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visualnovelzombie · 2 years ago

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Furry Visual Novel Book Club: Echo Week 14

Hi everyone, here is the SPOILER FREE discussion post for “Echo - Leo’s Sunday (Part 2) - Finale”

Links: Previous - Next - Original - Spoiler Version

Feel free to respond in reblogs/replies/or asks :D

This week we start the end to Leo’s Route… lets jump in

Leo calms down considerably, leading Chase to Carl… who was sleeping where he and Chase had woken up in Carl��s route. Banter begins to play as Chase is reunited with another one of his friends. We learn that Carl wouldn’t wake up until Leo touched him, similar to how Carl’s touch woke Chase and Raven up during Carl’s route. Carl describes running around a series of hallways with no exits until he was woken up…

The group head out in one of Carl’s cars. As they start to head out of town through the desert towards Payton, the group stumble on a grizzly scene. Chase’s car is crashed, Duke’s body sprawled along the roadway… with a monster with a hairless body and impossibly long limbs sits in the middle of the street.

A CG titled - Justice...

Leo peels off, flooring the pedal. The monster teleports next to the car and stares at Chase… before disappearing again. The group panic but don’t discuss it much more, the thing apparently not following them. After some time, Leo slows the car down… everyone starting to notice that without turning they’re not headed in the opposite direction on the road, back into town. Leo turns the car around and they try to leave again… only to end up back at Chase’s crashed car.

Like they’re only moving in circles...

Leo brings the car to a stop as the group tries to decide what to do… a scratching noise followed by the back window getting shattered causes Leo to rush back into town. On their way back into town, the creature appears on top of a distant hilltop… before disappearing and appearing next to the car a few seconds later, sending the car crashing off the road.

The car crashes into Lake Emma, sinking below the water. Tj is panicking as Kudzu and Carl escape through the back window. Leo is refusing to leave without Chase, all while the OTTER tells him to leave him be, that he’ll be fine. The water submerges Tj and Chase, the lynx stuck in his seat-belt. Chase is able to undo the seat-belt from the other side and saves Tj from the car, pulling him up and swimming out. Chase surfaces and finds the car far from the shore. Tj mutters incoherently as the two make their way back to safety.

All tying back together to that day at the lake... Chase comforts the lynx as they reach safety.

Kudzu comes to comfort the two, Leo shoving him out of the way to panic with Chase instead. Chase and Leo both have head injuries... Leo picks up the still catatonic Tj and the group march back to Leo’s house. As they approach the house, Leo is wary of the broken window (which only happens in one timeline!) Interestingly enough Chase doesn’t comment that Brian would did it, which calls into question if it is SUPPOSED to be wishy-washy on what actually happened?

Leo scouts the house alone while the rest of the group stay outside. Tj has ‘snapped’ at this point, becoming silent. A scream rings out from the house and everyone rushes inside to help. Clint is being held at gunpoint by Leo, begging for mercy. Leo is about to shoot him before Kudzu reveals that Clint let Kudzu know where Chase was being held captive at.

Leo has clearly been warped by whatever supernatural occurrence is happening.

Clint offers information on an escape route to get Leo to drop his gun and the wolf eventually complies.

Leo is unable to stop intimidating Clint, so Chase pressures the wolf into the hall so Kudzu can get the information from Clint. Chase suggests some food and dry clothes to calm everyone down and Leo agrees. The scene cuts to twenty minutes later with some light heated-banter and the track neutral.

We’re treated to the absolute bare minimum of fan service as the try to collect and calm themselves…. Though Tj is still despondent. Kudzu comes in from the other room and tells the group Clint’s plan: A train has been running on the abandoned lines and the group should jump it to escape the town. The group dress as the dryer finishes and eat a vegetable stir fry (woo Leo remembered Carl) as they discuss the plan.

Kudzu and Chase both try to calm Leo down. the wolf acting more and more violent. The tensions rise and Carl tries to calm the situation, Leo shutting him down with a food comment… Argument begins to play. Leo goes to ‘check in’ on Clint, with Kudzu and Chase stopping him. Leo punches the raccoon, sending him tumbling and leaving him with a bloody nose. Leo threatens Chase with a gun to get away from Kudzu, the wolf then kicks the raccoon out of his house. Leo finds his room empty, Clint escaping through the window.

Leo’s anger turns on a dime, immediately becoming doting and… possessive of Chase. Drag begins to play.

Leo rocks the two of them back and forth, cradling Chase in his arms. Carl stares in horror from the door-frame.

The passing of a nearby train causes Leo to stop and go check on it. Chase decides to check in on Kudzu at his trailer, Carl (whose deathly afraid of Leo at this point) begs him to stay… Chase stumbles into a tree that shouldn’t exist between Leo and Kudzu’s house, and right before he can orientate himself he hears a voice, causing him to scramble and eventually fall on the floor. Kudzu, who was out watching the train, helps the otter up and reveals that he had seen Jenna outside. The pair are unable to look for her in the unnaturally dark night, Kudzu running to get some flashlights.

After a few moments they spot Jenna, who shoulder-tackles Kudzu to the ground. Chase is able to snap her out of it, but Kudzu responds before noticing and pins Jenna to the ground. After a bit of conversation the group head into Kudzu’s trailer for shelter. They explain the situation to Jenna.

Jenna reveals that Tj had woken up a few days ago in an altered state, running to the lake and repeating Chase’s name over and over again… unresponsive. Drag plays

The voice from the start of the game plays as Hysteria drones in the background… Chase says he has no idea what’s going on.The voice calls Chase a liar. Chase’s head spins as Jenna continues the story, Tj becoming violent and more unresponsive in it.

“The water changed that day and for the first time you knew what water felt like to everyone else… suffocating.”

Jenna continues her story, saying she experienced several odd events and doesn’t remember much, like being in a dream. She describes a monster from her childhood that would appear in her closet. Jenna excuses herself to use the restroom, and Kudzu and Chase end up sitting next to each other.

Kudzu reveals that he lost someone to gun violence, and the situation in Echo is bringing back those memories. Chase has to pee… again and doesn’t want to wait for Jenna so he decides to go to the side of Kudzu’s trailer. Just as Chase starts to urinate, Brain rushes in from the darkness, grabbing the otter in both his paws and carrying him off. The bear throws Chase into a nearby trucks and drives off with the otter. Chase pisses himself.

En route to their destination, Chase attempts the door handle only to find it missing. He tries to roll down the window but the hand crank makes enough noise to alert Brian who stops him from trying again. Chase notices that Brian isn’t being horny, and is instead desperate for trying to ‘stop’ whatever is happening.

Brian gives us some reasonable lore-speculation

Reckoning begins to play as we learn about Brian’s backstory as the pair make their way up into the mountains. Brian reveals that his mom had left him and his dad when he was only six, his dad telling him that aliens abducted her. He was living in Payton but found a boyfriend in Echo. During one of their hookups he saw a flying saucer in the sky, sensing an evil presence from it…

As they pull up to their destination, we learn that Brian is tortured every night in his dreams by a facsimile of his mother. He blamed his boyfriend, outing him in revenge for bringing the bear to Echo.

“Didn’t stop the dreams, though.”

Brian is desperate to stop his dreams, completely enraptured by Duke’s tales and hellbent on stopping his own torment. He begs for Chase’s help and the otter agrees, too scared to defy the bear.

Brian says that everything IS tied together, the monsters, the aliens, and that he wants to stop it. He sets off into the desert and Chase follows him. Brian leads them into a side mine-shaft and the two enter the town’s mines. They pair walk through the mines for some time, Brian revealing he doesn’t see aliens anymore… just the people he’s killed. The pair come to a narrow tunnel, both needing to move sideways to enter. The room they enter reeks of death and rot.

Chase begs Brian not to kill him, the voice from the start of the game, one we now know is in his head, berates him for not taking action. The voice and Chase talk to each other in Chase’s head… Chase wondering why they’ve ‘returned’.

The voice is more ‘real’, not insidious or dark like normal. It says it’s because of the mine, it being the ‘source’ of everything. The voices says they’re a simulation, something being controlled by something else. It’s been with Chase ever since Sydney…

Brian reveals things got bad for him when he started seeing Rachel, Duke’s ex-wfie. She had accidentally died during one of Brian’s sex-for-drugs with the couple. The two had buried her in the very mine shaft Chase finds himself in. Brian buries his victims here… each time he kills one another apparition appearing to torment him. He doesn’t stop because it gets him off too much…

The bear points a gun to the back of Chase’s head, the voice saying Chase knows SOMETHING…

Some lore information from an entity whose been through this before...

Just as Brian is about to pull the trigger, Chase calls out to the voice in his head… asking for help. We’re met with a ‘choice’.

A creature stands in the doorway… some sort of alien-like being with grey skin and long fingers.It approaches Brian, form flickering and unstable. Brian trips on the flashlight, snuffing it out. A tape-recorder like sound plays as the thing and Brian scream in the darkness. Chase trips and falls into the grave and we’re treated to a vision of Brian kidnapping one of his victims from a club.

Chase gives up, residing himself to his fate, but the voice commands him to get up… through a dialogue option.

The game’s ‘mechanics’ called into question...

The narration switches to second person… describing ‘the otter’. The voice knows the tunnels, remembers them like the back of their hand. The voice leads Chase in his body out of the tunnels…

Just then… a pair of red eyes appear at the end of the tunnel…

The voice recognizes the shape, it’s ‘the lizard’, just appearing warped…

Flynn appears, now recognizable. The narration switches back to first person as the heartbeat sound stops. The two leave in Flynn’s truck as Chase is unable to answer what happened. Chase describes the mine as ‘Chaos.’... The otter asks Flynn how he found him. Flynn says he followed the only road up and saw Brian’s truck, and just happened to know about the back entrance. He reveals he’s been at town hall trying to manage the situation, and only came to Leo’s house after looking for everybody.

The pair arrive at Leo’s house, the wolf telling people not to leave, and they hug out Chase’s return. Just as Kudzu stops his hug, Leo comes from his room, angry and disheveled.

Leo says Chase was with him in his room, that the otter never left, and is lashing out at everyone for saying Chase was missing. Just as the situation becomes heated, Tj, whose been keeping watch, lets the group know another train is coming. The group are planning to jump the train, Flynn and Kudzu going first to help everyone else on.

Leo has completely fallen out of touch with reality, begging Chase to stay with him, and going on and on about the things they ‘just talked about’. Leo demands Chase answer him, the otter telling him to wait till they escape to parse out what’s happening.

Leo wants an answer and wants it NOW… we’re met with a choice.

“We’ll work something out.” -

Chase chooses to avoid the subject, pushing back the issue at hand till later. Leo is unsure of Chases response… but they cant stop now, the train is here. Kudzu and Flynn make it the caboose with ease. Kudzu and Flynn pull up Carl from behind Chase as the group continues to run along the train. Jenna and TJ successfully make it on board as well. Chase makes the jump, landing both feet on the steps of the caboose. Leo reaches for Chase on the caboose…

Chase is pulled backwards, choked on his shirt as he tumbles from the platform, his legs falling under the back wheels in the process, getting dragged for a short distance before coming to an abrupt stop.

All sounds cut as soon as Chase realizes what’s happened to him. Chase’s mind is completely blurred, caught in shock. Kudzu hops down, using his belt as a tourniquet for one of Chase’s stumps, telling Leo to do the same with his. The track ‘Death’ plays, the raccoon slumping over Chase’s body as three gun shots ring out.

Leo makes it to Chase, pushing Kudzu’s body aside with abandon.

We’ll figure something out…

We’re treated to that repeating phrase...

Leo picks Chase up and the scene cuts…

Chase is sitting at a table with his parents and Leo, the Hunters asking the wolf typical questions of a new boyfriend… the pair playing footsies under the table… The scene cuts again, now in Leo’s bathroom. Leo puts Chase in the bathtub, bandaging his wounds… Chase flashes back again to spending a lazy day with Leo, cuddled on his chest in the afternoon sun… Chase comes to again, now in Leo’s bed with him, bandages bleeding onto the sheets. Chase says he’s cold, limbs shaky. Leo holds him closer to warm him up…

The two... anchoring each other to Echo till the very end...

A figure leers at Chase from the room again. Chase flashes back to his first kiss with Leo…

The room is red again, the creature staring at him… Chase feels nothing as the screen fades… The Credits begin to roll as a twisted version of the opening theme, aptly named “Echo Theme Dark” begins to play over distorted and darkened CG’s of Leo… We’re sent back to the main menu…

“It’s over.” -

Chase stands up for himself, ending a cycle keeping him chained to Echo.

Chase realizes that if Leo is going to force the issue, he can’t comply.

Kudzu steps in to tell the pair to leave and Leo attempts to pull his gun on the raccoon. Chase puts himself between the two, causing Leo to stop. Leo drops the gun, and the group run after the approaching train. They board the train in the same manner as last time, except this time, once he lands on the caboose, Chase looks back for Leo. The wolf hadn’t moved from his spot, now alone and crying.

Leo choosing to stay behind, to abandon them in their escape… hurts Chase more than anything.

Leo and Chase’s relationship... a tragedy unfolding before our eyes.

The track, “When Your Arms Were Around Me” begins to play as the group rides off into the horizon. Chase begins to cry…

The voice from earlier speaks out-loud now…

The two reach their tipping point together… the hurt and pain Echo brings and thrives off of sending both Chase and the voice over the edge. Chase and the voice cry for a long time together… Kudzu eventually motions for him. As they leave Echo, the voice in Chase’s head grows dimmer… but the pain in his heart for Leo becomes greater and greater.

It’s here Kudzu reveals that it was his boyfriend that was murdered in Payton, a mugging gone wrong. Chase and Kudzu embrace before heading into the caboose. Everyone is inside, including Clint who had jumped the train before them. The train arrives in Payton as day breaks. -

The scene cuts to ‘Saturday’, Chase on the phone with his mom on the road into Echo, Kudzu driving. It’s been two years, and with Chase planning on leaving the area for good he wants to say goodbye to Leo one last time. Chase kisses Kudzu on the cheek, the two a couple now, before heading out of the car to Leo’s.

Leo, no longer wearing the anchor bracelet, offers the two a beer and to come inside for a few hours, but they decline. Chase and Leo walk over to the rail-yard, leaving Kudzu in the car. We learn Carl and Leo are really the only people left in town, Carl now going to school in Pueblo. Chase is leaving the area and had quit school after the events of the week. Leo is moving back with his family in Payton, and the train the group had boarded was a timely antique piece headed on the way to Payton for display.

The two talk about the past two years…

Chase thinks to himself about the mental health struggles he’s been going through… and chooses to say he’s doing fine. The voice chiding him for it.

Chase apologies, admitting fault … Leo reveals how he’s been doing as Epiphany begins to play.

The wolf reveals his pain. Leo has been broken, hurting, and scarred from his experience. His love for Chase only recently fading, the pain in his heart and being only recently fading... through time and penitence... he might start to feel better, if only a little bit each day.

Leo apologies. Admitting fault, even through the supernatural event. The two really did love each other... so much hurt stemming from that love.

Leo wants to cut contact from Chase... not wanting to talk to him over the phone. To heal and be their own persons.

The two promise to see each other another day, to find each other in a better place. The two say their goodbyes to each other…

One last time… one last sunset signalling their goodbyes. Chases closes the door to the car and credits well… the aptly named Blurry by Lillybug plays as the CG with the two of them at the high-school is displayed to the side… (aptly named because I started fucking ugly crying the first time!)

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So that’s Leo’s route. There’s no happy ending for him and Chase… just the consequences of years of neglect and hurt. The two separating one last time, with the uncertain promise to see each other one day, when they’re both better. The voice is still with Chase even… just more hurt and guilt the two both cling too, Chase ashamed and embarrassed for feeling like he sent Leo down such a lonely path.

It’s probably no secret that Chase/Leo is far and away my favorite ship in the game, and they’re complicated and difficult relationship sure paints that oddly, especially with the context of Leo’s route itself here. I truly believe the apology and hurt the two go through in the fallout of the their actions ‘atones’ them in meta sense from the shit they pulled. Leo’s biggest non-hysterical action being the phone scheme, and him fully and openly apologizing for it here, now when he can think clearly, is indication of his growth from that event. Leo no longer wanting to stay in contact with Chase is both their own comeuppance.

We know from Word-of-God that Leo even pays for his sins on the bad end, killing himself in the morning once coming to and realizing that he killed Chase the night before. Two-tormented souls, doomed by fate to stay apart all stemming from that day at the lake stemming from the connection we now know Chase has with Sydney and that day… and the sins that to them together.

On future routes well get some more context between the two... I’m not THAT crazy.... yet

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So I’ll announce it here. Instead of the normal one week break for book club between routes, I’ll be taking a hiatus. I absolutely LOVE doing these, but it takes up an entire day for me and I’ve never once spread it out over multiple days like I said I would... hell these are supposed to come out Saturday because I’m supposed to work on them during the week... I’ll start back up again when I finish Silent Echoes. It only needs three more chapters and I REALLY want to finish my story. It’s been back-burned so long and I want to move on, feel free (in my mind) to work on smaller scale stories and start full production on my followup series... it’s just hard to do both that AND this. It made me go a little insane, developing my ENTIRE weekend to Echo. I’ll be back with a poll to select the next route, hopefully within a month or two! Thank you everyone for putting up with my delays, and I’m looking forward to finishing this game with all of you once I can.

#furry visual novel book club #zombie book club #echo vn #echovn #echo project #echoproject #echo visual novel #echovisualnovel

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entropy-game-dev · 2 years ago

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Alpha Testing, v0.01a-v0.03a

The internal alpha test of Stellar Terminus is underway! I’ve only had a couple of friends (and myself) test it so far as it is unfortunately quite unstable, but here’s a record of what’s been done so far!

v0.01a

The alpha testing officially began on the 25th of January, 2023... and promptly stopped a few minutes later (after the opening cutscene) when the tutorial map - the rocket launch site - refused to load and showed a black screen.

That same day, I spent a couple of hours furiously trying to debug the code and traced it back to a variable that signals that the map manager is ready. Even though the map had loaded properly, it was still reporting that it was not ready erroneously, so I was able to fix this and make the code look quite a bit neater in the process! This was the birth of v0.02a.

v0.02a

This version had the entire prolog section playable and mostly bug free. This included several cutscenes which I’ll be showing off later, the tutorial map with tons of interactables, flying to the first “real” dungeon, and getting your first robot companion. However, although combat was mostly functional, it would crash upon both gaining experience AND trying to recruit robots, so there was more work to do. I watched my friend stream it to me and was taking notes, and some of the really (unintentionally) funny stuff was:

Interacting with a flowerbed and having the game log report that “you successfully disarmed the trap”

Explaining that there was a bar that tracked how much of the map you had explored, but finding a tile that was unreachable behind some boxes, meaning that the completionist in my friend could not achieve 100% map exploration

Having an earthly window spawn in the walls of a deep space observation post, complete with rolling hills outside

Having all of the robots available at the beginning of the game and my friend immediately filling his party with the ones that he had designed

I worked on the bugs and notes that came out of this playtest for a little over a week (see below for the changelog) which brings us finally to...

v0.03a

This was a build that was tested by two friends over the weekend. The original tester from v0.02a, and a new person. In this version, combat was mostly stable, with only a couple of crashes that needed to be addressed. I won’t go through everything here but again, some of the funny stuff was:

Treasure chests not despawning after interacting with them, causing my friend to load up on tons of materials and equipment

Having the “game over” state unreachable during battle causing a softlock at 0HP, ONLY for it to be saved by a “launch cutscene” key that, after finishing, dumped you back at base with full HP.

Some move description text being entirely too long and spilling out of the text box

Me complaining about how I couldn’t replicate a crash when recruiting a robot, which my friend was able to perform within like 2 battles - I now have the exact units causing it so I can hopefully replicate it now!

...And that’s about all for now. I’ll definitely be posting some more pics and videos in between debugging sessions! See below the cut for the full patchnotes if you’re curious!

0.03a Patchnotes

Bugs:

Disabled recruiting if you already own a particular AI core

Removed "disarming trap text" for now, as disarming traps aren't in the game

Disabled all research given by default

Disabled all AI cores given by default

Expanded map tiles now show properly (depth issue)

Minimap now doesn't display over the inventory window (depth issue)

Going into the research menu doesn't crash now

When lore machines don't give you a log, it doesn't softlock

Stopped prolog features from generating in space (like windows)

Fixed crash when getting xp at the end of a battle

Fixed shader parameters not resetting when entering/exiting ship

Fixed team not being fully healed upon entering ship

Fixed stat calculation issue resulting in higher current than max hp/en/am when equipping part

Fixed stats regenerating to max constantly on each refresh

Moves that shift enemies in battle don't crash the game now

Fixed command menu crashing due to missing ds_grid

Fixed ds_grid crashes related to enemy AI, grids weren't being reset properly

Fixed turn skipping statuses not working (reduce status timers AFTER turn skipping happens, otherwise some 1 turn duration SEs are useless)

Updated recruitment formula to be clearer and possibly more accurate

Enemy now casts non-damaging attacks

Polish:

Also removed disarming text in the prologue

Grammar issue fixed: "There is scorch marks on the wood"

Reduced the random dialog chance when you move

Added text to lead scientist to tell you what you're looking for (the launchpad exit)

Moved a crate in the prologue so you can explore 100% of the map

View/unequip moves of part in help text overlay is now accurate

Disabled mouse controls except in the base

Disabled warping with Shift+direction

Icon removed on the minimap when interacting with object

Re-enabled rotation on battle - prevents encountering enemies while facing a wall

Added black background behind core icons in matrix to make it look better

During the assistant acquisition, he will be entered into any free slot

Removed Astronaut core from core inventory

Features:

Added control help for unequipping a core from the matrix (J)

Added text to indicate that tab in battle inverts aoe modes if availble

Slightly increased pickupables in starting area

All attacks have descriptions now!

All status effects have icons now!

All tier 1 and 2 matrix upgrades have icons now!

Press ESC to skip a cutscene!

Press ESC to skip walking around in the prologue!

Astronaut now starts in slot 3 to demonstrate you can have party members wherever

Added scan effect to unexplored ground

Added a sentence on the help overlay to explain what you should be doing

Gave astronaut some moves back (+ a debug instant kill move)

Initial rebalance of move damage and costs

#indiedev #gamedev #gaming #pixel art #scifi #space #gamemaker #programming #rpg #robot #devblog #game #videogame

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antimatteratorgame · 1 year ago

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New title screen complete!

First of all, I have an actual video update again. That hasn't happened in a while! Second: Game Maker Studio 2's sequence editor is an absolute (and LITERAL) game changer. This would have taken me HOURS to do with code, and definitely wouldn't have turned out half as good.

I mean, it still took me a good couple of hours because I had to figure out the sequence editor workflow, but now that I've got a handle on it I'm sure I could have put this together in maybe 20 minutes. It's basically the same animation timeline setup as After Effects or Blender, so it's pretty intuitive. It looks like there's a LOT you can do with it, and I've only just scratched the surface. While I look forward to unlocking the full power of the sequence editor in future projects, that surface scratching is really all I need for Antimatterator.

I may make some minor adjustments to this new title screen, but this is definitely the final version.

Oh yeah, I mentioned the original placeholder title "art" I used before making an actual title screen? And how I don't think it ever showed up in any of my update posts?

Here you go! Version 1!

I know I said it was "MSPaint-y," but I actually just threw it together directly in Game Maker's sprite editor. Same principle. It was faster, and I needed something to stand in for a title screen so I could get buttons working. I did also have some placeholder button sprites, but I overwrote them with the new ones, so they don't exist anymore. Picture flat purple rectangles with the words "start" and "exit" scribbled on them.

#antimatterator #game development #game maker #game design #pixel art #animation #game art #game maker studio #puzzle game #indie games

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becomewings · 4 years ago

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“The inside of the metal container was so hot I could barely open my eyes. I looked around with my face scrunched up. It had only been ten minutes since I’d told him to wait while I went to get ramyeon. ... I doused a blanket in water and wrapped it around WooChang’s body. I pointed to the window. ‘We’re going to have to jump through there,’ I said. ... I grabbed WooChang’s hand. ‘On the count of three, we’re jumping. One, two...’ In a moment, something fell outside the door. The materials that were stacked next to the container seemed to have collapsed in the flames. Sparks flew amid the dust. WooChang and I stepped back, shocked. In a split second, the exit had been blocked.”

— NamJoon, 25 August Year 22. The Notes: 7. Translation cr. @origamifirefly tw.

△

“I opened my eyes again to blazing sunlight. The image of the fire inside the container and NamJoon’s dead body remained inside my eyelids. Another failure. I raised my arm to cover my eyes as I thought. What ways to save NamJoon could be left? Slowly, I thought back to the events of September 30. I felt no particular emotion and was neither impatient nor afraid.

After the accident in the container town, I had made countless loops. But I still hadn’t been able to understand why I made those loops, or what I had to do in order to fix things. No—even more than that, I hadn’t yet been able to figure out what exactly the ‘map of the soul’ was, the clue that was supposed to end all of this.

… I could only think of one thing: stopping the accident on September 30 and ending the loop. I was only moving toward that goal. … Even more important than saving everyone was that I myself was able to survive and escape. That was the lesson that the endlessly repeating loop had taught me.”

— SeokJin, 11 April Year 22. The Notes: 7. Translation cr. @origamifirefly tw.

△

Note: this post was updated after the ‘Map of the Soul’ version of the BTS Universe Story official trailer, released on BangtanTV’s channel, specified the date of the container town scene (30 September Year 22). There are at least two separate dates (and presumably, timelines) in which a fire traps NamJoon in the container town. Also, please note that the order of the excerpts above does not necessarily reflect the true order in the timeline; the focus of the original post was NamJoon, so I chose to keep his quote first and added SeokJin’s to include the September 30 reference.

WooChang was introduced in NamJoon’s 15 June Year 22 entry from The Notes: Persona. He is between the age of 8 and 10 and likely homeless, as NamJoon begins to spot him hanging around the container town alone and wearing the same clothes. He ignores WooChang until the night of June 15, when he returns from work and finds the boy crouched near his container. Though he is exhausted and hungry, NamJoon remembers the message he’d written on the bus window (“I must survive”) on his journey back to Songju and decides to offer WooChang his last ramyeon.

BTS Universe Story Official Trailer BTS Universe Story ‘Map of the Soul’ Trailer TaeHyung’s entry quoted from The Notes 1. Epilogue: Nightmare.

△

I am still planning on a much more detailed post about SeokJin’s changes through the recurring timelines, but I’m holding off until I have read The Notes 2 and can source official quotes from there. However, I find the last sentences of his excerpt above to be a striking—and chilling—turning point in his motivations.

#networkbangtan #bangtanarmynet #armysource #dailybangtan #btsgif #bts universe #hyyh #bangtan universe #bts universe story #namjoon #seokjin #taehyung #bts the notes #bts universe story official trailer #moments #death cw

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solalunar-eclipse · 3 years ago

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SYCS - 1 Year Anniversary

Chapter title: Set In Stone

Word count: about 4000 words

Author’s Note: On July 26, 2020, I posted the first chapter of Scars You Can’t See. One year later, I’ve written five stories of varying lengths and am currently working on a sixth (wow)! My writing’s come a long way since then, and a lot of my improvement is thanks to everyone who encourages me to continue said writing, whether it’s through likes, reblogs, or comments. Thank you all so much for your support so far! :)

This is a rewrite of the very first chapter of SYCS, since the original could use a little fixing. Some important notes: I’ve edited a few parts of the story to be more in character, Chapter 2 starts in a different place after this updated version, and I’ve also fixed up chapter 13 because apparently I forgot to finish the motif I started?? Somehow??? At least I remembered eventually...

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the (revised) story!

Before, Shadow had always been able to just ignore what it meant to work for G.U.N.

He’d managed somehow to convince himself to brush aside the fact that the soldiers he worked with (had been coerced into working with) wore the same uniforms as those who killed Maria, his dear sister and first friend. To push away any idea that he couldn’t deal with serving the same organization that had once wanted him dead. (It was the only way to stay with his friends, of course he could deal.)

The same thing went for using guns during the Black Arms invasion- even though he’d had amnesia, he remembered enough that he’d needed to rely on adrenaline near constantly just to make it through those times. Despite this, he had still taken the better part of a month to recover afterwards.

His memories of that day were particularly fresh for a while.

Once the invasion had been successfully repelled, G.U.N. had hired him to work for them very rapidly, as a matter of fact. During the process, some of the people along the way strongly suggested that if the organization wasn’t able to keep an eye on him, then…well, then they’d be very displeased.

Shadow knew all too well that you did not want G.U.N. displeased with you.

The hybrid felt nothing but exhausted as these thoughts whirled through his head for the hundredth time. They’d only become a major problem recently, ever since the military organization had begun to require him to resume using guns on his missions. Every single time he touched one, the cold steel left his palms slick inside his gloves and made his head swim with flashes of memories too often repressed. Still, he had to use them- he’d be taken off missions entirely if he refused, and Shadow would never leave Rouge and Omega in the lurch like that.

However, his mental health had been growing ever worse these past few weeks as a result. He thought (hoped) he’d done a good job of hiding it from Rouge and Omega, but Shadow had been sparring with Sonic noticeably less. The hybrid had struggled with the idea of inflicting more violence on others in his spare time, and the hero had asked him about it several times, trying to figure out the reason for his sudden change in behavior.

Shadow shook his head, pushing his doubts and worries away just as he always had before. He couldn’t allow himself to become distracted by his thoughts- they might spill over into missions if he wasn’t careful. Forcing himself to focus on his schedule for the day and nothing else, he walked out of his room to take on whatever might come his way.

…

He was skating through the halls of an old, decrepit building (currently being used as a hideout by Eggman) on a mission. A robot stepped into his path.

Shadow hadn’t used his weapon yet on this assignment. He remembered the thinly veiled threat after his first refusal- we may have to remove you from missions if you cannot handle this responsibility- and felt a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck.

He shut his eyes, whipped out the firearm, and pulled the trigger. Flinching at the sound out of instinct, he refused to open his eyes until the gun was away, when he didn’t have to see it anymore. The robot lay on the ground, a smoking hole in its center. He tried to ignore the lingering sensation of the G.U.N. logo embossed on the handgrip in his palm.

Shadow felt the floor tilt for a moment under him before he regained his bearings.

He refused to look at the machine as he rushed by.

…

The exhausted hedgehog curled up in bed at night, unable to keep himself from hearing gunshots over and over and over. He fought against the memories of that day, refused to let them spill over into his thoughts.

Yet despite his best efforts, he knew he’d dream of it again tonight. He knew that he’d wake up screaming with her name in his mouth and the sight of blood still burned into his eyes. It had happened every night since he’d received the weapon.

Shadow swallowed down his fearful apprehension over what would come next. He forced himself to breathe deeply, to close his eyes, even though he wished to do the exact opposite. Dreams were not real. He could not let them hold power over him.

But still, he shivered as he tried to fall asleep.

…

He and Omega were standing in the center of a courtyard, broken badnik scrap lying all around them. This mission was supposed to be easy, just a simple in-and-out. Take out the bots, grab the intel, and go.

Rouge had asked them to cover for her as she searched for information in the abandoned computers alone. Shadow hadn’t liked the idea of leaving her alone but agreed grudgingly anyway.

He looked down at the firearm he held in his hands and tried his hardest not to cringe.

Flashes of memories threatened to surface again, of escape pods and gunshots and too much blood-

“Shadow.”

He jumped, not expecting Omega’s loud voice so suddenly.

“Yes, what is it?”

“You have been distracted for nearly ten minutes. Are you unwell?”

Shadow sighed, projecting a relaxed attitude. “Everything is fine. I was simply thinking.”

“About what?” Omega asked curiously.

“Nothing much.”

Silence descended upon the two again for a minute.

“Shadow.” the E-series robot repeated.

“What.” he snapped, sounding more irritated than he’d intended.

“Tell me what you were thinking about. You looked distressed.”

“I’m fine, alright?” Shadow insisted. “Just- forget it, Omega.”

Omega stepped closer. “Past experience has informed me that you tend to hide important thoughts from others. Therefore, I will assume that this is essential knowledge until proven otherwise.”

“It’s not important.”

The robot placed his hand on Shadow’s shoulder. The latter wouldn’t admit it, but the weight was comforting, in a way.

“This is not adequate proof. Do you not trust me, Shadow?”

He sighed. “I do trust you, Omega. You know that.”

“Then talk.” Omega’s processors whirred for a moment, before adding, “Please.”

The hybrid’s shoulders slumped- he knew his friend wouldn’t stop until he told the truth. “I was thinking, how weird is it, that I work for the same organization that ki-...caused my sister’s-” He paused on the word, fighting not to trip over his sentences. “-death and...attempted to cause mine. Among other things. And how now...I must use weapons like the ones that took her from me...to harm others.” He sighed, nearly worn out just from the effort of discussing that event’s existence.

Omega jerked away from him, startling Shadow. “G.U.N. is the organization that killed your sister?” he asked, sounding- if it were possible- shocked.

“And the one that locked me away in cryostasis for 50 years, yes.” Shadow said, feigning calm.

Omega made a staticky noise that sounded like a sharp exhale. “Shadow. Why did nobody tell me this before? And why in the name of Chaos do you still work here?”

Shadow looked away, hiding the bitterness in his expression. “Multiple reasons. One, the organization has somewhat cleaned up its act, as far as I can tell. Two, it wants to keep me under surveillance, since I am still ‘potentially dangerous’ to them...and consequences would be severe if I did not obey.”

He tapped his heel on the ground. “Also, it was one of the main avenues for us to become heroes. Unlike Sonic and his friends, we don’t have the luxury of fighting someone who wants us to know where they are. And you know we didn’t exactly have the best record with law enforcement beforehand.”

“Still.” Omega replied. “I am highly opposed to the concept of fighting in the name of such an organization. Have they at least apologized to you? Or admitted their wrongdoing?”

Shadow frowned, thinking. “No, actually, they never did.”

Why did he have to bring this up? There’s no point in talking about what’s past. Let’s just get over it and move on.

Omega looked down, his eyes dimming slightly. “Processing.”

He was still processing by the time Rouge arrived, and remained mostly silent for their exit, post-mission briefing and the entire ride home.

Once the three had gotten inside, Rouge faced the E-series robot. “Alright, what’s up with you? You’re never quiet, but you’ve barely said a word since I got back.”

“I am considering an important decision.” Omega said.

“Oh? And what might that be?” she asked, folding her arms.

“My potential resignation from the government organization known as G.U.N..”

“Wait, what?” Rouge gasped.

Shadow shouted out from the other room simultaneously. “Omega, what are you thinking?!”

“Current logic process is as follows: G.U.N. hurt one of the few decent people on this planet and my friend fifty years ago by murdering Maria Robotnik and many others aboard the ARK, as well as imprisoning him for said fifty years against his will. It has not apologized or shown remorse for those actions. Therefore, this organization clearly has no respect for Shadow, and therefore I refuse to aid them one moment longer.”

Shadow appeared at the robot’s side, placing a hand on his arm. “Thank you, Omega, but you don’t need to do that for me. I’m alright with this.”

(He was lying, of course.)

“Hold on a minute here, Omega’s got a point.” Rouge said pensively. “I started working here so I wouldn’t go to jail for stealing, but I’ve served my ‘sentence’ ages ago. Honestly, I kind of hate it there anyway? Like, nobody even respects us and it’s got way too much bureaucracy and too many outdated ideas. It’d be much better if it was just the three of us doing our own thing away from them, wouldn’t it?”

“Besides, hon, you’ve got to start standing up against those guys. I know you were going through a major existential crisis a while back when this all started, and that was the main thing you had to deal with. But now that you’ve started to figure everything out, it’s time to stop letting people treat you this way! We don’t have to give G.U.N. anything. They never helped you at all.”

“Agreed.” Omega said. “This organization does not deserve you- or any of us. They have wronged you, and though forgiveness is supposedly a ‘virtue’, it is likely so only when it is deserved.”

Shadow stared at the two of them. “That was...actually kind of philosophical for a minute. And convincing.” He huffed, frustrated, his hands curling into fists. “I just…how would I even go about dealing with my grievances with an entire military organization? I would need proof...and I don’t want to damage my standing with the government. G.U.N. can easily claim that I have gone rogue.”

He swallowed, trying to ignore the various insecurities at the corners of his mind. “I’m just...should I really be digging all of this up again? I’ve finally started to get over it…”

“Okay, so first of all, hon, you’d better not let G.U.N. walk all over you just because they can make up fake blackmail.” the bat insisted. “And second, you’re clearly not over it. Shadow...I can hear you when you wake up from your nightmares, you know. You deserve some kind of closure to help you, and if G.U.N. won’t give it to you, then you have to take it.

“Also, here’s another thing- how much worse would you feel if G.U.N. hurt someone else, and we had never said anything to warn anyone?”

Shadow stiffened, feeling ill again. The very idea was abhorrent. That another person’s Maria could be lost due to his silence...“That...that would be unimaginable….” he breathed.

“Exactly.” Rouge replied. “So, consider it.”

Shadow frowned. “I...I’ll keep it in mind. But we should at least see if they’ll do something first before we try to attack them. We might be able to convince them to make amends, after all. I mean, if we fight, we’ll be completely out of a job, and I don’t know if the funds from Club Rouge will be enough to keep us afloat- if we succeed. It’s too risky, at least for now.”

“If that’s what you want to do, then we can definitely stick with that to start.” the bat said. “I don’t know if I could’ve taken any of their apologies if it were me, but it’s not my life, it’s yours. So I’ll be right with you no matter what you decide to do, okay?”

“As will I.” Omega added, placing a hand on Shadow’s shoulder.

“Thank you, Rouge. Thanks, Omega.” the hybrid said, finally allowing relief to show on his face as he looked at his friends.

He couldn’t help but feel that with them by his side, everything would be alright.

…

They talked through most of the night about how to bring it up, what they would say, and even where they would sit to keep Shadow feeling as safe as he could. The hybrid had final veto power over anything the other two suggested, and he tried to keep the wording of the speech he’d give as controlled and polite as possible.

However, he tried not to bring up the “maybe G.U.N. still thinks I’m a weapon to be stored and used, not a person” topic during his proposal. Those insecurities could wait for another day.

They fell asleep late at night, all three in the same room- Shadow made a blanket nest on the floor, Omega plugged himself into the wall, and Rouge was on her bed.

Pleasantly enough, Shadow didn’t have any nightmares that night.

…

“You want us to do what?”

The head of the public relations department stood behind his desk, cutting a slightly dominating figure in front of the team in his room. Omega could easily detect an increased heart rate in Shadow. He was not betraying any nervousness externally, however, and the robot was impressed by his friend’s willpower.

The PR head sat down, and he gestured for Team Dark to do the same. However, since there were only two chairs in the room (as they had known), Omega remained standing. Among other things, it would allow him to more easily defend his friends should the talk go awry.

“I’m afraid we just can’t do that kind of thing...Shadow.” He said the last word like it was distasteful, like it didn’t belong in his mouth. (Or, perhaps, like he wanted to add a “Project” or “Experiment” to the front of it, but didn’t for fear of a missile to the face delivered by Omega.)

“Why not?” The hybrid asked. “Sir,” he forced himself to add politely. “Don’t you agree that it was wrong? That G.U.N.’s soldiers shouldn’t have done...what they did?”

“I am incredibly saddened that Miss Robotnik’s death occurred in the search for you, and that the head of G.U.N. at the time considered you unworthy of any basic living rights.” the PR leader said, sounding more than anything like he was reading a script off a teleprompter. “However, I am not going to make a public statement digging up something that happened fifty years ago.”

Rouge leaned forward in her chair furiously. “So you’re just going to pretend it never happened? What about the trauma Shadow experienced? What about the fact that this kind of thing could happen again?”

The leader looked at her coldly. “I can assure you that this is an isolated incident, and that such an occurrence has not happened before or since.”

“But you can't just-! Can’t we speak with the commander?” Rouge gasped, outraged.

“I can, and I will. And you know very well that the commander is taking a well-deserved vacation, and we are not to disturb him for any reason except an emergency. Now then. Did you have anything else you needed?” he said smugly.

Omega was so, so close to just arming the missile launcher anyway.

Shadow looked up at him carefully, clearly going over the words in his head. “Sir. May I respectfully ask why G.U.N. considered it necessary to arm me? I can apply lethal force if necessary in other manners.”

The PR head frowned. “Close quarters are not necessarily a safe space for you, Shadow. We need you alive, and if that means you’re farther back, then so be it.”

“But- me? Destroying with impunity? In such a cold, distant manner? That’s not what G.U.N. wants to see from me, I thought. And with my experiences, I really don’t think-”

The human folded his arms. “Don’t worry about thinking, just worry about completing your missions on time. And what’s past is past, right? Now then, I expect no more complaints from you three. This meeting is concluded.”

Shadow stood up stiffly. “Yes, sir.”

Rouge froze. “Wait, Shadow, you’re not just going to-”

“We’re leaving, Rouge. Now.” Shadow said firmly, but the two other members of Team Dark could hear the unsteadiness in his voice. Omega remained silent, but internally was playing a very nice simulation in which he repeatedly punched the head of the PR department.

Once they had exited the office and walked through the facility for a while, Shadow leaned heavily against a wall. “He’s not sorry at all.” he muttered. The robot didn’t need his sensors to tell that he was experiencing far too many negative feelings at once. It wasn’t healthy for organics to deal with all that all the time…

“Agreed.” Omega said. “I would not be surprised in the least if he was lying throughout all of it.”

Rouge sighed, before pulling an unresisting Shadow into a hug. “Honey, I’m...” She paused for a second. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that. You shouldn’t have to cope with people like that, ever.”

Shadow closed his eyes quietly and stood like that for a long time. Eventually, though, he spoke up. “.....I know what we have to do. I...I know we need to fight, like you said last night. I don’t feel ready, but just…it has to happen.”

Omega looked down at them both. “You two go out to the car. I will go and get your sister’s files myself while you take a few minutes, Shadow. I am bulletproof and the most likely to make it out unscathed, and if I need help I can call.”

Rouge rolled her shoulders briefly, her wings flexing. “Alright. I’ll be ready to get out of here the second you get in. Sound good?”

“Alright.” Omega agreed. “Let’s go.”

The robot marched down the halls, on a mission. He stopped first to gather everything from their office- or at least all of their personal items. They might need them later, after all. He placed them into his empty chest compartment (he hadn’t refilled on weaponry in a while) and moved on.

The lower levels of the G.U.N. facility were darker and less well-maintained. This was most likely on purpose, to keep people from wanting to go down there. Omega, however, did not fear the dark. He had a flashlight, and a hulking five-foot robot was usually enough to scare most creatures.

Thankfully, the guards stationed throughout these levels knew him, and simply stepped aside to let Omega pass. Quite a few of them were honestly nervous down there themselves, and barely even noticed him.

He noticed a small door marked ‘Records Room- Classified’ and knew he was in the right place. The door did not give him access, but that was alright. Rouge had hacked the system a while back and given herself the highest clearance possible...and now Omega had her spare card.

Once he was inside, he scanned the cabinets methodically until he found the file marked ‘Maria Robotnik’. Inside were papers detailing her death and her life. Everything one could have wanted to know about her was inside.

The red stamp on the front reading ‘Terminated’ was pretty ominous, and Omega briefly wondered if he would be able to remove it. He considered the possibility that Shadow would not be quite so pained upon seeing it if the stamp were gone.

It was unlikely, and so he moved on.

Omega exited the room, hoping that the guards in the security monitor room were slacking off. They often were, so he calculated at least a 70% chance of exiting the facility without incident. He placed the file inside his compartment and continued on.

Being a robot meant that he could not act nervous. Therefore, nobody questioned him as he walked through the halls and outside, where he saw Rouge talking to Shadow inside their black-and-red car.

The hybrid appeared to be rather panicked about the whole plan, so as Omega slid into the backseat, he placed his hand on his friend’s head for a brief moment. “Everything is going to be alright, Shadow. I promise you that.”

Shadow sighed and slumped back against the seat. “Let’s get out of here before someone notices what we did.”

Rouge pulled out of the parking lot with a screech of the tires and didn’t let the speedometer dip below fifty until they got home.

“Right.” she said, once they were all inside. “We’ll probably have G.U.N. beating down our door by tomorrow morning, so let’s make sure they don’t catch us still here by then. Omega, refill your weapons and pack us some clothes and stuff. Shadow, you just try and chill. I’m going to look over this file.”

As Rouge flipped through the pages, Shadow decided that he needed to see these for himself and walked over to stand behind her. Before long, though, he recoiled in shock upon seeing that when G.U.N. discussed Maria’s death, they justified it. Made it seem like Shadow was the villain. A monster. A weapon.

“Shadow?” the bat asked.

“...yes?”

“You know we can’t use this by itself, right? We need more proof. Like, video proof.” she said, sounding resigned.

“I know.” he said quietly, disappointed that so little had changed despite the fact that half a century and some new management had taken place.

Omega cursed out G.U.N. from the other room in response and came over to them, his eyes in their ‘angry’ shape. “We need to stop them now. This revolting organization does not deserve to spend another minute active anywhere on the planet.”

“Let’s get them, then.” Rouge hissed, clearly furious as well.

Shadow felt terribly apprehensive, but despite that, he agreed as well. “Then they won’t be able to hurt anyone else in the future.” he said, sounding more determined than he had in a while.

“You ready, guys?” the bat asked, holding out her hand in the midst of their little group.

Omega allowed his giant metal hand to hover over hers. “Always.”

Rouge looked at the hybrid. “You sure you’re up for this, hon?”

“Not entirely…” Shadow admitted, but took a deep breath and held out his hand too, allowing Rouge to guide his hand to Omega’s, just like she had so long ago. “...but I need to do it, and so I will.”

“Then we’ll expose them, Shadow.” she said confidently. “And we’ve totally got this, because we’re doing it together.”

And as they all clasped hands for a moment, before breaking off to head to the garage, Shadow felt like they really had a chance to succeed.

#scars you can't see #sol's fanfiction #shadow the hedgehog #rouge the bat #e 123 omega #i've actually had this saved for a while! i thought the anniversary would be a good time to post it :)#i went back and reread chapter 1 and was like '.......i could write this so much better now'#so here we are!#i especially didn't like how omega forced shadow's hand- i much prefer this one where it's a team agreement #shadow's still a little hesitant because of how it turned out the last time he went up against g.u.n.#but he knows he needs to do this for himself (and for others too)#i did still try and keep the general plot structure the same though- just improved it (hopefully)#either way i'm looking forward to another year of writing! it's been really cool so far :D #thanks as always for reading

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simply-victoriax · 5 years ago

Text

How to copy worlds - TUTORIAL (with pictures)

So, I came across this tutorial on MTS about copying worlds and did a test and, to my surprise... it worked! But, the tutorial had no pictures. Well, it had one, but it didn’t really tell me how to do anything lmao. I’m sure other visual learners can relate. So, I thought I’d add some v v helpful picaroonis to it. All the good stuff is under the cut!

I’m going to just copy-paste the tutorial with a few clarifications in [bold brackets]. Full credit goes to Tamlo31 on MTS, I’m just adding some pics :)

ETA: If the pictures are too small, you can right click > open image in new tab and they should be much clearer!!

---

So what is the point of this? On a very basic level it increases the number of lots you have a available in your saved game, but to give you some idea's of what I'm currently using this for:- I've duplicated Newcrest and turned the duplicate world into a retail shopping center. I've duplicated Granite falls and turned the duplicate into a winter themed world. There is perhaps many other idea's you can use duplicate worlds for, perhaps a upside down world of strangerville. (stranger things lovers) Or even a you can duplicate one world 10 times if you wish and have some form of legacy version of the game where each world gets more advanced and each new generation will move into the next world. One last possibility you find a good world somebody uploaded to the Internet and you wish to include part of that world in your current save game. Is this safe to do to my favorite saved game? I'm going to be honest and say this is still in testing, but I've not found any problems so far, but I do recommended that you backup everything in your saved game folder. Will this slow my game down? The load times will increase if you add a silly amount of new worlds with hundreds of new Sims, to be honest I've added several new worlds and it loads about the same length of time. Do I need any mods? No, but I will post a few recommended mods that will help if you wish to make a unique world.

The Sims 4 Mods: World Type Changes (Destination to Residential or vice-versa

Just one point about this mod, it works on both the original worlds and the duplicate worlds https://zerbu.tumblr.com/post/17339...ges-destination Fan Made maps https://www.dershayan.de/fanart-maps Part 1 1 backup your saved game 2 Download the latest version of S4 Studio http://sims4studio.com/board/31/dow...g-sims-4-studio

Part 2 1: Part 1 was the easy part just to get you into the mood

2 Drag and drop the saved game onto the S4Studio - Shortcut, it will load straight away.

3 You need to find the Save Game Data, click on this.

4 Scroll down until you see neighborhoods and click edit items

5 On the left side you will see [Neighborhood Data] on the right side you will see the name of the world, if this is the first time and your a virgin to world duplicating I recommended at this point you pick a world with very few lots [like] Glimmerbrook, granite falls, something with less than 8 lots and don't pick any special worlds or anything with a blank name. [just to make it easy on myself for this tutorial I chose Magnolia Promenade since it only has 4 lots]

Just on a side note special worlds do duplicate but very few of them actual work in the game they don't have world maps, the way around this, would be to make a mod that will replace them worlds with a map but that goes beyond this guide.

6 On the left field click copy to copy the world you did choose.

7 Scroll to the bottom of the left field to find your copy, on the right field you should see the neighborhood_id we need to change this, so we are going to change one number, it really does not matter what number you change but to make life easy we going to change the first number and add 1 to this.

So for example if you picked Granite Falls and the neighborhood_id was 09290A60407127C5 (this number is unique in every save) you would change the number to 19290A60407127C5. It's also a good time to write this number down, if your fed up, you can just make a note of the last 3 digits.

8 Under description fill this in, example:- A verdant, sprawling region of lush bayous and rolling plantation land that is home to aristocratic farmers, southern gentry, and swamp-dwellers.

9 Next edit the name example:- Newcrest Shopping Centre

10 Click save

Part 3 1 I hate this part, we need to go into zones, it's at the bottom right of the right field, click edit items.

2 Now for the fun part the left side shows the ZoneData and somewhere in them files we need to find the files that are needed for our neighborhood, I will say they will be all grouped together. So what need to do is scroll the right field down to the bottom and 7 lines up you should see neighborhood_id. If you remember I did say to [write] down your neighborhood_id number, so the granite falls number before the change was 09290A60407127C5. So what we need to do is find the number on the left field that are equal to that number in neighborhood_id. No easy way to do, other than searching until you find one, all the files that you need will be around the same location on the list.

3 Now that we have got rid of all people who can't find the correct ZoneData file we can carry on. We need make a copy of all the ZoneData files with same original neighborhood_id number. So hold down shift on the last file and then click on the top file you need and click copy.

4 All the copied files will be at the bottom of the field, so move down to find the copies. On the right field we need to change neighborhood_id for all them files we are using for example granite falls neighborhood_id was 09290A60407127C5 we should change all the id's to 19290A60407127C5 on all the ZoneData file that say 09290A60407127C5.

5 I did say this part was bad, but we are nearly done, scroll down to the last Zondata file and this time we need to change the zone_id. So what we are going to is add 1 to the first number on the right field that's says zone_id (at the bottom of the field). For example if the unique code says 09290A6040712B18 we will change that code to 19290A6040712B18. We need to repeat this for each of the Zonedata files that we need change (all the copies)

6 Click Save

Part 4 1 At this point [you’re probably] thinking is this all worth the trouble, but you are on the last part and nearly done and two minutes away from a spanking new world. Anyway go back into neighborhoods and edit items

2 Move the left field down until we find the copied world we started with and we need to go into lots so click edit item under lots on the right field

3 In the Zonedata we changed the first number of each copied file, we replaced the first number with a one, so what we need to do is under zone_instance_id on the right field we need to add 1 to the first number of every file in this section.

4 click save, save again and click save one last time, this time you should get the message saying that Your package has been saved.

5 Exit and test out your new save game.

[editor’s note: this is where i ended the tutorial but there is much more you can do, which can be found in the original link.

I will say, this was very tedious, but kinda easy once you get the hang of it.

If you are like me and desperately want some kind of custom world functionality in sims 4, hopefully this will tide you over until EA listens (unlikely) or modders find out how to do it (much more likely) I hope this helps!]

#ts4 #the sims 4 #sims 4 #sims 4 tutorial #sims 4 custom world

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paperanddice · 4 years ago

Photo

Image ID: Two pictures of game stat blocks for the deathdrinker. The first is for 5th Edition D&D and the second is for 13th Age. Full text is available below the read more. End ID.

Deathdrinkers are massive fiends that make their home in the Abyss, though they aren’t true demons. Where the original was born from is unknown as deathdrinkers seem to be artificially created rather than naturally born from souls in the lower planes like so many other fiends. A deathdrinker can create a new member of its species by adding its own blood to specially prepared vats of planar essence. They typically recruit other fiends through violence and threats to tend to these vats, spending months stirring and adding ingredients until a fully grown deathdrinker exits the vat. What convinces a deathdrinker to create a new member of its species is unknown, but they regularly seem willing to do so.

Deathdrinkers are the size of giants, towering over 20 feet tall on the smallest end. They have massive, antler-like horns that sprout from their head, skin that ranges from red to purple and occasionally grey, massive teeth that are constantly bared due to a lack of lips, and 7-9 fingers on each of their hands. Many customize their equipment, though most commonly they will try to get their hands on magical suits of armor fitted to their massive size. They favor large, heavy weapons.

What ties all deathdrinkers together is how they feed. While they do not need to eat, they get a physical and mental rush when they kill a creature, healing wounds and sending them into a high that depends on how thrilling and dangerous the creature was. Stronger opponents will give them a bigger rush, though even weaker ones will replenish their stamina and fix injuries, and so many deathdrinkers choose to become mercenaries for hire. The more dangerous the mission, the more excited they are and many deathdrinkers will offer discounts if the battles during their job were thrilling enough. Of course, if the opponents they faced weren’t as exciting as hoped for the deathdrinker may take out its disappointment on its employer. They can never be truly trusted, but you’re actually usually safer if the creature you’re pitting them against appears to be more imposing and dangerous than you are.

In battle the deathdrinker loves to throw itself into the thickest group of enemies, letting its aura strip away their life. It lashes out with its weapon, carving up enemies and will use its innate magics to fly and teleport into position where useful. Many love teleporting suddenly next to an isolated spellcaster. A deathdrinker seeking a boost mid fight won’t hesitate to direct an attack into a wounded ally, cutting them down and giving itself a rush to cut down its foes.

The sample stat blocks given here can be adjusted to give the deathdrinker a custom weapon and armor layout that fits with the look you’d like for your own version. As long as the average damage output and AC are around the same level, the CR of the deathdrinker will be fine.

Originally from the 3.5 Monster Manual IV. This post came out a week ago on my Patreon. If you want to get access to all my monster conversions early, as well as a spot on the Paper and Dice Discord server, consider backing me there!

5th Edition

Deathdrinker Huge fiend, chaotic evil Armor Class 19 (+2 half plate) Hit Points 283 (21d12 + 147) Speed 50 ft. Str 25 (+7) Dex 14 (+2) Con 24 (+7) Int 15 (+2) Wis 16 (+3) Cha 18 (+4) Saving Throws Con +13, Wis +9, Cha +10 Skills Intimidation +10, Survival +9 Damage Immunities necrotic, poison Damage Resistances acid, cold, fire, lightning; bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks Condition Immunities poisoned Senses truesight 120 ft. passive Perception 13 Languages Abyssal Challenge 18 (20000 XP) Aura Of Unlife. At the start of each of the deathdrinker's turns, each creature within 5 feet of it magically takes 10 (3d6) necrotic damage. Deathdrink. When the deathdrinker reduces a creature to 0 hit points, it magically regains 18 (4d8) hit points. Glory In Slaughter. When the deathdrinker kills a level 10 or higher creature, it gains advantage on all attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws for 1 minute. Magic Resistance. The deathdrinker has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects. Magic Weapon. The deathdrinker's weapon attacks are magical. Innate Spellcasting. The deathdrinker's spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 18). The deathdrinker can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components: 3/day each: dimension door, fly 1/day each: dispel magic (as a 6th level spell) Actions Multiattack. The deathdrinker makes three attacks and can use one of its innate spells. Adamantine Greatsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +13 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 28 (6d6+7) slashing damage. This attack deals double damage to objects and structures.

13th Age

Deathdrinker Huge 11th-level troop [demon] Initiative: +15 Adamantine Blade +16 vs. AC (3 attacks) - 60 damage Critical Hit: The deathdrinker can add the escalation die to its next attack. Miss: 30 damage Deathdrink: When the deathdrinker reduces a creature to 0 hp (with an attack or with its life ending aura), it immediately regains 125 hp and can add the escalation die to its attacks until the end of its next turn. Flight. Instant Teleport: As a quick action when the escalation die is even, the deathdrinker can teleport to a nearby or far away location that it can see. Life Ending Aura: At the start of each of the deathdrinker’s turns, 1d3 nearby enemies take 3d10 negative energy damage, starting with the enemy with the lowest hp. AC 27 PD 25 MD 21 HP 864

#D&D #DnD #Dungeons and Dragons #5th Edition #13th Age #homebrew #my homebrew #monster #fiend #demon

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blogaloha960 · 3 years ago

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Bonetown Mods Downloads

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Mejor descarguenlo desde este link por utorret: asi no tendra ninguna clase de error el juego, el li. Download mods produced by the passionate community for truck loads of articles and an ever evolving Spintires Mud. Runner experience. Runner PC Game free. download full Version full version of this blog. PC games free. download full version at gamesena. Runner PC Game free. download full Version game without bugs. A comedic, adult-oriented, action-adventure comedy video game. Activities include; having sex, consumption of drugs, as well as fighting.

Table of Contents

Bonetown Cheats

Thanks go to RonJeremy from the Bonetown Forums for providing the following content

If you totally suck at BoneTown and you want an easy way to beat the game, follow these instructions:

1. Start a new game and save it at the first save point.

2. Exit the game.

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3. Go to your save game file, located at: C:Documents and Settings*Your Computer Name*Application DataBonetownsavegames (this is not the same directory you saved the game data to / Your Computer Name will be the name of your User Logon). You can also enter “%APPDATA%Bonetownsavegames” address in Explorer address bar without double quotes.

NOTE - If you are using Windows 7 the file is located at: C:Users“Your Computer Name”AppDataRoamingBonetownsavegames.

4. Right click the character save game file and select Open With, Wordpad. It will be something like Ron.sgf

5. The data should look something like this:

Edit the following lines so they look like this:

This will give you a ball size of 20, 999 of each drug and a 20 damage rating buff to your attacks. There are other things you can change here if you feel the need.

6. When you're done, save your file.

7. Now start your game normally and select your character.

Enjoy!

You can rename the textures in the chicks files to change their skins. ex make copies of all the devil textures and rename the copies to the same name as all the textures for the black chicks then all the black chicks will have the satans gf skin. in my game i made all the white chicks in to angels and all the black chicks into devils.

You can modify the body types of female NPCs by renaming the dtm and dcm file names.

This is how you do it. Take all the hot chick files. Copy them to a different folder and name them fatty and athletic the files are the accesories in the data chicks characters/dwc folder.

You're not done yet now do the same to the accesory folders for the chicks each dtm file

dress ie tshirthot.dtm renames into tshirtfatty.dtm

do this with all the accesory dtm files dont forget the loads folder as well.

Takes something like 30 minutes to do.

Then copy them back to their original file folders. And now all you got is hot chicks walking around to fuck. A porno every second you play.

Originally posted on the Bonetown forums by jbg:

Press SHIFT + ~ (tilde) to toggle the console window.

sweetMoves(gamechar); - Unlock all powermoves

goodTimes(gamechar); - Gives you some drugs

vegasBaby(gamechar); - Gives you some money

Some more found by Yoda1953:

godlike(gamechar); - Infinite health

swingingbeef(gamechar); - Maxes out your base ball level and fills the meter.

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alloftheabove(gamechar); - Grants all of the effects of the other codes at once.

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pauseDaylight(1); - Stops day/night cycle. You may need to do pauseDaylight(false); pauseDaylight(true); when entering another area.

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Once you complete a chapter you can re-enact the sex scene again inside the Fantasy “mansion”. The “glitch” is that you can actually skip the sex scene and have regular sex (oral/vagina/anal) with any desired main character, except Uzi of course. Walk a good distance away from the desired partner and keep pressing Enter as you walk towards the girl. The regular sex activation range is larger than the scene activation range so you can have regular sex with whomever, the voice actresses are also the same, not the general female voices. Tricksey was not designed for sex, so her character acts a little “funny”.

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twilights-800-cats · 4 years ago

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Behind the scenes fun facts, because posting text stuff is more complicated than it seems and actually takes up a good chunk of time:

Before I post, I go over each and every chapter that’s going up for last-minute spelling and grammar changes. Unfortunately, if a chapter has been posted to Patreon already I can’t make huge sweeping changes, but if there’s something I missed on Patreon I’ll change it for the public.

I do not have a copy of Microsoft Word, so all my writing happens on the online version of Microsoft Office, which is like Google Docs but lacking any sharing features; basically it’s Word but must be online to save and its features are more pruned.

Why not use Google Docs? Everything I have is in Word, so sunk cost and all that - plus, while neither resource works all that well with huge documents, Word handles it a bit better. Not to mention that copy + pasting from Google Docs isn’t always so graceful...

FanFiction:

requires a .doc file that I need to export from Word and trim out all content but the chapter to be posted (eg if i need to post chapter 3 i need to delete 1-2 and then everything after 3)

need to manually add in line breaks

keeps most formatting (italics, bold, etc. there are some things that the ff.net text editor just cannot handle or will not translate to the posted chapter, but i don’t use those features anyway)

can take a second to upload big documents but otherwise? it’s honestly the least painful process

Patreon:

keeps formatting after a copy + paste the best, even keeps my line breaks and supports other things like centering, etc

HOWEVER - links are downright busted. i sometimes have to input a link three to four times before it will actually stick and work, and on rare occasions inputting a link will actually delete other links. patreon posts, for whatever reason, do not like having more than three links in a post. patreon is by far the WORST when it comes to creating a navigation bar

automatically hides lengthy chapters

Tumblr:

tumblr doesn’t support things like centering unless i hard code it into the html, not that i use those features anyway

read mores are a godsend for long chapters (but don’t always work)

navigation links aren’t an issue here until it comes time to input the chapter’s address into the tb au page, where i need to do it twice because for some reason the first time just creates a temp url that does nothing (and yeah that means i need to input the link, save the changes, exit the editor, reenter the editor, and then reinput the link to get it to work)

the thing that takes the most time, though, is that tumblr does not keep formatting. at all. i have to manually, using the original doc as a guide, put in every single instance of bold or italics into the doc, which takes so much time and is so boring

in addition, i cannot have both the tumblr post and original doc up on the same monitor, not without converting tumblr to mobile form and deleting the entire post i was working on - i have to put the original doc up on my other monitor in order to make those changes. if anything looks funky on tumblr, like something should be italics but isn’t, that’s why

#tldr tumblr sucks for longform text posts and patreon needs to get its shit together about links

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lunawings · 4 years ago

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My history with King of Prism and worries for the future

Poor Nikkanen. They made us wait TWO YEARS for the release of the full version of his ONLY song. I don’t think Prism Rush was supposed to end when it did, and the unreleased songs are more or less proof of that. (I mean what were they saving them for? I doubt the “Best Of” collection was what they originally had in mind.) I had always assumed that some time after SSS ended we’d start getting new songs on Prism Rush again and get another Prism Rush compilation CD. But that did not happen.

Did SSS not do well? I mean... having been in a sold-out theater many a time I had assumed that it did quite well. But maybe the TV ratings and/or DVD sales weren’t what they should have been. (Then again, if we’re just talking about Prism Rush, it wouldn’t matter how well SSS did or didn’t do if people didn’t spend enough money on the app to warrant releasing new songs for it.)

But that aside... it is a bit concerning to not only have Prism Rush ending, but over a year after SSS, to have nothing on the horizon in the future except for some “Best Of” discs... Maybe they’ll announce something at the Zoom show? Maybe they won’t.

It may be too early to start mourning the King of Prism series as a whole, but...

But I can’t help but feel myself starting to mourn at least my own future with it. With no new Prism Rush content and without ability to go to in-person cheering shows, I... I just I... I feel like I may find it hard to keep as passionate as I have been in the past. And to make matters worse, I’m not going to be able to work on my translations as much as before either. When I was translating 2-3 events a month on my Prism Rush translation blog, I had no job and then like... half a job. To make a long story short recently that first job not only got upgraded to full time, but I got another job as well. So now I have a job and a half and... a lot less free time.

For a long time my main fandom has been split something like 49%/51% Love Live/King of Prism, but with the constant stream of accessible new Love Live content and lack of much of anything King of Prism I think that percentage will soon change...

And so, while feeling emotional about all this, I started mentally revisiting my favorite moments from my time in the King of Prism fandom. (It’s all stuff I’ve talked about before, but if you’d like me to dig up the post or explain the details, do let me know...)

(In somewhat chronological order-ish)

*Stepping out of Toho Cinemas and into the Bay City Nagoya Mall in early January 2016 not knowing how to process what had just happened. I’d heard people talk about how exiting to the parking lot after seeing Star Wars the first time in the 1970s was a bizarre experience. They didn’t know how to tell people the world was different now. I thought to myself that this was probably the same feeling. How could I tell people the world was sparkling now?

*Three weeks and three showings later, realizing I did not want to trade after I opened up my Shin filmstrip bonus. “I think I like him.”

*Hanging up said filmstrip and my other original theater bonuses on the wall of my apartment. “King of Prism won’t be in theaters much longer”, I thought to myself. “It was fun while it lasted.”

*The radiance exploding from me as I talked to OTHER PEOPLE who had seen King of Prism for the fIRsT tIME (a thing that did not happen for several months).

*Tokyo cheering shows back in the heyday. Looking around a giant, screaming, sold-out theater in Ikebukuro after many months had passed and realizing I was a part of something much bigger than I had realized.

*The first Animate Cafe in Kyoto. Everyone gleefully answering “Naaaani” while listening to the explanation of how the cafe worked. The miracle of getting my first, and still favorite, cafe Shin badge.

*Screaming at the Over the Rainbow event live viewing when they announced Pride the Hero. We did it. We really did it. We were actually getting the sequel I once thought was impossible.

*The midnight showing of Pride the Hero. People crying before it even started and the thunderous applause after it finished that I thought would never end. (People in Japan usually never clap after movies.)

*Music Ready Sparking. (The first concert.) The feeling of seeing SePTENTRION (long before they were called that) rising up to the stage to perform live for the first time.

*The realization that I knew all the words to Dramatic Love, despite having never sang it before. (The instrumental began during the credits at the concert and we all... just... started singing. Japanese fandoms usually never sing at concerts unless directed to.) This is probably still my favorite moment of all time in the King of Prism fandom.

*The announcement of the Prism Rush app and the golden age of the game. Biting my nails with anticipation over what would happen next in the White Day event.

*Screaming in the theater during the Rose Party 2018 event live viewing when they announced SSS. We did it. We REALLY did it this time. We got an actual anime. We reached the mainstream.

*The adventure that was reading Road to SSS for the first time on Prism Rush and trying to predict what all the duos would be only to be blindsided by completely new characters. Going from “the heck are these guys” to “MY SONS” regarding the Amamoto twins over the course of about an hour.

*Listening to everyone (not so) silently laughing, screaming, crying, and otherwise sUfFeRiNg during the non-cheering midnight premiere of SSS Part 1 and realizing I had never felt so emotionally connected to any such other large group of complete strangers before.

*Going from the Nagoya premiere straight to the SSS greeting show in Tokyo where Junta Terashima looked at me... maybe. (I’d like to think he did.)

*When the OP played for the first time during our very first SSS livestream on Rabbit and seeing y’all just typing “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA” into the chat.

*In Tokyo, walking out of KFC in the POURING rain and stumbling upon SePTENTRION’s shopping street despite having completely missed it the first time. IT WAS REAL.

*Glancing over at my TV screen during our very last SSS livestream on Rabbit and having the color drain from my face when I saw Shin in his Daisuki Refrain outfit (which was not shown in theaters) for the very first time two minutes before you guys in the chat would see it, and having no idea how to contain this emotion.

*Clicking to another tab after our last SSS livestream to type my commentary post and then clicking back to see you guys collectively making the Wiki page for SePTENTRION on Rabbit.

*Prism dolphin show.

*The CLOUD of real (fake) money flying through the air during Kakeru’s prism show on the during all-night Prism Shower showing of SSS. (Also people offering to pay for young Alexander to go to the Prism King Cup.)

*The miracle moment when I finally got the livestream for the Rose Party 2019 on Stage to work on Kast despite a typhoon and an earthquake. THE PRISM SPARKLE PREVAILED. Dangerously walking back to my hostel in said typhoon and sleeping for about an hour and not even caring because I was convinced more than ever that the prism sparkle is real.

*Seeing Shota Aoi live for the first time, realizing I was looking at a literal angel, and not knowing how to contain this emotion.

*The chills during an orchestral Dramatic Love.

*A very overdue performance by my favorite boy during the Best Ten movie. It was worth the wait. Feeling I may actually be able to leave Japan with no regrets thanks to Daisuki Refrain.

*The Best Ten greeting show in Nagoya where Masashi Igarashi jumped an original Nagoya-themed prism jump.

*Finally telling Junta Terashima and Masashi Igarashi my feelings in the letters I spent days writing to put in their present boxes at the SSS live.

*Dropping all my luggage when I stumbled upon the very place, the very scaffolding under which Minato met Kouji for the first time in Shizuoka. IT WAS REAL.

*Masashi Igarashi waved to me at the end of the 2nd performance of the SSS live... maybe. (I’d like to think he did.)

*Hearing the “Naaaani” response to anything ringing through the Makuhari Messe hall before the SSS live and just thinking about how far we’ve come as a fandom and yet how much has stayed the same.

Like I mentioned earlier, I had a moment in early 2016 when I hung up all the King of Prism stuff I had on my wall and thought “It was fun while it lasted.”

It looked like this:

Nowadays I have two FULL photo albums filled with concert tickets, theater bonuses, post cards, coasters, stickers... (Not to mention an entire drawer filled with my collection of Shin merch.)

Everything inside is a memory of some event I went to, something I ate at a cafe, some kind of experience I had such as the ones I talked about in this post... It’s always been pretty disorganized because I was constantly getting new things all the time.

But now that I have no idea when (...or if) it will be added to, I can finally take it all out and organize it by character or something.

But I’ve been avoiding it.

Because I know when I do, there will probably be a moment where I close the cover and think to myself “It was fun while it lasted.”

#king of prism #kinpri

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precuredaily · 5 years ago

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Precure Day 187

Film: Yes! Precure 5 The Movie: Miracle Adventure in the Mirror Kingdom! Date watched: 16 May 2020 Original release date: 10 November 2007 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/OLloFxz (500 pics for you to enjoy!) Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

these butterflies will kick your ass

This continues our trend of absolutely excellent Precure movies, and stands strong with themes of love, compassion, and bettering yourself. It also introduces Dark Precures for the first time, who will go on to be a recurring idea for a few years. As always it has excellent animation and a moving plot to keep you invested so let’s explore and then I’ll tell you what I thought.

But first, a note! Throughout this review, I will refer to the villain Shadow using the singular "they” pronoun because their gender is never specified in the film. They have a mostly androgynous appearance, with some traditionally masculine features but a distinctly feminine voice provided by veteran seiyuu Park Romi, and they speak using the feminine pronoun “atashi.” Perhaps the animators were designing a gender-neutral character, or perhaps I’m reading too much into it and the character was meant to be an effeminate man. There is a long and complicated history of queer-coding villains in media that I don’t want to get into, so I’m just going to stick with “they”. However, the translation I use in my screenshots opted for he/him, that is out of my control.

The Plot

Before the actual movie begins, there’s a short sketch with Coco, Nuts, and Milk explaining what Miracle Lights are and how and when to use them. (more on that here) When they explain why you shouldn’t throw them, the audience is gifted with this nightmare-inducing image of Coco being cut.

you know, for kids

After they get the do’s, don’ts, whens, and whys out of the way, the movie starts for real.

In the throne room of the Mirror Kingdom, which is an ominous land filled with reflective surfaces, a blue-haired Jojo villain named Shadow bosses around two bears named Migirin and Hidarin and has them conjure up an image of Nozomi. Shadow takes Nozomi’s image and reflects it into one of the five color-coordinated crystals that decorate the throne room. Nozomi’s image quickly turns into a full figure within the crystal, and as Shadow channels power into it, the crystal shatters and a dark version of Cure Dream is born. The camera leaves the castle and shows a desert filled with mirror slabs with sleeping anthropomorphic animals trapped inside of them.

Via a very clever set of establishing shots through a series of mirror reflections, we transition to Natts House where the five girls and Milk are hanging out. Nozomi is bored and looking for something to do, and each of her friends suggests an activity (futsal, watching TV, playing cards, or doing homework) but she rejects them all. Coco pulls out a flier for a place called Princess Land and suggests they go there. All the girls are entranced by the idea and they agree to go.

The opening theme plays over a montage of them traveling, arriving, picking dresses, leaving to change, showing off to Coco and Nuts, and then walking down a path with a huge crowd of people, including some costumed characters of bear princes. And then a mysterious gothic lolita girl appears on a nearby rooftop, looking out at everything...

The girls wander around Princess Land, acting like princesses while being silly with each other, Urara brags about a Pinky that she caught earlier, Nozomi tries to sneak up on Coco but he comments that he can tell when she’s nearby, and occasionally the mysterious girl from the roof walks by and steals glances at them. The girls enter a house of mirrors, and at one point, the mysterious lolita appears behind Nozomi’s reflection in the mirror, along with Migirin and Hidarin.

all of these are perfectly normal events

In the next room, Nozomi and Coco have a heart-to-heart, reiterating their feelings for each other and that they will find each other if they ever get separated. Afterwards, Nuts stays to talk with Coco, cautioning him about making that sort of promise since they’ll have to go back to the Palmier Kingdom soon. While they’re talking, Migirin and Hidarin sneak up from inside the mirror, take control of Coco and Nuts’s reflections, and then pull the real Coco and Nuts into the mirror world. The girls make their way to the exit, followed by Coco and Nuts. Nozomi notices Nuts is smiling, which is uncharacteristic for him.

Next, all the girls partake in a game where they run around a field as boys try to place flower crowns on their heads. Karen and Komachi are already out by the time we see them, Nozomi and Urara don’t last long, but Rin dodges and outruns all the boys, because she is too good for them. She receives a bouquet for her trouble, which she goes to offer to Nuts. However, Nozomi has noticed that Coco and Nuts aren’t acting themselves, and when Coco brushes Rin aside and asks Milk for the Dream Collet (side note: why does she have it? Nuts is its caretaker), Nozomi steps in and exposes the princes as imposters. While this is happening, the mysterious lolita watches from a distance.

The fake Coco and Nuts pull out a pair of Kowaina masks and morph into a large two-headed creature, so the girls all transform into Precure as well. The monster is very blobby and absorbs their attacks. Nozomi fires off a Dream Attack into one of the masks but when the smoke clears, the face recovers. While the girls fight, the lolita girl holds up a mirror that captures their images, and Shadow reflects Rouge, Lemonade, Mint, and Aqua into the remaining four crystals. With her work done, the lolita disappears back to the Mirror Kingdom. The Precures continue to fight, unaware of the malicious plans afoot. Aqua concludes that if they attack both masks at once, they should be able to defeat the Kowaina, so after Dream, Lemonade, and Mint gain the upper hand, Rouge and Aqua swoop in with their special attacks. As the monster disappears, what’s left are.... Migirin and Hidarin! They try to flee but Rouge captures them and takes them back to Natts House. There, the girls interrogate them about the location of the real Coco and Nuts. They’re reluctant to talk until Milk slaps the shit out of them.

They explain how Shadow took over the Mirror Kingdom, imprisoning all the residents and stealing the kingdom’s crystals, the source of its energy. Shadow then promised to return everything if Migirin and Hidarin were able to get the Dream Collet. Coco and Nuts are being held captive in the Mirror Kingdom, and there are specific conditions to get there that involve the Miracle Lights which Migirin and Hidarin have. So the girls get ready, and at 2 AM they depart. But they barely have time to take in the sight of the desolate kingdom before Shadow appears in the flesh, claiming that they can get whatever they desire with the Dream Collet! The girls transform into Precure, but Shadow smugly says the Precures won’t be fighting them, and then they teleport the red, yellow, green, and blue crystals behind themself. The mysterious lolita girl also appears behind Shadow, and Nozomi is shocked at this girl who looks so much like her. The lolita is encompassed in flame as she transforms, revealing herself as Dark Dream.

At the same time, the other four crystals burst and Dark Rouge, Dark Lemonade, Dark Mint, and Dark Aqua emerge.

Color-coded mirrors appear behind the heroine Precures as their dark counterparts quickly lunge at them and pull each of them into a mirror, where they each arrive in a new dimension. The Dark Precures speak to their originals about their twisted ideals, which all share the common theme that the Dark Cures believe friends are worthless and the clones are better because they don’t have that reliance on others. Each girl engages in battle with her doppelganger and the Dark Cures waste no time demonstrating their superiority.

Milk, Migirin, and Hidarin can do nothing but watch the mirrors. Shadow, however, isn’t interested in waiting to see the outcome of the fights, so they forcefully take the Dream Collet from Milk and teleport back to the castle. There, Coco and Nuts are shown trapped in mirrors, and Shadow taunts them before explaining that they came to the Mirror Kingdom so they could quickly collect all 55 Pinkies. They hold the Dream Collet up and the mirrors scattered around the room change to show all the Pinkies scattered around the world (very convenient that they’re all by reflective surfaces). They get sucked into the mirror, into the Mirror Kingdom, and then into the Dream Collet! Coco is sad because he’s helpless to stop this and thinks he may never see Nozomi’s smile again.

The Dark Precure fights resume, and they’re getting brutal, but the tide is starting to turn in favor of our heroines. Dark Dream says she’s an exact copy of Nozomi, but without her weaknesses. However, Nozomi turns it around and says Dark Dream is a clone of a past version of her, she continues to improve herself and she’s stronger than she was yesterday, an hour ago, a minute or even a second ago. It’s a damn good line.

The other girls also question the motivations of their counterparts and explain that having friends is what motivates them and makes them strong. We cut back to Milk and the bears. Milk wants to follow Shadow to save Coco and Nuts and recover the Dream Collet, but Migirin and Hidarin are too scared to go with her, feeling too weak and pointing out even Precure couldn’t do it. Milk scolds them for not wanting to save their own kingdom and sets off on her own. She makes it to Shadow’s castle, and Migirin and Hidarin show up after all to help her.

Nozomi and Dark Dream continue to fight, and Dark Dream’s confidence gives way to anger, confusion, and grief that she doesn’t have anyone she cares about like Nozomi does. Rin, Urara, Komachi, and Karen all manage to defeat their dark counterparts with the strength brought on by their friendship and confidence, recovering the crystals used to create them in the process. Dark Dream attacks Nozomi out of desperation but her heart isn’t in it, and Nozomi effortlessly swats the attack away. Dark Dream falls to her knees, crying about not understanding human feelings like love and friendship, and instead of fighting her, Nozomi offers her a hand and says she can learn, that Nozomi can teach her, and then invites her to return to fight Shadow with them. In the desert, all five mirrors break and the girls emerge from them. Rouge, Lemonade, Mint, and Aqua are surprised to see Dark Dream come out with Dream, and Dark Dream is clearly uncomfortable, but Nozomi says she’s a friend and that’s the end of that. The six girls run off to Shadow’s castle, and arrive just in time to save the mascots from a destructive attack by Shadow. However, Shadow boasts that it’s too late because they’ve already collected all the Pinkies, and they make their wish to become the ruler of the world. Power courses into the Dream Collet, the cures brace themselves, and then.... nothing happens.

Lemonade remembers the Pinky that she caught earlier which is still in her Pinky Catch, so Shadow can’t have all 55 of them and therefore their wish didn’t come true. Undeterred, Shadow lashes out at the team, lunging straight at Dark Dream and brutally punching her in the stomach, but quickly separates the other girls, and paralyzes Dream. Shadow moves to destroy Dream but Dark Dream moves in front of her and takes the blow instead, cracking the jewel in her chest. Nozomi is freed from the restraint and holds her copy in her arms, begging to know why she saved her. Dark Dream responds that it’s because she likes Nozomi, and after all, she’s just a copy. Nozomi says she’s not a copy, she’s her friend, but it’s too late, and Dark Dream starts to glow and fade away, leaving behind only her crystal. Shadow remarks that Dark Dream was a traitor who had it coming, but Nozomi will not take this slander against one of her friends, and through her tears she fights Shadow, delivering a good kick to their stomach before performing Crystal Shoot, seemingly defeating the villain.

Dream turns to Migirin and Hidarin and asks them to use the Miracle Lights to free Coco and Nuts, which they do. She embraces Coco and reminds him that she said she’d find him, no matter where or how. Their reunion is short lived, though, as Shadow stands up, cursing the Precures, and transforms into their true form: giant, buffer, and now with long red hair for some reason. They attack the Precures, and then launch a huge energy ball, but Migirin and Hidarin step in to block it with the Miracle Lights, proclaiming that they’re no longer afraid of Shadow. Then they turn their miracle lights on the Precure, wishing to grant them the strength to defeat Shadow. Migirin and HIdarin aren’t strong enough, so they ask for help. Coco, Nuts, and Milk help to! So does the audience! You! Yes you reading this right now, wave your miracle light and give the Precure power!

Well everyone’s wishes come together to grant the Precure new power, and they metamorphose into Super Precure. (I’m serious, they literally cocoon up and then emerge with new outfits and sprout butterfly wings.) Then they perform Precure Five Explosion, against Shadow’s protests of overwhelming power. They explain it isn’t just their power, but the power everyone gave them, the power of everyone’s hearts and courage becoming one! Shadow is no match for the combined strength of everybody, and disintegrates.

Afterwards, the cures use their butterfly wings to carry the five crystals back to their pedestal mounts in the throne room. The pink crystal notably has a large fracture in it, a lasting reminder of Dark Dream’s short and tragic existence. With all the crystals restored, the Kingdom of Mirrors returns to its natural beautiful state, a land of greenery and crystals poking up from the ground, and the inhabitants are freed from their prisons. Urara, Komachi, and Karen comment on how beautiful it is. Inside the throne room, Nozomi stares wistfully at the pink crystal, recalling her short-lived friendship with Dark Dream. Rin and Urara call her to go to the celebration party, and as she runs out of the room, the camera does a slow zoom in on the cracked crystal while the ending theme begins to play.

The ending itself is Ganbalance de Dance again, but the girls are in their princess gowns, while the fairies are wearing their corresponding garb, and Migirin and Hidarin make a few appearances.

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The Analysis

The three movies from the “Futari wa” shows in 2005-2006 were all about the girls overcoming internal conflict to become better friends with each other, and each of them did it in a somewhat different way. You could certainly explore that dynamic with a larger team, and in fact the show did just that in episodes 23-24, but instead this movie derives its conflict from the girls’ own personalities. They’re not fighting each other, they’re fighting themselves, and recognizing their supposed weaknesses as strengths. In this way, they achieve growth. It’s a great character exploration and shows what teamwork means in a larger group setting. Additionally, the story is well-paced and flows naturally from one event to the next without ever lagging, but it also gives you some necessary breathing room in between dramatic moments. As we’ve come to expect, the animation is generally much better than the television series, and the fights look phenomenal. The aspects I find less enjoyable are mostly to do with the fairies and the merchandising, and a bit of a rushed finale.

The major themes of this movie are friendship, trust, redemption, and growth. Friendship is the most obvious one, because it’s at the core of this entire franchise. The bond that each member of the team has with the others is their greatest strength and what allows them to push past their own limits. It’s what clues Nozomi in that Coco and Nuts are missing. It’s what the Dark Precures are missing which leads to their defeat, and it’s also what allows Nozomi to befriend Dark Dream rather than defeating her. We are shown time and again that having people to support you is the most wonderful thing imaginable. Trust is perhaps both the most broad and the most limited theme in this film. It’s closely connected to friendship and you can see it overlap with that a lot. Because of their friendship, each girl trusts that the others are winning their battles against their counterparts as well. However, a small place where it heavily applies that’s easy to overlook is during Nozomi and Coco’s moment alone in the hall of mirrors. They promise they’ll always find each other no matter what they look like or where they go. True to her word, as soon as Nozomi realizes Coco has been replaced with an imposter, her only goal is finding the real deal, and Coco has unwavering trust in her to do it. It’s a powerful moment that gets lost in the commotion of the movie, but I love it.

The Dark Precures are easily the most famous aspect of this film, with good reason. The idea of an evil twin is an ancient storytelling technique, and it remains very effective, because it can simplify character design by allowing you to base your evil character on an existing protagonist while letting you deviate in small or large ways from their design as needed. It's also be a convenient way to explore and develop a character’s personality by having them face off against someone of a similar, but twisted, ideology. A case could be made that the Kiryuus in Splash Star were a form of villain counterpart Precures without being explicit copies of the heroines, but these are the first to be directly and transparently copies of the heroines, and of the three full dark teams as of this writing (Yes 5, Heartcatch, and Smile) they’re the best fleshed out. Each of them represents a quirk of their doppelganger, but turned selfish.

Dark Dream is devoid of aspirations and joy

Dark Rouge believes friends prevent you from being your true self

Dark Lemonade feels that trying to entertain others is a waste of effort.

Dark Mint believes the best defense is a good offense, and protection is a weak ability

Dark Aqua thinks that friends keep you from growing stronger

They gloat about being better because they don’t have the dependency on friends, but most of them go down precisely because the heroines feel empowered by being in a team, even when fighting alone. Each of the heroines recognizes that their strength comes from having friends to protect and fight alongside, that friends help you grow and improve yourself. The hubris of the Dark Cures is ultimately their undoing and it ties back into the film’s central themes of friendship. This is explored clearly across all five fights by careful editing, which involves giving each battle a little bit of time in focus before changing perspectives. We hear short exchanges between the original and dark cures, and sometimes conversations are continued between battles, as their debates are very similar. Ultimately, the Cures’ confidence in their friends is what allows them to succeed over their counterparts, as just having faith is enough of a motivator and a power boost to keep them going, and each fight concludes with the girls accepting and explaining how the flaw the Dark Cures see in them is actually their greatest strength. It’s beautiful. I was particularly moved by Komachi and Karen’s statements to their doppelgangers. Komachi said “I wanted to protect you, too,” as Dark Mint disappeared in her arms, which is a powerful rebuttal to an opponent who criticized her for only protecting herself, and you could feel Komachi’s regret. Meanwhile, Karen told Dark Aqua that her dark version reminded her of herself before she made friends, and therefore she wants to surpass that version of herself, which speaks to Karen’s growth both on and off the screen.

Nozomi and Dark Dream’s battle, however, is on a different level from the others. Dark Dream was actually a reflection of Nozomi herself rather than Cure Dream, she was around for longer than the others and got to see Nozomi just hanging out with her friends being happy, so she has the most fleshed out personality and perspective while the rest of the Dark Precures were created and immediately thrown into battle. Consequently, Dark Dream starts out cynical about Nozomi’s friendships, but when Nozomi begins to show how her friends help her grow and improve herself constantly, Dark Dream begins to falter. Her confidence turns to anguish as she bemoans her lack of understanding about friendship, happiness, laughter, sadness, sorrow, or any other emotions. She was created to fight and that’s all she knows how to do. But instead of destroying her, Nozomi offers to help her learn these things, and this act of kindness shakes Dark Dream to her core. Her reason to exist has been stripped away, but Nozomi has given her a chance to be more than just a clone made for destruction. More amazingly, the other Precures accept her as well. As soon as Nozomi declares her a friend, they all accept her as one of their rank and proceed to fight Shadow. For the first time in her life, she’s not just needed, she’s wanted, and this shows off the depths of Nozomi’s compassion and her power to unite people. Unfortunately, just when Dark Dream has found someplace she belongs and people who care about her, she makes the ultimate sacrifice to save Nozomi, and that breaks my heart. Her story mirrors that of Kiriya, someone else who was created for evil, but through the compassion and kindness of the heroines, tried to forge a different path, only to die before he could truly make a new life for himself. It’s the same kind of tragedy, that of unfulfilled potential, and it’s a mature plot direction for this series. It hurts but I applaud the writers for it. I also love that Nozomi doesn’t forget this at the end. Nozomi made a new friend, that friend died so she could survive, and the ending where she stares at the pink crystal with only the bottom of her face visible really gets to me. I’m not sure if it’s symbolic that she’s lost a part of herself or if it’s because eyes are major sources of expression and hiding them enforces that she’s not her usual happy self, but it’s excellent framing and it contrasts well with the happy face she puts on when Rin and Urara summon her for the party.

Additionally, this scene of Dark Dream’s desperate attack is beautiful, primarily in how the audio cuts out from the moment she throws it until it hits the ferris wheel. It’s an excellent use of silence.

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Beyond having ideals that clash with those of the Precure 5, the Dark Precure also have their own spin on special attacks. The butterfly motifs are gone entirely, Dark Dream simply lobs a ball of energy around, Dark Rouge shoots fireballs and can use a phoenix attack, Dark Lemonade creates blades by kicking her feet and can decimate with her singing, Dark Mint launches orbs that can pierce barriers, and Dark Aqua uses an energy staff, and later a sword. In some respects they resemble the Cures’ attacks and in others they’re completely opposite. It’s a clever and imaginative use of each girl’s powers.

The combat sequences are some of the best I’ve seen in any movie so far, with the characters alternating between rapid-fire punching and kicking and their energy attacks. Each battle takes place in a unique environment, which lets the perspective switch rapidly between fights without confusing the audience, and the director keeps an excellent balance between them, only staying a few minutes at each before changing perspective. Dream fights in a carnival, primarily by a ferris wheel (which could be the one seen at the Princess Land), Rouge fights in space on a bunch of floating orbs, Lemonade and Mint both fight in cities surrounded by buildings and parks, and Aqua fights in a flowery meadow.

The other villain of the movie, Shadow, offers very little to discuss. They’re a power-hungry tyrant with no motivation other than to rule over everything. They’re super over-the-top in their mannerisms, very sadistic, mocking, and uncaring about anybody else. They view the Dark Precures as nothing but tools and they feel no remorse for their defeat. We know nothing about their history or what led them to become this way, and since most of the movie is them pushing other people around or letting the Dark Cures fight on their behalf, we don’t get the chance to explore their motivations deeper than the surface level. Shadow is a decent fighter, at least, when they go toe-to-toe with the Precure they demonstrate immense speed and of course their glyphs are able to both restrain opponents and teleport small objects. It’s good to have a five-on-one fight against a human-sized opponent after spending half the movie in solo fights, it shows how strong Shadow is, but ultimately of course the Precure overpower them, driven on by the death of Dark Dream. I enjoy seeing them gloat and ham it up but they’re less compelling than their predecessors Sirloin, Freezen and Frozen, and maybe even the Dark Witch. This of course is due to Shadow’s lesser screentime, since the Dark Precures are the main attraction of this film, but I still wish they’d gotten a little more time in the limelight.

The other new characters of this film are the denizens of the Mirror Kingdom, Migirin and Hidarin. They are annoying and I do not like them. I take pleasure in seeing Milk slap the shit out of them.

They are voiced by a comedy duo called “The Touch” who are real-life twins named Takuya and Kazuya. Their line delivery is very bland and, frankly, they’re boring characters. Their main gimmicks are speaking in sync or finishing each other’s sentences, and their only character trait is cowardice that they have to learn to overcome. Beyond that they’re only in the movie to have an in-universe explanation for the Miracle Lights.

Let’s address the elephant in the room here. This is the very first Precure movie to have Miracle Lights. Almost every movie after this will also include a new Miracle Light, so get used to them. I wrote a long explanation on PCD Status that you can read, but the short version is that kids in the audience receive a real Miracle Light with their ticket purchase, and at key points in the movie they’re supposed to light it up and wave it in the air, giving the Precure power in a simple form of audience participation. In this film they mask the fourth wall breaks pretty well by having Nozomi turn towards the fairies when she asks for help, even if she’s facing the camera. It’s just enough plausible deniability to not break the immersion.

The plot of the film is really good until about the last fifth, and then as I alluded to earlier it gets rushed and kind of muddy. The entire prologue and the sequence at the Princess Land is the kind of wonderful fun, comedy, and antics I’ve grown to expect from this show. It highlights all their characters wonderfully and you get some small, tender moments as well. Karen and Milk’s close friendship is on full display, Komachi pushes Nuts away from a mirror that makes the viewer look fat because she doesn’t want to see him that way, and of course there’s Nozomi and Coco’s comments about detecting and finding each other. My two personal favorite shots are the bit with Urara, Komachi, Karen, and Milk performing a hime laugh because it’s just so wonderfully absurd.

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And then my other is personal bias, but during the princess crowning, Rin manages to outrun all the boys. If you’ve been in the fandom you may have heard the joke “Nobody loves Rin,” which relates to the other four girls each having an official or widely accepted shipping partner (Nozomi and Coco, Urara and Syrup, Komachi and Nuts, Karen and Kurumi). Well my rebuttal to this, based on this scene, is that Rin has no partner because there’s nobody good enough for her yet. We stan best girl!

The interrogation at Natts House is good, and of course when they arrive in the Mirror Kingdom they’re almost immediately confronted with Shadow and the Dark Cures, who I gushed about above. The part where I believe the film starts to crack just a bit and the pacing hurts is after the defeat of Dark Dream. Shadow goes down really quickly, and then once the team turns into Super Precure, they almost immediately perform Five Explosion. From the time the six girls confront Shadow in the castle to Shadow’s defeat is about 10 minutes of a 70 minute movie, and 5 minutes in the middle of that is Miracle Light shenanigans and Shadow transforming. Most of the rest of the fight is the Five Explosion stock sequence, and whereas normally the Cures would deliver some epic speech before they land the final blow, this time their righteous lecture is rather short, saying that the power is everyone’s power. It’s effective but it feels truncated.

I found the soundtrack to this movie to be.... largely uninspiring. It wasn’t bad or anything, but it just seems to be remixed or rerecorded tracks from the show’s BGM., but listening to the OST there was only one track that really hit that sweet spot in my brain. It’s “Surpassing my Past Self”, track 18, and I like how everything in it builds up. You’ve got strings for the melody backed by rhythm guitar, joined later by brass, and then the guitar starts to take a more active role in the tune as it ramps up in intensity. This is the song that plays when Nozomi is winning against Dark Dream and starting to persuade her, when she makes her epic speech about being stronger than she was before. This song sticks out to me in a way that nothing else does.

Visually the movie is gorgeous, with some occasional hiccups into TV quality, but of course the movie budget overall means they get to do more than they can with a weekly TV show. Check out the opening sequence and all the little details in it!

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I especially love this bit from just before the title card where the girls’ portraits flip around to show the dark cures.

you can find a higher resolution version of this gif in the gallery

Curiously, there are still some animation shortcuts taken, like during this shot where the camera zooms in on the double doors and you can clearly see the transition between the low-detail wide shot and the high-detail close-up. I know why they did it but I wish it was smoother.

Something I find really clever is that when Shadow first creates Dark Dream in the pink crystal, the silhouette that is generated is just Nozomi in her school uniform, she doesn’t take on her new appearance until she’s fully formed.

The designs of the Dark 5 are really good and I could probably gush about them for another week, but in a nutshell they manage to effectively invert the aesthetics of the Precures, replacing cream with black, and their outfits are different from each other’s in a lot of the same ways that the main team are. Dark Dream has a two-piece outfit, Dark Lemonade’s skirt is a bit different, Dark Mint and Aqua have a band of color around their waist that the others lack, things of that nature. They’re distinct from their counterparts and from each other, which is more than can be said about their dark successors.

Dark Dream, in her civilian guise, is also an incredible design. Gothic lolita is a great look and I think it’d be cool if the franchise would utilize it a little more often.

The lace-front maroon dress with a flower petal skirt is very nice, and the black petticoat accentuates it. The headdress with roses compliments the purple bow and also reflects Nozomi’s small pigtails, and her purple lipstick and eyeshadow bring it all together. It’s almost a shame she loses the makeup when she transforms.

The Super Precure designs are nice. Not as elaborate as the Phoenix Forms from the second Max Heart film, but I appreciate the subtle redesigns.

Obviously the butterfly wings are the most prominent element, but their sleeves are longer and frillier than on their normal outfits, which means the stock sequence for Five Explosion had to be largely reanimated..... and this means the coloring error with the Lemonade Castanet is fixed!

And my last art/animation comment is to point out that there sure are a lot of stomach attacks in this film!

Some other bookkeeping: the Dark Precures are voiced by different actresses than those who play the protagonists, and this is the only time that happens, because future Dark Cures will share an actor with their counterpart. Some of them have had supporting voice parts in previous Precure seasons, and all five of them will have roles in future seasons, though again some are small parts. The most notable ones are Nishimura Chinami as Dark Dream, she would later play Aoki Reika/Cure Beauty in Smile Precure (and therefore Bad End Beauty as well); and Kugimiya Rie as Dark Lemonade, who later portrays Madoka Aguri/Cure Ace in Dokidoki Precure. The others are: Minaguchi Yuko as Dark Mint, who plays Flora in Precure 5 GoGo; Kiuchi Reiko as Dark Aqua, who previously played Kiriya in Futari wa Precure, and Nagasawa Miki as Dark Rouge, both of whom will play characters-of-the-week in Heartcatch Precure.

By the way, according to the Precure Wiki, there was a scene after the credits in the theatrical version that showed the Dark Precures being revived, however I cannot find any legitimate citation for this, and it’s also not mentioned in the Japanese wikipedia article for the film, so I’m considering that claim false unless more reliable information surfaces.

Overall this movie is excellent and once again it raises the bar for what you can achieve in a Precure movie. It features fun hijinks and high-stakes emotional drama! It tackles the doppelganger idea better than any subsequent series due to the possibilities of film and the artwork is great. If you haven’t seen it, go check it out!

Next time, in Precure Daily, we return to the main plot as Despariah appears before the girls! Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 1 kettei!

#Precure #Pretty Cure #Yes! Precure 5 #YPC5 movie #PCD187

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monotonous-minutia · 5 years ago

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Hi! Randomly found your Marriage of Figaro critique while browsing the opera tag. Which versions have you seen that DO stay true to the Libretto?

Thanks for asking! Sorry if this post gets a bit rambly. Former literature major here. If you’re not interested in the analysis, I won’t be offended if you just skip to the list at the end.

So, in the original libretto, there aren’t a lot of specific stage directions for “Non piu andrai.” But there is some context. Right before, Figaro has an aside with Cherubino (”Io vo’ parlarti pria che tu parta”--“I need to speak with you before you leave.”) He’s going to tell Cherubino the plan that he reveals to Susanna and the Contessa in Act 2: that they’re going to dress Cherubino as a girl to trick the Count, etc., and Figaro wants to catch Cherubino before he heads to Seville. The insinuation here, though, is that Figaro wants Cherubino to stay. The Count told Cherubino that Cherubino had to leave right away, but Figaro’s plan takes place that night. In order for the plan to work Cherubino has to stay. So, whether intentionally or not, Figaro’s plan is helping Cherubino too. So that’s the setup.

The only other stage direction is “Figaro e Cherubino partono marciando come soldati” (Figaro and Cherubino exit marching like soldiers). Vague, but here’s my hot take. They’re leaving the room together doing the same thing, and given Figaro just spent the last four minutes or so describing army life to Cherubino, one might think then that Figaro is continuing his demonstration by marching and Cherubino is following along. Should be cute, right?

I won’t go into how it’s usually portrayed since that’s not part of your question and I have another post forthcoming that goes into that. So instead after a probably unnecessary amount of background here’s the answer to your question.

There’s two kinds of interpretations that I personally would see as acceptable for staging this scene. 1) Following the libretto exactly, and 2) staying true to the heart of the piece; that is, having Figaro be nice and kind of mentor-y even if he’s not following the direction exactly.

(There’s a few more here than mentioned in previous posts that I’ve seen since writing them, thankfully; I find that older productions tend to portray nicer Figaros. But this is still out of the 20+ renditions I’ve seen so it’s not a great ratio.)

Some productions I’ve seen that follow more literally:

Stagione (2006) Figaro helps Cherubino dress up like a soldier and fixes his posture (though he could be nicer about it) and they leave marching like soldiers.

Paris (1980) Pretty much same as above but Figaro is a little nicer.

UCSB (2018) Similar to above, but Figaro’s kind of pushy and his teasing goes a little overboard physically.

Livermore Valley Opera (2017) Figaro teaches Cherubino varies soldier-type poses and helps him dress up in an officer’s uniform, and gives him a flag and he leaves the room marching with it.

Some that don’t follow as literally but stay true to the Figaro-should-be-nice-to-Cherubino vibe:

Garsington (2017) Figaro spends the entire number shaving Cherubino; we can imagine to help him feel more mature because he has absolutely no facial hair. Very teasing and Cherubino does get nervous when he shaves under his chin but it’s not mean.

Liege (2018) Figaro demonstrates how to stand, walk, and salute like a soldier, gives Cherubino a hat, and indicates that the ladies love a man in uniform. Best part: they high-five at the end.

Glyndebourne (1973) Figaro sits Cherubino down for some real talk and gives him an officer’s hat, shakes his hand, and waves at him as he leaves.

Hope this is helpful and not too long-winded! Most of these can be found on YouTube if you’re interested in seeing them.

#Le Nozze di Figaro #The Marriage of Figaro #Cherubino #Figaro #Non piu andrai #opera #opera tag #opera productions #opera analysis #monotonous-minutia critiques #opera asks

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babygirlizz · 5 years ago

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Movies and TV shows of 2019

Okay so a couple or few years ago I did a review of movies that had released that year because I was super into movies that year. I am still into movies, but I have been watching a lot more shows this year. So, I will be reviewing movies and tv shows. Furthermore, I will be including stuff released this year, that I found this year, or that has a new season this year. Basically just anything that I have loved this year. Also, I don’t feel like ranking, so no particular order. Also, SPOILERS AHEAD - if you see a title of something you have not seen, and don’t want spoilers, please feel free to skip that section. Also, some of these I haven’t seen in a hot minute so if I get a detail messed up, we won’t speak on it. And finally, trigger warning - if you have struggled with sexual assault and may have an issue reading about it, either skip this post entirely or skip over the review of “Unbelievable.”

MOVIES -

1. After

I have been waiting for this since middle school. I read the after books on wattpad because what teenager in love with harry styles didn’t. Now I will be real with y'all. The acting could use some work in specific scenes, and some of the actors aren't MY favorite picks for certain roles, but I’m not gonna hate on actors. Ok so, Tessa (Josephine Langford) is an incoming freshman in college and is rooming with an upperclassmen, Steph (Khadijha Red Thunder) who has a friend named Hardin (Hero Fiennes-Tiffin). Steph wants Tessa to branch out and do new things, so she invites her to a party, where they play the stereotypical games, and thats when Hardin is kind of dared to make Tessa fall in love with him. ALSO, Tessa has a high school boyfriend named Noah (Dylan Arnold). She starts seeing Hardin, her boyfriend finds out, she falls in love with Hardin, and finds out it was all a dare. Buuuuuuut, pLoT tWiSt he actually loves her.

2. Avengers: Endgame

Ok listen, Infinity War was heartbreaking bc Bucky duh, but y'all are really gonna take Tony (RDJ) and Steve (Chris Evans) away from me? Shut up. Still, this was a really good movie and I’m not just saying that because I’m a marvel hoe. FRICK Thanos and thats on Ant Man. Thats literally all I have to say.

3. Annabelle Comes Home

I am a whore for scary movies. I love them so much and this one was *chefs kiss*. I love Mckenna Grace, she's such a good young actress and she fits so well in scary moves. There’s not much to say about the plot in this one, and ya really need to see it. Also, Bob (Michael Cimino) is so heckin cute what the heck.

4. Let It Snow

Ok this is a lot to unpack so grab ya snacks. Let’s talk about couple number 1 (of 3), Tobin (Mitchell Hope) and Angie (Kiernan Shipka) who are best friends. Tobin is in love with Angie but doesn’t know how to tell her, and gets lots of unwanted encouragement from his best friend Keon (Jacob Batalon) who just wants to throw a heckin good party, is that too much to ask for? So Angie gets invited to a party by some cute guy, JP (M and Tobin is jealous but goes with her anyways and they steal a keg for Keon’s party and run from the scary hosts of the party and end up stranded in a church after his car spins out of control. They finally make it to the party and kiss on the roof with the waffle town sign shining bright behind them. NEXT - we have Julie (Isabela Merced) and Stuart (Shameik Moore). This is kind of really cliche with the whole “he’s-famous-she-doesn’t-care-he-finds-that-attractive-lets-fall-in-love” aspect, but its also hella cute uwu. They meet on a train and the train stops so they go eat at the waffle town and go sledding and do a bunch of cute coupley shit. His manager comes to get him and basically tells her that nothing will ever really happen between them and he leaves. Then, he shows up at the party and they fall in love. NEXT- we have Dorrie (Liv Hewson) who is a lesbian that constantly struggles with the gay panic. Her best friend Addie (Odeya Rush) doesn't help much either because she's having her own relationship problems. Dorrie works at Waffle Town and when she's working the girl she's talking to, Kerry (Anna Akana) comes in with her dance team, and she's not out of the closet. A bunch of shit goes down, but they end up together and Dorrie learns that she’s worth more than she thinks and that’s all that matters. Also, Billy (Miles Robbins) and Tin Foil Woman (Joan Cusack) make wonderful additions to this movie.

5. The King

First of all - Timothée Chalamet and Robert Pattinson in the same movie? Sign me the HECK up. But they’re also historical, frick yea. Not too much to say about this movie other than it’s good. Super graphic (don’t watch if you don’t like decapitation lol) and super long, but good nonetheless.

6. Falling Inn Love

This movie is super freaking cute. Gabriela (Christina Milian) decides that she needs a change and enters a contest to win an Inn in New Zealand. She wins the Inn and is shocked when she realizes the Inn needs a LOT of work. She goes around town to get stuff to fix up the Inn and constantly runs into Jake (Adam Demos) and they have this flirty but we don’t like each other relationship, but then ya know, they fall in(n) love.

SHOWS -

1. The Society

I could talk about this show for hours, literally. I love it so much it’s insane. Ok, so lets start from the beginning. A town called West Ham is being plagued by a disgusting smell. Due to this, the town decides to send busloads of teenagers to the mountains while they try and resolve the smell situation. All of the teenagers fall asleep on the bus and wake up to the announcement that they had to go back home due to road blocks. When they get off the buses, its late and no one is there to pick them up. They think that it may just be a sense of miscommunication, so they head home, only to find that none of their families are there, and they can’t get ahold of any of them over the phone. They finally decide to investigate and find that all exits out of town are completely blocked off. They then decide to find a way to survive without their families. This causes a lot of tension within the town including the death of a main character. This shows also includes gay representation!!!! This is my favorite couple, Sam (Sean Birdy) and Grizz (Jack Mulhern). Sam is deaf and gay and his brother, Campbell (Toby Wallace), makes fun of him for both reasons, and when the whole issue with the town happens, he believes he will never find love because he doesn’t think anyone else is gay, until Grizz comes along, and tries to learn ASL and loves him for him.

2. Roswell New Mexico

Alright, to be completely honest, I did not want to watch this. I have no idea why I just didn’t. I saw an edit on like instagram or something of the couples in the show and I was like, alright I can give it a chance. And spoiler alert I loved it. The series starts off with Liz Ortecho (Jeanine Mason) comes back to her hometown of Roswell around the time of her the anniversary of her sister, Rosa’s (Amber Midthunder), death. She gets pulled over on her way in and the officer that pulled her over was Max Evans (Nathan Parsons), who has had a crush on her since they first met, and just so happens to be an alien. After Liz gets shot in her families restaurant, Max uses his healing powers to save her, but leaves behind a hand print on her that makes her suspicious. She continues to investigate until he tells her the truth. She also finds out that her sister was actually murdered, and has the same hand print on her that she did when Max healed her. Turns out, his sister, Isobel (Lily Cowels) killed her, but it was actually another alien possessing her (which they didn’t know was possible when she killed her). When they landed on earth they also landed with their “brother” Michael (Michael Vlamis) who starts off the series with an on and off relationship with Alex (Tyler Blackburn) and I love them together. Alex is the son of one of the guys trying to find and take down the aliens and he also went to war and lost his leg. Anyways, towards the end of the season Alex starts seeing Maria (Heather Hemmens), which is a couple I don’t really like, but also bi representation is good! Anyways I don’t really wanna spoil this one too much I just love it a lot.

3. Elite

This is a show that came out in 2018, but they released a second season this year. All I’m saying is please watch the original version, not the dubbed over version. Elite is a spanish show about a few students that get a scholarship to the private school after their school gets demolished. This shows is in the fashion of present and past which includes a lot of flashbacks leading up to the the murder of one of the students. My favorite part of this show is the relationship between Ander (Arón Piper) and Omar (Omar Ayuso). Ander is the son of the head of the school and Omar is the brother of one of the students that got a scholarship. Not only are they of different socioeconomic status’, but Omar is also Muslim, and his family would not approve of him being gay. He finally finds the courage to tell his family, but thats not until season 2. Also, his sister Nadia (Mina El Hammani) falls in love with the “bad boy” of the school, Guzmán (Miguel Bernardeau) and starts going against her parents wishes as well.

4. The Umbrella Academy

Y’all mind if I confuse y'all real quick. So, a bunch of women all of the sudden give birth out of nowhere at the same time even tho none of them were pregnant? Yea I know weird. Anyways, so this dude tries to adopt as many of them as possible and ends up adopting like 7. They all have powers and they try and stop the apocalypse. That’s literally all I can tell y'all.

5. Unbelievable

I swear I didn’t mean to get y’all upset right now. This show made me angry and sad and so many other feelings all at once. So the show beings with a girl named Marie (Kaitlyn Dever) getting raped in her home. When she reports it, they can’t find any evidence, as he cleaned the apartment and made her shower. This mixed with the fact that she struggles remembering parts of her experience (which is common with sexual assault), the police don’t believe her and force her to retract her statement. This in itself is awful, but they also charge her with false statement, which adds on to the fact that people already believe that she is a liar. Years later, two female detectives, Karen and Grace, piece together rapes in their precincts and once they find the rapist, they find Marie’s picture in with his belongings, proving that she was telling the truth the entire time.

6. Sailor Moon

I just got into anime and all I have to say is that I love this. That is all.

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