hiding it for now! It’ll go in the same spot I hide my journal.

>>Oh— Father’s calling me now, bye-byeee! I’ll write later!!"

———

[PREGAME-ANGIE’S ASKBOX IS NOW OPEN]

goooood morning danganronpa v3 tumblr and angie lovers everywhere.

Today, I present to you all a pre-game angie askblog!!!

-> btw, if you want a canon character to interact "from the future" or simply in passing off of tumblr, im very okay with that! Just Angie wont know them, nor will she accept any prophesies from them. <3

WARNINGS:

-> General cult stuff

-> family issues

-> unhealthy relationships in general

-> not a complete list, will be added to in time.

PREMISE:

Heres the basic stuff ill reveal for now, this will be updated as stuff is asked and therefore discovered!

[ Angie Yonaga, before the events of NDRV3, grew up in a cult. All events that would happen in NDRV3 will be treated as if they will happen eventually in reality. [IOW: no "real fiction", all ultimates are real, The Tragedy did occur over 200 years prior.] She is also the secondary oracle to Kami-Sama, her cult's god. A position given to her by Father, the leader of her cult, after she claimed to "hear" Kami-Sama. As of current, she is 15, close to turning 16, AKA her "coming of age".

-> Her coming of age ceremony is NOT group sex. I cant tell you how much i loathe that plotpiece, it is INSTEAD a party in which she is drugged with hallucinogens and "sees how Kami-Sama will present himself to her"

----> I go into more detail Here, and Here. [warning: out of date posts, mostly everything is correct aside from number ages.]

-> Father will have a lot of mentions, so youll learn about him definitely if you ask the right things :]

-> no other NDRV3 characters are present.

-> This is an art themed ask-blog! Hence, I will draw Angie answering whatever asks i recieve!

-> design notes!

TAG NOTES:

-> [ LETTERS FOR YONAGA ] -> answered asks

-> [ >> OOC ] -> mod posts/updates/announcements/pleas for attention

-> [ CANON STUFF ] -> usually a lore-heavy ask

-> [ NOTES ] -> Lore heavy posts/references or anything that is ooc that explains something about angie/father/the island/etc!

BASIC RULES: [dont make me add more]

-> I wont accept NSFW nor other strange asks towards Angie, she may be younger than I am, but I will not draw her answering things like that.

-> please dont correct me on my plotholes, especially when we get to druggy topics. Im fully aware that there are several plotholes ive yet to fill, and id rather not be given help on those if i have not asked for it.

-> Also please dont rush me, im not hugely active in the danganronpa community anymore and mostly started this for fun! that means, sometimes asks will be slow, and sometimes theyll be out one after the other! it really depends on how busy i am some days. :]

-> Thats about all, send in some stuff!! <3

[nota1eks]

If/when they create a phm movie, what changes (if any) would you like to see them make to the story?

Jesus that’s a hard question…wow…! In a perfect world, they’d change nothing. It’d be a TV show with lots of room to portray everything. But we don’t live in a perfect world. I, therefore, want to keep as much of the original book as possible. My only immediate want is that it might be cool for them to use “they” for Rocky instead of “he”. Maybe some toning down of the Crazy Russians stereotyping, though if they do it right, that can be great. Nothing else comes to mind that I want changed -- it's a very good book.

But with that out of the way, let's talk about stuff that will very likely be cut. Because I think that's very interesting...

I think, as with Pathfinder getting fried and the dust storm in the Martian (2015) (wherein, both times, a huge plot event in the movie was gotten rid of for time purposes, with little impact on the overall plot, but a devastating-ish loss to the dedicated novel-enjoyers), some stuff will get cut out. Let's go one by one through the timeline of events:

The flashbacks will be there. Maybe not in flashback form (maybe they come before the rest like in the Martian...though those aren't flashbacks it's just backstory), but nonetheless there. Not everything will be there, though. Stratt barging in on Grace's class will be there; him doing the first experiments on astrophage will likely be there; meeting the crew will be there along with some of him training them so as to explain how he learned so much about being an astronaut; the explosion at Baikonur and the proceeding chaos will be there, trailer meetings included; but I think that'd be roughly it. They'll add some; they'll take away a lot. No Steve Hatch; no Lamai; probably very little Lokken (which is very sad); no frenchscientistwhosenameicantrememberimnotevenarealphm fanomllllll, either. They'll have their stories be explained via Grace talking to Rocky. Lots will be explained via Grace talking to Rocky.

Now, they'll have to have Grace waking up and seeing his dead crewmates. They'll have to have Ryan Gosling wandering about this spaceship scratching his head. That's a big part of the story. But I think after a certain point, after enough clues are gathered together, they'll infodump on us. It will be done well, of course, I mean just look at who's making the movie, but it wil lhaev to be like that. Maybe the nannybot will give him information. Maybe there will be a "Here to save Earth from imminent apocalypse? Click here ->" type of thing, but it won't be Grace turning to the camera and saying "Hey guys! I'm here at Tau Ceti to save Earth from astrophage! There's this weird ship out there. Keep you updated! Like and subscribe!"; nor will it be a voiceover. I had a Media Arts teacher in school and he told us that, more than anything, we were to avoid having to use voice-overs to explain out movies. At all costs. So I doubt they'll use that here -- maybe later, though. More talking-head with visuals than voiceover explaining the story.

Now. With Grace meeting Rocky there will either be nothing cut or everything cut: Maybe Rocky wil have a Magic Language Machine. Maybe Grace has a Magic Language Machine. Maybe they do everything how they did it in the book. Either way, it'll have to likely be one or the other. I'm very excited to see how they do Rocky's voice. An adaptation of the Audible Audiobook's version would be ideal, as I and many others think. There aren't many other good options... With the rest, I'm genuinely not sure. I can see them going both ways with this: cutting everything and rewriting it or keeping it pretty book-accurate. By any measure, they won't cut it all out. That'd be stupid.

With the in between between the Blip-A-Hail Mary disconnection and them arriving at Adrian, much will be cut out. It'll be rewritten. For better or for worse. Since it's just that theoretical, I'm not sure what changes I'd even want to see. Maybe some more back story on Rocky's crewmates? On Adrian (the eridian)? I mean Grace asking Rocky about Adrian would be a great opportunity to get some backstory in, btu the movie will already be so chock-full of it that I don't know if they'll be able to fit it in amongst everything else.

The Adrian Incident will likely still be very, very similar. It's the emotional peak of the movie. Rocky will nearly die. I will watch my friends weep, crying about how I should have warned them, and I will tell them they should have read the book. With Grace trying to save Rocky...eeh...it might be there; it might not. Flip of the dice with the landscape of the table being what the rest of the plot looks like, if that makes sense.

Now......The Great Taumeoba Escape. It's a lot like Pathfinder and the Dust Storm. It's just not all that relevant! SO MUCH is happening in the book at this point that -- I don't think -- they would be able to fit this in, even with a TV show with half a dozen hours to show the story in. I'd much rather lose this than lose backstory or silly goofy Rocky details.

The journey back, though, along with the breeding of Taumeoba was so boring it was cut out in the book. No way they'll have it in the movie. Probably even more will be cut out. Maybe one single Eureka! scene where Grace and Rocky drink vodka and wear crystals, respectively, but no more.

Now...The Great Taumeoba Escape 2: Radiation Exposure Boogaloo will NOT be cut out. Lest I stomp out of that movie theatre shouting insults at the directors etc. I kid, but not by a lot. They have to have this in order for Grace to turn around. I also bet they'll delay Grace learning he was a coward until here. It'd work so well there, yeah!? So he does his little thing, then turns around. From here, I think everything will be to-the-book. But let's talk about the ending.

Grace being a teacher is fundamental to the story. He can't not be, or the book/movie just won't work. Now, in The Martian (2015) they changed the ending. But that's not big, really. Mark becomes a recluse who gets looped back into being an astronaut training people who will then work on Artemis versus him being a teacher -- there's not that big of a plotline difference there. And we can pretend that in the interim he was a recluse. BUT IF THEY DON'T MAKE GRACE A TEACHER I SWEAR TO GOD--! calm. be calm. Anyways, him teaching again is a huge end for his character arc. And Rocky wil come in, no doubt, and tell Grace Earth's back to normal. Sending him back off to Earth just doesn't work, plot-wise or logic-wise.

Here's my last want: Earth. I want to see Earth back in shape. I want to see Stratt looking happy in her jail cell, etc.

Christ, I just wrote a lot. Um. I hope that answers your question...? And if it doesn't, feel free to ask me! I can -- and gladly will -- talk about this book all the livelong day!