#now that I think of it trying to tweak your results to see why the fuck quiz is slandering you like that is something dirk would do

[losyash]

'got dirk tried again got dirk again' oh my godddd idk how the uquiz did it but changing answers slightly out of fear of misrepresenting urself is soooo dirk core and the quiz calling u out on it TWICE is so funny (affectionate)

YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND I SPENT ALL DAY THINKING ABOUT THIS

I AM JUST TRYING TO FIND SOME HAIR DYE WHILE ALSO TRYING TO DECIDE HOW DO I FEEL ABOUT HOLDING POWER OVER OTHERS SIMULTANEOUSLY REMEMBERING SEVERAL INSTANCES I HAD THAT POWER OR WANTED TO AND HOW IT TIES INTO MY OTHER ISSUES

IT PLAGUES ME

and then I fucking saw this ask and was like ah whatever I'll do it the third time. what's the harm.

and I got vriska

[sweet-as-an-angel]

Vampire Simon “Ghost” Riley Headcanons

Warnings: Implications of Smut, Implications of Degrading, Aftercare, Feeding, Jealous Simon, Possessive Simon, Fluff, Mentions of Blood, Petnames, Self-Conscious Simon, No Pronouns used for Reader except ‘You’.

Ghost is one of the oldest vampires to inhabit the planet, and as a result, has tremendous self-control when it comes to feeding.

He’ll only feed from you if you let him, and he won’t feed from anyone or anything else.

The thought of tasting another person’s blood repulses him. Makes him feel dirty.

After all, you’re the only one for him, so why would he enact such an intimate encounter with someone else ?

He’ll get extremely jealous if you let someone else feed from you, btw.

Even if it’s a dire situation and it’s someone he knows well – Soap, for instance – he’ll struggle to not let his mind wander, to contemplate whether you enjoy having Johnny attached to your throat like a leech.

Sulky vampire boyfriend hours !!!

You’ll have to reassure him that he’s still your favourite (and only !) “Big teddy boy~”.

He secretly (shamefully) loves feeding from you.

And I don’t mean in just a romantic sense; I’m talking full-on primal instinct.

Whenever he has you pinned under him and is taking you, he can smell how close you are to your end by the scent of your blood.

And he waits, calling you every whorish synonym under the sun, smoothing over your tears with promises of love that you already know until your body gives out and you wail, back arching into Simon’s chest as his fangs sharpen and plunge into the juncture of your neck.

Your blood is a fine delicacy, but in this moment, during the pinnacle of mortal euphoria, it is exquisite.

He doesn't drain you; just takes what he knows your body can take.

And despite how rough he can be with you, when there’s blood – your blood –involved, he’s nothing but gentle.

His favourite part of the evening is when he pulls you into his arms and a trickle of blood runs down your chest and he gets to run his tongue along it; a red mercy.

Simon’s big on aftercare btw.

He’s not letting you get out of bed for at least a full day afterwards; not until you’re fully healed.

The longer a vampire goes without feeding, the more of their true form appears.

It takes energy to keep his human skin intact, so if Ghost hasn’t been drinking, his features become gradually more monstrous as the days go by.

He’ll wear his mask when this starts to happen.

He loves you, trusts you with every ounce of his existence. But he doesn’t want you seeing him. The real him.

It doesn’t matter how many times you tell him that you love him “Regardless of what’s underneath your pretty boy face !” – he’s not letting you see it.

Often, your reassurances turn into quick ‘self-love’ sessions in the nearest, most convenient spot, ending with Simon gasping and whining beneath your touch.

He knows his vampire form isn’t easy to look at. A man’s heart once gave out the second he caught sight of Simon without his human face on.

And he doesn’t want that for you.

He just loves you too much.

Speaking of; he’s always hinting towards turning you into a vampire.

Like, constantly.

He brings it up at some of the most inopportune moments – like when you’re cooking dinner or trying to 

Once, to shut him up, you told him (jokingly) that he’d have to “Marry me before I let you turn me !”

And that put a dangerous little idea in Simon’s head.

Now, he’s always trying to find the perfect opportunity to propose to you – to turn you.

He’s not stupid, he knows that tone in your voice meant you weren’t being entirely serious.

But it gave him hope. A rare commodity in the world of an undead.

He has about ten engagement rings hidden in your shared home, each having been tweaked and perfected to be as timeless as possible.

You’re the most wonderful human there is, in Simon’s eyes, so you deserve the best.

So be on the lookout for that faraway look in his eye as he peers into a future he doesn’t think can come soon enough; one where your love will outlive all those that have come before and after.

A life where, for the first and last time, Simon has a constant in his life.

You.

Domestic Vampire Boyfriend !!!

He’ll cook for you whenever you ask him to, no questions asked.

Though, he won’t be handling any garlic.

Or be going near you when you’ve eaten it.

Soap constantly tries to bring up embarrassing stuff Simon’s done.

Which is why he’s always at your side whenever the 141 come over.

He can’t risk johnny jeopardising the slick, suave, sophisticated image of a loving boyfriend (and stone-cold killer) he’s cultivated for himself. Well, for you, mainly.

“Ey, did’ya know that once when Si and I were just wee vampires, that he almost set a whole town on fire because he forgot he burns up in the sun–”

“That’ll do, Johnny.”

“Aww, it’s okay, Sim-Sim,” you say. “You’re still my favourite little leechie in the whole world !”

He is going to get bullied by his associates after that, but if it’s to hear your sweet praises, he’ll gladly tolerate it.

Reblog for more content like this! It helps creators like myself tremendously and it is greatly appreciated :-)

Masterlist Masterlist [Continued] Masterpost Modern Warfare AI Masterlist

AO3 Wattpad

[eddies-ashtray]

You Get Me Closer To God // Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Masterlist

Synopsis: Your best friend sleeps over.

WC: 2.3k

Category: Smut (18+).

Content: Friends to lovers, mean, pervy Eddie, dom/sub dynamics (?), virgin!reader, name calling (of the ‘whore’ & ‘slut’ variety), nice nicknames (of the ‘sweetheart’ & ‘baby’ variety), 1 dacryphilia mention, mocking, dumbification if you squint, humiliation kink ig, teasing, vaginal penetration without the use of a condom (don’t try this at home, folks), some hand-on-neck action + a squeeze but no actual choking, multiple orgasms, and Eddie referring to himself as ‘master’ a grand total of one (1) time! 

♡*♡*♡

You weren’t sure how it had happened, but your best friend was on top of you. His cock was hard against your thigh. His gentle breath was fanning across your face.

It was supposed to be a regular sleepover at your house. But then there had been this energy in the air. This tension. It wasn’t new, you’d felt it before. You’d felt it every night he’d slept in bed with you and hadn’t touched you. Every morning you woke up and felt his hardness against your ass, but pretended like it wasn’t there. But now, here he was, above you, his hand stuffed up your shirt, rolling your nipple between his fingers. You whimper weakly below him.

With only the low light of your nightlight in the corner of your bedroom, all you can see is his face. Those deep brown eyes staring intently into yours. Measuring your every movement, your every breath.

“Fuck, look at you,” Eddie says, pain lacing his tone. You shiver involuntarily at his words and gasp sharply when he tweaks your nipple meanly between his fingers. Wetness drips from your slick hole like it’s weeping, crying out for him. “I knew you were a virgin, but Christ, sweetheart, no one’s ever even groped your pretty tits before, have they?” Eddie asks rhetorically, squeezing your breast to emphasize his point.

Your resulting squeak is answer enough for him. You feel like you could cry, it’s all so overwhelming; his body weight on top of you–somehow menacing, but comforting all at once–, his rough hands groping you, his proximity, his scent, his words.

Tilting his head at you, Eddie coos at your pout, at the glassy quality of your eyes.

“You’re just a pathetic little virgin, huh? Too shy to tell me what you want. Bet you’d let me do anything I wanted to you. Isn’t that right, angel?”

Your face warms and you feel hot all over as your cunt throbs desperately. You would let him do anything he wanted to you. So you nod ever so slightly and Eddie’s brows knit together.

“Of course you would. Cause even though no one’s stuffed you full of cock yet, you’re just a desperate whore.”

Whining at his words, your back arches into his body, trying to get impossibly closer, trying to fuse as one.

“Yes,” You agree.

Eddie rolls his hips into yours and groans at the friction. He’s only in his boxers, that’s how he sleeps. Even when he’s in bed with you. He’s thick and long and you need him inside of you right now. You think you might die or explode or scream if he doesn’t stuff you full at this very moment. But you know he won’t. Because he wants to torture you. Wants to rile you up, make you cry. He’d told you so, confessed it to you in the darkness just before this all began.

“And because you’re a desperate whore, I bet your panties are soaked. I bet you’re drenched and leaking onto the sheets…Why don’t I check?”

Nodding vigorously, you beg, “Please, please.”

With that, his hand begins its slow descent down your body, his rough palm running down the length of your torso until he reaches the hem of your sleep shorts. Instead of sliding underneath them however, Eddie keeps his hand moving. You gasp as it passes over your mound, and then choke out a moan when his large hand cups your hot cunt, pressing into the soft material of your shorts and rubbing harshly.

“Oh, look at that. You soaked right through your shorts, baby. How pathetic,” Eddie teases, then leans down as he continues rubbing you harshly over your shorts. His mouth envelopes your nipple, sucking it into his mouth, nipping at it.

You whine underneath him, kicking your legs out in frustration.

“Eddie, please! I want-” But you can’t bring yourself to finish the sentence. Not even now when he has you shaking beneath him from a simple hand over your sex.

His movements cease and his mouth releases your breast with a pop. Eddie stares up at you darkly, his eyes simmering in the low light.

“What was that?”

“I-I-” You stutter, unable to just say it.

Eddie removes his hand from you completely and you whine again, pout returning to your lips.

“Tell me or I leave you here, wet, and hot, and needing, while I go tug my cock in the bathroom,” He threatens, and you know he’s serious. Know that he would leave you here. Know that he would go straight to your bathroom, pull his cock free from his boxers, and you would be cursed to listen to the slick sound of his hand tugging at his cock until he came over his fist.

You huff like a petulant child, not wanting to have to say it. Not wanting to admit it aloud.

“Fine,” Eddie says, pushing himself off of you.

“Wait!” You whisper-shout in a panic. Eddie stops, but doesn’t lower himself back over you quite yet.

His brow quirks.

When you don’t say anything for a moment, Eddie says, “I’m waiting.”

Sighing and squeezing your eyes shut in complete humiliation, you will the words to leave your mouth.

“I need your–your cock,” You say, whispering the final word far quieter than the first three.

Eyes still squeezed shut, you can’t tell what Eddie’s reaction had been. But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t say anything. So, you open one of your eyes slowly, trying to sneak a peak at him.

“Say it again,” Eddie demands when your one eye finds his. “Louder. Eyes open.”

You open your other eye. Eddie holds eye contact, tilts his head at you expectantly.

Drawing in a breath, you muster all the courage in your body to try and say it again.

“I need your cock.”

Eddie’s lips quirk up in a smirk as he lowers himself back onto you and leans in closely, down by your ear; so close his lips graze the sensitive skin of your lobe.

“Good girl.”

You huff, frustrated by his teasing, but your belly burns with lust, betraying the air of annoyance you’re trying to give off.

“But first… I wanna play with this sweet, little cunt.”

You barely have time to register his words, to allow them to sink in and affect you before Eddie is tearing your shorts down your legs in one quick motion and literally tearing your panties in two. Just as quickly, his nimble fingers are drawing slick up from the leaking well of your hole, all the way up to your throbbing clit.

Your arms fly to his shoulders, longing for something to hold onto. “Fuck!”

“There you go, sweetheart. I know it feels good, let it out,” Eddie encourages as his index finger rubs a harsh pattern against the hard little button.

“Mmph!” You squeak, slamming your eyes shut and shoving your face into your shoulder. It feels so much better than your own fingers, so much better than when you shamefully rub the little nub to thoughts of your long-haired, ring-wearing, metal-obsessed best friend until you soak your panties with your cum.

“Nuh-uh, give me your eyes, baby. Give me your eyes, or I stop.”

Reluctantly, you open your eyes, but can’t bring yourself to tilt your head so you’re face-to-face with the man who’s touching you. When you don’t do as you’re told, Eddie’s free hand comes up from its place on your hip where he was holding you down to grip your face meanly, squashing your cheeks together and forcing you to look him in the eyes.

Your mouth falls open in a wanton moan, brows knitted together at the pleasure-pain, at his meanness. Eddie mocks you, his mouth dropping open with an embarrassing imitation of the sound that just left you. It just makes you wetter, makes you gush over his fingers as they speed up over your clit.

“G-gonna cum!”

“Aw, how cute,” Eddie coos. “Can’t even last a full five minutes with my fingers on this sweet little button.”

And you can’t. His mean teasing is what shoves you over the edge. What has you pushing your head back into the pillow below your head while little pops of light explode behind your eyelids. While tension uncoils in your belly and your hole clenches pathetically around nothing.

Heaving in great breaths as you come down, Eddie continues his assault on your clit. You whine, shrinking away from his touch. But Eddie doesn’t stop.

“Too sensitive,” You whine, pouting up at him.

“Don’t care. Wanna see you cum again,” Eddie demands, leaning down to kiss and suck marks into your neck. You gasp at the sting of pain before Eddie soothes over the mark with his tongue. The sensation makes you shiver.

“Can I-can I at least have your cock?” You ask, still trembling, and you have no idea where the confidence to say this came from, but it halts his movements, and Eddie pulls back to look you in the face. He eyes you with curiosity.

His free hand comes up from your hip once again, rising goosebumps over your belly and your chest, before stopping at the base of your throat. Ever so slowly, his hand wraps around your neck, and he squeezes gently once. Your eyes are pleading, but confused. Curious.

“Okay,” Eddie replies simply.

His answer surprises you. You were expecting him to mock you or outright say no and continue rubbing your sensitive clit.

“But you owe me two more orgasms now,” Eddie conditions, and you swallow harshly. Of course his answer had come with a price.

You’ve never cum more than once, how are you supposed to give him two more? But you can’t resist; your hole clenching around nothing when you’d cum had made you want to cry. You’ve never felt so empty in your life. So, you agree. And the second you do, Eddie is shoving his boxers down and pushing your legs apart, lining himself up with your slick entrance.

He doesn’t push in right away though. He paints his pink tip up your messy cunt and rubs it harshly into your clit, causing you to whimper in pleasure-pain.

Sniffling, you beg, “Please, Eddie. Want it inside.”

“You just look so cute like this, though. Clenching around nothing, a sticky mess of your own cum. You’re too sweet for your own good.”

“But-” Before you can finish the rest of your complaint, Eddie grips himself at the base and guides his cock down to your weeping hole, pushing just the leaking tip inside. You gasp in shock.

Then, he pushes in all the way, stuffs you so full you can’t remember where you end and he begins. And it hurts. But not as much as you thought it might. Just a little pressure, a slight pinch. But you’re wet enough that he just slides in easily, and the sound. Oh, God, the sound! It’s slick and dirty and so delicious.

Eddie groans at the perfect slide, at the velvety feeling of your walls around him, so tight, little stars appear in his vision. His arms are braced by your head, causing his hair to become a curtain around you, unable to see anything else but him. Unable to feel anything else but him.

His thrusts are slow and so, so deep. He reaches a place inside of you you hadn’t known existed before tonight.

Your hands come up around his neck and tangle in his hair at the base of his neck.

“You like being full, sweetheart?” Eddie asks, bringing his hand up to brush the sweat off your brow.

“Y-yes…Oh, God,” You moan when his thrusts become harder. Not any faster, just harder, slamming right into a glorious spot inside of you. “There! Right there!”

“Oh, that’s it, huh? There you go…I know, baby, I got you,” He says, repeatedly thrusting in at the same rhythm and angle, hitting that wonderful spot every single time. Then, he brings one of his hands down and starts to toy with your clit again. Most of the sensitivity you had felt earlier is gone now. It only intensifies your pleasure.

“Fuck! Feels good.”

“Yeah? Gonna cum again?”

“Mhm, please!”

“Okay, sweet thing, okay,” Eddie consoles, far sweeter than before as he continues rubbing your clit. And it feels good, but something is missing. And you’re so far gone by now that you feel no shame when you say: “Want you to be mean again. Please.”

Chucking darkly, Eddie applies more pressure into your clit and you nearly scream.

“Now that’s pathetic. You’re just a dumb slut who needs to be bullied in order to cum, is that it?”

“Yes!” You admit.

Eddie’s thrusts become quicker now as his thumb flies over your clit. He moans, head falling into the crook of your neck, trying his hardest not to cum just yet.

“Cum for me then. Cum for your master like the good, stupid slut you are,” Eddie demands in a strained voice, his hips crashing into yours with a force that shoves you further up the bed.

It’s that which pushes you over. His meanness and his dirty pace and rhythm. Cumming for the second time tonight, your ears ring and you can’t even hear yourself whining as you gush all over his cock, clenching around him, feeling deliciously full of him.

Vaguely, after a moment, you hear Eddie’s voice. Something like, such a good girl, did so well. Slowly, you come back to the world, and you can feel him inside of you still. Still hard.

Eddie is stroking your cheek softly with his clean thumb.

“There she is,” He says when your eyes finally focus on him. You smile lazily up at him, drunk on his cock. “Feelin’ good?”

“Mhm,” You hum, totally blissed out, ready to pass out right this second.

“Good. Cause we’re gonna do it again. Because you, my sweet thing, owe me one more.”

[reasonsforhope]

"At HarperCollins, a lot of attention and thought is given to deciding exactly what combinations of margin measurements, font, and layout feel most appropriate for the genre, and writing style.

But in a case of do-your-part environmentalism, designers at the publishing house have now standardized a series of subtle and imperceptible alterations to normal font style, layouts, and ink that have so far removed the need for 245 million book pages, totaling 5,618 trees.

Telling the story in Fast Company, representatives from HarperCollins, one of the four largest publishing houses in the world, explained that the idea first arose in Zondervan Bibles, HarperCollins’ Christian publishing division. Being that the Bible is 2,500 pages or sometimes more, saving ink and pages was not just an environmental consideration, but one of production costs.

A new typeface called NIV Comfort Print allowed Zondervan to shave 350 pages off of every Bible, which by 2017 had amounted to 100 million pages, and which, as Fast Company points out, would be four times higher than the Empire State Building if stacked.

The production and design teams then wondered how much they could save if they applied the same concepts to other genres like romance and fiction. Aside from the invention of the eBook, publishing hasn’t changed much in the last 100 years, and the challenge was a totally novel one for the teams—to alter all their preconceived ideas and try and find a font and typeface that resulted in fewer pages without being harder to read.

They eventually standardized 14 different combinations their tests determined were the most environmentally friendly, and which delivered an unchanged reading experience.

But the challenge didn’t stop there. Printed books, one might not know, are printed in large sheets which are then folded into sections of sixteen pages, meaning that Leah Carlson-Stanisic, associate director of design at HarperCollins, has to calculate the savings of space, words, and ultimately pages with the help of her team to fall in multiples of sixteen.

Nevertheless, they have been successful with it so far, and in the recent print run of one popular book, 1 million pages (or a number near 1 million that coincides with the 16 times tables) were saved.

“We want to make sure our big titles, by prominent authors, are using these eco-fonts,” Carlson-Stanisic said. “It adds up a little bit at a time, saving more and more trees.”"

-via Good News Network, April 4, 2024

--

Note: Great! Waiting to see this on the rest of their books and at the other big publishers!

Actually, though, it's worth noting that this may not come quickly to the other large publishers, because Harper Collins almost certainly owns that font - meaning that other publishers would have to pay HarperCollins in order to use it, on an ongoing basis.

More on publishing shit and more realistic solutions here below the cut!

What I'm hoping for and think is more likely is that this will inspire the development of open source eco-friendly fonts, which would be free for anyone to use. That would make it far more likely other publishers would adopt eco-friendly fonts.

I'm also hoping it would inspire other publishers to create similar eco-friendly fonts of their own.

Ideally, there would be a whole new landscape of (hopefully mostly open source) eco-friendly fonts. And/or to see calculations of the eco-friendliness of popular existing fonts, compared to each other.

If we could have a publicly accessible list of calculations for different fonts, including fonts designed to maximize eco-friendliness, I really do think that it would affect which fonts publishers choose to use. Here's why:

Most people in publishing are on the left (notoriously, actually) and really do care about the environment

People in publishing are plenty aware of these issues re: paper and trees, I promise

Shorter books means smaller production costs - and possibly smaller shipping costs as well, over time! So it would save them money too.

Eco-friendly fonts could also be combined with other measures for greater effect, such as bamboo paper (already in use for a lot of projects where page color/quality is more flexible) and thinner paper (aka paper with a lower weight) that uses less trees.

Don't expect books to all move to just one or two different fonts, though. Publishers and typesetters and font designers will innovate to create more options instead, though it will take longer. This is because different books really do use different fonts for various different reasons - one new font to rule them all isn't really a solution here.

"Every book is in the same font" may sound like a "whatever" deal to a lot of people, but as someone who works in publishing - trust me, it would actually make your reading experience worse, even if you could never quite put your finger on why.

[sanguineterrain]

Hii I am more of a silent reader but really want to start making requests but if you don't like this request you totally don't have to do it. All so if this is too long sorry.

So maybe a Jason prompt with "why not them why me" like they have been spending more time with the Bat boys, making Jason jealous. They confesses they did it to be liked by her boyfriend's family.

Hey anon! Thanks for the request. I tweaked it a little, but it's got the same theme you requested. Hope you like!

jason todd x gn!reader. jealous/sad jason, happy ending, proposal, established relationship. he's the goodest boy. ft the batbros.

****

It's close to nine PM when Dick finally drops you off home.

You turn to Damian first and hold out your hand, expecting him to give you his usual handshake goodbye.

Instead, Damian pats your shoulder and gives you a nod. You blink, startled.

"Today was enjoyable," he says, holding the book about saltwater creatures that he got from the zoo. "I will inform Todd that he has chosen well."

In Damian speak, you may as well have gotten a hug and a blessing.

"Oh," you say, trying not to tear up. "Thank you, Damian. I had a good time, too. Thank you both for spending the day with me."

"This was a test," Damian says, and Dick rolls his eyes in the rear view mirror.

"Dami, stop calling it a test. It wasn't a test."

"Richard, I don't know why you insist on lying. They obviously have figured out that it was a test. In any case, they've passed, so it doesn't matter."

You hide a smile as Dick gives up and gets out of the car. He opens your door.

"I'll see you later, Damian," you say. "Good luck with your science test."

"I do not need luck," Damian replies. "But I appreciate the sentiment. Goodbye."

You follow Dick into your apartment building. You're happy; last week, you spent the day with Tim and Cassandra. The week before that, you officially met Bruce and Alfred.

Dick and Damian were the last "test," and the ones you were most nervous about. From what Jason's told you about his family, Dick and Damian, while total opposites in temperament, are extremely shrewd in their judgments of character, and not easy to please. For all that Dick is friendly and warm, you know he's studying your every move to ensure that you're a good match for his little brother. Not that you blame them; you're sure that being children of a billionaire has resulted in some awful dates.

Today was your fourth outing with Dick, and your second with Damian. At first, Damian seemed totally closed off to you, which you understood. You're his brother's partner; what twelve year old gives a shit about that?

But you feel you've made good progress today. You feel like the Wayne's really like you, and don't just tolerate you because they have to.

"Please don't listen to him," Dick says while you wait for the elevator. "Damian thinks every social interaction is a test. We're working on it."

"It's okay," you say, because it is. "I get it. I'm glad I passed."

Dick shakes his head. "It was never a matter of passing. We thought you were great the first time Jason introduced you to us."

"Dick..." You melt at that, both out of relief and fondness. Dick is probably your favorite one of Jason's brothers, after Damian, of course. He's the most sympathetic to your attempts at connecting with the family and the one who's the gentlest with you.

He smiles, all sunshine, and you're abruptly glad that Jason has a family like this one.

"Are you gonna ask him this week?" Dick asks.

You bite your lip, unable to hide your smile. "I think so. What do you think?"

"I think it's perfect. He doesn't like all that fuss. And you'll be letting him know that you want to marry just him. Not when you're dressed up, on a date, but all of him."

"I do," you say, voice thick. "I do want that, D."

He nods, eyes soft. "I know. I'll see you next week," he says. "Don't worry about the dinner, okay? You're practically family now. And I expect to see a ring!"

He pulls you into a quick hug, and you sag in relief. You did well. It's been confirmed.

"Thank you," you say softly.

The elevator doors open. Dick lets you go, and you wait for the doors to close before you go to your apartment.

"You're out late."

You jump, almost dropping your bag of zoo souvenirs. Jason is leaning against the couch, arms folded. You laugh a little, holding your chest.

"Jay, you scared me! Jeez."

You go to him and lean in for a kiss. He dodges you, slipping away to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

You blink owlishly, trying to process what just happened.

"Um," you begin. "Is everything okay?"

"So where was it this time?" Jason asks. "Escape room? Art museum? Some other place you can't be seen with me?"

"Jason, what are you talking about?"

He finally looks at you. His gaze is intense, lethal. It makes you take a step back. He turns away.

"Where'd you go today? And be honest."

"We went to the zoo, and then we went to dinner. Me, Dick, and Damian. Jay, what's this about?"

Jason looks up. His gaze is no longer lethal; now it's just melancholy.

"Are you with me to get to them?" he asks.

"Get to who?"

"The Bats. Gotham's finest. Bruce Wayne's rag-tag group of orphans he can't stop collecting."

"Are you asking me if I'm in this relationship to get to your family?" you ask, unable to keep the frustration out of your voice.

"Yes. That's exactly what I'm asking. I'm asking if you like my media-trained, not-undead family who you can actually spend time with publicly. I'm asking if you like my Boy Wonder brother, who'd probably show you a better time than I can."

"Jason Wayne, I have never cheated on you or thought about cheating on you. With Dick or anyone else," you say firmly. "Now, what's this about?"

Jason's face falls.

"You're right," he says quietly. "That was stupid 'f me to say. I know you're faithful, baby."

He won't look you in the eye now. It is reminiscent of the beginning of your relationship when Jason would retreat whenever you argued. It wasn't until you confronted him about it that you learned that he thought every argument was your last and that you'd break up with him the next day.

"Jay," you say, getting closer. "Something's obviously bothering you. Talk to me, please."

He stays quiet. You get close enough to touch him, but you don't, in case he's not ready to be touched yet.

"Why me?" he rasps.

"Why you what?"

He takes a sharp breath. "Why not them? Why me? Why d'you bother with me?"

"Jay, baby, where's this coming from? I don't bother with you, I love you. I am in a relationship with you because I want to be."

"You've hung out with them this whole month," he mumbles. "And I know we can't go out anytime 'cause I'm technically dead, but I just—I mean, we could work something out if you really wanna go. I wanna do that stuff with you too."

"Jason, no, no," you say, and reach for him. This time, he lets you pull him into a hug, and you kiss his chin. He makes a soft sound in his throat.

"Oh, honey, is that what this is about? You think I'm replacing you?"

"'S happened before," he mumbles, and you screw your face up so you won't cry at that.

"Jason, I—" You take a deep breath and release him until you're holding his hands. "Fuck me, I guess there's no time like the present."

Jason squints. "What're you—"

"I met them to ask for their blessing," you say before you can lose your nerve. "I hung out with them because I wanted to make sure they'd like me, and I should've told you, but I wanted to keep it a surprise."

"Keep what a surprise? Sweetheart, what's—"

You let go of Jason's hands and get down on one knee. Jason's eyes go wide.

"Holy fuck," he says, and you laugh wetly.

"Jaybird, we've been together for a long time, and I'm positive that you're the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. I hung out with your family this month so I could be sure that we'd get along. Because I know they're important to you, even if you have your rough patches."

"Holy fuck," Jason says again, eyes glassy.

You smile and pull out the black velvet box with the ring that Alfred had helped you choose.

"Jason Wayne, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you—mmph!"

Jason is on you in an instant, and the box tumbles from your hand. He presses you to the floor and kisses you hard, his hands squeezing your waist.

"Jay, this part is supposed to come after we get married, not before," you say when he finally lets you break for air.

"What can I say? Commitment gets me hot."

You wrap your arms around his neck, comfortable under him. Jason kisses you again, softer and sweeter.

"So is that a yes?" you ask.

"It's an emphatic yes, oui, si, ja, da..."

"Okay, I get it, Bruce put you in private school," you say, rolling your eyes. Jason pinches your hip and you squeal.

He rolls you over so you're atop him.

"I'm sorry I said those things," he says. "I didn't—I know you wouldn't do that. I was just upset, but I shouldn't have accused you out of anger."

"I forgive you," you say and kiss his temple. "It's not the last fight we'll have, and if I was afraid of a few arguments, I wouldn't ask you to marry me, Jay. Thank you for communicating."

"Fuck, I love ya," he whispers, and hugs you tighter.

"Ditto!" you say, and he snorts.

"So my entire family knows I'm getting married then, huh?"

"What? No. I only told Dick."

Jason laughs. "Yeah. Everybody definitely knows."

"Jay, I didn't mean..."

"Aw, baby, no, it's okay. I never thought I'd actually make it this far, so it's really okay." He kisses your nose when you start to frown. "And I'm the first Wayne to get married for real. Suck it, B!"

"Please don't put that in your vows, Jay."

Jason grins so hard, his cheeks puff out.

"No promises, fiance."

[gloomy--angel]

Decrypting the fragmented messages from Martyn‘s PiratesSMP finale (I‘m back with lore brainrot yay!)

———

In his stream there‘s 6 messages he gets with only parts revealed. The rest looks like this with the strange symbols always changing.

(example)

So here’s all the timestamps for the messages & what I’ve been able to get from them. I can‘t ensure they are correct. (The text in italics is stuff that I‘m still unsure about & the rows of 5s are the words I haven‘t been able to decrypt. I‘ll explain why that is below.)

- - 1:15:21 - -

Martyn!?

- - 1:38:48 - -

That has to be you? What took you so long to get out here?

- - 1:46:38 - - (message confirmed by martyn)

There isn‘t much time left! You‘ll be alright so long as you hurry.

- - 1:47:43 - -

C.H.E.S.T have taken an invention/infection and tweaked it. The world got locked in. Iris 5555 failsafe 555 di5 t5e5 5i555.

Edit: You could get locked in. is another solution I found. I think this might fit better.

- - 1:59:47 - -

The portal is close. We can‘t risk them seeing it. 55 5555 a distraction so you can slip away.

- - 2:13:05 - -

Be swift, keep calm & remember your training. Ill only be able to keep it open n for a few more minutes then I‘d have to quarantine this world.

———

I‘ll try my best to explain how I got to these results now (I hope this explanation makes sense to someone lol)

Firstly I looked at all these messages, screen recorded them and then did some research on how to even make them look like this. I found a tutorial and during this video I noticed that not every fragmented letters looks the same. They are based on the width of the original text. An i is a very slim letter so the fragmented (or as it is apparently called, obfuscated) text would be slim as well. The opposite goes for a wide letter like w and d which will result in a wide fragmented character.

With this info and the example message Martyn revealed I was able to test and confirm this. Every fragmented symbol has a set width, reaching from 1 to 5 pixels. The fragmented characters constantly change, but they always stay the same size. So all I had to do now was skip through my recordings of the messages and find frames where the I can count the pixels of every missing character and write the number down. It took very long and I had to check several times because I kept making mistakes and miscounting. But I got these results:

- Message 2: 5553 has 35 55 you! 5553 3554 you 55 2555 to 553 553 here?

- Message 4: C.H.E.S.T 5555 2545n 55 155e53155 555 3w5545d 131 555 5o525 553 25c455 151 3515 5555 failsafe 555 di5 35e5 515551 

- Message 5: 555  555352 15 52o551  55  55523 r154 t555  555155  131 55 5555 5 51535a53155 55 555 555 5l15 away.

- Message 6: 55 s51431 k555 5525 5 55555555 55u5 355151551 3ll 5525 55 5525  35 4555 i3 5555 n 455 5 few 5555 min5355 5he5 325 5555 35 quarantine 3515 55525111

(didn’t do 1 & 3 because 1 was kinda obvious and 3 was already revealed. )

Now I know the amount of missing characters & how many pixels wide they are. In the minecraft text font almost all characters are five pixels wide, as you see above. But there are a few outliers:

4 pixels: lowercase k & f

3 pixels: lowercase t and uppercase i

2 pixels: lowercase L and apostrophes (there is also a 1 pixel apostrophe but it doesn‘t seem like it‘s used here)

1 pixel: lower i as well as dots, exclamation marks and commas

With this I was able to read some of the missing letters. The rest was guessing. Or I guess using wordle solvers and other websites to find fitting words. That’s how I got to the results above.

———

Additional notes on the messages:

— I don‘t know if the word in message 4 for is invention or infection. I think both would work. Infection could mean some kind of virus?

— Iris is the only word I could find that would fit with a capital i (and make sense in the context of pirates) but I haven‘t been able to form a logical sentence with it. I‘m assuming it is a capital letter because it‘s a new sentence. But it could technically be a t. (if anyone has ideas on this pls tell me..)

— Don‘t know what the missing words in message 5 are. I don‘t think they would change the meaning greatly though. (make doesn‘t work bc k is 4 pixels)

— The italics words in message 6 I‘m still a bit unsure about. There is some other word groups that could fit, but none of them made much sense in the whole sentence. I do think it’s possible that I‘m wrong there.

— Edit, bc I forgot to add this. But I don‘t know why there is a singular n in message 6. It is either a strange way to shorten and which would not match the rest of the writing style at all or it is a typo which I don‘t think is that unlikely tbh. I think the way the message would have to be written (with commands I assume) would make it easy to make a mistake there, so maybe it is just the n from open.

— Edit 2: Missing part in message 5 might be "We need a distraction …" (suggestion from @.ilexdiapason)

———

I am honestly very surprised that I got this far. Not what I was expecting when I started this. Obviously these messages weren‘t intended to be decrypted like his — which is why I don‘t think I will ever figure out the full messages — but I wanted to try anyway. Martyn has said he‘ll reveal them at some point so I guess I‘ll find out how correct I am. I definitely had my fun with this, also big thanks to the two people (once and percival) in Martyns discord that were replying to my messages while I was doing this lol <3

[rc-writes]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐥𝐚𝐰 || 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐨

𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨 | 𝙩𝙖𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢 | 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙤𝙣𝙚 | 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙗𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙙

pairings: jj maybank x reader

warnings: mentions of jj getting in a fight & he gets a black eye, slight use of cursing

a/n: hey, guess who's still alive!! i've been meaning to make a part two to this for over a year now but could not come up with a good enough storyline and it ended up going on my never ending to do lists :/ fortunately however season 4 seems to have jump started the gears in my brain because i thought up the entire outline for this in like two minutes the other night lol. anyways, i hope this follow up does part one justice!

When the midday bell rang signaling for everyone to either go to lunch or go home, you all but practically ran out of the building. Your attempt at trying to find JJ at school before first period and during class changes had failed and due to the strict deadline for the mural of two weeks you didn't have time to look around for him before you left. You hoped he might skip lunch or even the rest of the day to meet you at the restaurant.

Your hope slowly shattered piece by piece as the hours went by and the blonde boy hadn't shown. His previous attempt at painting a chicken still on the wall being a stark reminder of his absence. You hadn't had the heart to paint over it yet, leaving it for him to maybe continue tweaking it.

This situation then repeated day after day for a whole week.

You searching the halls of Kildare County High School before school and during changeovers, even deciding to spend a few extra minutes during lunch one day to maybe spot him somewhere. You thinking maybe, just maybe you'd turn the corner by the restaurant and he'd be there standing, waiting for you. And each day you found no trace of him.

Maybe because you only went half of the day and maybe you two just had wildly different classes on different sides of the building made for you two to keep missing each other. Maybe you had walked past him a million times and just hadn't spotted him in the crowd of students walking to and from classes. Maybe considering when you first met him, he was in the middle of skipping school so maybe he just wasn't there to begin with. Though this didn't explain why he was never there at the resultant.

By the fourth day of you coming up empty you had decided to ask around to see who his friends were. The only reason as to why you hadn't before was because it felt too desperate, but now you were bordering on being desperate.

Upon finding out he spent most of his time hanging out with the same three people, you spent another day staying a few minutes after your dismissal time to look for them at lunch. Soon enough you found one of them, a taller guy with curly hair that you hadn't forgotten the name of, but he only said he hadn't seen JJ around. Which you would have believed if it wasn't for him pausing for a long moment and adding in one too many 'uh's that left you to believe he was lying.

Now you felt like shit. Here you were thinking you had made friends with this cute, funny guy who actually seemed to care about your work, but it seemed like he had ditched you after only talking for a day. And it was one thing to get ghosted, another to have his friends also seemingly lying about his whereabouts.

Safe to say you had spent the fourth day wallowing in your own self-pity as you continued working on the mural, still refusing to paint over his contribution.

The truth was that JJ was also wallowing in his own self-pity from not that far away.

A few feet away actually.

In the public library across the street.

As he pretended to read some history book he found on a random shelf.

While instead of reading he spent the entire time he was there just watching you paint from the window.

Man, he felt like such a creep spying at you from afar through the half-tinted library windows, but it was to make sure you were safe from the assholes who wouldn't know great talent even if it slapped them in the face.

The reason for all of this was that he did actually show up the day after you guys' first meeting. He even made it a point to show up extra early so he could admire what you had painted after he had left the day before and surprise you when you arrived. But this exact time ended being the same time some group of guys showed up just to tag the wall.

At first JJ walked directly up to them to kindly explain that the mural was actually the work of someone who put in a lot of time and effort into it, but then things got a bit heated when the guys continued to pull out cans of spray paint. Saying something about how they were getting back at the fancy restaurant stealing customers from family business on the other side of the island. They didn't care if it was actual art made by the same people they claim to be helping as long as it meant hurting the people with money too.

Long story short JJ ended up with a black eye and a busted lip, but it was all worth it to him because the guys decided they no longer cared about the wall. It was all worth it up until he spotted you turning the corner down the street and he realized he did not want you to see him all beat up and so he quickly went off down the other side of the block.

He couldn't let you see him looking like this on the second time you two ever saw each other. What if you took one look at him and just automatically assumed the worst? What if you just saw him as just another asshole who got into fights every other day just for the hell of it? Yes, he had gotten into many in the past like just now, but it was all because someone he cared about was going to get hurt otherwise.

Oh god now that he thought about it, in just one day you had become someone he cared about and now he was definitely not going to confront you with this information on day two of knowing each other. What if you thought that was way too forward and pushed him away?

Something in his mind told him you didn't seem like the person to just make assumptions and turn him away without any explanation. That even if you thought it was too weird, you would probably just kindly reject him. But the mere thought of that being a wrong assumption was too much to handle and so he just decided to avoid you completely.

He had to admit that the idea sounded pretty stupid, but he didn't know what else to do. He wasn't good with feelings stuff or new people. Maybe you didn't even have a good time the day before and didn't care he was there again this time.

And so JJ had his own routine he stuck to for the week. Diving into the nearest classroom when he saw you walking in his direction at school, even if that meant accidentally interrupting a class or two almost on a daily basis. Pleading again and again to his friends to not tell you where he was if you asked, even though they continued to tell him he was being over dramatic. That you'd most likely understand what happened. Going to the library across the street every day after school and then leaving once he saw that you had left.

This was the same routine he continued to repeat on the fifth day since you had met. After pretending to browse the library for the hundredth time he saw that you had left and began to make his way across the street to admire your work up close.

Unknowingly to him however was that you had made it just around the corner before realizing you left one of your paintbrushes on the sidewalk and turned back around to go get it. Good bigger brushes were expensive and hard to come by so there was no way you were just going to leave it there.

Once you turned back around the corner you couldn't believe you were staring at JJ just standing there in front of the wall. His messy hair was shielding you from seeing his face, but you could recognize him anywhere. He really did leave such an impression on you in just the hour or two you talked a few days ago.

"JJ?" You called out as you walked closer to him.

JJ just about jumped out of his skin when he heard your voice. He definitely thought you were long gone by now. Instinctively he turned towards you and then quickly turned back around so you couldn't see his face.

The next minute or two was you two practically spinning in circles as you tried to face him directly and he tried his damn best to make sure you didn't. Eventually you moved fast enough to get in front of him and saw the reason for his avoidance.

You couldn't help but gasp softly when you saw the half-healed bruise across his eye. "JJ what happened?" You instinctively began to reach for his face, but he softly blocked you with his hands.

"It's fine, I'm fine. I've had worse," He tried to fake a smile, but it faded as quickly as it appeared when he saw a new flash of worry come across your face. Shit why did he say that?

"I- bad wording, sorry." He added quickly. "I just mean it's fine, nothing I can't handle."

You shook your head slightly, not having it for his attempt at brushing this off. "JJ just tell me what happened."

He just stared into your eyes for a moment. Man were they pretty and also dangerous. He'd swear that he would have admitted to whatever you wanted him to if you kept looking at him like that.

Eventually he sighed, running his hand through his hair as he closed his eyes briefly and then opened them again when he decided to just tell you the truth.

JJ then explained what had happened with the taggers in a rollercoaster of emotions. One moment he'd pretend to reenact a moment dramatically before realizing that might worry you more, so he'd then cut the explanation short and brush it off as if it was nothing.

You would have laughed at his back and forth if it wasn't for the genuine worry that had overtaken you. As he explained the whole ordeal you couldn't help but feel bad that you had automatically assumed the worst of him. That his avoidance of you was all because he was just some asshole, when in reality it was really the complete opposite.

"You tried to take on four guys by yourself for me?" You questioned once he finished telling the story. He nodded, a thin smile on his face. "JJ that is incredibly stupid but also incredibly sweet in an odd way."

"I couldn't just let them ruin all your hard work." He shrugged it off as if it was something just anyone would do.

You couldn't help the smile that spread across your face, shaking your head in disbelief that anyone cared enough to literally fight for you.

"Just next time call for backup or something, so you don't get hurt again." You gestured to his bruised eye.

It was at this moment you yourself realized how much you began to care about him already. It seemed to just be incredibly easy and right to get attached to him so quickly. Though your moping around all week should have been your first sign to this.

"I'll try, but I make no promises." JJ flashed a stupid grin at you that even though you hadn't known him long you could just tell it was a signature move for him. You couldn't help but playfully shove at his shoulder, the both of you laughing.

"Alright now to make up for avoiding me for a week I must demand that you be here one o'clock sharp tomorrow to continue helping me get this painting done." You spoke in an exaggerated fake drill sergeant voice as you pointed to the half-finished mural.

JJ quickly responded in character, raising his hand up in a salute. It was clear as day that he was holding back a grin, the corners of his mouth twitching. "Aye, aye capt'n! Will do!"

You couldn't help but laugh more. "Pretty sure that's how you'd respond to a pirate not a commander."

"No, I'm pretty sure it can be both."

"Yeah, okay Maybank. Sure." You nodded, laughing.

You couldn't believe you made it a whole week without ever talking to him. Hell, you didn't know how you've gone your whole life without him in it. Come to think of it, you weren't sure if you've laughed this much just in the last month alone before you met him.

The one thing you did know, however, was that you were determined to have him stick around for the rest of it, whether he liked it or not. Though something in the way he looked at you made it not very hard to see that he definitely would like to.

[beyondflashpoint]

Yoooooooo.

I’ve been bitten by the bug, and ye olde nostalgia got me thinking about Danny Phantom again, so I decided to play into that. I recently found the Show’s Pitch Bible, and it got me thinking about how I’d handle the reboot. On top of tweaking Jack and Maddie to make them less bumbling morons and more eccentric geniuses, I’d be aging up the crew, and settling Amity Park in Arkham County up New England way.

Danny, as you can probably tell from his human design, would be somewhat milquetoast, with grungy alternative leanings. Good at science, bad at math. Danny is, at his core, a good kid who loves his family. But he is still a kid.

I’ll probably go into them more as I work on the other characters, but I want to give Tucker, Sam, Jazz, and the Fenton parents more to do, even if it is just in the background. But for now, the Fenton parents definitely have only recently started Fenton Works. It’s been a lifelong dream, and between the two of them they’ve reached a point with their savings that it’s now a possibility. Maddie is a respected physicist, and Jack is… a bit of everything really. Test pilot, super spy, but mostly he’s an engineer. Maddie figures out how a thing works, and Jack can build it. The world of academia was… shocked when the most prominent scientific super couple announced they would be devoting the rest of their lives to pursuing superstitious pseudoscience, and this announcement has called their previous credibility into question, but no one can deny that Dr and Mister Fenton get results, if anyone can prove the existence of the supernatural, it’s the Fentons. Both are haunted by a supernatural experience from their youth.

Tucker Foley would probably have escaped the nerd label by his sheer programming and tech repair skills alone, if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s also a total anime geek, and a self proclaimed furry. Tucker is an unabashed nerd, and not the suave tv friendly type. Cosplays, ttrpg, mmos, comic and action figure collecting, you name it, he does it. Proudly. And he’s been Danny’s best friend since they were in diapers. Inevitably some of that has rubbed off on Danny.

Sam Manson is relatively new in town. She moved in with her grandmother midway through freshman year after things finally came to a head with her super conservative parents. Falling somewhere between socialist and anarchist, classic goth and punk, Sam is a rebel, an activist, and everything your parents warned you about. She’s also the coolest person Danny and Tucker know. Sam has a borderline obsession with the occult, ghosts, demons, witches, you name it, she can’t get enough of it. Which may or may not have something to do with a family secret relating to why certain members of the Manson family have purple eyes?

Jazmine Fenton is Danny’s smarter, prettier older sister. Fascinated by psychology, and obsessed with figuring out the inner workings of the mind. In high school she was a geek. In college she is thriving. Fortunately, Fenton Works is close to the university she’s attending, and that means she’s never far from home, and more importantly never far from her family. Though her relationship with her parents is rocky, she’s been trying to mend fences after getting some perspective on the world. She and Danny were close growing up, and shared everything, so his recent trend of playing everything close to his chest is unnerving for her. She doesn’t understand when she stopped be Danny’s best friend.

That’s alls I gots for now. Maybe I’ll play around with writing a fic, or maybe a comic or something. We’ll see how this all develops.

[milesgmoralles]

Hi! Do you mind sharing your coloring tutorial or tips? especially for the animation ones, they're so good! your gifs are crisp and HD

hi, anon. tysm! 🫶 i don't mind at all since i’ve gotten more than a few requests from before, ig it's time to give it a go. (more) details are under the cut. 😁

before we start, i want you to take note of the following things that will be helpful in the process of making/coloring gifs.

if you want to get the know-how on making gifs, @redbelles did us a solid and gave us this comprehensive guide that will save me the time for explaining lmao. 😅✌️

make gifsets without skipping frames. keep frame delay 0.05 and 0.06 for less than 25 frames. anything more or less is too fast or too slow. additionally, it's also important to note that if you're dealing w videos that are faster than 30fps you change the frame delay to 0.04.

gif using the the new dimensions (in this tutorial i used the dimensions of 540px x 510px since it's all about big gifs now 🙄).

use the standard sharpening settings (smart sharpen, amount 500%, radius 0.3px, remove gaussian blur and tick more accurate) also note the sharpening settings for 2d as you've specifically requested.

 you can use action that will convert your gif back to frames and set your timing to 0.05 with a single click. basically photoshop will follow out all of these time-consuming steps for you! just download the action and double click it. it should now be added to your list of actions.  to see your actions, go to window > actions. find the folder that says "GIF ACTION" and select the lines that says "CLICK HERE" and voila! ps will do all the hard work for you.

the coloring on your gifs will look good if you have a good base so try not to skip on video qualities. use high quality copies like 1080p or 2160p (4k ones are good) the higher the gb the better. it makes coloring so much easier and reduces grains.

*cracks knuckles* let's start!

for 2d animation's sharpening settings, it usually varies so i just move the amount around and see what looks or works better for a specific gif. i used amount: 189 and radius: 0.2 for this ponyo gif. anything can work between 189 to 350 for me but i maintain the radius at 0.2. again, you can just play the amount around until you find the one that looks good for your gif.

when i’m making gifs. i look for that notorious contrast between the light and dark parts. i think it gives life to the gif- so exposure, levels and curves are best to achieve that. for curves, just go to layer > new adjustment layer > curves. this layer is going to help brighten up the gif in certain areas, and darken others. select the white eyedropper. click the lighter part of the gif like the white/light part of the ship.

next, select the black eyedropper and click on a black/dark area of the gif (refer to the arrow bc i don't know which part of the ship is that called lmao).

you can skip the black eyedropper if you're already satisfied w the result of the white one.

color balance and selective color are your two best buddies. they’re great when you’re trying to change some tones or specific colors of the gif, like the skin tone which is very tricky.

using selective color is pretty simple, here’s a really useful guide:

if you pull any of the tabs to the right, it increases the amount of color (cyan, magenta, yellow and black), and reduces the amount of opposite color (red, green, blue and white).

i also use the blacks and whites in selective color especially if the gif is saturated w colors to tone down some parts and make shadows more visible (idk if this is still making sense 😅).

in working with color balance, i use midtones and highlights sparingly. it's really helpful in removing or balancing out a certain tone.

here's my save setting ⬆️

idk why but ps puts the default frame delay to 0.07/0.03 so open your gif in ps again and don't forget to change the delay to 0.05.

and we're done!

i sometimes go back and forth and do some tweaking until i’m satisfied with the result. this is how i color and i know it’s not perfect but i learn by constant practice. there’s really no standard in coloring so you can make yours the way you like it. just enjoy- until you get the hang of it and it becomes less daunting (or something like that). i hope this helps. if you have more questions, my askbox is always open 😊.

[aesethewitch]

"First comes the working, then comes the work." Alright @witchquests.

I think there are two ways to interpret this statement. The first is: the magic is done, it's out in the world; now, put your feet to the pavement and make it happen. This is true in my practice -- simply wishing for something or casting a spell about it won't make something happen for nothing.

Magic and casting spells alters the chances of something else happening. A banishment reduces the chances of whoever (or whatever) you've banished from showing up. A cleansing spell improves the chances of something (or someone) leaving your space. A shield spell improves the chances of you reflecting or avoiding negativity in your daily life. A success spell improves the chances of getting a new job.

But if you're not putting job applications in, you won't get the job. If you aren't asking the thing to leave your space during the cleansing, it won't work. If you don't block that asshole, they're going to keep messaging you.

Magical actions bolster mundane actions. You cannot create something from nothing, and you cannot force the future into shape. That isn't how it works. You can influence it, and you can make changes. Magic + Mundane = Improved Results.

The second interpretation is perhaps not what was originally intended. After your spell working is done, it's time to work on the spell. You can't just set it free into the wild and let that be that. Well, alright, you can. But you won't improve at all doing that.

I'm a firm believer in the power of taking notes and writing shit down. By far the best way to improve your magical practice, cast better and more powerful spells, and learn what you really believe is to write it down.

Eventually, I'll talk about my note-taking methods in more detail because it really was a game changer. But the essence of it is to write down all the details of the working. That includes when you originally decide to do it (and when you're writing the notes), when you plan to cast it, ingredients/materials, the type of working it is, who or what you plan to invoke, and WHY you are planning on doing the working. And that's all before you even do the spell!

During the spell, you keep notes. Write it all down. Something weird happens? Write it down. Candle flickering? Write it down. Felt a shiver down your spine? Write it down! Nothing strange happened at all, and it all went smoothly? Write. It. Down.

And then you take more notes afterwards! How do you know a spell is working? How are you tracking it? I have a formalized system for this sort of thing that adapts to different types of spells. Write down how you feel afterwards, physically, emotionally, spiritually, energetically, whatever. Write down any thoughts you have. And then come back to it later and see if it all worked.

Spellwork doesn't end just because the spell's done. Keeping notes like this is, in my opinion, essential. Especially for beginners, but experienced practitioners benefit, too. It's the best way to examine your practice as it evolves.

Plus, it's practical -- if you want to go back and do a spell again but have it more efficient/effective, you have all your notes right there. You know what you did because you wrote it down. And now, you can tweak the process. Do it differently. Try different ingredients. Do another method. Work with another paradigm.

Etc.

[yellowocaballero]

Literally so excited to see the revamped no chip au!!!! Can't wait to see what changes you'll make and what it will look like as a more cohesive story/anthology!! <3

Hi. Sorry it took so long to get back to this. As established, if I'm on the computer for more than 10 minutes and not currently doing my job then I have been writing Star Wars fanfiction.

There's quite a bit of changes - some of which are subtle, some of which definitely are not. They're all major to me, but I wonder to what extent some of the changes will be immediately apparent. The nature of writing long stories is that your understanding of the characters, world, and what you're trying to say changes throughout the course of writing it, and as a result sometimes the end can look very different from the beginning. I'm mostly circling back around and a) changing the end to look closer to what I envisioned it as and what I couldn't fully express, and b) changing the beginning to fit in better with the end. I can tell that early on in the series I was still thinking of the characters as, basically, their roleswap characters, and I didn't fully incorporate the differences into who they were.

I think a lot of the changes happened because I settled on a few extremely distinct themes, and I needed to tweak the story to fall into line with those themes. Specifically, I decided to really drill down into fascism. What creates fascists, what propagates fascism, how we justify fascism to ourselves, what fascism does to a world and its people, and the long-reaching effects of it. I think this is partly because I just had to approach the central Thing of the story - how do an otherwise good group of people decide to commit genocide and churn a fascist machine - differently than I was approaching it before.

There's something I really like in writing, when a story is about one central thing and the entire story is just a lot of different ways to explore that one central thing. Infinity Train S4 (where every train was a metaphor for the central relationship) and Dungeon Meshi (where every aspect of the world & worldbuilding was viewed through the lens of ecosystems) did this very effectively. So the entire narrative became a way of taking this central idea of fascism and approaching it through a dozen different perspectives and parallels. It's a huge dissection of "why do well-intentioned or basically unevil people do bad things", but as the story develops the dissection gets into "how does a bad person become a good one".

The story is about one other thing, which is Cody (and Cody is, of course, a dissection of fascism too). The entire anthology is basically a an attempt to decode a person. It's a person who rarely appears on screen, and when he is on screen he's either lying or obfuscating. So the person has to be decoded through a great deal of empty spaces. In rewriting, I was able to focus this a great deal: I was able to draw more effective parallels and use more perspectives to drive into a point. I've frequently been able to demonstrate a behavior in one story, and then explain the behavior in another story with another character.

Of course, the story isn't actually about Cody. The narrative is about parenthood - or more specifically the relationships between adults and children. Another really big recurring theme in the story is toxic masculinity, which is of course authoritarianism, which is of course fascism - which is what connects these two themes and also reinforces what lurks underneath both of these topics. But there's something highly personal about the parenthood theme too. There are 100k+ and 9 stories worth of effort into understanding one person because that is the amount of effort a child puts into understanding a parent who has harmed them.

So that's why it's an anthology now! There are now two central themes linking all of the stories together, and they needed to exist in direct relationship to each other in order to fully explore the topic. There's a lot of usage of negative space, and of something only really being shown through parallelism with another story, and a lot of background exploration of characters through their appearances and arcs in other people's stories. Obi-Wan haunts the narrative a lot, and Cody is stealthily the main source of conflict for literally every single story. They don't appear often but they also never leave. But it takes stepping back and looking at literally the entire deal to see the real reason why everything in the entire narrative happened - and it's not because of Obi-Wan or Cody.

[2024-grimoire-challenge]

June Week 3: Circles and Other Shapes

So one of the typical and almost stereotypical things we hear about and see when we get into witchcraft is the magic or the sacred circle. Why is that? This week we're going to be looking into the sacred and magical circle and other shapes and their purposes in magic and witchcraft.

So let's dive in!

Monday - Dissecting and Defining the Circle

Research/ New Page - Let's look into the history of magic circles. What are they? What are they used for? Why do we make them? How do we make them? When do we make them? What do we need in order to make them? Do we need to make them at all? Where do they come from? Can you find any scientific, metaphysical or historical context for magic circle? Is there a difference between a magic circle and a sacred circle? What, if any are the parts of these circles?

Research/ New Page - Herb Study - Pick another herb from your list and dive in. Learn everything you can! From the mundane, to the magical, and beyond. How does it grow? How do your propagate it? Where is it from? What is its history and any legends or myths related to it? What are its associations?

Tuesday - Philosophy of the circle

Research/ New Page - In terms of sacred geometry, and most spiritualities and religions around the world, what does the circle itself represent? Look at philosophers of the recent and distant past, in their beliefs and thoughts what do circles represent? Now think hard about your own beliefs. What do circles represent and mean to you and within your practice? (Think... something along the lines of the "circle of life" kind of an idea. Add these things to your page on circles!

Gem Study/ Other - Pick a gem or another thing you want to study and go deep! Discorver how it is formed, what its used for, what its associations are, and so on!

Wednesday - Applied theory

Practical - Cast a circle! Or at least, if its not part of your craft, sit and meditate on the meaning and purposes of the circles that you've learned above!

Divination/ Journal - Perform a divination reading of any kind, and if you can't do it yourself and would like to, have someone else do it for you! Whatever the reason, and whatever the medium, journal the reading, and the results!

Research - Design - Beyond the fact that it is a circle, how are magic and sacred circles designed? Think Full Metal Alchemist, or Solomon's circles or the magic circles from other pop culture, the runes and sigils, the intricate details within the circles, how have they historically and popularly been designed? How would you design your own?

Thursday - Other Shapes

Research - Look into basic and sacred geometry. What do the various shapes represent? What are they used for, magically speaking, spiritually speaking, and beyond? What are their associations if any? Dig deep into the purposes of the shapes, what are their structural shapes and purposes? How can they be used together? Think about how they work together symbolically? (think things like the Vitruvian Man) and what it means and represents?

Friday - Cast, Tweak Repeat!

Practical - Pick a spell or make a spell and work through it in your lab notebook! What is it you're trying to accomplish? What ingredients and components do you need? What are the steps to the spell? How do you go about preparing? How do you clean up after?

Journal - Record (in your lab notebook) the timing and extra details of spell. Did you wait to do it on a certain day or phase of the moon? Did you do it during a certain kind of weather? Record it all!

The topics weren't quite as heavy this week, but I hope they were thought provoking and helped you figure out a little more about those Sacred Circles we see and hear about! Stay tuned for more prompts! We're about halfway through the year and I appreciate all of you and your continued support and involvement with this project!

-Mod Hazel

[yanderes-galore]

Could you do your prompts 34, 36, and 57 for TMNT 2012 Karai!?

Of course! I love Karai :'). I got help from @okchijt again for the plot! At this point they're sort of like a coauthor for some stories 😅 This takes place/based around Season 3 so it mentions Snake Karai. Darling also already knows Karai by the time the story takes place. I tweaked the original plot given a bit.

Yandere! 2012! Karai Prompts 34, 36, 57

"No one else understands me except you!"

"I'd hate to hurt you but... if you keep this up I might have to."

"You're stuck with me, like it or not."

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Kidnapping implied, Obsession, Stalking, Manipulation, Violence, Forced relationship.

The turtles have always prioritized your safety. Why would they not? They've been your friends ever since you met them with April.

As a result, you've heard of Karai multiple times from them. She's Splinter's original child, a sister of the turtles... and now a mutant snake. Your knowledge of Karai was very limited but you had met her a few times.

It was always brief... but far as you knew associating with her wasn't safe. According to the turtles she was part of The Foot Clan. For the longest time you associated her with danger.

Even when she knew the truth that Shredder was not her father, the alliance you held between you two was thin. Before the mutation incident, before the invasion of New York, you were just beginning to see Karai as a friend.

It hurt you a little to see it happen. You had just gotten over your fear of Karai. Karai even showed some genuine care for you and the others. Although... maybe a bit too much towards you.

You see, even if you were scared and distanced yourself from Karai, you never blamed her. You understand the influence Shredder has on people. You understand it's all she's ever known.

Even when you befriended her you told her that. You told her you know she never meant to hurt her family. For that... you forgive her.

While Leonardo holds a similar view, Karai sees him as a brother. You, on the other hand... she appears to see you as so much more. You just had no idea how much until much later.

To you, you saw her as a friend. Someone you slowly began to trust. She's someone you care for because the turtles do.

Even before Karai's mutation and the Invasion, she never got to tell you how she truly felt. You were already being dragged away by the turtles. She watched you from afar in her snake state, yet felt torn when she couldn't follow you after the Invasion. She wishes she could... but she didn't want to hurt you.

You and Karai didn't see each other until months later. You were still trying to get used to life away from the farm house, although you were happy when the turtles pushed the Krang out of your home. You're thankful to them for protecting you even after all that's happened.

So when they bring up finding Karai again, you quickly join the hunt.

By this point you miss Karai even if you don't know her 100%. A pang of guilt rings in your gut when you think of what she's gone through. Such a thought is enough to push you into looking for her.

The turtles promised to protect you even now when looking for Karai. You don't know the state of her mind, which means the turtles try to stick with you as much as possible. Unfortunately... your plans can always be interrupted.

Rocksteady and Bebop are also ones hunting Karai down. As a result, you became separated from the turtles much to your dismay. They said they'd handle the two, meanwhile you just needed to get to safety. You wish you stayed with April and Casey....

Maybe your separation was fate, as Karai watched you from close-by. Despite her unstable mind, Karai remembers you. She remembers when you were dragged out of the city, she remembers your concern, she remembers how you understand her...

She remembers you're important.

Karai is not blind to the danger you and her are in. If she leaves you alone, Rocksteady and Bebop may harm you. The snake stalks you like a predator... slivering just out of sight while you nervously look for somewhere to go.

Then the snake strikes.

You try to scream but the snake mutant covers your mouth. She can only momentarily swap between snake and human currently, but she tries her best to hold her human form. Your eyes widen when you see her true form and she catches you mumbling her name.

"Stay silent..." She hisses. "I want to protect you."

Talking to you is a pain but she manages. She slips off you and encourages you to follow. You look towards the direction of the turtles and shake your head.

"Karai... where are we going!?"

"Somewhere safe. It's been so long since I've seen you...."

"We have to help the others!" You reason, Karai shakes her head in response.

"They can handle themselves."

"Why am I suddenly your top priority!?"

Karai goes silent before she looks back at you. Her reptilian eyes hold a sadness and frustration in them as she grabs your arm.

"No one else understands me except you!"

Your heart hurts a bit when she says that but you shake your head. You can't go with her. You'd be betraying your friends.

"I'm not going with you, Karai. I'd be betraying the turtles if I left without saying anything. They'd get the wrong idea-"

"Fine." Karai hisses, her form swapping to that of the snake mutant you've been looking for. "I'll just take you with me anyway."

"Karai!?"

The snake lunges for you, quickly constricting your body to the point you can barely breathe. Karai understands the turtles will come to find you at any second. As of now... she doesn't wish to see them in such a state.

She hopes you can help her out if she just takes you with her.

You call for help, you plead against her. Karai only covers your mouth and hisses in your ear.

"I'd hate to hurt you but... if you keep this up I might have to."

The threat to be compliant doesn't seem to work, which leads to Karai constricting you tighter. Karai knows this may be wrong, but all she can focus on is taking you away. Your scent plagues her nose and she squeezes the breathe out of you until you're limp.

Your vision is swimming with black dots, you look around only to see the turtles at a distance. Yet before you give into the darkness of suffocation, you catch Karai say something before letting go.

"You're stuck with me, like it or not."

You reach out weakly to the turtles but they're too far away. The action only alerts Karai to the threat and you feel yourself being dragged away.

You're barely able to feel the dread coursing through your body as you give into unconsciousness.

[moistvonlipwig]

14, 17 and 20 for Supergirl?

SALT TIME 🧂

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

Hm, I'm not sure, really. To speak about the SC fandom specifically, I think within the fandom there is a tendency to view the fandom as Amazing and Creative and Beset From All Sides by Vicious Homophobes and from outside of the fandom there is a tendency to view the fandom as Obnoxious and Whiny and Full of Racists and I think the truth lies somewhere in between.

17. Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen…

OK -- here's my pitch for how to end the 100th episode, assuming the rest of 5A played out as it did (though you could also tweak this to fit a better 5A lol). Have the "plead the fifth" timeline be the last timeline, after the Metallo Lena timeline. (If you need Kara to try more timelines before the Metallo Lena one to justify the attempt to cut herself out of Lena's life entirely, that's easy enough to imply with a quick montage + cutting down the action sequences in that timeline.) Have it go pretty much perfectly. No kidnapping Lena to force Kara to reveal herself this time. Instead, things are just peachy, and Lena even shows up at Kara's apartment for movie night. Hooray! Friendship fixed!

But Kara realizes this new timeline is just another deception, of both herself and Lena. She tells Lena that this isn't real...and Lena says she knows. It is revealed that Mxy approached Lena as well with the offer to see what her life would be like if Kara had told her the truth sooner. Lena asks Kara why she had to lie and says everything could've been perfect. Kara says she knows, and she's sorry. Lena says she's sorry too, but so what? That doesn't fix anything. Kara acknowledges this; she says she wishes she could magically undo it and make the pain go away, but she now realizes she can't. Lena reluctantly concedes that she's right, confessing that that's all she wanted as well from Non Nocere, to make the pain stop, but she now sees it would never work.

Kara calls for Mxy, saying she's done playing around with alternate timelines, and Lena asks if they have to go back. Kara says she wishes she had done things differently, but the truth is that she didn't, and they have to face reality and what they've both done to each other instead of hiding in another lie. Lena says she knows. As Mxy's reality starts disintegrating around them, Kara holds out her hand and asks if Lena will be there in the real world when they wake up from the fantasy. Lena takes her hand and says she will.

At last, they disintegrate as well, and Kara wakes up back in her apartment. Alex and J'onn are there, but Mxy is not; they ask what happened. Kara hugs them and tells them she loves them and is glad they're okay, but that she has somewhere to be. She ducks out of the apartment and ends up on the other side of Lena's door. Lena opens it and Kara says hi. Lena says hi too, then steps aside to let Kara in.

...Look, it doesn't fix everything, they will need to have Conversations, but at this point in the season both Non Nocere and them not speaking to each other were well and truly played out, so this at least addresses those issues in a suitably dramatic fashion.

20. What is the purest ship in the fandom?

See now this is a fascinating question because how are we defining "pure"? 'Untarnished,' I suppose -- but by what? Unhealthiness? I suspect that the go-to answer for many would be Dansen, but given that their relationship's veneer of healthiness seems to largely be a result of Kelly not being given the space (or screentime) to have Inconvenient Emotions or to be a full person at all, I'm not so sure I'd call that "pure."

S1 Karolsen might be another option -- they're sweet and supportive of each other and they handle conflict much better than their sisters do, with James actually challenging Kara and Kara actually listening (again, in S1, before Kara decides that actually James should always do what she says and she never has to take his advice). Then again, they're afflicted by the tedious love triangle nonsense that leaves Lucy out in the cold and has the unintended consequence of making Kara into 'the other woman,' which is perhaps not so "pure."

There's Brainia, I suppose, who are very cute, although they suffer from persistent communication issues. Or Spheercorp, which is similarly sweet, although it does end with Lena being forced to literally kill Jack, leaving one half of the ship dead and the other traumatized for life. Reigncorp might actually be the best bet here; they're supportive of each other, good at handling conflict, and no one dies. Still, it strikes me as funny to call a relationship between a morally gray billionaire and her friend who she had to lock away in a kryptonite cell to contain her evil alter ego "pure." Mostly though I just think any answer I can give to this question is not nearly as interesting as the implications of the question itself.

[kuzann]

Headcanons(mostly for my AU) and stray thoughts ahead as I read way too much into Vlad trying to clone Danny instead of himself, you have been warned! ✨

Been thinking about. Like why didn't Vlad just clone himself as like a trial run at least. The dude presents as incredibly self-centered and thinks so highly of himself and yet he's fixated on cloning someone else's kid instead. I'm mostly looking at this as a yes, and situation. Sure, he's obsessed with the Fentons and getting Danny--basically any Danny at this point--to join him. But what if there's more on top of that? Was the thought of having another him running around so horrifying that he didn't even consider it, or did he just go "wow nope" if he did consider it?

I also wonder if this is an unknowing admission that Vlad's half-ghost status is less stable than Danny's, given the differences in how they became what they are. Danny's was an abrupt but complete transition while Vlad's is generally thought to have been(at least from what I've seen of fanon?) more piecemeal. And that could result in Vlad having a power ceiling that Danny is able to surpass, as well as Vlad's DNA being more difficult to work with when it comes to cloning. Like sure, he's more powerful than Danny right now because he has more experience, but given the rate Danny's getting stronger and picking up new powers just by watching other ghosts do things, that won't last forever.

"And I would watch a hundred more failures devolve into ectoplasm to get the perfect half-ghost son." Oh but you're not perfect enough to make one of those huh? Hmm? Bad starting point? Don't want a mirror running around that reflects all your worst qualities back at you? Worried that Danny's gonna surpass any clone you make of yourself with ease so might as well copy the better model before you become obsolete?

"All I wanted was love." But you can't get that from yourself, now can you? Because deep down you don't love yourself at all, so you need to rely on other people to do it for you. If you did love yourself then cloning yourself would be an obvious first choice, because no one would know you better than you, would they?

And tbh, it could be interesting if Vlad's clone of Danny just, never would've worked even with the mid-morph sample. What if you can't actually have two exact copies of a person running around, which is why Dani stuck around cause sure she's a clone but she isn't an exact copy of Danny. Which would mean that even if Vlad did try to clone himself at one point, that wouldn't work either unless he tweaked things like what happened with Dani.

TL;DR - I don't think Vlad actually likes himself very much, and the self-aggrandizing is him compensating for that and trying to mask those insecurities. Which might be harder to do when there's a copy of him running around being flawed in the exact same ways he is where he can easily see it. Also Danny may have far more power potential than Vlad, he knows this, so he wanted to clone the more powerful half-ghost instead of himself.

[floatingcatacombs]

Macross Zero Gets Me To Blog About Macross Here and It’s Honestly a Surprise How Little I've Done That Considering How Much I Like Macross as a Whole

12 Days of Aniblogging 2023, Day 7

What is Macross fundamentally about? Why is anyone drawn to this mecha franchise that’s played second fiddle to Gundam for nearly every step of its existence? The classic answer is the interplay between idols, mecha, and romance that Macross offers, with each iteration tweaking the balance to new results. But I think this viewpoint misses one of the most unique aspects of the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross anime, which is the culture war at the center of everything. The Zentradi are an alien race raised solely for battle, which gives them overwhelming firepower but leaves them deeply vulnerable to soft power. It's not the cool transforming ships that win the war, but romance and pop music and consumerist culture and pluralism and sickening amounts of gender. The Zentradi are literally humanized by the end of the show, as the nine-episode epilogue of SDF Macross is about the surviving humans and Zentradi trying to coexist in a new society built on the ruins of Earth, and the conflicts that arise from assimilation. For the most part it’s handled shockingly well for a 40-year-old show.

you bet your ass I'm just using macross baby throw instead of looking for a more relevant screenshot

Most of the later Macross installments downplay the contact narrative aspect, moving the continuity forwards and introducing new enemies that are either comically evil or uncaring hive-minds. And that’s fine! Instead, we get the insanity of Fire Bomber in Macross 7, and some of the best mechanical animation ever put to cel in Macross Plus. But as Macross Frontier and Delta go all-in on idols and sell ungodly amounts of CDs, eventually you start to feel like something’s missing.

Macross Zero is the one series I hadn’t gotten around to until this year. The only things I knew going in were that it was a relic of the early digital era, the first Macross to use CG for the dogfights, and focused primarily on native Pacific islanders. This all had me a bit worried! But what the setting actually entails is contact at the forefront of a Macross series again.

This is the first Macross chronologically, so it even though it has some alien tech that crash-landed to Earth, it predates actual alien contact and space war. Instead, all the major powers are wrapping up the Unification War, the “and then the Earth formed a world government to combat the imminent alien threat” narrative handwave of SDF Macross. We don't see much of the actual conflict on-screen, so instead it manifests as the settling of the frontier. The war is almost over and the fighting has been pushed to the fringes of the world, which means even nonaligned native islanders are at risk of being caught in the crossfire.

there's a real painterly nature to the backgrounds in this show, which helps the CG integrate quite well. Easily one of the best looking anime from the early 2000s.

Though the immediate problem is the military helicopters landing on the beach, it’s clear that the tribe has been facing the pressure of cultural imperialism for a long time now. Previous encounters have brought radios and generators to the island, and many members of the younger generations are leaving for mainland Asia to seek greater opportunities. This conflict manifests in the central love triangle as well. Sara Nome is a deeply religious traditionalist, while her younger sister Mao is the one interested in technology and anthropology. Macross Zero pulls no punches in depicting cultural isolationism as stifling and authoritarian. But the alternative is the end of their way of living, with only the potential for fragments of culture to persist through assimilation. And either way, the military being right at their door may soon render all this moot . The series grapples with hard problems in much better faith than most anime I've seen, which have a nasty tendency to advocate for colonialism.

Blood samples are one of Zero’s narrative through-lines, depicting the whole range of ethical hazards endemic to this kind of contact. The UN-sponsored cultural anthropologist who lands on the island takes indigenous blood samples under the half-truth that she’s going to test for diseases and treat the sick. Sara sees the writing on the wall, but can’t stop her from bribing the tribespeople with hard-to-get food and drinks. Of course, what the military scientists actually want to learn is how the islanders are linked to a suspected dormant protoculture superweapon, and to take advantage of it before the Anti-UN forces do the same.

After discovering this, both the United Nations and the self-proclaimed anti-imperialist Anti-UN do not hesitate to use the island as a battlefield. While there’s plenty of sci-fi and magical macguffins during the last act, the show’s intentions remain firm. The can of worms opened when a UN fighter pilot first washed ashore reaches its inevitable conclusion, and everything burns and everyone has to be evacuated. Sara Nome reawakens the bird superweapon representative of her culture and ultimately uses it to open a portal, vanishing to parts unknown. That’s about the best this particular narrative can offer her viewpoint. Macross Frontier goes on to reveal that her sister Mao moved to the mainland and became a protoculture researcher, eventually becoming the grandmother of idol Sheryl Nome. It’s a fitting callback.

Zero is the most grounded and least optimistic Macross, and manages to avoid falling into pro-colonialist or noble savage viewpoints with its clear narrative focus. I would compare it to one of those UC Gundam side story OVAs, deliberately limited in scope but well-executed. One of the better ones.

Speaking of, Sunrise is going to be animating the next Macross anime! There’s a lot of possibilities, but first and foremost I hope they opt for a soft or hard reboot. Watching the most recent Delta movie left me to conclude that the internal chronology of the franchise has gotten far too messy, and it’s time to clean the slate so that culture shock can be brought to the forefront again. Of course, I’m also praying that they try to shamelessly cash in on G-Witch’s success by making The Gay Macross. God, what I would give for The Gay Macross. I could fill an entire second post with my ideas for The Gay Macross, but I’ll spare you for now.