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greetings-and-salutations · 2 years ago

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“I’m Ladies Man!”

Fred Weasley x Reader

Day 2 of the 13 Nights of Halloween Spooktacular!!!

Masterlist

(Gif not mine)

Requested? No

Summary: It’s a Gryffindor Halloween party. With the Weasley twins, cringy costumes, and a whole lot of firewhisky, what could go wrong?

Warnings: starred out swear words, underage drinking, sexual innuendos, I picked your costume for you again, sorry 🤷‍♀️😂

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Fem!Reader

��And what exactly are you two supposed to be?”

It was Halloween at Hogwarts, and after a wonderfully tame dinner in the Great Hall with all the little ones and the teachers, Fred and George Weasley had made the executive decision that a good ole fashioned Gryffindor house party was necessary for the older teens to properly get their spooky on. Not that the feast wasn’t excellent, it always was, but there were certain alcoholic beverages that one simply couldn’t get past the watchful eyes of Professor McGonagall and the others. And, the Weasley boys were firm believes that: it wasn’t a holiday without Firewhisky.

Hermione stared at them impatiently, her question hanging in the air as the twins finally made their way down the staircase and into the common room, the party in full swing before them, though it was only natural for the hosts to be fashionable late on such a fashion-forward occasion.

Yes, they’d been informed about the muggle costume tradition. And, naturally, they’d gone all out.

Fred and George looked at each other in mock offense, before turning to the younger girl.

“I’m Snape, obviously.” George said, turning up his nose and crossing his cape over his arms in his best impression of the potions master. His notable mop of ginger locks had even been sacrificed for the look, a hair dying spell turning them into a jet black copy of the professors. It was a good costume, frighteningly good. Fred was almost waiting for his brother to start handing out detentions for the copious amounts of whiskey currently being consumed by the Gryffindor teenagers.

“Right… And you?” Hermione asked, turning her attention to the other boy. Fred smirked proudly.

“I’m Ladies Man!” He flexed his muscles to prove his point, the red spandex pulling taut against his body, making Fred eternally grateful for the hours of quidditch practice that had toned him just so. The colorful spandex was complimented by a pair of white heart boxer shorts, and a plethora of kiss marks Lee had been bullied into drawing on his face. He looked good. Certainly nothing to rival the life-size replica of Severus Snape beside him, but he liked it. He thought it was clever. And by the look on Hermione face, she did too. Though he was also sure she wouldn’t say so. Women are proud like that.

“Of course you are.” She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t hide the red tint of her cheeks, which made the twins chuckle.

“Well what are you supposed to be then?” George asked, gesturing to Hermione’s significant lack of holiday themed attire. The younger witch sighed, before beginning to unbutton her sweater to reveal a singular piece of parchment attached to the front of her shirt.

“It was Ron’s idea…”

NUDIST ON STRIKE

Fred and George glanced at each other for a moment, before bursting into a fit of laughter, Hermione’s red face darkening in embarrassment as she buttoned her sweater back.

“It’s really not that funny…” She mumbled, crossing her arms with a huff, but the boys just grinned down at her.

“Whatever you have to tell yourself, love.” George said, patting her head like one would a small animal. She shrugged his hand off with a pout, but the taller boy wasn’t paying her any mind, his thoughts already moved on to something else. “C’mon Fred. Let’s go get drinks before we accidentally spend the whole party sober.” And suddenly Fred’s attention had followed his brothers, a wide smile crackling the kiss mark in his cheek just a little, as he envisioned the night ahead of him excitedly.

“George, I was thinking exactly the same thing…”

+ + +

(Y/n) wasn’t entirely sure why she’d agreed to go to this stupid party. She wasn’t even a Gryffindor, though upon noting a few various Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws (even some rogue Slytherins) fluttering about, she wasn’t all to self-conscious about that fact. But, even so, (Y/n) had never really been a party person. She was more of a stay in her room reading a good book person. Besides, they’d already had the feast just a few hours prior. Was that not party enough?

“Of course not! That was literally nothing. I swear, you have not lived til you’ve been to one of Fred and George’s parties. They’re legendary…” (Y/n)��s best friend (and the only reason she was dressed as Daphne from Scooby Doo and attending this stupid party in the first place), (Y/f/n), was saying over the loud music. (Y/n) just nodded, her eyes glued to the common room before her and the pure chaos taking it over.

“Hey, I think I see Seamus! I’ll find you later, okay?” Before (Y/n) could form any kind of response to that, (Y/f/n) was gone, and the girl had been left to her own devices, alone in a room full of drunk and scantily clad Gryffindors.

“Great…I think I need a drink.”

+ + +

It hadn’t been very long into their evening, but Fred Weasley was already beginning to feel the familiar buzz of the whisky as he sat with George and Lee on a couch by the fire. He’d had a relatively pleasant evening thus far, though his friends were certainly giving him grief about the veracity of his costume. But Fred wasn’t exactly feeling the “Ladies Man” vibes tonight. Of course, it would be a whole nother story if-

“Freddie, look who made it.” George was pointing at the drink table a little ways away, where a girl in a bright ginger wig stood, awkwardly sipping something in a solo cup. Fred didn’t recognize her at first in the costume, he assumed it was from some cartoon, but it must have been a muggle thing cause he couldn’t quite place it, but when he looked at her face, the costume became the least of his concerns. Fred could almost feel his heart begin beating faster the longer he took in the sight before him. She came…

“Woah, is that (Y/n)? She looks hot-“ Lee was cut off by Fred’s large hand thwaping his shoulder, clearly peeved, though his eyes hadn’t left the girl.

“Ow! What he bloody he*l?” Lee complained, but Fred just glanced at him with a raised brow.

“Don’t talk about her like that.” He ordered, causing George to pipe in with a playful grin.

“Yeah, Lee. Or have you forgotten Freddie’s got dibs?” He asked, earning a thwap of his own. Sure, he’d had a crush on the girl since the sorting ceremony; the way her perfect smile lit up any room she went in, and how cute she’d be when he imagined her in his clothes (in a non-creepy way, obviously), but Fred believed in being respectful to women. Especially the really pretty ones he had daydreams of publicly professing his love to some day…

“I haven’t got dibs! Nobody’s- I mean- there’s no dibs!” He stuttered over himself, finally turning away fully to glare angrily at his other half.

“Merlin, Fred don’t get your knickers in a twist.” But Fred wasn’t done.

“They’re not- I’m not- just shove off will you?” He could feel his cheeks heating up the more they teased him about (Y/n).

It wasn’t like it was his intention to get so flustered around the girl. He*l, if he had it his way, he’d have gone up to her a long time ago, used some line, that he knew from experience always worked, and had her right where he wanted her.

But (Y/n) was different. And no matter how much he tried to tell his head that wasn’t the case, his heart was in constant disagreement.

“I’ve got a better idea.” George said with an evil grin that fit perfectly into his costume, and terrified Fred half to death.

“Why don’t you shove off, and go over there?” He offered, hands on his brothers shoulders, directing him towards the drink table.

“And what? Talk to her? What am I even supposed to say?” He complained, well aware he’d be ruthlessly teased for the moment of weakness, but not really caring as he was genuinely hoping for an answer. But, knowing George-

“Yeah, I suppose “wanna shag in the broom cupboard” might come off a bit too strong, huh Lee?”

“Yeah, maybe open with snogging? I hear chicks dig that sorta thing.”

Fred was completely gobsmacked.

“What the actual sh*t?”

“We’ll stop when you go talk to her.” Lee said in a singsong voice that earned him the harshest glare Fred was sure he’d ever given. But Lee barely flinched and Fred sighed, resigning to his fate.

“Fine! Fine, alright? You wankers are pathetic…” He complained, before standing from the couch, and fiddling with his costume til he was sure his cape wasn’t crooked and his shorts weren’t rumpled or anything. Cause that would be embarrassing…

“Love you too!”

“Good luck!”

Well, here goes nothing…

+ + +

“You come here often?” (Y/n) looked up from her drink with a confused expression, not expecting to be spoken to at all that night, much less be shamelessly flirted with by one of the Weasley twins, though she was ashamed to note that she couldn’t tell which. He was dressed in some red superhero costume, but (Y/n) assumed it was some sort of inside joke or something, as she didn’t get it. It did look really good on him though…

She was almost inclined to look around and see if he was indeed talking to her or perhaps someone else entirely, but, recalling how awkward and pathetic that looked in movies, and due to the fact that his eyes were very clearly studying her face, she opted to answer him instead.

“Was that the best you could come up with?” (Y/n) asked, referring to his immensely overused line from before. But the redhead seemed undeterred, shrugging his shoulders with an impish grin.

“Ah, that’s just the opener, love. You gotta stick around the rest of the night if you wanna get my good ones.” Okay, (Y/n) had to admit, that one was a little better. But, she wasn’t going to tell him that.

“Is that so?” She asked earning a nod of agreement, before he held his hand out.

“Uh huh. I’m Fred.” He introduced as (Y/n) tentatively shook his hand.

“(Y/n)… so what happens if I don’t?” She asked, making his face scrunch up in confusion in a way that (Y/n) found incredibly adorable. Another thing she wouldn’t be mentioning out loud…

“Don’t…?”

“Stick around.” She reminded him of his early words, a look of realization crossing the tall boys face, before his grin returned.

“Well, I suppose I’ll just have to try harder next time.” He said, leaning in a little closer as he did, his hand coming to rest casually on the table beside her. (Y/n)’s heart rate picked up out of her control.

“Oh, so there’s already gonna be a next time?” She asked, hoping he couldn’t hear the erratically beating organ from their close proximity.

“Well that all depends.” He said, showing no indication that he had, though (Y/n) wasn’t taking any chances, and smoothly (or what she hoped was smoothly) slipped further down the table to grab a candy from the bowl.

“On what?” She asked as she went, feeling the presence of him following behind her.

“On if you’ve got plans this weekend?” (Y/n) stopped dead in her tracks, caught completely off guard by Fred’s sudden boldness.

“And if I do?” She practically squeaked, cursing herself as she knew for a fact Fred had noticed her nervousness now, his smirk growing exponentially in response.

“Well then, THAT all depends.” He said, grabbing the candy from her hands and popping it into his mouth. (Y/n) was too invested in the progression of the conversation to care.

“On what?” She asked, her curiosity besting her, as she wondered where he was going with this.

“On what I have to do to get you to change them.” He shrugged his shoulders as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. (Y/n) looked at the ground to avoid him catching a glimpse of the blushy smile she was sporting at his words.

“You’re really not giving up, are you?” She asked, still not looking him in the eyes, but she didn’t need to to know the playful grin was still covering his face, a staple, it seemed, for the Weasley clan.

“Not in my nature, I’m afraid. So?”

Sure, (Y/n) hadn’t exactly gone into this evening with the intention of talking up one of the Weasley twins. But, really, what was the harm? He was extremely cute, and talking to him seemed far more interesting then waiting around for (Y/f/n) to finish snogging Seamus Finnigan in a closet somewhere. And, who knows? Maybe something might come out of this whole Fred Weasley thing. The girl couldn’t exactly say she’d mind all that much…

(Y/n) finally looked back up into his expectant eyes with a playful grin of her.

“Get me a refill. Then we’ll talk.” And Fred smirked back.

“Yes, ma’am…”

Tag lists are open!!!

Tags: @electriclcvewp @kaqua @missryerye @miaandthediamonds @nickangel13 @lolawassad @nani-2305

#13 Nights of Halloween Spooktacular #fred wealsey x reader #fred weasley one shot #fred weasley x you #fred weasley fic #fred weasley fluff #fred weasley imagine #fred weasley fanfiction #fred weasley #fred and george #fred and george weasley #weasley twins fanfiction #weasley twins

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recentanimenews · 4 years ago

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ESSAY: Berserk's Journey of Acceptance Over 30 Years of Fandom

My descent into anime fandom began in the '90s, and just as watching Neon Genesis Evangelion caused my first revelation that cartoons could be art, reading Berserk gave me the same realization about comics. The news of Kentaro Miura’s death, who passed on May 6, has been emotionally complicated for me, as it's the first time a celebrity's death has hit truly close to home. In addition to being the lynchpin for several important personal revelations, Berserk is one of the longest-lasting works I’ve followed and that I must suddenly bid farewell to after existing alongside it for two-thirds of my life.

Berserk is a monolith not only for anime and manga, but also fantasy literature, video games, you name it. It might be one of the single most influential works of the ‘80s — on a level similar to Blade Runner — to a degree where it’s difficult to imagine what the world might look like without it, and the generations of creators the series inspired.

Although not the first, Guts is the prototypical large sword anime boy: Final Fantasy VII's Cloud Strife, Siegfried/Nightmare from Soulcalibur, and Black Clover's Asta are all links in the same chain, with other series like Dark Souls and Claymore taking clear inspiration from Berserk. But even deeper than that, the three-character dynamic between Guts, Griffith, and Casca, the monster designs, the grotesque violence, Miura’s image of hell — all of them can be spotted in countless pieces of media across the globe.

Despite this, it just doesn’t seem like people talk about it very much. For over 20 years, Berserk has stood among the critical pantheon for both anime and manga, but it doesn’t spur conversations in the same way as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Akira, or Dragon Ball Z still do today. Its graphic depictions certainly represent a barrier to entry much higher than even the aforementioned company.

Seeing the internet exude sympathy and fond reminiscing about Berserk was immensely validating and has been my single most therapeutic experience online. Moreso, it reminded me that the fans have always been there. And even looking into it, Berserk is the single best-selling property in the 35-year history of Dark Horse. My feeling is that Berserk just has something about it that reaches deep into you and gets stuck there.

I recall introducing one of my housemates to Berserk a few years ago — a person with all the intelligence and personal drive to both work on cancer research at Stanford while pursuing his own MD and maintaining a level of physical fitness that was frankly unreasonable for the hours that he kept. He was NOT in any way analytical about the media he consumed, but watching him sitting on the floor turning all his considerable willpower and intellect toward delivering an off-the-cuff treatise on how Berserk had so deeply touched him was a sight in itself to behold. His thoughts on the series' portrayal of sex as fundamentally violent leading up to Guts and Casca’s first moment of intimacy in the Golden Age movies was one of the most beautiful sentiments I’d ever heard in reaction to a piece of fiction.

I don’t think I’d ever heard him provide anything but a surface-level take on a piece of media before or since. He was a pretty forthright guy, but the way he just cut into himself and let his feelings pour out onto the floor left me awestruck. The process of reading Berserk can strike emotional chords within you that are tough to untangle. I’ve been writing analysis and experiential pieces related to anime and manga for almost ten years — and interacting with Berserk’s world for almost 30 years — and writing may just be yet another attempt for me to pull my own twisted-up feelings about it apart.

Berserk is one of the most deeply personal works I’ve ever read, both for myself and in my perception of Miura's works. The series' transformation in the past 30 years artistically and thematically is so singular it's difficult to find another work that comes close. The author of Hajime no Ippo, who was among the first to see Berserk as Miura presented him with some early drafts working as his assistant, claimed that the design for Guts and Puck had come from a mess of ideas Miura had been working on since his early school days.

写真は三浦建太郎君が寄稿してくれた鷹村です。今かなり感傷的になっています。思い出話をさせて下さい。僕が初めての週刊連載でスタッフが一人もいなくて困っていたら手伝いにきてくれました。彼が18で僕が19です。某大学の芸術学部の学生で講義明けにスケッチブックを片手に来てくれました。 pic.twitter.com/hT1JCWBTKu

— 森川ジョージ (@WANPOWANWAN) May 20, 2021

Miura claimed two of his big influences were Go Nagai’s Violence Jack and Tetsuo Hara and Buronson’s Fist of the North Star. Miura wears these influences on his sleeve, discovering the early concepts that had percolated in his mind just felt right. The beginning of Berserk, despite its amazing visual power, feels like it sprang from a very juvenile concept: Guts is a hypermasculine lone traveler breaking his body against nightmarish creatures in his single-minded pursuit of revenge, rigidly independent and distrustful of others due to his dark past.

Uncompromising, rugged, independent, a really big sword ... Guts is a romantic ideal of masculinity on a quest to personally serve justice against the one who wronged him. Almost nefarious in the manner in which his character checked these boxes, especially when it came to his grim stoicism, unblinkingly facing his struggle against literal cosmic forces. Never doubting himself, never trusting others, never weeping for what he had lost.

Miura said he sketched out most of the backstory when the manga began publication, so I have to assume the larger strokes of the Golden Arc were pretty well figured out from the outset, but I’m less sure if he had fully realized where he wanted to take the story to where we are now. After the introductory mini-arcs of demon-slaying, Berserk encounters Griffith and the story draws us back to a massive flashback arc. We see the same Guts living as a lone mercenary who Griffith persuades to join the Band of the Hawk to help realize his ambitions of rising above the circumstances of his birth to join the nobility.

We discover the horrific abuses of Guts’ adoptive father and eventually learn that Guts, Griffith, and Casca are all victims of sexual violence. The story develops into a sprawling semi-historical epic featuring politics and war, but the real narrative is in the growing companionship between Guts and the members of the band. Directionless and traumatized by his childhood, Guts slowly finds a purpose helping Griffith realize his dream and the courage to allow others to grow close to him.

Miura mentioned that many Band of the Hawk members were based on his early friend groups. Although he was always sparse with details about his personal life, he has spoken about how many of them referred to themselves as aspiring manga authors and how he felt an intense sense of competition, admitting that among them he may have been the only one seriously working toward that goal, desperately keeping ahead in his perceived race against them. It’s intriguing thinking about how much of this angst may have made it to the pages, as it's almost impossible not to imagine Miura put quite a bit of himself in Guts.

Perhaps this is why it feels so real and makes The Eclipse — the quintessential anime betrayal at the hands of Griffith — all the more heartbreaking. The raw violence and macabre imagery certainly helped. While Miura owed Hellraiser’s Cenobites much in the designs of the God Hand, his macabre portrayal of the Band of the Hawk’s eradication within the literal bowels of hell, the massive hand, the black sun, the Skull Knight, and even Miura’s page compositions have been endlessly referenced, copied, and outright plagiarized since.

The events were tragic in any context and I have heard many deeply personal experiences others drew from The Eclipse sympathizing with Guts, Casca, or even Griffith’s spiral driven by his perceived rejection by Guts. Mine were most closely aligned with the tragedy of Guts having overcome such painful circumstances to not only reject his own self enforced solitude, but to fearlessly express his affection for his loved ones.

The Golden Age was a methodical destruction of Guts’ self-destructive methods of preservation ruined in a single selfish act by his most trusted friend, leaving him once again alone and afraid of growing close to those around him. It ripped the romance of Guts’ mission and eventually took the story down a course I never expected. Berserk wasn’t a story of revenge but one of recovery.

Guess that’s enough beating around the bush, as I should talk about how this shift affected me personally. When I was young, when I began reading Berserk I found Guts’ unflagging stoicism to be really cool, not just aesthetically but in how I understood guys were supposed to be. I was slow to make friends during school and my rapidly gentrifying neighborhood had my friends' parents moving away faster than I could find new ones. At some point I think I became too afraid of putting myself out there anymore, risking rejection when even acceptance was so fleeting. It began to feel easier just to resign myself to solitude and pretend my circumstances were beyond my own power to correct.

Unfortunately, I became the stereotypical kid who ate alone during lunch break. Under the invisible expectations demanding I not display weakness, my loneliness was compounded by shame for feeling loneliness. My only recourse was to reveal none of those feelings and pretend the whole thing didn't bother me at all. Needless to say my attempts to cope probably fooled no one and only made things even worse, but I really didn’t know of any better way to handle my situation. I felt bad, I felt even worse about feeling bad and had been provided with zero tools to cope, much less even admit that I had a problem at all.

The arcs following the Golden Age completely changed my perspective. Guts had tragically, yet understandably, cut himself off from others to save himself from experiencing that trauma again and, in effect, denied himself any opportunity to allow himself to be happy again. As he began to meet other characters that attached themselves to him, between Rickert and Erica spending months waiting worried for his return, and even the slimmest hope to rescuing Casca began to seed itself into the story, I could only see Guts as a fool pursuing a grim and hopeless task rather than appreciating everything that he had managed to hold onto.

The same attributes that made Guts so compelling in the opening chapters were revealed as his true enemy. Griffith had committed an unforgivable act but Guts’ journey for revenge was one of self-inflicted pain and fear. The romanticism was gone.

Farnese’s inclusion in the Conviction arc was a revelation. Among the many brilliant aspects of her character, I identified with her simply for how she acted as a stand-in for myself as the reader: Plagued by self-doubt and fear, desperate to maintain her own stoic and uncompromising image, and resentful of her place in the world. She sees Guts’ fearlessness in the face of cosmic horror and believes she might be able to learn his confidence.

But in following Guts, Farnese instead finds a teacher in Casca. In taking care of her, Farnese develops a connection and is able to experience genuine sympathy that develops into a sense of responsibility. Caring for Casca allows Farnese to develop the courage she was lacking not out of reckless self-abandon but compassion.

I can’t exactly credit Berserk with turning my life around, but I feel that it genuinely helped crystallize within me a sense of growing doubts about my maladjusted high school days. My growing awareness of Guts' undeniable role in his own suffering forced me to admit my own role in mine and created a determination to take action to fix it rather than pretending enough stoicism might actually result in some sort of solution.

I visited the Berserk subreddit from time to time and always enjoyed the group's penchant for referring to all the members of the board as “fellow strugglers,” owing both to Skull Knight’s label for Guts and their own tongue-in-cheek humor at waiting through extended hiatuses. Only in retrospect did it feel truly fitting to me. Trying to avoid the pitfalls of Guts’ path is a constant struggle. Today I’m blessed with many good friends but still feel primal pangs of fear holding me back nearly every time I meet someone, the idea of telling others how much they mean to me or even sharing my thoughts and feelings about something I care about deeply as if each action will expose me to attack.

It’s taken time to pull myself away from the behaviors that were so deeply ingrained and it’s a journey where I’m not sure the work will ever be truly done, but witnessing Guts’ own slow progress has been a constant source of reassurance. My sense of admiration for Miura’s epic tale of a man allowing himself to let go after suffering such devastating circumstances brought my own humble problems and their way out into focus.

Over the years I, and many others, have been forced to come to terms with the fact that Berserk would likely never finish. The pattern of long, unexplained hiatuses and the solemn recognition that any of them could be the last is a familiar one. The double-edged sword of manga largely being works created by a single individual is that there is rarely anyone in a position to pick up the torch when the creator calls it quits. Takehiko Inoue’s Vagabond, Ai Yazawa’s Nana, and likely Yoshihiro Togashi’s Hunter X Hunter all frozen in indefinite hiatus, the publishers respectfully holding the door open should the creators ever decide to return, leaving it in a liminal space with no sense of conclusion for the fans except what we can make for ourselves.

The reason for Miura’s hiatuses was unclear. Fans liked to joke that he would take long breaks to play The Idolmaster, but Miura was also infamous for taking “breaks” spent minutely illustrating panels to his exacting artistic standard, creating a tumultuous release schedule during the wars featuring thousands of tiny soldiers all dressed in period-appropriate armor. If his health was becoming an issue, it’s uncommon that news would be shared with fans for most authors, much less one as private as Miura.

Even without delays, the story Miura was building just seemed to be getting too big. The scale continued to grow, his narrative ambition swelling even faster after 20 years of publication, the depth and breadth of his universe constantly expanding. The fan-dubbed “Millennium Falcon Arc” was massive, changing the landscape of Berserk from a low fantasy plagued by roaming demons to a high fantasy where godlike beings of sanity-defying size battled for control of the world. How could Guts even meet Griffith again? What might Casca want to do when her sanity returned? What are the origins of the Skull Knight? And would he do battle with the God Hand? There was too much left to happen and Miura’s art only grew more and more elaborate. It would take decades to resolve all this.

But it didn’t need to. I imagine we’ll never get a precise picture of the final years of Miura’s life leading up to his tragic passing. In the final chapters he released, it felt as if he had directed the story to some conclusion. The unfinished Fantasia arc finds Guts and his newfound band finding a way to finally restore Casca’s sanity and — although there is still unmistakably a boundary separating them — both seem resolute in finding a way to mend their shared wounds together.

One of the final chapters features Guts drinking around the campfire with the two other men of his group, Serpico and Roderick, as he entrusts the recovery of Casca to Schierke and Farnese. It's a scene that, in the original Band of the Hawk, would have found Guts brooding as his fellows engage in bluster. The tone of this conversation, however, is completely different. The three commiserate over how much has changed and the strength each has found in the companionship of the others. After everything that has happened, Guts declares that he is grateful.

The suicidal dedication to his quest for vengeance and dispassionate pragmatism that defined Guts in the earliest chapters is gone. Although they first appeared to be a source of strength as the Black Swordsman, he has learned that they rose from the fear of losing his friends again, from letting others close enough to harm him, and from having no other purpose without others. Whether or not Guts and Griffith were to ever meet again, Guts has rediscovered the strength to no longer carry his burdens alone.

All that has happened is all there will ever be. We too must be grateful.

Peter Fobian is an Associate Manager of Social Video at Crunchyroll, writer for Anime Academy and Anime in America, and an editor at Anime Feminist. You can follow him on Twitter @PeterFobian.

By: Peter Fobian

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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tired-artist-aqua · 4 years ago

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How I draw Animals! (Step-by-Step)

((I’m still getting questions about my drawing progress, so here’s a step-by-step showcase!

((WARNING: I am in no way a professional. This is all advice from an armature that does art as a hobby.

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Step 1: Structure (sketch layer)

((First of all, I start off with three circles, and I connect them using lines. The position of the circles depends on the pose the animal (we’re going to be using Bailey, a dog, as an example).

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Step 2: Face fluff (sketch layer)

((This also depends on the animal, but for the fluffier animals, you need some face fluff. There’s multiple types of fluff you can draw, but this is the most common type, the fluff the droops down. (Also, draw a cross on the first circle to show you how to draw the face later!)

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Step 3: Ears and Top of the head (sketch layer)

((Pretty much all of this depends on the animal, but for Bailey, one ear folds onto the face while the other stands up straight. The top of the head is pretty simple, but a line with a tuft of fur.

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Step 4: Neck and shoulders (sketch layer)

((Now for the neck/shoulders! Just swoop down from the face fluff and then add another tuft of fur sticking out for the neck. If your animal is extremely fluffy, them feel free to add more tufts of fur. For the shoulders, just go slightly up from the face fur to make sure the shoulder bone is visible.

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Step 5: Front legs (sketch layer)

((This is where it gets tricky, but stay with me! Be sure that your front legs do not go on for too long, or it looks unnatural. Also be sure you do not make the legs extend out too far to the front of back, than it looks like the animal is about to fall over. Try and find some middle ground, as shown in the picture above. This is optional, but I find that extending out the paws from the leg specifically make it easier to see where the paw starts and ends. Also you can add a line on the paw to show where each toe is.

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Step 6: Back legs and belly (sketch layer)

((Back legs! Same thing as the front legs, but put a larger shoulder bone on the top of the leg to show that is is a back leg and not a copy and paste of a front leg. For the belly, just connect the front leg and back leg in a singular line.

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Step 7: The back (sketch layer)

((Pretty straight forward, just connect the top shoulder to the end of the back leg in one line.

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Step 8: The tail (sketch layer)

((Depends on what type of tail your animal has, but for Bailey, just make a short swooped-up tail with some fluff on the end. And with this, your done with the sketch layer! Moving on to the lineart!)

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Step 9: Lineart

((Pretty simple, just fix up any mistakes on your sketch layer with the lineart! And here’s a tip that’ll save you a BUNCH of time: Be sure to use a separate layer than the sketch layer for you lineart! Check a few times that you did if you need to! It may seem like a “well no duh” type thing, but trust me, it will save you a bunch of time redoing the lineart! And no, don’t just color the sketch layer black and call it lineart, I mean, if that works for you than go ahead, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

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Step 10: Face details (Lineart)

((First of all, while drawing your face details, don’t hide the sketch layer! You need the cross on the first circle to show where the eyes and nose are supposed to be. Beside that, just do a rounded triangle for the nose, and some deformed ovals for eyes. Do normal circles or ovals work for eyes? That depends on your art style, but most of the time they don’t.

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Step 11: Mouth (Lineart)

((The mouth is sometimes really hard to pull off. There’s no actual ‘correct’ way to draw a mouth, so here’s some things you should do no make it look good:

>Keep the mouth a fair distance from the nose.

>Keep the mouth a normal distance long, otherwise it starts to look a bit creepy-

((And this concludes your lineart! Onto coloring!

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Step 12: Coloring

((This is when you can hide/delete your sketch layer. Pretty simple, just color in the lines. For color pallet and color theory, I’ll make a sperate post for that later.

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Step 13: Markings

((Depends if your character has markings or not, but here’s a classic artist tip if you didn’t already know. If your art program has it, the ‘Magic Wand’ will be your best friend. If you don’t know how to use it, click the area between the lines, then you physically can’t go outside of the lines. It helps alot!

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Step 14: Pupils (Eyes)

((Everyone has a different eye style. The most common are black eyes, colored eyes, and detailed eyes. The picture above is an example of detailed eyes. Just the eye color, a darker version of the eye color, then some white highlights.

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Step 15: Shading

((Some people don’t know what color to use for shading. Here’s a simple answer: A see-through black. This color works for almost all situations. Be sure you focus on where the light is supposed to be, and then shade the opposite side of it. The very ends of the darker side of the animal you can shade twice to make it darker.

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Step 16: Lighting

((Depending on the light color, it is most of the time hard to notice, but makes a big difference. For the example, the lighting color I used was a see-through white.

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Step 17: Final details

((And the final step! Just add a glow to the eyes and highlights, and if a tooth is sticking out, then add a shine to the tooth.

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((With that, you are done! That is my whole process of drawing animals! Here’s the final result:

((If your still confused, or if you want me to clarify something, then feel free to ask! I’d love to help! :)

#mod talk #long post #godamn that took forever #art process #art tips #tutorial #how to draw an animal #how to draw a dog #bailey

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scottymcgeesterwrites · 4 years ago

Text

Final Fantasy VIII Review

(A serious review this time, without spoilers.)

Year: 1999

Original Platform: PlayStation One

Also available on: PC, PlayStation Store

Version I Played: PlayStation One

Synopsis:

Squall Leonhart is a new recruit of SeeD, a mercenary team protecting the world. Rinoa is a resistance fighter against the Republic of Galbadia, led by the Sorceress Edea who is suddenly hellbent on conquering the neighboring nations. Squall and his team attempt to assassinate Edea, but the mission goes awry.

Gameplay:

Final Fantasy VIII throws nearly every previous battle system out of the window. It’s nearly as radical as Final Fantasy II’s battle system. Enemies around the world map average their levels according to your average level among your characters. You only need 1,000 EXP (experience points) to rise to each level, unlike the other games where the EXP needed rises after each level. But that doesn’t mean your character levels up all their stats – that all depends on the summons, known in this game as Guardian Forces.

Unlike other games, summons are crucial to the gameplay, despite not being crucial to the story itself. The Junction System has you “junction” each character with a GF, allowing you to assign different battle commands (Item, Draw, Magic, GF, etc). If you don’t assign a character a GF, all they can do in battle is “Attack.”

That gets super annoying when you’re moving around GFs between characters a lot but you forget to assign that one character a summon right before a major boss battle, so then they can’t do shit.

The drawing system is my favorite aspect of Final Fantasy VIII’s gameplay. Instead of harnessing magic by a points system (such as MP), you draw magic from enemies. Magic is only limited by the number of spells. For example, you fight an enemy and draw 5 Curas from them. You now have 5 Cura spells. You can hold up to 99 of any spell. You don’t have to worry about ethers or running out of MP. I guess it’s an incentive to battle enemies, as they are resources for magic.

But the way the GFs work annoy me the most. You to call upon GFs at any time in any battle for an infinite number of times. This doesn’t give you any incentive to even try battling. If something annoyed me, I just said, “Fuck it” and spammed GFs. Not only that, but you have to sit through the short cinematic sequence of your summon every time you call them. I must have viewed Shiva’s summoning sequence ten-thousand fucking times before finishing the game. This makes battling feel repetitive, tedious, and unenjoyable. Battling was a chore.

The Junction System overall is so complicated that you have to go through a tutorial within the first twenty minutes of the game. It’s aggravating enough already to sit through Quistis going, “Blah, blah. blah” but it’s actually super important because if you don’t pay attention then this game will be tedious.

The final battle though? That shit was epic. Hard. But epic. One of the best final battles.

Graphics:

This game took a different route in giving realistic proportions to its characters. While that’s a cool idea on paper, the overall effect is. . .boring? Almost every other Final Fantasy game has a cast of very distinct characters, like various species, age groups, or wildly different clothing. To suddenly play a Final Fantasy game with what looks like real people – like Bob, Joe and Jill – seems drab. Selphie by far has been the least interesting character to me. When your characters look and feel like NPCs, it’s hard to become invested in them.

I wasn’t a fan of many of the backdrops because for whatever reason I had trouble discerning some doors. I couldn’t tell what I was looking at in the background sometimes, like if there was a switch or button that I had to press.

The cinematics are great though – some of the best in the series. It has the most memorable opening sequence of any game – the duel between Squall and his rival Seifer. The cinematics were a MAJOR step up from Final Fantasy VII.

Story:

Oh hey, so here’s a serious, non-spoiler, non-inflammatory review of Final Fantasy VIII.

Put this story side-by-side with Final Fantasy VII and you can see how they carried on the inspirations. Once again, the story is set in a more modern setting with cars, trains, etc. Squall is Cloud. Rinoa is Aerith. Etc., etc.

Squall Leonhart is the epitome of angst. You will spend the entire game rolling your eyes at Squall’s angsty introspective thoughts about the situations he’s in and people around him. Squall is essentially a bad version of Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII. Take Cloud but only take his cool design and angsty responses. That’s Squall Leonhart. Squall literally has no interesting qualities about him other than his physical design. He can rock that jacket and that scar on his face. Squall’s “romance” with Rinoa Heartilly is also a cardboard copy of Cloud and Aerith’s romance. Squall meets Rinoa by a chance meeting at a military ball. She serves as the optimistic, lively counterweight to Squall’s stoicism. But there’s hardly any depth other than Squall finding her pretty and Rinoa thinking he’s cute and handsome.

The cast of characters is bland, to say the least. They are composed of other students (Quistis being an instructor though) at Balamb Garden (except Irvine, who is a student of another Garden). They look boring. Their introductions are boring. Balamb Garden sounds like a cool idea – a mercenary school – except it plays off more like a poorly written high school anime drama, which is lame. At one point, Squall’s friends – Zell, Selphie, Irvine and Quistis – all try to conspire to get him to talk to Rinoa. You actually have to play through that of the plot and watch it unfold. But Squall tries to understand Rinoa’s upbeat attitude with lots of question marks in his thought bubbles and mumbling, “Whatever”. It’s jarring to sit through four discs of this over and over.

The plot is a butchered mess. After Disc 1 is when the plot gets strange like a fever dream. Plot twists happen left and right after Disc 1 without any rhyme or reason. Very little is explained and many twists are too convenient. Seifer is introduced as Squall’s rival and Rinoa’s original love interest, but then he inexplicably turns evil. In no dialogue or plot points do we ever learn why Seifer switches sides. None at all.

There’s a particular interesting fan theory that actually makes infinitely more sense than the story that Square gave us. Here’s a hot tip – when fan theories start making perfect sense, you probably didn’t write a good story.

The best part of Final Fantasy VIII is actually Laguna Loire. Throughout the story, Squall and his friends pass out for mysterious reasons and you are introduced to Laguna Loire and his two buddies, Ward and Kiros (who are reminiscent of Biggs and Wedge from Final Fantasy VII). They partake in events set in the past. Laguna Loire hearkens back to the pre-Final Fantasy VII heroes – heroes like Bartz and Locke. He’s funny and charming. I wish the game was about him and his friends instead of angsty Squall and his cardboard friends.

So, for four discs you play through these parallel plots and then they merge by the end. The payoff isn’t so amazing. I expected something better. Time travel is involved, albeit in a way that doesn’t make sense. Time compression! The ability to compress time into a singularity because . . . because why again? I guess you don’t have to wait for the next season of Game of Thrones anymore. Is that what that means?

Other notes I want to mention – Balamb Garden is an awful, clunky airship and the world map is the least interesting world map in the entire series. The only remotely interesting place is Fisherman’s Horizon.

Final Fantasy VIII’s story is the second most radical departure from the series, the first being Final Fantasy X, which I will get to later. However, Final Fantasy VII lacks any meaningful depth or existential crisis for its main character to explore. There’s no grand critique on the meaning or life or anything like that. There’s one slight existential question that Rinoa faces near the end but it’s practically nothing. I admire what they tried to do but it fell flat on its face. It’s dull and insipid with its characters and the plot doesn’t steer in a clear direction.

Overall, I admire what they were trying to do by adding time travel to the story. But it became such a warbled mess that it failed to deliver. They took all the cool parts of Final Fantasy VII but didn’t bother to give them depth.

Music:

The music is the biggest highlight of Final Fantasy VIII. Laguna Loire’s battle theme is sexy as hell. It made me so sad to return to Squall’s timeline, because I wouldn’t get to hear that music again for a while. The world map theme irritated me. It has a jingle that didn’t jive well with wandering around. It probably also didn’t help that the world map is dull to run around in.

The game’s theme, Liberi Fatali, is damn epic. Liberi Fatali does have actual lyrics but the famous lines “Fithos lusec wecos vinosec” is actually nonsense. Maybe that nonsense reflects the nonsense that is the actual story. It would have been nice if they had actually incorporated those words into the story somehow, like some magic spell like “abracadabra”.

The love theme is Eyes on Me, performed by Faye Wong. It’s the first time that Uematsu composed a pop song for a Final Fantasy game. Its lyrics are nice and of course fitting for the love story. I like hearing it.

There are no other character themes in this score. The focus was all on Squall and Rinoa having their silly angsty romance.

The final boss theme is actually one of my favorites. It starts out eerie with the chorus singing “Fithos lusec wecos vinosec” but in this drawn out, ghost-like manner. Then the music picks up sounding like a typical Final Fantasy battle theme, then goes crazy from there on out.

Notable Score:

Liberi Fatali.

youtube

Verdict:

My least favorite Final Fantasy game. I would place it right at the bottom tier. The story is absolute gibberish. The gameplay could be fun once you wrap your head around it, which I didn’t and so it was a pain in the ass for me. Finding all the Guardian Forces can be fun. Laguna Loire is the best part of the story, and that’s really it. At the end of the day, probably put this one off until you play the better, more important Final Fantasy games. You are not missing anything if you never play this game.

Direct Sequel?

No.

Keep it that way.

#final fantasy #final fantasy viii #final fantasy 8 #squall leonhart #squall x rinoa #rinoa heartilly #video games #onvideogames #fantasy rpg #sci-fi rpg #science fiction #balamb garden #quistis trepe

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xexilia · 5 years ago

Note

I notice when you do your comics, it applies a certain level of toner. I ended up deciding on the route of using paint brush india ink, and charcoal for toner instead. Does this aesthetic difference change the marketability of graphic novel, compared to just using toner? In the context of the prologue in this web comic, it is used to denote a fog atmosphere. In the upcoming chapter, I might use it for graveyard fog.

I think first I need to establish that what you mean by “toner” is “shading”?

I do use tones, but tonER is the stuff used in and by physical printers. Print tones refer to the dots, lines, etc. that are present in the majority of my work and that Roy Lichtenstein emulated in his paintings. Tones are dots because that’s how printers print; Thousands of dots. The closer together, the more solid the shade or color is. I’m not trying to correct you on terms, but knowing this difference will help you later because I promise, if you buy toner online and expect to get tones, you’ll be disappointed by what arrives in the mail!

So, I think you’re falling into a common trap webcomic artists make in the beginning, which is focusing on the wrong parts of the project. You asked me if this changes marketability; But you didn’t tell me:

What medium do you want to publish in? Do you want to ONLY have your comics online, or do you want to print them?

Who is your target audience and age group?

Do you want to sell or profit off your webcomic?

The first question is important because far too often, webcomic artists design for the web/screens first, foremost, and only; Later, they decide to print a book, and this is when all hell breaks loose. Lots of media (Charcole, watercolors, etc.—media is the art term for materials) can look both better OR WORSE on a screen—this is where technology comes into play, like the scanner you have, the DPI (dots per inch) its able to scan things in at, and the size of scannable area. A lot of my favorite media and mediums (I like pencil on paper), are really delicate drawings—and like a lot of artists who favor these materials, scanners just never seem to do them justice. Lots of fine artists I talk to admit that they feel their work looks best in person, and no matter how high the quality scanner, small, delicate details get lost. Part of it can be a cheap scanner, the wrong DPI setting, but the other part can be the wrong medium (That’s the term for things like canvas or paper), or the wrong SIZE medium.

Size matters; Both in terms of the scanner surface area AND the size of your medium. A lot of people (And I did this myself for a lot of the first book), work on standard size paper—8.5 by 11 inches; But professional artists, print or not, are always better off to work at a LARGER size than the end result will be. When I printed my book, I didn’t come out too terribly for the size I worked in, because manga book page sizes are smaller than their American counter parts. I also knew I planned to print from the first page onward, so everything was designed for print first and web second—this is much easier and less time consuming to do than the reverse, because a lot of print errors can occur that don’t appear on screens—and literally can’t—and can take hours, days, weeks or more to fix, depending on how bad and common the issue is and how many of your pages have this problem. A big one is called moire, which DOES NOT show up on screens; This happens when an artist applies on tone directly over another. Because most of us work digitally these days, it’s even easier for artists to start doing this and not realize the consequence until you print a book. . .and discover all places where tones overlap create this weird square pattern within them—which is called moire. This is why it’s critical to use separate tones for different shades and such, because unlike solid color printing, you cannot overlay tones like you would layers in Photoshop or other such programs. Ignore this at your peril!

My first suggestion before you go to far is; Of you want to ever, EVER print this, print out a copy of a page at home. Even if you’re happy with it, consider how you may be printing or mass producing these things; If you’re going to make them via a copier at Kinko’s, take a page down to a copier at Kinko’s and see what quality you get. If you don’t like it at full size to the ratio you worked in (In other words, printing on the same size paper you created it on), you can get some improvement by using smaller pages—but going UP in page size will cause quality to drop. I now work on paper—digital or not—that’s always 11 by 17 inches AT LEAST. For anything I make, I try to work in a size 3 to 4 times larger than the end result will be.

When I first began, I made my comics with a copier at Kinko’s, and discovered while my ink wash method looked good, it looked better with color printing; Color printing is ALWAYS more expensive, hence why when digital comic creation tools (Like Clip Studio) got invented, I was an instant convert! It saved a lot of time and money (Tones and such are all expensive), the environment (No trees died for my drawings), effort (Tones are REALLY tricky to work with by hand), and it’s no wonder that manga artists now are nearly ALL working digitally.

Also, for the disabled (Like me), digital allows us to work from beds, at home, etc. instead of in front of a desk, all hunched over. I don’t accidentally smudge ink, my cat doesn’t drink my ink (Yes, it’s a thing cats do!), and if I mess up, the power of Undo/Redo/Copy/Paste/Transform CANNOT be understated. I’ve mentioned it before, but I believe in working smarter, NOT harder. This is why I draw out a lot of backgrounds (Which you can’t see on the free copies online, but you can if you buy a physical copy or the Amazon eBook), separately, and I can just drag and drop them around as I need. That way, I can focus on drawing the characters and not on drawing a giant cathedral for every damn appearance it makes or scene change I do.

As for marketability; A lot of this depends on your target audience and age group. Even so, people tend to grow to like something even if it may be atypical of the general stuff they like. I’m generally not a fan of shoujo-ai—but many of my favorite anime and manga ARE in this genre! Turns out, if the story is good, I don’t care about the sexuality of the characters!

A lot of people expect or want color comics these days though, which is odd to me, since the manga produced in Japan is in black and white (Color printing is expensive—even for a major publishing company!) People still read it, and those who expect an artist to make a free webcomic with color pages and update several times a week or month aren’t aware of the time, effort, or consequences. Generally; No, they will NOT buy a book they’ve read for free online (As much as people love to say to support us creators, they rarely actually do), and they damn sure won’t pay for the extra cost of color printing. If you want to see the difference, check out Ka-Blam comic printers and do a price comparison between printing pages in color versus black and white.

Yes, there are people who do a Kickstarter and such and get these funds up front; They are exceptions, not the rules. Consider them—and most artists who make comics or art they make of their own choosing (Not commissions, but only originals), the same as you might someone who plays a sport and decides that they are GOING to play professionally for some orginazation or team—which is, they are counting on being in this LESS THAN 1% of their field. Yes, some people pull it off; The vast majority don’t—and skill isn’t the biggest factor in the end. Just like an athlete with all the promise in the world can have their career ended before it’s begun by an injury that never heals right, art itself is a career path with MANY hidden pitfalls and problems—and health is a major one. Too many of us don’t eat right, don’t exercise our bodies and minds, and so on; It adds up. I personally really recommend a diet with a caloric/carb intake ratio that works within your activity levels; In other words, if you’re determined not to work out (Which—don’t make this mistake), you can’t eat as much as you’d like—not only will you gain weight, but it impacts your health health, your blood sugar—it can be a recipe for an early, but preventable, grave or a LOT of suffering that could be avoided. I try to jog at least two miles a day, meditate daily, and really put my health as the main focus in my life—even before my art. I can’t draw anything or write more stories if I’m dead, after all, and I can’t produce my best work if I’m not in the best condition I can manage. With an autoimmune disease, there’s only so much I can do or control and I’m often still very sick and in a lot of pain; But I still do all I can to run or walk two miles—at least, and even if it takes me an hour or more—and to keep my heart rate at 120 beats per min. when I do. There’s a lot of days where this is about the ONLY thing I can manage and where my pain is so bad I cry and cry—because right now I don’t have a lot of means of relief; This doesn’t happen to everyone, but it means that health—no matter what you do in life—can make or break you at times. Audiences aren’t always understanding of these circumstances and yes, ones career can dry up as a result. Just because someone manages to play for the sports team of their dreams doesn’t mean their health can’t or won’t turn on them, or a serious injury will end their career; We do not live in a world where people will continue to support you because of a series of or singular unfortunate event.

This brings me to the last point, which is if you plan to sell or profit off your work; We all want to, but often making sales can come at the cost of producing something that we, as the creators, really love or are passionate about. I decided from the jump that, while profiting was nice, I’d much rather make the title I wanted to make rather than the one that sells the most copies; If I were concerned with it, trust me, Eternity Concepts would be a wildly different story, with different art, etc. I’d have written a formulaic story that was entirely predictable and changed so many aspects, you’d never recognize it; Manga fans tend to be teens, so I’d have made the cast all teenagers! It’d be set in school! Someone might magically transform to fight evil or some such thing.

I didn’t want that; If you do, there’s no shame in that, but audiences will keep buying and reading what we keep producing, and if we’re too afraid to take a risk on a chance that our story won’t make a dime—because making a dime is the most important part for you—then we can’t be surprised when it’s what people keep buying—because we aren’t even attempting to sell anything else.

Publishing houses (With novels and such) can be really guilty of pushing for changes based on market research; The thing is, the research is often based off past sales of what’s already in the market. Plenty of novels that became classics and best sellers got rejected for years and years until a publishing company was willing to take a chance and discovered that people can, will, and do enjoy new and different things. They might also do market focus group testing—but these are small sample sizes of average people—and your audience may NOT be average people.

All creative pursuits involve risks, at the end of the day; You just have to decide what rewards you want or are willing to sacrifice if you take them.

As for aesthetics, there’s no accounting for taste and I’ve seen plenty of paintings I hated sell for insane amounts of money, plenty of art styles I hated become popular titles, etc.

I will say this; When I, PERSONALLY, see a comic with tones or color, usually that’s digitally produced (It cuts out the need for a scanner!), it looks to me like it’s professionally made—by someone who is on their way or already at such a level.

While a lot of newer artists try to make do with other materials, again, the world is not a kind place and making do is just that—making do. Yes, there are a million and one reasons why one can’t get their hands on better or more professional materials—but sadly, people don’t want to hear excuses, and many successful artists got their tools by working jobs they hated, saving up, living in their cars—making major sacrifices to get to where they are now. There’s no easy road or shortcuts to the end; Yes, I do, sadly, think the mixed media approach you’re trying won’t be favorable towards your marketability—but I could always be wrong (Look at how many MS Paint comics made it big!) There’s a first time for everything.

Comics, though, is also about production speed, and traditional materials can come at the cost of working quicker. I’m a big fan of suggesting people save and wait and invest (And it IS an investment) in serious materials and tools if they wish to be seen and taken as seriously; This means making sacrifices and at the end of the day, plenty of people still won’t like what you make, no matter what tools you have or plot you employ. The person who NEEDS to like it most? . . .Is only you.

You cannot please all of the people all of the time, and the faster you accept that, the happier you’ll be with what you make.

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chyrstis · 5 years ago

Text

Nice try (but it won’t work twice)

It’s Whitetail Mountain time, and also time for Jess and Jacob to say hello.

Rating: T Word Count: 5.7K

Link to AO3!

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As it turns out, earning Jacob’s attention doesn’t take much effort at all. A fact that the Deputy wishes weren’t the case.

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The F.A.N.G. Center had been home to all sorts of creatures.

Not necessarily the fanged kind – cue Sharky’s audible disappointment – but it hadn’t been out of bounds to expect to see wolves, wolverines, and even bears resting and healing up within its walls. One bear in particular had been the singular draw, and Cheeseburger was as adorable as a full-sized grizzly bear with maximum mauling capacity could get.

With the cult in charge, its focus had been redirected. Repurposed for something much, much worse, if what she’d heard about the Judges was true. Wolves were dangerous enough on their own. Adding bliss to the mix was a possibility that she didn’t even want to entertain.

So, when Dutch had called in, saying that one of the caretakers of the place had been holding out, looking for help, Hana made a little detour. It hadn’t been hard to convince either Sharky or Hurk – the latter of which was just itching to dig into any kind of mayhem in general – and she pulled up on the outskirts of the center so the three could find a way in.

Just because said way involved rockets didn’t mean it was entirely a bad one, but it was far from quiet, and soon enough, the entire place was on fire, literally and figuratively.

When she wasn’t choking on smoke, or stomping out the flames threatening to climb up the leg of Sharky’s pants, she was trading fire with the handful of Peggies stationed there, none of which actually had Judges to back them up. That had been a small blessing in and of itself, and she gave the universe a mental high-five before digging for a spare stick of dynamite.

The rest fell into place after that, leaving the F.A.N.G. Center singed, but standing.

She asked Dutch to put out a call to see if they could get some people to the center to lock it down, and with that resolved, the three had settled in to wait for them.

There was one outstanding problem, however. Cheeseburger wasn’t on the grounds, and hadn’t been seen since he was released.

Cheeseburger’s caretaker, Wade, pointed them all in the direction of where Cheeseburger had run off to, not even fazed by the fact that an actual bear was on the loose. The cult had been interested in seeing what could be done with the animal, possibly by dosing it with bliss as well, and he’d let it go shortly before the center had been taken.

With that as the alternative, she found herself agreeing with him. She hadn’t seen any of the converted wolves yet, but a blissed out megabear did not need to be added to the mix.

Sharky and Hurk had opted to bear hunt, while she decided to hold down the fort. She made the two swear up and down that they would yell for her if things went south before leaving, and hoped like hell they would actually take her up on the offer instead of winging it.

The souvenir shop she hadn’t had a chance to visit while it was all intact and operating before, and looked better suited now to a spot from an apocalypse film. The work they had done to clear the place out hadn’t helped, but the wind was technically blowing the fires in the opposite direction of this building, so…at least it wasn’t going to add to the look.

Hana pushed the door open, listening to it creak as it swung inward. It was a small building, and most of the items on display had been scattered across the shelves and the floor.

There were the usual items, like t-shirts and postcards, but the stuffed cheeseburgers and teddy bears drew a smile from her as she walked past them. She came to a dead stop when she saw it, however.

The bobblehead stared back at her from its place on the shelf. The bear itself had a giant smile, one bordering well on goofy, and when she picked it up to get a closer look, nearly dropped it when it started to speak.

“You smell just like a cheeseburger! Yum!”

The voice laughed, and she shuddered. “Hello, nightmare fuel.”

That sound likely haunted many a small child’s dreams, and wasn’t just limited to the toys. The speakers outside kept on playing other recorded phrases on repeat, all of which followed a similar theme. For people aiming to bank on selling merch, they could not have done a more severe disservice to a beloved mascot.

She set the bobblehead down with the same care she’d use for fine china, and slowly backed away before moving on.

Nearby two wanted posters were hanging up on the wall. One for an Eli Palmer, and the other was torn, only leaving the bottom edge with the name remaining. That one was for Jess Black.

Figures Jess would be a total mystery. Dutch hadn’t described his niece’s appearance, and she hadn’t asked, so Hana was going to have to hope that if she did run into Jess without warning, she’d be able to introduce herself before the bullets started flying. Dutch had said she was up near the lumber mill which they had cut around to grab Hurk. Swinging back to check for her made sense while they were well within reach. The statue had been her driving goal for the last few days, but it could wait.

Eli, on the other hand, she could get a good look at. Or as good of a look as the image presented showed. The long hair and beard definitely gave off the great outdoorsman vibe, and she found it difficult to tell his age because of it.

So, this was him, eh? At least she had a face to the name, even if it wasn’t looking likely she was going to meet him any time soon, if at all.

Dutch had mentioned he was the head of the group giving Jacob the most push-back up here, the Whitetail Militia. Though, he hadn’t sugarcoated any of his words when it came to how well they were doing. Pressure from Jacob had come non-stop, and the long-standing endurance fight was one that had been wearing them down for a while now.

It was only a matter of time before the Resistance could kiss the Whitetails goodbye, so even if she couldn’t link up with them officially, she could at least take some of the attention off of them. That, she was getting to be quite good at.

“Still,” she mused, crossing her arms as she thought over the events of the day, “maybe you might wanna dial this back a little, eh? Guy’s not going to want to talk if you’re busy setting fires on his doorstep.”

“Deputy, do you copy?”

The radio at her side cracked as Dutch’s voice came through, and she picked it up. “Yeah, Dutch. I’m here. Everything okay?” If she had to ask, the answer was no, but she wanted him to confirm it first.

“Where are you right now?”

“In a room full of cheeseburgers, if that’s any clue.” She took a look around the souvenir shop again, her radio in hand, and crept over to one of the windows. “I’m at the F.A.N.G. Center right now. Why?”

“There’s been some talk on a few of the other channels about an explosion near there. Multiple.”

She winced. “You don’t say?”

“Bet I can shoot right between that gap in the bars, tagging both of those Peggies while threading the needle like a maestro.”

The gap in question she checked out with her binoculars, looking like a tight fit. “With a rocket?”

“With my one and only,” Hurk said proudly.

Sharky only served to back him up, standing right by his side as the three huddled close. “Cuz’ll get it. He’s a pro at this kind of shit.”

She thought it over for a grand total of ten seconds before saying, “Do it.”

“Uh, there might have been some noise. Maybe more than intended, but nothing was hit that didn’t deserve it. Should be quiet from now on.” She paused, considering both herself and the company she was currently keeping. “Quieter, at least.”

“Not quiet enough.”

That was not Dutch.

“Looks like someone is playing at being a soldier.”

This was not a friendly. Not when speaking with an edge like that, and that narrowed down the potential list of people calling her to one.

“So, that doesn’t get me a sparkling seal of approval from the man himself, huh?”

“No,” Jacob replied, the response flat. “You’re a problem. One that I’ve been told needs solving.”

When John had contacted her like this down at the Woodsons', he hadn’t dismissed her outright. Had even traded a few comments with her as she tried sniping at him right up until he mentioned sending people to get her.

Jacob was not John, however, and trying that same method with him was quickly looking to be a huge mistake.

“There’s work to be done, and what you are doing is counter to our progress. What threatens the Project, threatens us, and I don’t have time for games. There’s no use in running. You won’t get far.”

Only static filled the air after that. She stared at the radio for a few seconds, her finger hovering over the call button, and eventually cracked when no one else spoke up. “Dutch?”

“…ey! Kid, respond! Are you still there?”

“Yes.” The word sounded smaller than intended, and she cleared her throat before speaking again. “ETA on the guys headed here?”

“Last I heard, they’re about fifteen to twenty out. A group of Peggies tried to cut them off, but they’re still coming.”

Along with whatever Jacob was planning, and here she was, practically alone - short of having Wade nearby - swearing to herself next to a pile of teddy bears and burgers.

“Oh, this is bad. This is bad,” she muttered, giving the empty store a quick scan before holding the radio up again. She needed to call the guys back. Now. “I’ll figure it out. Just tell them that-“

A small, piercing sting to the back of her neck cut her off mid-word.

She slapped at the spot, hoping to swat the damn bug that had bit her. Instead her fingers closed around a small object. One that stung when she plucked it from her neck, and brought it in front of her face to examine.

A dart. A red dart.

“Are you fucking serious…?” she said, her words slurring.

She fell to the side, her sunglasses clattering on the tile below, and a set of hands grabbed her roughly before she could hit the floor. There were two figures in the shop with her, both with their faces covered, but their eyes exposed.

A disappointed sigh was the last thing that left her, as her eyes slid shut.

---

“Hey.”

Hana’s eyelids fluttered, then closed.

“Hey!”

She felt a flick to her shin, and she tensed, sucking in a breath through her teeth. “Ow!”

When she opened her eyes, the woman crouching down beside her backed up, one hand tucked close to the pockets of her green overshirt, and the other curled around a small knife.

Her hood was pulled up over her head, tangled dirty-blonde strands spilling out of it, and her eyes remained set on Hana as she watched her closely.

Hana slowly rubbed her hands over her aching leg, not wanting to drop eye contact just in case that would be the thing to set her off. Her legs were stiff, however. Unable to be moved apart.

When she glanced down to see what was locking them in place, she noticed the ropes, wound tightly around her ankles. The two were in an isolated spot, somewhere in the forest proper, surrounded by trees, and no other voices could be heard within range off them.

Slowly Hana raised her hands in surrender as the seconds ticked on, and tried not to let too much of her nervousness show.

“Don’t,” the woman said, rolling her eyes. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Says the woman with the knife.”

“I was in the process of cutting you loose. I saw you moving and thought it’d be better to let you know now instead of during, so you don’t fucking kick me.”

She noticed the large compound bow slung over her back, along with the words painted onto her clothes. All of them were a stark white against the green fabric, all of them roughly written, and as Hana took another look at her, she tried not to focus on how deep some of the scars on the woman’s face were.

“Thanks,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I think I owe you one, then. Sorry for being….well, me.”

“And who are you?”

“Oh, uh. Shit. I’m Hana. Or if you want to be formal, Deputy Vao, the asshole running around stirring up trouble.”

The woman gave her a curious look. “Deputy.”

“Yeah, Deputy.”

“Yeah, I did hear about some asshole of a deputy running around. Just not up here until now.” She leaned down and grabbed for the ropes, her knife glinting as they sawed through them. “Chatter’s scattered, but there.”

“Gotta love it when your reputation precedes you. And you are?”

“Jess. Jess Black.”

“Holy shit. Dutch was…he told me to keep an eye out for you here.”

“Did he?” She helped Hana unwind the cut ropes from her legs, and tossed them aside. “And here I was wondering if I’d ever get to meet you. He’d only been talking you up ever since this shit started. How the cult’s having a fucking crisis over just how much damage you’ve done, and that’s just the something we need more of around here.”

“Well, I aim to please, and anything that makes their lives that much worse, I’ll gladly do in spades. So, if you have any suggestions, name it. I meant it when I said I owed you.”

Jess thought it over for a few seconds, studying her face this time. Eventually she gave her a small nod. “I’ve been tracking patrols. Looking for any of Jacob’s pet Chosen that would report back to the Cook. I was following a new route, but saw the men dragging you back to the VA Center, and no one that goes in there comes back out. And if they do, not right. Not after hitting the Chair.”

“And here I was thinking I had shit luck.”

“Still was if they got you. He’ll try again.”

That was not something she was looking forward to, but for now she’d take it. “Of course he is. The Seeds really have a problem taking no for an answer, no matter who I’m talking to. …Who’s the Cook?”

Jess’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “He’s a twisted fuck. One that should’ve been put down a long time ago. Instead he’s here, playing into Jacob’s ‘cull the weak’ bullshit, and using it as an excuse to do things that-“ She took in a shaky breath, her hands shaking slightly, but on the exhale they stilled. “To do things to people that no fucking person would ever think they’re capable of.”

Hana shifted, watching as Jess’s gaze which had been locked on her not even five minutes ago, shifted to the bushes surrounding them instead. “All of those things are solid reasons,” she replied, crossing her legs under her. “What do you need me to do?”

“Just get me close enough to kill him. That’s all that matters.”

“Done.”

Jess looked over at her and snorted. “You don’t need much convincing, do you?”

“You saved my life, and the world could always use one fewer motherfucker in it, so…” That got her the briefest of smiles, and Hana couldn’t help her grin in return. “Yeah, I’m in.”

Hopping to her feet, she patted herself down, wondering what had been left on her, only to notice her bag resting nearby. The relief that hit upon seeing it was immense, and Jess sighed when Hana hugged the gear to her chest.

“They didn’t bother to remove it before dragging you along, so you got lucky.”

“Hell yeah, I did.” Kissing it would’ve been overboard, but as she went through it, she was tempted to. Especially when she found her radio, banged up as it was, but still intact. “So damn lucky.”

“Come on.” Jess tilted her head to gesture out towards the woods. “Daylight’s burning, and we need to head past the lumber mill before dark.”

“Hey, uh, Jess? You didn’t happen to see two guys wandering around close to the F.A.N.G. Center, by any chance? One in green, loves fire, but hopefully isn’t on fire, and the other leaning really hard into the whole ‘America, fuck yeah!’ theme?”

The next look Jess gave her stopped Hana in her tracks. “You were with them? No wonder Jacob was able to find and pick you up in record time. They’re like a herd of fucking elephants.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know they don’t set off every alarm.”

“Just most of them. You too, if I’ve heard right.”

Hana’s face flushed as she recalled just how big one of the explosions had been back at the F.A.N.G. Center, taking out the incoming trucks as she’d reached over to high-five Hurk. Jacob’s call had come not even five minutes before she’d been tranq-ed, and she’d been handling souvenirs for God’s sake.

They’d played right into Jacob’s hands, and lucky for all of them, she’d been the only one taken. If Jess hadn’t found her… God, where would she be right now? Would anyone have known?

Each thought that followed was worse than the last, and when Hana did finally reply to Jess, it was after letting out a long breath through her teeth. “Touche.”

“You want to radio them, go ahead, but if you want to do this, I need you quiet. I will not lose him again.”

“If I’m going to be honest with you, I’m kinda crap at the whole stealth thing too, but…I’ll try. I owe you that.”

“Good. Follow me.”

---

They had a lot of ground to cover. While the mill hadn’t been too far from the center by car, going by foot was a different story. Jess made it look effortless, cutting through any paths in the brush without interference, and didn’t let anything slow her down.

She, on the other hand, was a city kid. This was not her schtick, though Hana did genuinely think at times that she was adapting pretty well. Just not when she was forcing herself through bushes, and snagging herself on branches, while stepping on every brittle leaf known to man.

Jess told her to stay close, but distance did end up creeping between them. She would check back, throwing one hell of a dirty look at her when it seemed like she was going to get left behind, but there was no waving Jess on ahead.

The other woman refused outright, and Hana couldn’t argue with that either after the second time Jess doubled-back to find her. After being drugged and taken three times now – and counting - she couldn’t afford to be alone out here, no one could, and eventually Jacob was going to want to know where she went.

And she still hadn’t been able to get ahold of Sharky or Hurk. She’d tried radioing the two along the way, the signal unclear as she gave it a few solid smacks. It’d taken a beating, but hadn’t completely crapped out yet. At least, she hoped it hadn’t.

Shit, what if their radio was out? “Hello?” She let go of the button, then spoke again when no one answered. “Shurky? Hark? Whatever team name mash-up you two decided on, copy? It’s the Deputy. You guys still out here?”

Static came through, but she could hear voices as they faded in and out. This was bad. She’d try again later, but hopefully this wasn’t going to stick.

Jess stopped, holding up her hand.

She raised an eyebrow at her, but didn’t budge. A sound rose in the air, a howl, growing louder by the second until tailing off.

“Judges,” Jess drew her bow, and crouched down low in the grass.

Reaching for her rifle, Hana watched as Jess all but disappeared, blending into the woods surrounding them. A lump was growing in her throat, and she worked to swallow.

“-copy, roger-“

She slapped at the radio at her side, switching it off. Every hair stood on end as she turned in place, and when she heard the charge, heard the crashing through the brush it was almost too late.

Something quick flew past her, and she darted to the side, jumping clear of the spot where the large wolf would’ve pounced. With white fur, this wolf was larger than the others, its snarling jaws wide as it whirled to stare her down.

The handgun by her side was the quickest choice, and she fired, watching as the Judge shot forward, going for her. It was on her, it would reach her like this, and she tumbled back, screaming as she kept on firing.

Two arrows buried themselves in its side, and it cut away, leaving Hana scrambling back away from it. She didn’t wait this time. She saw the flash of white, saw the red streaked across its forehead and down its nose, and ran.

Distance. She needed something between her and it, other than air.

Her handgun tumbled to the ground, her fumbling making her miss her holster, and she grabbed for her rifle. Tucked it close, as she heard the animal bearing down on her with heavy breaths.

Turning now would be a mistake. Turning now with no clear shot would be a serious mistake.

A quick look over her shoulder told her what she knew. The Judge was there, white stained red, but it branched off from her, darting back into the bushes.

She skidded to a stop and fired, sending a full burst of shots into the woods. The howling stopped, cutting off sharply, but she heard movement still. Not just her own nervous pacing as she ducked behind a tree, her attention jumping to anything and everything.

She sucked in a breath, her heart hammering, and looked for Jess.

“Jess?”

No answer came. In fact, the only sound she could hear now was her shaky inhale.

“…Jess?”

She broke into a run, getting up from her position only to scream in pain as something sharp drove into her left thigh. It sent her down to the ground, her mind yelling at her to move even as her body rebelled against her.

She twisted on the ground, trying to push herself up as she took in the arrow jutting out of her right thigh. An actual arrow, stuck deep.

The shock of it took a few seconds to sink in, but when it did, panic welled up fast.

Oh. Oh, fuck. So this is what happens when the tranqs fail.

Each stab of the metal lodged in her leg was agony as she moved, but after a few seconds, it was no longer as sharp. As present. She set her head down on the ground, her breaths slowing as she rested there, drifting.

She shouldn’t have. Knew she should keep moving, but just couldn’t bring herself to.

---

Her eyes were open. They were open, but there was nothing to see in front of her. Not at first. Only blurred shapes as she felt hands lift, and set her down.

Her head rolled as she leaned back in the seat she was placed in, her eyes trying to adjust to the dark. A light flashed, the image bright against the back of the room. It was almost too much to look at, but Hana let herself focus in on it, seeing the image for what it was.

Someone took her wrists in their hands, placing them one by one on the arms of the chair. The light behind them made it difficult to see who it was at first, and she held her eyes shut for a few seconds, before opening them again.

The realization of just who was standing in front of her hit hard enough to leave her gaping up at him, struggling to say something. Anything. “…Stace? Oh, God,” she whispered.

The bags under Pratt’s eyes were dark, his face drawn and thin. He was unable to focus on any one spot for more than a second at a time, and she winced when he strapped her wrists down tight.

This wasn’t the guy that had dropped a huge stack of papers on her desk in the middle of the day, telling her that the documentation was wrong and needed to be hand-corrected one by one. This wasn’t the guy that had called her Probie whenever she’d trip up on something basic and make a small mistake in front of Whitehorse. This wasn’t the guy that complained when she’d bought them all coffee one day only to remind her he’d asked for a damn latte instead.

This was another man. One that curled into himself to seem smaller, his hands trembling as he stared deep into her eyes, unblinking, as he withdrew. “You shouldn’t have come for me. You shouldn’t have.”

A voice was speaking, the words coming to her clearer now as she shook off the last of the drowsy feeling, but she didn’t turn her head towards it. Hana looked at Pratt instead, mouthing, I’m here for you, before trying her bonds. He’d locked them down securely.

The look he gave her in return he held for a few seconds before dropping his eyes to the ground. He backed away, clear out of view.

The whirring of the projector’s motor hit her ears then. As did two words. Weak. Soft. Neither of these things the voice spared his distaste for.

She took in the room they were in, the click of the projector drawing her attention as the image in front of her changed. She wasn’t alone. Others were seated as well, all of them restrained as they watched.

“…our heroes used to be gods. They did not give in to doubt. To let go of their ideals, when convenient. They did not lose what it meant to survive."

The owner of the voice took his place in front of them, still speaking, still facing away. He was wearing a camo jacket, marking him as either military or a guy set on copping the style as he paced forward, the bones of the animal on-screen now scattered across his back.

“These heroes, the ones we would follow now, are no gods. They are weak, feeble, diseased.”

But she did know this voice. Had heard it before, had seen a flash of this person before, and it wasn’t going to take her three guesses, let alone five to tell her just who this was.

When Jacob Seed turned towards them, he didn’t wait for them to answer, or to respond. Only continued as the images in front of them grew more violent.

“They use this power to guide us forward with no direction, the many, leading the few, but they forget what history has taught us. That sacrifices must be made.”

The wolf on screen was tearing at a fallen deer, its flesh coming away from the bone.

“That we must cull the herd so it stays strong.”

Hana counted the clicks, watched the slides change, and watched as Jacob turned towards her. He still spoke to the room as a whole, but it was different now. He knew where she was, and there was no hiding here.

“Over and over, the lives of the many have outweighed the lives of the few. This is how we’ve survived.”

The lights and images were distorted as he came closer. Every step, highlighting or hiding him until he was right in front of her, staring down. He was a tall man to start, but from her current position she felt so much smaller, her eyes wide as he zeroed in on her.

Her hands clenched into hard fists, her nails digging into the palms of her gloves.

“This, we’ve forgotten, but now the bill has come due.”

She’d hardly prepared herself when Jacob leaned down, and she felt the legs of the chair drag across the floor towards him. The burns were easier to see up close, the skin on parts of his face rougher and heavily scarred.

And as he intended, his eyes held her.

“With the Collapse, there can be no doubt. This time the lives of the few outweigh the lives of the many, and when they realize what they’ve lost, that this time there’ll be no one to save them from madness, hunger, or desperation, we’ll be ready.”

He let go, standing at his full height again. Her jaw unclenched as distance was re-established between them, but when he reached for a small box on a nearby table, she didn’t know what to do next.

“We will cull the herd.” He started winding a small lever on its side, attention still set on her. “We will do what needs to be done.”

It opened, and her whole body tensed.

Music played, the words to an old love song coming to mind.

She gasped at the sudden pounding in her head, at her response, and saw red.

Only red.

Only you.

She squeezed her eyes shut, only to feel the sensation recede as her senses went into overdrive. Opening her eyes, everything narrowed into focus. It was the same room, the same chair she had been strapped to, but they were alone now.

Her bonds were gone, removed from her wrists.

The wolf flickered on the screen in front of her, snarling around the viscera in its jaws. Seconds ticked by in her ears, the sound echoing in the small room as she stood up from her seat, rooted to the very spot.

What, what am I…?

A gun rested on the desk in front of her, and her heartbeat quickened, her attention on the two men still strapped to their chairs up front. They pulled at their bonds, and they came loose.

She stared down at her hands, watched as they trembled, and felt a pull. An urge.

Arm yourself.

They stood, whirling on her, guns raised, and the buzzing in her ears reached a fever pitch. Her fist shot out, punching one squarely in the throat. He went down as the other fired, and she tried to sidestep around him. The shot grazed her upper arm.

Again.

She gasped, pain shooting through her system, through her thigh as she placed her weight on it, and fought him for the gun, turning it on him. It went off, the flash blinding her briefly, but soon her vision came back, the edges of it tinged red. Only red.

Keep moving.

The room opened up, the doorway ahead leading to a hall.

She ran down the corridor, reaching for the weapon presented to her, her nerves on fire. She couldn’t stop. Couldn’t relax. Three men had the upper hand above her, perched high, all of them training their weapons on her. Only her.

Do it. Cull the herd.

Cull the- Pain lanced through her again, making her clutch her head. Bullets hit the barrier in front of her, and she pushed ahead once it cleared, climbing up towards those hiding there. They would get her. Find her. Hunt her down. Kill her.

She fired, again, and again, and again, listening for the voice. Waiting for it to let her continue.

Again.

The room changed, resetting her position in space. She took the offered knife, and continued through the maze.

She fell, clawing through the dirt as the person above fired.

Pushing up, she ran towards them and sank her knife into their chest. She repeated the motion over and over until they crumpled at her feet.

She stared down at her hands. At red, so red.

Good.

This was-what was she doing?

Her body quaked, sickness running through her.

Move.

It settled deep into her stomach, and she gagged.

Keep moving.

Sucking in a breath, she squashed the feeling down, spitting bile out onto the floor.

Up ahead she had to climb. To rise. A man slammed into her as she was standing up, forcing her to bring her knee up to kick him back. Her muscles screamed, but she couldn’t have them fail. Not now. Not while the clock was ticking.

She grabbed her holstered gun and dove in close, pistol-whipping him hard enough across the face for blood to fly. That didn’t stop when he hit the ground, and she let it go. Any measure, any degree of restraint.

It bled out through her limbs, through her body onto the floor. That wouldn’t help her. That wouldn’t save her.

Excellent.

Her hands were slick, a dark, deep red as she stood up and walked through the doorway, down the same hall she had traveled before.

This time she didn’t look down at them. She didn’t waver.

Ahead she needed to climb. She gripped the steps, pulled herself up as the clock kept on moving, kept on ticking.

Before her, was the end. Before her was the only path left, leading down a long chute.

She jumped, and didn’t feel a thing as she hit the bottom.

---

Hands grabbed at her chair. Righted her, pushing her up to sit.

Red flashed in her vision. The only thing that she could connect to before. To the room. To the chair. To the music.

She could hear people speaking. One, two, three. Maybe more.

A projector flashed in her mind, showing Staci, then Jacob. He held a box. A small brown box.

Why can’t she-

Her cough came out as a harsh rasp.

“Holy shit!”

She was dropped, the chair clattering to the ground, and her breaths came fast as her chest grew tight.

“-we’ve got a live one! Quick get her out-“

Why can’t she remember it? Any of it?

“She’s looking bad, hurry-“

She doesn’t know.

She doesn’t.

#far cry #far cry 5 #deputy hana #jess black #jacob seed #fanfiction #fic series: you'll be okay I promise #Sharky and Hurk are here too just running off after Cheeseburger #and poor Pratt also has a moment #just not the best of ones #FC5 fanfiction

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myfriendpokey · 6 years ago

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50 Short Years!

This January makes a full 5 years since releasing 50 Short Games!

I admit, it is weird to think about.

In general I don’t have very strong feelings about anything I’ve worked on, since anything like that has usually burnt itself out somewhere in the process of making the thing.

But it feels a little startling that this particular game came out 5 years ago, because in many ways I feel like I’m still working somewhere in it’s orbit – it still feels “close” to me in terms of, I guess, setting up the way I’ve been thinking about and working on these things ever since then. I still feel like I’m working out some of the stuff that came up in its production.. compare to older games which can feel like they were made by different, mercifully forgotten, people.

The game is temporarily discounted on itch down to just $1, until valentine’s day - good for friends, good for lovers.

When this first came out, I included a big note file of the processes and ideas and etc that went into it. I have posted that to my website for free to mark this little anniversary. But since a decent bit of time has passed since those impressions, and since I don’t feel like refreshing them, I thought it might be interesting to try writing up a sort of “afterlife” of this game, specifically the ways it sort of covertly turned out to influence what I did for the 5 years after it, as well.

Here are my notes seperated by theme.

- colour - mice - pacing - work / life - gameplay - theme - writing - distribution

- COLOUR: this is a strange one. 50SG felt like the first time I was really aware of / interested in trying to add “colour” as an element I could play with within my games, trying to add it to the lego set along with “rocks” and “little guys”. More colours, interesting colours, colour combinations, games which would be colourful as images. Because I’ve never actually been a very visual person (surprise surprise ha ha ha) and even when I draw, or sculpt, I tend to focus on lines and omit colour as much as possible... When I was a kid I disliked any kind of colouring or painting, as opposed to scribbling, but just before 50SG I’d been working on an uncompleted game with painted textures, and enjoyed it enough to want to explore the effects more.

The reason I call this a strange one is that, mostly - - I failed!!! I feel very aware now of how much of this game is just scratchy line drawings, how little colours are actually used once I'd worked out which ones I preferred working with from the set. I did try to change things up over the course of the series and some games (specifically the Mogey ones) tried to use flat colour or colour patterns more. But when I think about the game now the memories I mostly have are of essentially monochrome or mostly-monochrome drawings.

In fairness, some of this was technical too - I never had any kind of consistent way to light my pictures for when I was photographing them, and a lot of the time the bright markers came out muddy, which sort of discouraged me from trying to do anything specifically with colour effects. Strong lines are also a lot easier to chop up into discrete little game-shapes.

But I think this sense of missed opportunity - having this big bag of markers in all colours, all translucent lines, and not really using them - was specifically what made me spend the next few years trying to work with colour even more. Hence stuff like Mouse Corp, and certain entries in the Hardpack 11-in-1, and Magic Wand. I think I moved more towards pixel art again because it gave me a very quick way to play with colours, and swap them in and out, without having to worry about correctly photographing them first. And in fact my current game came about directly from trying to play more with ideas of translucent outline sprites on top of flat fields of colour – trying to combine colour with line in a looser way than just colouring stuff in.

I'd like to go back to playing with markers some time.

- MICE: I think this was the first time I used mice in my games. Previously the emblematic animal was the Dog – Murder Dog, Goblet Grotto dog... The dog is a "LAWFUL" animal, one which can be aimlessly malevolent on behalf of some higher system or master. The dog stands in for the implicit malignity of the game system as a whole.

Meanwhile, mouse is the "UNLAWFUL" animal - they live in spaces they do not construct, and scavenge from what they find within, they are constrained by those spaces but also have something of an independent life within them. By this time, I had been working on a lot of games where the gameworld itself was sort of an ominous presence - Crime Zone, Goblet Grotto, Drill Killer etc - and I think the move from "dog" to "mouse" came about as a way to think about these spaces as just kind of indeterminate and abandoned instead of actively malign. Places which don't really notice your being there, which were constructed and then left for some unknowable purpose. I cannot say if this shift in thinking is good or bad.

- PACING: I forget whether I mention it in the notes - but the prototype for all the marker games was an earlier one-off called "Gold's Enigma", done with crayons and in Klik N Play. And that game felt like sort of a revelation because it was so quick to just add new areas to it, or copy and paste elements around, or switch from one game control system or mode of representation to another. So you could have an extremely short, quick game that still contained enough of a shift to make you feel like you’d gone somewhere or like the view from one side of the game was different to the view from the other. I don’t know how consistently or successfully this was ever really done (the end of Happy Bird is my personal favourite version) but it did stick in my head, as an ideal to work towards. And I think something like the more longform Magic Wand was still sort of driven by a desire to try a “fuller” take on this same idea.

- WORK / LIFE: I don't remember exactly but I think this was my first time successfully trying to start a new, slightly longform project while also having a day job. With other games either they were short enough for me to just blow through in a concentrated rush or else enough pieces had already been laid down (eg Goblet Grotto) that I could just brainlessly slam together any remaining levels in the mornings before I went to work. Making games as a hobby isn't necessarily hard but figuring out how to do it consistently over long periods took me a long adjustment period. For the short games I ended up doodling ideas at lunch, coming home, eating dinner, and then around 7 or 8 I'd start chopping up my image sheets and putting them into the game. And hope to finish by 11 so I wouldn't be too wiped the next day. These days it's more like 8-10pm. Working in the early mornings can be good if you're very determinedly getting through some pre-assigned tasks but can be harder and more frustrating if you're trying to be more exploratory about things. I guess to the extent I’d draw any lesson from this it’d be, set aside a very specific time period for working on stuff but also try to have a process where “working on stuff” can involve a certain level of constructive busywork just so you don’t come home and have to immediately face a blank page? “Placing stuff around on a screen” is ultimately what absorbs me so working in a way that let me do that as quickly and aimlessly as possible helped a lot. Well, that’s my opinion.

- GAMEPLAY: I used the default 8-directional walk system in MMF2, and the default screen-follows-the-player function, so many times in the course of these games that I just burnt myself out on them entirely. They’re fine, but using them so many times over a brief period made me more and more conscious of them to the point where it could feel like I was just filling in the same template each time... I think part of why I shifted to Unity, even though it’s more of a hassle, is just to be able to escape that sense of a singular unchangeable ��point of view” and make things where moving or looking around would feel a bit looser and less set in stone. I hope this helps explain my gradual, doomed love affair with extremely idiosyncratic camera systems.

- THEME: Did any themes carry over to any of my post-50SG games? Maybe some but to me it’s less noticeable than seeing what was stripped out. Having a deadline and a very fixed scope did sort of push me more towards including “real world content” in whatever strange way – dreams, specific moments of the early morning or the night, events like work nights out, locations I knew... Compare that to the longer games I’ve done which all kind of take place in these dreamy, private fantasy dimensions. I enjoy that too, and it’s easier to do that when you’re making a game that’s just sort of endlessly adding to itself over time.. It’d be good to get back to working in a way which encouraged that material connection.

- WRITING: I think the notes file that came with 50SG was the first time I did any real writing about the process of making these things, or ideas and notes, etc. And now I can’t shut up!! Well, I did a similar writeup document for Magic Wand, and hope to do so with my current game eventually as well. I think writing that, and having people be encouraging about it, did help me become more interested in looking at and recording the state of my brain as it’s slowly rotted into goop from exposure to these terrible machines. Which is in itself not a bad reason to keep doing it.

- DISTRIBUTION: This was my first commercial game and probably the biggest impact of that was in getting me to move away from PC-only tools. I'd planned a mac version of this game at some point, or specifically to do HTML versions and then use a workaround I'd read about to convert HTML files to Mac and Linux apps... but the HTML conversion sometimes led to strange bugs, and I never had a testing computer to see whether the actual ports would work, and the multiple layers of things that could go wrong (making a html export, to be put into a mac or linux wrapper, to be loaded from a Unity scene...) eventually made me slowly give up on this. I think of getting back to it but to be honest I have such limited energy and for the five months a year I don't just want to hibernate I'd rather keep working on new projects.... I am sorry.... Well, this was a big impetus to try moving to pure Unity and HTML which had more multiplatform support from the get-go. I don't know if I took any other commercial lessons from it! It sold around 500 copies, and talking to other people making weird scrappy narrative type games it sounded like they mostly also sold 500 copies, maybe to the same people or maybe just to each other. At this level of economic activity you can just do what you like.

So in conclusion 50 Short Games is a land of contrasts. It feels distant to me, I don't have any strong feelings about it anymore, but I also feel sort of like I'm still moving around in the terrain this game originally sketched out for me, and still kind of responding to it in either positive or negative forms. Thank you to anyone who bought it. I just put it on sale again to mark the five year anniversary, you can find it on itch.io, gamejolt or kartridge. Please buy several hundred copies and salt them around through hidden disc drives buried in a desert somewhere so that some day they can inspire some form of apocalypse cult.

In the year 2525 if man is still alive if woman, still survives they will find.....

- stephen 2019

#vgames #50 short games #indie games #gamechat #game criticism #notes

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the-ghost-of-jason-todd · 6 years ago

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...i’m still thinking about the anti-horikoshi pride flag callout post i saw earlier forgive me

like i just... he’s one man. one man who has given us an ensemble cast of complex characters, recurring side characters with awesome designs and good side-arcs, TWO trans characters, excellent pacing and storytelling, AMAZING art, like 200 chapters (more?? i can’t find a count) of gorgeous manga art, direction for a movie, (presumably) guidance for the anime, extra drawings for fun on social media, and yet... there are still people... who want to drag him to hell for every little thing that could possibly be construed as problematic?

like the endeavor arc--whooo the endeavor arc. because you can’t write about morally grey characters. obviously. that’s a no-no. endeavor isn’t allowed to be a complex character despite the fact that he was written that way from the very beginning. fluctuations? in morality? what are those?? as if everyone commenting on the arc walked straight outta the womb with the ten commandments chiseled into their skulls, as if people don’t live and learn things every day, as if these sort of stories don’t actually exist. pfff. you can’t use abuse survivors as something to leverage over horikoshi in order to get him to do what you, personally, want. abuse survivors aren’t a monolith, not a unified front either, because the very nature of trauma and abuse is an individualized experience. what triggers one person may not trigger another, and every survivor’s relationship with their abuser looks different. SITUATIONS ARE COMPLEX. PEOPLE ARE COMPLEX. it’s so frustrating to watch all these conversations happen as if we can condense millions of varied experiences into one singular True And Correct narrative to follow in our fiction like--NO. IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT.

what else has horikoshi done? besides provide awe-inspiring amounts of story for us to consume? well he drew the 1-A girls in bikinis and posted it to twitter once and got torn apart for it like

come on? oversexualization is a thing but i’ve SEEN the art and what’s more important than the titillating outfits is 1) the fact that they’re not really sexy-posing and 2) the fact that kaminari and mineta are hanging out in the corner ogling, which says more about the male gaze than it does about teenage girls. as far as fanservice goes, it’s a kind of underrated approach, if you ask me. it’s subtle but i find that it’s a commentary on how the male gaze turns the everyday lives of girls into sexual fantasies, even when the girls just want to exist.

maybe i’m reading too much into that, but for real, bnha doesn’t panty shot, it has not-awful boob physics, and compared to a lot of other manga/anime... i really don’t have a problem with how it treats women. seriously, how much anime/manga has such diverse character design for the girls? not very much. a lot of it has cookie cutter girl designs with copy paste personalities. and, more importantly, the heroes live in a world where they have to capitalize on everything and sell versions of themselves in order to keep their rankings and make money.

midnight and her bdsm thing? mt. lady posing seductively at her debut fight? it’s all about how women have to sell their bodies in order to make it in a world that incentivizes saving people, which is, haha, INCREDIBLY similar to our world. all might also has moments where his Big Buff persona uses sex appeal, though if you look closely, he’s also played for the male gaze--he’s a symbol of virility and strength, compared to mt. lady who plays passive and meek in public to get what she wants. these are in-universe, in-character ways that horikoshi shows us how screwed up their society is without having to spell it out for us, though he does literally spell it out at key points as well (sometimes using the villains as mouthpieces, which is fun to analyze because he’s so good at making relatable villains whose causes would be noble in another universe).

now compare this to mineta. mineta is young, he’s still learning/growing, and he gets what he deserves--by which i mean he’s rewarded for doing actual good and punished for being pervy. it may be played up for laughs but hell, so is a lot of the violence and somehow that never comes up when we’re talking about realism and anime. just like with bakugou, the teachers are trying to guide him in a better direction, which also is a huge theme in the story--to treat faults and flaws as room for growth and to see the good in people. midoriya’s main arc is how he’s learning that the chasm between hero and villain isn’t so wide--that, in fact, it barely exists at all. there are good people doing bad things and bad people doing good things and sometimes people have good intentions as they’re committing acts of great evil. the whole point of the story is that people are complex, that they’re a product of the society they live in, and to show the sacrifice you have to make in order to make a difference.

i didn’t mean to turn this into an essay, but... it disgusts me that after reading the same story i read people are calling for horikoshi to die? and i mean, MOVING ON from the fact that for some reason they’re making pride flags about it as if it’s something to be proud of, because i can’t fathom that part and i don’t want to think about it--i just find it so tone-deaf that all these people, people who are usually anti-capitalism all the way, are willing to consume a story commenting on the problems caused by capitalism... only to turn around and tear it apart because it’s not 100% perfect?

like, EVEN IF horikoshi handles endeavor’s arc badly. EVEN IF it reeks of apologism... horikoshi is still a living breathing human being? and todoroki is not. bottom line. horikoshi will not have suddenly brought harm upon another human person because these characters are FICTIONAL, any actual harm that comes out of it is NOT HIS DIRECT RESPONSIBILITY aka if abusers use this to justify abuse that’s STILL the responsibility of these bad fictive people*, and calling for him to atone for one mishandled arc with death is mmmmmm what i would probably call maladjusted. we don’t kill authors in civil society. every time an author is put to death for what they’ve written we consider it a tragedy and then display their books loud and proud on banned books day. like... fascists are the kinds of people who kill off dissenting opinions.

i’m just saying. there are better ways to handle harmful media. you can use word-of-mouth notification systems to tell your friends what to watch out for when reading endeavor’s character arc without also adding the addendum that horikoshi deserves to be shot like a rabid dog--like, you can acknowledge that a piece of media isn’t perfect without falling into the black hole of moral perfectionism.

*i mean maybe they exist, probably do somewhere, but every time i see the argument it’s some undefined accusation that SOMEONE out there SOMEWHERE is doing X EVIL DEED and you need to be CONCERNED ABOUT IT. that’s fearmongering. no human being on this earth can control the actions of every other human being that touches their nebulous web of influence. life is a butterfly effect and people are unpredictable. it’s stressful to try and uphold an impeccable standard of conduct, especially when no one really knows whether writing a redemption arc for an abusive father with superpowers in a semi-popular futuristic sci-fi manga in this day and age and in our current political climate will help or hinder more people. like, honestly. can you give me an answer to that? can you really?

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breegullbeakreviews · 6 years ago

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My hopes and dreams may have been dashed by the Jim Carrey who stole Christmas and a Tony the Tiger’s luchador cousin, but we still have DLC to look forward to. Here are my out there and not so out there ideas on who should join the roster in the Smash Pass.

Rules: No echos. The announcement claimed these types of new fighters won’t be a part of the pass. This doesn’t mean a new fighter may not come bundled with an echo of themselves, but these types of fighters won’t be a part of this list.

Also no Assist trophies. As much as I want Spring man and Ribbon girl to punch in I don’t see them replacing or removing an existing assist trophy to add a character in.

Fighter: Banjo & Kazooie

I am still holding onto the dream. The duo of bear and bird are tied to the Nintendo 64 despite no longer being owned by the big N. Phil Spencer is down to get Banjo in the game so the only real question is if Sakurai thinks they are worth adding. As far as Nintendo wanting them, it would only be if some deal was worked out for the N64 classic. I’d assume both announcements would be near one another.

I’ve gone over their endless potential for moves before and that hasn’t changed. Grant Kirkhope killed it on the soundtrack for these games so there are plenty of tracks to choose from. The only real question is what the stage will be. Smash is usually inspired by stages more often than it copies a direct area, so in that regard I think Spiral Mountain would probably make the most sense. I think the Rusty Bucket has a lot of potential as well, but if the idea is to go for something iconic I think you have to go Spiral Mountain.

Fighter: Doom Slayer

Not giving up on this one either. Odds probably aren’t great though. Doom is a very western franchise and not one super linked to Nintendo, and let’s not even get into the violence and religious aspects. The one thing it has going for it is that it is a very important franchise to the history of gaming and Bethesda seems to be on good terms with Nintendo. Doom Eternal is coming to the Nintendo Switch so it could be a cool marketing move to drop this fighter in to build up hype.

Just because he wouldn’t be a Snake echo anymore doesn’t mean he doesn’t have potential. The Doom Marine has plenty of weapons to pull from in his past games and it wouldn’t be too hard to pull some from the upcoming Doom Eternal. I also don’t think it’d be much of a stretch to give the Doom Marine an echo fighter in the form of B.J. Blazkowicz. He is equally important to the history of first person shooters. Doom Marine would certainly get the stage though as Nazi Germany isn’t something I see getting shown off in Smash. A space station on Mars with maybe a transition to hell seems perfect for a stage.

Fighter: Lara Croft

Odds are if we get another Square Enix representative it would be Geno, but Lara Croft is another major gaming icon, just again more western focused. She has appeared on Nintendo consoles so the only issue is coming up with her moves, and I don’t have many ideas for this. Her combat style is very weapons heavy, but she doesn’t have much that would work for close range at least from my experience with the franchise. Like Doom Slayer, I only see Nintendo green lighting this if we are getting some Tomb Raider title on the platform before February 2020.

Stage wise Lara Croft has tons of crazy set pieces to draw from. I assume the stage would be a tomb of some kind with plenty of hazards and maybe even a guest appearance by the iconic T-rex. Lara has plenty of costumes to pull from. If one major thing keeps Lara out it’ll be her moves.

Fighter: Geno

People want Geno. I am not one of those people. I have never played Super Mario RPG, and unless it comes to Nintendo Switch I probably never will. I really have nothing else to say except that I think he is rather likely to be in the game as DLC. Geno could be tied into a remaster or rerelease of the game on Switch, but it is possible Nintendo will just bring him in because fans want him.

Fighter: Shantae

Being a spirt does not preclude one from being a fighter. Despite having yet to review it, I was a backer of Shantae: Half-Genie Hero despite having zero history with the franchise. Shantae has history with Nintendo. Debuting on the Gameboy Color Shantae is a mix of traditional platforming and some metroidvania mechanics. Now I’m sure plenty of people would be pissed if she got in over Shovel Knight, but I think she has a lot more to offer.

For one thing we don’t have another fighter who uses their hair. That alone will give her some interesting standard attacks. She also has a plethora of magic and transformations that could make for an interesting set of special and smash attacks. As far as a stage goes I think the central town would be the best representation of the series as a whole. Maybe have part of the stage feature a dock so that Risky Boots can dock.

The music in the latest game is fantastic. You could bring everything over unchanged and it’d fit in. Every track has a beat that makes you want to get up and dance while still getting across the mood. Overall I don’t think Shantae’s chances are great. Mostly because she is an indie character and she’d be pretty obscure for Nintendo to pick for one of five DLC fighters. Let’s just say I’m not holding my breath on this one.

Fighter: Dixie (& Kiddy?) Kong

Another much more likely fighter with a ponytail. I have not played a Donkey Kong game featuring Dixie. I also don’t like the Donkey Kong Country games, though I do like DK64. That all being said I understand people want Dixie in. She is one of two playable characters in DKC2 which is regarded as the best of the trilogy.

Now why did I say Dixie and Kiddy? Well I think there is potential to make Dixie unique by having her nephew help out in some way. One thing that neither DK nor Diddy get across is the weird health system of the old games. If a Kong is hit you switch to the other one who was running alongside. I think using that relationship between the two could make Dixie really stand out. That being said I could also see her coming in on her own. Potential have it be a Zelda/Sheik style swap.

Now I also think there is echo potential with Tiny and Chunky, though I think it’d be more likely to have s singular Dixie have Tiny as an echo than getting all four. Dixie’s single ponytail versus Tiny’s two could change the range and speed. People talk about Tiny as Dixie’s replacement so I don’t think it’s a stretch. I have no idea what sort of announcement this could tie into. Maybe another DKC game or a DK64 remaster.

Fighter: Gen 3, 5, or 8 Pokémon

I expect this would be a gen 8 Pokémon over a gen 3 or 5 one if only because outside gen 1 additions new fighters have been from the latest generation. Melee added Mewtwo and Pichu. Brawl added Pokémon trainer and Lucario. 4 added Greninja and Ultimate is adding Incenaroar. Who knows what Pokémon it’ll be, but I’m for a grass type.

If we do roll back to gen 3 I’d hope for Sceptile or Grovyle. We need a fully evolved Grass starter in the battle. As far as gen 5 goes Emolga would be a third electric type but it’d be interesting to have in there with its flight and thunder. Outside that maybe Krookodile. I’d also not be opposed to a new Pokémon Trainer as long as the Fire starter isn’t the third stage. Ideally it’d be Tepig, Dewott, Serpirior or any combination if the Hoenn starters without Blaziken.

If the stage is gen 8 I don’t know where it’d be obviously. As for gen 3 the Sky Pillar could work, but I would not be opposed to a plethora of locals. Fortree city, and Mt. Chimney come to mind. I think Shoal cave could be interesting using the games internal clock to change the stage with the tide. Gen 5 I’m not picky. Mostly because I hated gen 5 and forget almost everything about it.

Fighter: Fire Emblem: Three Houses character

I actively do not want this, but knowing Sakurai it’s possible that we will see another anime sword boy or girl. With Nintendo selecting odds are lowered, but it is still a possibility.

Fighter: Tetris Block

Yes I watch GameXplain. I think this might be a bit far outside the box for Nintendo to pick, but if a Gameboy Classic is in the works this is some easy cross promotion with the system’s killer app. Music is obvious. Having the stage be a game of Tetris seems to be obvious. If the Tetris block is a fighter the stage would need a different art style than the character. Don’t ask me how it’d fight. Only Sakurai truly knows.

Fighter: Steve & Alex (Minecraft)

Most people know Steve’s name, but less know Alex. This is again Microsoft owned, and outside getting representation from the second bestselling game of all time, I don’t know what would compel Nintendo to select them as fighters. Stage wise the possibilities are endless. In a world of blocks and biomes it is hard to pick just one. I could see a stage divided into multiple areas like Delfino Plaza. I could also see a destructible stage that rebuilds like Luigi’s Mansion, though maybe not always the same way.

Move wise the two have a lot of tools, potions, and blocks to pull from. If a Creeper doesn’t show up here or as a stage hazard, than it needs to be an assist trophy. Music may be an issue. The music doesn’t seem like it’d transition well to battle music.

Fighter: Tails

I have never owned a Sonic game. I am not a Sonic fan. That being said with Shadow out of the picture I think Tails could be a great addition. From what I know of the character he seems to be more about verticality than speed. He also has gadgets that could make up his final smash.

As for a new stage maybe pull something from Mania or Forces. I assume most of the music is already going to be in the game so that might be an issue.

#super smash bros ultimate #smash pass #video games

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italicwatches · 6 years ago

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Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online - Episode 02

Okay, let’s get into this a little deeper. It’s Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online, episode 02! Here we GO!

-It’s July 2025. We come in on Karen, who’s been attending university in Tokyo for the last three months. She thought things might change, but…They’re not. She’s still awkward, and shy, and taller than any of the other women in her classes. She’s still having no luck finding a job, and spending her days going from apartment to school to apartment if she goes out at all.

-A gaggle of schoolgirls pass by, and Karen can’t help but be deeply envious of the tiny adorable things. Made all the more real when she tries to walk past, and cracks her head on a hanging sign. The pain is real.

-Opening! Which, the more I watch it it’s very interesting how much…*fulfillment[i] they wrap into the game environment. This is very clearly a space where not just Karen/LLENN, but a lot of the people around her, find themselves.

-August. Karen went back home for the summer break. With nothing better to do, she ended up getting curious about VR games after seeing a news report on the new, next-gen hardware made to simplify the VR connection and block off a lot of the safety problems with the SAO-era gear. And something about the idea grabbed her…

-Which is how she ended up snaring an old acquaintance to learn about the things…An acquaintance who was, of course [i]very* eager to tell her everything about her passionate hobby.

-She got the gear, and a copy of Alfheim Online, and settled in to try it back at her place….And it was in! She picked the name LLENN for the first time, went through the creation process….

-And became a tall, graceful elf.

-She was NOT into that. At all. It freaked her out so bad that she actually tripped the safety sensors and got forcefully logged out.

-And learned from said acquaintance, Miyu, that the whole system automatically creates characters for you…She could try again, or try shifting her account to a different game in the same engine. Which is not how game design works, but, you know what, okay. So Karen tried something else…

-And again and again, her characters kept being big. Racing game? Tall sexy racer. Flight game? Thicc pilot. Sci-fi game? What a halloween store would call “Sexy Chilled Alien” because it’s off-brand Frieza race. Fantasy games? A buff-ass barbarian queen and a…I think they’re going for orc there but the Western and Eastern ideas of ‘orc’ have diverged so fucking far it’s hard to tell. Sexy mermaid. And finally Karen was just pushing on through sheer god damned stubbornness.

-When she stumbled onto Gun Gale Online.

-And it put her, after 37 different games attempted, as like three and a half feet tall. At that point it officially stopped mattering what the game was about. It officially stopped mattering what kind of crazy mechanics she’d have to learn. All that mattered was being a tiny adorable waif of a girl for the first time since she was a child. The identity of LLENN ended up filling her heart that day…

-And then she did the tutorial. And got to learn that her true LLENN was in a shooty shooty game and being taught by a dominatrix drill sergeant. This was not what LLENN planned on doing on this day. She learned of the two core gun types, laser guns and slug throwers.

-Side diversion! This is actually an interesting thing to be using in a representation of an online shooter, because shooters tend to divert into two key types of handling their bullets; Some games(or even some guns in games that use both) use hitscan, where at the moment you squeeze the trigger it instantly draws a straight line and sees where it hits, while others use projectile based systems where a bullet is actually spawned and sent at high speeds with physics and time applying. Both of these are entirely valid systems, but which one you’re dealing with has strong implications for higher level play.

-But here in Gun Gale Online, another core difference was put into play; namely, laser guns(or as they call them, optical guns) could be defended against by energy fields. Live ammo’s a different story.

-So LLENN got to learn about the Bullet Line, the singular warning sign that an attack is imminent. She got to shoot her first gun, and learn about the system’s Bullet Circle idea to model the randomness of bullet spread…Which would be fine if LLENN could keep the fucking pistol steady enough for the Circle to stay in a single place.

-She got to try pistols, and sniper rifles, and submachine guns…And at least the submachine gun was vaguely suited to her skills.

-Cut to September. LLENN’s decided to stick with the game. Because being this tiny adorable figure was just too good to give up. She ended up doing PvE, just learning the systems. The whole time she was playing solo, just thrilling in the experience of being LLENN…But she hit a bit of a problem.

-A distinct lack of cute and adorable outfits in this grim serious game. …On the other hand, they had a color palette system. So she took her drab green military garb, and turned it BRIGHT PINK. She even had her optical gun done! And hearing comments from other players, was enough to keep her playing…

-Until one day she was out in the field, had set up a trap for some monsters, and put on some tunes while she relaxed. It’s at this moment that I realize they keep using the same artist name, so I have to imagine that one Elsa Kanzaki is either a really neat reference I don’t get, or going to be relevant. Either way, I should probably note it.

-She could eat cookies and drink tea as much as she wanted, with no worries of calories…But, this trap she set up was in a free-for-all area. And another group of players spawned in. She considered running, or logging out, and ultimately ended up hiding…Not noticed…Her trap went off, and in a panic, she raced in and started firing wildly!

-That whole time, she’d been cranking her SPD stat through the roof with her XP, needing it to deal with giant monsters solo…And so she tore through the three in a flash…When LLENN had enough time to stop and think, and notice that her pink outfit was actually almost the same color as the sunset-lit desert sands…

-Within a few weeks, people were talking about the Pink Devil in chat. A PKer who operates the desert field, ambushing anyone who gets close…A tiny, speedy little demon with two submachine guns.

-Because, indeed, LLENN had thrown some currency into a pair of live-ammo guns, and had turned the desert into her domain to roam freely in, to run far and wide on her tiny tiny legs…

-Until one day, someone caught her and put a gun to her head. A woman in all black, who liked the Pink Devil’s style…Enough to not shoot her. To think the infamous Pink Devil was so teeny and adorable. And she offered a trip back into town to get some tea, since this game didn’t have anywhere near enough female players…

-That was how LLENN met Pitohui, or Pito. Who, true story, added those tattoo cosmetics to her face to reduce how many guys were hitting on her in the game. And played GGO since launch day. While LLENN had only been in for about three months at this point.

-Pito found her more than interesting enough to send her a friend request, and the two ended up in an obscure shop in the corner of town, with rare drops from the PvE segment…Which is how LLENN found her P90, a hot new arrival sitting on the shelf for mere minutes. She bought it right then and there…And with Pito’s encouragement, she named it.

-P-chan. She named that gun P-chan. And let me tell you there is nothing that has made me laugh quite so hard as LLENN enthusiastically saying she’ll do her best to kill lots and lots, while the swelling meaningful-moment music plays.

-Anyways, she and Pito became a squad, and would go hunting and PKing a lot. But aside from having enough real-world money to keep dropping premium currency on fancy shit, LLENN barely knew anything about Pito.. She barely ever listened to music, didn’t watch a lot of movies…And of course LLENN still had lots of anxiety about any talk of real life.

-So Pito ended up putting down a challenge. Take her down in the PvP mode one day, rookie. Get a kill on her, and she’d made sure they could meet in real life. Take that challenge and live up to it. And LLENN was fired up about it, as they made a woman’s promise!

-January came, and they celebrated together in the game. And LLENN learned about the new battle royale mode, the Squad Jam…

-Credits!

I did not expect this much feels from my cute-girls-shooting-cute-guns anime.

#where I watch #recap #anime #sword art online #gun gale online #sao alternative

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yangxiaolonging · 7 years ago

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Iokheaira: Part 1

(Hark, a Vagrant! #328)

It was going to take the continuation of my favorite fic of all time to revitalize my love of STRQ. we in it now boiz

Go read Iokheaira!!! If you haven’t read the original fic Akrasaia go read that too! @romanimp and @theivorytowercrumbles (sorry, for some reason I can’t @ you, Ivory :C )

It’s got everything: bloodthirsty fairies, swords, gay rwbies, sharp teeth, claws, creative application of the seelie court, and courtly intrigue. I even recommend this fic to my friends who’ve never been in to RWBY just because this is just such solid writing and I would kill for an original universe series by the Bear Senate.

ANYWAYS PART 1 LETS GET NASTY

this is a wonderfully long chapter so I’m going to at least try to keep this vaguely succinct

It starts with the trash bird twins and I’m in love. We never get to see Qrow and Raven as a team in the show, just them being the bitter husks left behind by bad decisions and tragedy. Raven and Qrow were a Team since they were children and seeing them fight together and banter is nice, even if it’s Branwen quality interactions.

Qrow held up the mask, his fingers hooked around the first cusp of bone. It had always looked like a pair of bird's wings to Raven's eye, each skeletal layer flaring outward, yet wholly joined to itself. The red paint marking it was in dire need of repair, but the helmet beneath had survived untold generations, passed through the Wild Hunt with each death of the wearer.

aaaahhhh

Through a veil of bone, everything looked like prey.

aaaaAAHHH

Raven used the edge of her sword to pry it from the snow, spying polished links of gold woven together with feathers of black glass looped between the chain. She carefully transferred the bracelet into her gloved hand, looking for any sign of decay, but it merely seemed to be part of a matched set absent its twin.

AAAAAHHHH

"A trophy." Raven remarked, although the gallows humor didn't lift the pressure now crushing its way through her chest. "Maybe I should give it to the girl she left behind."

AAAAAAAHHHH

And if I hadn’t thought I was fucked to begin with, I sure knew then. It’s always delicious piecing together bits and scraps of information given between two different sources in the same canon. The liberties Roman and Ivory take with existing lore is always so good. (listen. read akrasaia if you haven’t. do it. do it now. i linked it at the top of the post.)

Poor Amber gets wanged in every universe she’s put in. RIP.

I love how despite the Wild Hunt being sort of the gray area between the Courts, Raven has always been a very intense and black and white person.

Pushing at her knees, Raven stood. When she spoke she raised her voice somewhat so that those other members of the Hunt could hear. “Corruption is the Hunt’s prerogative. The Courts are none of our concern.”

Qrow rolled his eyes in reply. “Oh, sure. And if you just so happen to do their dirty work along the way, all’s the better.”

Behind the mask, Raven’s eyes flashed, and she rounded on him. “If I had wanted to kill the King's daughter before his own Court in royal assembly, I would have had every right!”

With a laugh, Qrow shook his head, hands on hips, his enormous scythe slung across his back. “See -- that’s just your problem. With you, it’s always the word of the law, never the spirit.”

Raven scoffed. She rested her hand upon the pommel of her sword at her hip. “The spirit of the law is for humans and philosophers. It means nothing, and you know it.”

At that, Raven paused, holding the mask between her hands. The Hunt, the casteless, the nameless, forsaken of the Courts, those who walk between worlds, those who slay transgressors from the path of nature by removing themselves from the cycle, entire.

:’))))) I love her sfm.......

Shout out to Cythera “how much can I fuck with this terrifying dark haired woman” Adel.

Dropping to her knees, the fae shrugged the stag to the ground in order to lay it at Raven’s feet. For a moment she remained there, gathering her strength before using the stag’s antlers to push herself upright once more. The two stood close enough that Raven could cleave a sword through her heart without a second thought. Releasing a long, suppressed breath, Raven finally uncurled her fist from her sword, but her stance remained tense, on edge. Defiance reigned in the fae’s eyes, and for a brief moment Raven felt unmasked before her.

Cinder is too gay and too powerful and that’s the theme of all seelie au writing.

In a smooth motion, Raven stepped over the stag, moving close and lowering her voice. “It would seem I know you after all.”

...

Dipping her fingers into a pouch strung along the belt at her waist, Raven retrieved the chain’s twin and held it up for Cinder to see.

Amber eyes widened. Cinder’s hand darted up to snatch the trinket from Raven’s grasp, but she pulled her own hand back with a finger raised in warning. Lip curling in a snarl, Cinder hissed, “That belongs to me.”

“Is that so?” Raven cocked her head. “The way I see it, a prey’s trophy belongs to no one but the hunter.”

Cinder’s face went through a range of emotions, shifting from dawning horror, to sorrow, to flinty resolve, then settling on an ardent fury.

Raven hummed a contemplative note at the back of her throat. “Ah, yes. I can see the resemblance, now.”

I know for a Fact that Ivory is waging a shadow campaign to make everyone ship Cinder/Raven. (spoilers: they succeeded and I ship it)

Anyways, time to jump into the most wonderful time of the year: Beltane.

"Who says that it's my first?" The girl was riled now, and hastened her step so she could dart in front of Raven, walking backwards across the bridge like it was no trouble at all. "I won't run if you bare your teeth, stranger."

The hint of amusement Raven took from the exchange twisted into a darker hunger, and she shuddered with it. Swift as a shadow, she pinned the other faerie to the side of the bridge, nearly bowing her over the rail that guarded the edge. Her mask was a mere centimeter from the girl's face, close enough for the next shocked, ragged breath to warm the outline of painted bone.

"Tell me your name," Raven growled.

"V-Vernal," she choked back, fear outpacing the need in her veins as the strength pinning her in place became apparent.

"Vernal," Raven repeated, rolling the name over her tongue like a bite of fresh meat, "Go find some beautiful girl who looks at you like the sun and stars. Come near me again and I'll eat you to the marrow."

me:

With the sun soon to fall, Summer had surrendered her regalia to the chest at the foot of her bed, crown and cloak locked away in a bed of red velvet. Without them, her black dress was a dark column in the center of the room, severed only by the pale, waxen lacing woven beneath Summer's ribs. If not for the centuries she had already ruled, Raven would scarcely be able to guess the Queen's age, for those who sat upon the rosewood throne were unburdened by time, immune to the withering whisper of the seasons that followed.

THERE SHE IS IT IS HER IT IS MY DARLING IT IS MY QUEEN SOUND THE TRUMPETS ITS MY GIRL ITS SUMMER

Summer Rose took One look at Raven and immediately decided she needed to fuck her/fuck with her in any way possible and if that doesn’t make her a national treasure and hero I don’t know what does.

I’m already copy-pasting huge chunks of text so I’ll spare everyone me just showing the entire Summer/Raven interaction save for this bc in this house we ship Nevermore and tasty tasty writing.

"May I offer a parting gift, then?" The distance they shared was closed with one careful step, and Summer's dress was a whisper of cloth away from making the two of them touch. "To ease your travel."

She hungered. It felt like such a primal, animal admission, that something as simple as touch could render her a beast. Raven nodded before she could stop herself, and bit back a sound when Summer's fingers slipped beneath the edge of her mask, drawing it up and away. Her eyes recoiled from the light, their red long lost to pulsing black, but then Summer's hands were cupping her jaw, drawing her down to a warm and yielding mouth.

The kiss stung like a brand, searing through Raven's body until she was forced to pull away, her restraint twisted taut to one singular, quivering thread. One more touch, even Summer's breath against her skin, and it would snap.

"Blessed Beltane, your majesty," Raven gasped, then pulled her mask back down as if it would strip her of temptation.

It was back in the dancing circle that she spied Glynda, locked in arms with Taiyang, a prince known more for who he bedded than his bloodline. Summerborn he was, but clearly not to the Grand Seneschal's taste, for Glynda suddenly shoved him back so hard that he had to break his fall on emerald-streaked marble.

It’s okay Taiyang, you’re a good good boy.

...he welcomed her, he welcomed everything.

There’s something so sad about the closing scene. Raven is a wildfire, her story is always of her trying and eventually failing to keep her destruction minimal. She doesn’t need a semblance of bad luck to be a harbinger of misfortune.

#Seelie AU #iokheaira

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random-drunk · 7 years ago

Photo

Amphisbaena.

old novahd monster

A NovaHD monster I was trying to go back to, finally did and made MAJOR adjustments. They used to be attached to each other’s sides and was just a really humanized monster.(I have a friend that is big on conjoined/fused characters, told me the new monster is in the Queen/King formation :0 fancy!)But it still starts at a science facility with the same goal. However, the story is drastically different, I’m trying to make a video, but it might just turn into a comic later. Not sure if I’ll do anything at the end. Just in case I don’t, I’ll write out the story below. It’s long! I’m sorry for any grammatical errors. This is part of a bigger story, I just like to put a twist on characters, my OCs, popular fictional characters (that I also like), and irl people.

Quick note: You can draw the old or new design, but tag me so I can see it! I LOVE SEEING ART!!!

Somewhere in the US rests a science facility named, “Vita Brevis.” Out to make a human’s lifespan longer so we discover more and no relying on offspring to take on our studies. Out for this goal, even if it’s taking so far 50 years.

Tried advanced medicine that either resulting in the subject’s downward spiral of insanity or suicide. Tried diets and life routines that proved to be far from useful. Tried to fuse animals with humans, some died within months and others were a few years. They tried everything they had on their minds, but not fusing two people together.

Some scientists found it a silly idea, other found it borderline retarded. Two lives fused together doesn’t equal to a twice long lifespan, one would repeatedly state. To those that doubted, had no chance against the willing and desperate. So the project went underway.

Two young men were picked for the project.

James Wilson was in jail for a hit and run murder, ending serval lives and injuring a few more. The hit and run seemed to be done on purpose, the people involved seemed to have no relations with James prior the accident. Motives are still unclear.

Aleks Merchant was caught smuggling drugs overseas. He denied it all and said he was set up. All fingers were pointed at him and nothing to back him up. He was tested for using drugs, was under the influence of crack. He came alone but says someone was there, they just missed them. Either they did escape or he’s hallucinating, He was of course put in jail either way.

Vita Brevis contacted the prison and requested a certain amount of prisoners, regardless what they were in for. So Aleks and James were picked for the group, how unlucky.

Once in operation, Aleks and James saw each other, was told to say hi and then count backward from ten. Said small greetings and started to count after getting air masks, getting tired past five. The sleep was like heaven. Felt like nothing was there and just a release of pain and worry. They wished this is what death felt like. They had to wake up to something worse than death.

They woke up in bed, couldn’t feel their legs. They looked down, which happened to look at each other. Sewn together by the waist, stitches still visible. They screaming loud and bloody. Their hands took action before they could think, ripping the stitches and feeling each other’s warm blood cuddle their skin. Organs falling as the blood was seeping out more. A doctor heard their screams and came in just in time to save their lives.

Worse than death.

When stitched back up, they were put to sleep for a longer time to heal. The two skins forming as one. Now stuck forever.

When awake, they were feed and bathe in warm water. They took small pleasures of watching TV and browsing the internet, of course fighting here and there.

In a few months, Aleks and James had trouble eating. Aleks would regurgitate the food and James would choke on food like if it was powdered cinnamon. James was given wet foods and was fine, but Aleks just kept puking it make up, more painful each time. Feed through a tube, it got down for a moment before it was shot back up through the tube. The force surprised scientists but didn’t at all classify as a breakthrough of anything. So they stop providing food for Aleks, but James seemed to have a bigger appetite since after Aleks’ cut off. So they did and it was much better.

However, one night, the boys were visited by a big shadow of fabric and bones, looking cold. A smaller and more flesh filled figure stepped forward. He spoke, “I see Poppy is still trying to push the monster agenda after my visit. It’s almost flattering... It’s my job, however.” He stepped closer and caressed Aleks’ face. “Don’t worry, Simon is here, I’m here... And you will do everything I say.” He leaned in and whispered into Aleks’ ear, then repeating the same words to James. He stood up and chuckled to show his joy. “Make me proud, Amphis.” The tall figure swung his wings and disappeared with the smaller figure, Simon.

Doing with what they’re told, when the nurses and doctors came in at breakfast with the food, Aleks quickly spit into the bowl of oatmeal. Everyone gasped and was grossed out, but saw the spit was a little orange and gave out a sizzle. James reached for the bowl, begging. The doctors hesitated but gave the bowl. James ate it, surprisingly no gaging and no gross facial expressions, he even seemed surprised.

After some months, the scientists finally gave hard and dry foods, the two boys able to eat them all. They then started to do physical exercises like pushups, handstands, neutral “standing” form, pull-ups, so forth. They only got stronger from that point, but a lot of things started to happen. Aleks’ teeth were falling out and his tongue was sticking out more, after farther expectation, his tongue grew and only got bigger. James’ teeth got far sharper and seemed to get a few more extra teeth in the back. Their pupils got bigger and as time went on, the pupils covered their entire eyes, making them unable to come out under light. Aleks’ spit/vomit was now bright orange and is extremely toxic, but harmless to themselves. The scientists had to learn the hard way that the acidic saliva was still on the skin of the subjects, making them protected from harm. Their ears got more of a point, but that was the least threatening thing on the list.

Things did take a turn.

One exercise had basketball as the activity. James was on top and catching the ball and tossing it into the hoop. Repeating this a few more times before the boys switch. James leaned back to have his hands meet with the ground, flipping Aleks up. They turn around and meet eyes with the doctor. Aleks caught the ball and tossed it through the hoop, nothing new. When he was on his last toss, the boys staggered over to the hoop, a little uneasy. Aleks quickly grabs hold to the basketball hoop’s net to catch his breath and James to get his strength back. The doctor patiently waited. James picked them up again and Aleks seemed less dizzy judged by his expression. He didn’t let go of the net though and just stared into space.

The doctor spoke, “Hello? Are you alright..? Better come down so you can rest.”

Aleks didn’t move. Aleks did start to cough, having sharp bubbling sounds form in his throat. The doctor tried to talk Aleks to coming back down. Aleks still hasn’t moved. The doctored tried but sighed and pulled out a taser gun, firming and loudly speaking from this point.

“Get down.”

James’ eyes darted to the gun and got his lungs and heart doing overtime. Aleks felt his heart and lungs fasten and spotted the threat. His lungs and heart copied the same speed as James, if not, faster.

“Get down, or else.”

Screaming and alarms went off. Quick loud, “help me!’ filled the room. Outside doctors peered in and saw the scene. The doctor was hushed by Aleks’ overgrown tongue being forced down his throat, stretching his neck beyond the limit until life escaped from his body with a few painful cracks. The scientists kept watching, seeing Aleks then regurgitating into his mouth and throat, disgusting him from the inside out. James then stepped in and started to pick flesh out and eating him, tasting better than the food they served. Almost tasting like heaven.

“We must stop this! This is getting out of hand!” One scientist shouted.

“No! We can fix this! Keep them alive!” Another shouted.

“Dr. Grise!” The first one shouted at the second one. “We were meant to expand our lifespan, not destroy it with whatever this is!” The turned back to the monster and found the dead doctor already half eaten. “Enough!” The doctor slammed a button, but nothing happened.

A small chuckle filled the building. Something pulled back like wings and revealed the small figure named Simon. Smaller than a human, one big singular eye, green iris. He seemed happy.

“Thank you for the apology gift, Poppy,” Simon said as his tall figure friend lowered his wing so Aleks and James can climb on. Simon’s eyes got thin, either smirking or angry. “You’re still a bitch, though.” They all disappeared, leaving the half-eaten and acid burned doctor all alone to be cleaned up.

Worse than death.

#novaHD #uberhaxornova #immortalhd #aleksandr marchant #james wilson #digital art #monster #conjoined #fusion #amphisbaena #au #horror

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toonpunk-game · 4 years ago

Text

Fluff Updates: Part 1

So the long and short of it is that having my own website for toonpunk documentation was a little more trouble than it’s worth. But, since I wrote all this fluff and have nowhere else to put it, I’m going to begin steadily dropping a bunch of it onto Tumblr over the next few days in case anyone wants to read it. Let’s begin with the most important sci-fan conceit of the setting: Ink.

The Ink

WARNING: this section has a lot of technical terms and is probably not strictly necessary for the average toonpunk. We have included this article in this manual primarily for the benefit of new arrivals to the world who may have some lingering questions about the basic physics of ink. TLDR, it does weird stuff and if you draw something with it then the drawing comes to life. The rest of you can just keep on movin by.

If you want to talk about the state of the world, you have to start with the Ink. The most incredible discovery in human history, it has aggressively challenged human understanding of nearly all scientific and philosophical fields: physics, biology, theology, economy, architecture, art, and war—these, and many more, were all redefined from the most basic level, by elemental ink. Elemental Ink appeared in the world, spontaneously and inexplicably, on February 22nd, 2042. This event is now memorialized as “I-day”, and it was more important than can be succinctly described.

Prior to I-day, “ink” referred to a wide variety of fluids which were used for writing, drawing, or otherwise discoloring paper. However, on I-day, every single instance of every form of ink in the known universe spontaneously collapsed into a new elemental molecule: and immediately, the ramifications were immense. Despite large-scale atomic fusion spontaneously occurring across hundreds of billions of instances, no energy was at any point released from this action, and no cause was ever determined. Perhaps even more remarkably, attempts to create more ink using the previous methods resulted, instead, in the creation of this elemental liquid. With this, the fundamental rules of physics were abruptly abolished.

Today, ink is the most dangerous and valuable liquid on the planet, though it does not outwardly seem so. At a glance, ink is a room-temperature liquid, which can come in a variety of different colors; and there is nothing particular about it which reveals itself when frozen or boiled. However, in specific conditions it manifests incredible properties which are unprecedented in all other forms of matter. When describing these, it is easiest to depart from the prosaic and instead enumerate these as a simple list.

-Ink can be created from any mixture of water and certain pigments. Mixing these pigments with other liquids, or naturally colored liquids together, will not yield result. Upon reaching a viscosity comparable to that of human blood, the mixture will spontaneously and instantly collapse into an elemental liquid in which no other component molecule can be identified. This fusion does not create any form of energy—light, sound, force, heat, or otherwise.

-The complete list of ink-yielding materials is long and complex, but the Interplanetary Ink Ministry takes pains to make sure it is as widely-disseminated as possible. These include the skin of some animals, the flowers of some plants, and certain minerals—all of which have been culled to near-extinction in the last 200 years. Production of these materials is strictly regulated, and the knowledge of the relevant processes is jealously guarded. Any unlicensed attempt to manufacture these materials is greeted harshly: in the UCAS it carries a minimum federal penalty of 50 years in prison; and in Russia and China, it almost always warrants death.

-If a stagnant body of ink is left in contact with a body of any other inorganic substance equal to or greater than its own size, the ink will begin to “dry up”: at a rate of approximately 1 milliliter per 3.6 seconds, the ink will spontaneously transform into the surrounding material. Ink does not have this effect on highly-hydrophobic surfaces, or while it is moving—which means that it has to be carried in chemically-treated containers to avoid going solid while inside.

-The most remarkable thing about ink is its conduciveness to life: ink can, on its own, reproduce most of the functions and behaviors of living organisms. Whenever ink is pressed against sufficiently thick paper by organic human hands (or an instrument being wielded by such) and used to draw something which the artist has imagined as a living being, then the ink will (again at a rate of 1ml/3.5s) begin to rise off the page—and will materialize into a full-scaled wholly-living version of whatever was drawn, which can operate indistinguishably from other life.

Ink is able to form limbic, vascular, and neural structures of incredible complexity. Bodies made of ink can be so large that ordinary biological structures of a similar scale would collapse underneath their own weight; and they can repair themselves so rapidly that they are, for all intents and purposes, impervious to aging. It does all of this despite individual molecules of ink being indistinguishable from one another on all levels except coloration. “Inkmen” such as these now account for approximately 70% of all sapient life in the solar system.

-Whenever the ink begins rising, it does this by spontaneously manifesting new elemental ink particles, which were not at any point particles of a different nature. This phenomenon explicitly defies the conservation of energy—which, until I-day, was an immutable principle of the universe.

-Perhaps the most mind-boggling, and certainly the most controversial, of the ink’s properties is its omnipresence: elemental Ink can be found in almost every single molecule of matter in the observable universe. In human blood, this is highly concentrated, at roughly one part per hundred; and in most other materials it accounts for between .04% and .6% of their total composition. In sand, correctional fluid, and rubber, Ink cannot be found at all. There is no rational reason for them to be entirely ink-free; most particularly since Ink is readily available in the materials from which these examples are derived. How the Ink determines “sand” from “earth” or “rubber” from “latex”, scientists have not yet determined.

It is unknown if its omnipresence was immediate upon the arrival of the Ink into the world, or the product of some form of rapid propagation after I-day; but since then, innumerable theological and philosophical arguments have sprung up around it. Ink has been the subject of numerous theses on determinism, and the existence of a Supreme Entity, and the interconnectedness of things within the universe. Numerous faiths, movements, and other schools of thought have arisen around the facts as they are presently understood. To some, Ink is proof of, or perhaps the body of, a God or godlike entity; others speculate that it is the product of another dimension, which experienced singularity with our own; others still believe that it is the living body, or a remnant of, some far-off alien species. The past 200 years of scientific analysis have brought us no closer to understanding the true nature of Ink, or its place in our world.

INK AS A LIFE FORM

The many remarkable properties of elemental ink can be observed in its status as a vector for organic life. In the anatomy of certain inkmen, you can witness its ability to replicate biological structures; its ability to produce those on a scale previously thought impossible; and the arbitrary, vexatious nature which has lead so many to attribute it some divine character.

First, the basics: whenever Elemental Ink is used to draw something, the thing being drawn will, upon completion, come to life—ripping itself off the paper and asserting itself into three-dimensional space. The length of this process goes at a rate of about 1 milliliter every 3.65 seconds, so it increases with the size of the being in question—with sea monkeys taking just over 3 seconds, and a human (or roughly human) sized creature taking about 8 hours. That’s the simple things out of the way.

There are many other rules which govern the lives of inkmen—which drawings will and will not take on their own lives, and how they live afterwards. Most of these rules seem to be completely arbitrary, with no discernable causality; so we shall simply list them here.

-Only human beings can create inkmen. While inkmen can manipulate Ink into various short-lived inanimate forms, it is uniquely resonant with human beings; and any time an inkman attempts to create life, the result will either drop dead within seconds, or be nothing at all.

-An inkman must be “complete” in the eyes of the illustrator before they come to life. No matter how long it takes for an inkman to be completed, a drawing will not manifest any signs of life until the artist definitively and truthfully considers it “done”. It will ignore the professed opinions of other humans if they disagree with the artist’s; and it will ignore the artist’s statements as well if they are untrue. If an artist dies before completing their work, then their drawing will never come to life. The fact that the Ink can tell one artist from another, and correctly gauge an artist’s feelings on their own work, indicates that Ink has some form of enormously complex psychosensitive property. Many attribute this to the very will of God.

-Only a single instance of any given inky being may exist in the universe at any given time. No matter how often or broadly they were depicted, or how many copies exist of said depictions, there may be only one. The depiction that comes to life will always be the one which has been seen by the largest number of people. If multiple identical instances of a depiction exist—IE through photocopying, or mass printing—then all of these will “share” a view count; and whichever one is located at the point with the highest concentration of elemental Ink surrounding it will be the one that yields an inkman. An inkman’s most popular depiction is generally called a “homepage”.

-If an inkman is killed, they will—at the very instant of their death—immediately be reborn from their homepage, exactly as they were the first time. No inkman has ever been medically resuscitated after death—though if this is because of insufficient medical technology, or the “only-one” rule, nobody has yet been able to conclusively demonstrate. Their new incarnation will have no memories of their time in the real world—effectively “resetting” them to exactly how they were when first incarnated. The existential implications of this are best not discussed anywhere at any time.

-The personality, cognitive capacity, and behavior of an Ink-based life form is defined by how much “thought” their original creator put into them. Characters with detailed stories and psychological profiles will express these after entering the real world; and will generally perform to the standards of intelligence assigned to them by their creator. However, their memories and experiences will always be those they had at the time of their homepage: any changes or knowledge received afterwards will not appear in the real world. A character with very little thought put into it will emerge completely uneducated, like a newborn baby, and will require extensive early-life care mirroring that of an organic human child.

-Inkmen will only come to life if their homepage is 90gsm thick or greater. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-A drawing will only come to life if it is “original” in the mind of its creator—that is to say, it is not a representation of a real living being, or of an existing character: political cartoons, nature sketches, and portraits may be drawn at leisure, and will never animate. Strangely, and infuriatingly, the ink’s ability to sense artist intention comes into play here: in numerous clinical trials where artists attempted to draw real people, it has been conclusively determined that no amount of physical deformation or difference in the subject’s depiction can trick the Ink into animating it: everything from “George Washington with a laser eye” to “Sylvester Stallone except he’s a giant amorphous blob of sludge” all yielded no result: an Inkman will only come to life if it is, in the mind of the artist, an entirely separate entity from any extant real or imagined creature.

-It is worth noting that, in one trial, two artists who were commissioned to draw an obscure deep-sea life form (which they believed to be wholly fictional) were able to create animated versions of it which existed simultaneously. Curiously, entities which are physically identical but distinct in the minds of the creators—such as clones, body-snatchers, or shape-changers—can also manifest simultaneously. This discovery directly spawned a cottage industry of “Idiot artists”—people who are kept isolated from birth and permitted no knowledge of the outside world except how to draw. These idiot artists would then be commissioned to reproduce real animals or people, for whatever reason. Despite being a violation of many human rights, this is still a thriving business in certain uncivilized parts of the solar system.

The so-called “originality mandate” has also frustrated many attempts to mass-produce inkmen as soldiers: in the aftermath of I-day, several governments commissioned artists to draw entire armies, but then the discovered that it was virtually impossible to have them adhere to a single physical and mental template: drawing many people with limited variation between them, and thought spent on them, meant that the finished inkmen were uniformly too simple-minded to form coherent thoughts—much less effectively act on a battlefield.

-Inkmen do theoretically exist as they were the mind of the artist, and can theoretically grow to be any size; but in practice, this is often confounded upon their introduction to meatspace. The largest inkman on record—the Sūpāgyarakushī no Kyodaina Josei o Taberu from the popular shonen anime Ginga ga taberu Porineshia no Josei—is a mere 600 meters tall, despite having a canonical height of 1.4 billion light-years; while the average height of kaiju, mecha, and similar monsters is between 300 and 500 meters.It is believed that this is because despite understanding the numerical immensity of their creations, the human mind is incapable of truly visualizing things on that scale—this phenomenon, known as “Cheese’s Principle of Cognitive Limitations”, is responsible for the lack of cosmic-scale inkmen.

The Cheese Limitation Principle also makes itself felt in several other ways. In 2048, the Chinese government commissioned the illustration of a hive-being—that is to say, a being with a single mind spread over many bodies—to begin replacing its police force. While such a being was drawn, and successfully incarnated, they discovered to their chagrin that it was only capable of occupying about 30 bodies simultaneously—again, because the artist had failed to properly grasp the scale of their creation. The largest hive-being on record is a cluster of about 200 fist-sized ants who communicate entirely through shrieks.

-Inkmen, after being born, do not need to eat, sleep, or drink to remain alive. However, many of them still do so because it is psychologically beneficial to maintain the semblance of normalcy. Inkmen do, however, require a steady influx of elemental ink: it is possible for Inkmen to “dry out” if they go too long without ingesting ink—if they do so, their bodies literally crumble to dust; and over the course of approximately 8 hours, they suffer the most horrifying and protracted form of naturally occurring death known to exist. While they do not technically need to breathe, clinical trials have shown that inkmen which were breathing creatures in their homepage are incapable of taking advantage of this fact: they will continue breathing due to their psychological urge to, even though It is unnecessary.

-All inkmen, even those specifically designed to give birth, are entirely incapable of organic reproduction. The only way one can be born is if they are drawn.

INK AS A MATERIAL

Even if Ink were not conducive to life, it would be an incredible material: for it, by itself, enabled the industrial revolution that brought mankind where it is today: ink, unlike any other form of matter, has a naturally replicative property: in a vacuum, a body of elemental ink will grow over time. That is to say, its component molecules will reproduce themselves indefinitely, without requiring energy or matter to continue the process. This by itself is remarkable; but what truly made ink indispensable was its elimination of “scarcity”.

Up until I-day, human ambition was in many industries limited by scarcity—the idea that certain materials existed in fixed quantities, and could not be renewed into a usable state without compromising existing infrastructure. These included natural resources like coal, petroleum, and iron—all of which were at one point easily available to commercial buyers, but became increasingly expensive over time as the total amount was depleted. Shortly after I-day, however, the concept of scarcity was rendered obsolete by the discovery of Ink’s other amazing property.

Before Bloody March had even ended, several independent laboratories hit upon the same remarkable discovery: ink not only replicated, it assimilated: if an amount of elemental ink is kept in physical contact with a larger quantity of any other material, the ink will undergo spontaneous molecular metamorphosis at a rate of roughly 50 milliliters every hour—and it will do so until it reaches equilibrium with the material. Spectacularly, it does this without any observable exertion of energy—while replicating a similar process through conventional means would require a truly enormous amount of power. This, combined with Ink’s ability to replicate itself, meant that any material in the universe could be reproduced into perpetuity, given sufficient time and space.

Soon afterwards, the first Ink Additive Manufacturing machine was developed, with several similar technologies following suit. While the precise method varied, the idea was the same: quantities of precious materials—oils, minerals, chemicals, and so on—would be placed in a mechanical assembly, and immersed in Ink until the material was duplicated; and then the process was repeated. The ability to quickly and effectively produce large quantities of materials with nearly no labor cost absolutely revolutionized industry and economy all across the Earth—material scarcity was replaced with time scarcity. The modern supply chain is shaped more by production and transit time than by material acquisition: while readily-available metals made the modern megabuilding possible, many arcologies—such as Saskatoon’s Overside, or the Chinese Ring—have been under construction for decades or longer, and will be for several more.

Strikingly, ink’s assimilative effect exerts itself over human beings. While most animals are not often exposed to it for long enough, humans have a very high Blood-Ink Concentration, at 1%; and over the course of their lives, this will affect their physiology in many ways. First and foremost, ink replicates human cells almost as quickly as they decay, preventing cellular breakdown for almost a century. Since I-day, the average human lifespan has increased to about 200 years—a sharp increase from the 80 year lifespans common before then.

More than that, though, ink often emulates the most prevalent exterior tissues in any given body—usually fat or muscle. Upon reaching adulthood, many humans will find that the ink inside them emulates their most prominent features—often leading to unusual concentrations of bone, muscle, or fat. While these are usually benign, they can be quite unsightly, and such features were entirely unheard of prior to the advent of Biomodding. Over time, humans invariably end up looking rather “cartoonish”, to use a somewhat sensitive word. As such, cosmetic surgeries and ink-reducing liver implants are fairly common among many strata of society. In 2054, inkish philosopher Blot Thought remarked that “the presence of ink in human bodies has blurred the line between creator and created…so that now we might all be one tremendous comic book and never know.”

Colors and the Common Person

The human eye can see roughly 7 million different colors, and computers can recognize over twice that many. At one point, you could see almost all of them in stores; but today, commercial products are limited to an extremely narrow band of colors. In 2061, the IIM issued the Safety and Liability in Commercial Colors bill to combat the danger of bootleg ink. The SLICC proposed guidelines for the classification and control of commercially-available pigments. Within 3 weeks of its creation it was ratified by 136 countries, including all 4 superduperpowers. Underneath the SLICC, color was removed from almost everything except for plastics and certain metals. The entire labyrinthine text can be viewed online from numerous sources; so WHEE will instead use this space to highlight several of the resultant adjustments to everyday life. WHEE hope that this will ease your transition into the grey cutthroat hell-world of today.

Dyes

In SLICC nations, the vast majority of clothing dyes are Type-2 controlled substances. In most countries, that means their ownership is regulated—requiring both an in-depth background check and additional federal approval to be distributed on a per-case basis. This means that for most people, dyed clothing is squarely out of their tax bracket. Instead, modern apparel relies chiefly on natural tints—on the subtle differences between fibers’ natural colors. More than this, clothes rely on expressive and impractical cuts to distinguish themselves. The majority of leisure garments for both men and women consist of two parts: a thin layer of under-cloth to protect the skin, and then a thicker layer to express the sensibilities of the wearer. Common over-clothes include lattices, wicker-weaves, cords, or knots.

Dyed clothes are more common among the upper and middle-upper classes of most SLICC countries. However, in many cases it’s not worth the trouble: in the UCAS, for example, you have to undergo a background check, a psych eval, and provide proof of your residence in an area with an annual crime rate of less than 2%. Even after all that, law officers may stop you and demand to see your license to wear dyed clothing—and detain you if your papers are not up to snuff.

Paint

Paint, like dye, was made a controlled substance under the SLICC. The biggest victims in the commercial sector were building and vehicle decoration. Home and vehicle cosmetics had to be rebuilt from the ground up: wallpaper, solid paint, and many kinds of upholstery were controlled and curtailed over the next century. For a long time, many people were simply unable to get those things; and the ‘beige rooms’ of the mid-2000s are fondly recalled by contemporary decorators.

By the 2080s, most people had adopted alternative solutions. In wealthy homes, interior decoration was dominated by a focus on earthen tones and natural materials—something which was made much easier by IAM flooding the market with gold, furs, and precious stones. Elsewhere, interior coloration relied on polarized film which only reflected specific light bands: this film could be drawn taut over flat surfaces to create the same effect as paint. In poor areas, the same function was filled by simple colored lights.

Today, the epitome of wealth in fashion is the tie-dye: a distinctive color pattern where many bands of color circle and mingle with each other. While this effect can be replicated with film, genuine tie-dye is extremely expensive and tightly-controlled. In almost all cases, it is exclusively reserved for wealthy friends of the government.

#cyberpunk writing #toonpunk #worldbuilding

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