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gamebunny-advance · 1 year ago

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1010 Malt Shop - Green Plushie

It's done. It's finally done. 1 week of blood, sweat, and tears (mostly blood), and he's done.

But I don't have a good enough camera nor photography skills to really capture his true charm ;w;

(Boring self reflection + more pics under the cut)

Anyway, this is the project I've been working on lately. No particular thing really prompted this. Like most things I do, it was started on a whim and finished with will power. I don't really have much experience with plush making or sewing, so despite his obvious faults, I still think he turned out pretty nicely for an amateur.

As per usual, I didn't have enough foresight to document the process, but I can nonetheless talk about the experience and point out some details of it.

Firstly, he's a pretty large lad. Here he is compared to the official DJSS plush and one of the test prints I did of "Melon Float."

Counting his straw, he's about 16 inches tall. I wasn't counting on him being so big, so I don't really know what I'm gonna do with him now...

I say this took a week, but I probably could have quartered that time if I had a working sewing machine, but since I didn't, the majority of the time was spent just sewing the thing together. (Btw, pattern over here.) The only fabric details that weren't hand-sewn are the circle/stripe details on his pants and shoes, and the bow/buttons on his shirt, which were all glued on.

The base pattern didn't come with any clothes, so I just adapted the body patterns into clothes. Structurally, he's basically wearing a second skin~ I did think about making the gloves for the sake of accuracy, but at that point, the only skin he'd be showing is his face, and I wanted to keep some soft parts out since his clothes are so stiff. They're so stiff, they can stand on their own and be stacked on top of each other without falling over.

(The plush has a harder time standing than his clothes do...)

Speaking of the clothes, let me say right now that it bothers me more than anyone else that the paint details don't color-match his pants. I was so high on the euphoria of starting this project that when I was out getting supplies, I saw some glow-in-the-dark paint and thought it'd be a great idea since he's a robot and all. The color on the bottle looked close enough at the time, and the original plan was that only the face would be painted with the other details being felt, but on top of me forgetting that effects paint takes a long time to build up layers, the green also dried differently than I thought it would, so it threw everything off, but I didn't have the patience to suck it up and repaint everything with a better color match. I did try to add a light gradient with my pastels like in the original art work, but it turned out so light that it's barely perceivable and totally not worth the clamminess I get when I touch chalk.

I think the most time-consuming part was his hair. While sewing the body together took 2 days, the clothes 2 days, and painting 1 day, the hair took about 3 as I had to figure out essentially how to do it myself on the fly. The first day was mostly trial and error. I did find a couple of online tutorials about how to get this loopy yarn hair, but the ones that I found both required tools that I didn't have. Eventually, I figured out a way to make it work, but I feel like it was less than efficient:

Basically, his hair is made with chunks of yarn that are tied together, and each chunk is individually sewn into place. I didn't count, but I think there are 13-14 hair chunks total to give him a full head. I do like how I made his bangs uneven to mimick how I draw his hair, but I couldn't quite pull off having his distinct hair-part and I couldn't figure out how to give the illusion of half his hair being straight without it looking weird. (I did try cutting the loops to let the strands be straight, but I didn't like the look of it, so I kept them all loopy).

This is a weird thing to say out of context, but I'm especially proud of the back of his head. Originally I was just going to paint on his undercut (which I'm glad I didn't because this paint REALLY hardens the cotton), so I got the bright idea to sew on individual strands of yarn for it. I think the effect is great, but I would not wish it upon my worst enemy, because to get the effect, I had to sew on each. strand. individually. The day I made the face poll, and said that was going to be a break day? I wound up doing this instead, and it took just as long to sew in those 20+ strands of yarn as it did the rest of his hair.

To segway into that poll, as you can see, I went with option 2 with some slight edits. Just the white/green eyes looked a little plain to me, so I added my usual dark pupil and added a green-star glitter to the center. I'm the one that has to live with this thing for the foreseeable future, so I made some executive decisions. Unfortunately, there were a few errors while painting, which you can clearly see in the above pictures OTL. I did try to seal off my painting areas with tape, but it still bled and stained in a few places. I don't really know if it's possible to clean the stains without ruing the rest of the face, but if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

There are a few extra details that I guess are worth pointing out: he's actually wired. I put in some armature wire so he'd be able to move his limbs despite the stiff felt but... I didn't secure them that well, and the wire for his arms got displaced, so I currently can't bend them ;3;. I'd have to open him up again to replace it, and I REALLY don't want to undress him again to get to his back. The worst thing about this plush is that his clothes are so stiff that he's actually very hard to dress.

The wire in his legs is mostly still in place, so he can at least (kinda) sit.

I think the last thing worth talking about is the ice cream accessory. It was really simple to make (it's just air dry clay over foil + extra pieces), but it's cute, so I wanted to point it out~

It's a hair clip, so it can be taken on and off. Theoretically, it could be worn by a person, but it's a little heavy to be wearing it all day~ The camera/lighting really blew out the colors, but I think it turned out to be a nice creamy french vanilla color like I really wanted~

Other details like the glitter on his eyes/cheeks can't really be captured on my shitty ipod camera, but rest assured that he is pleasantly sparkling~

I think my biggest takeaway from this project has been materials: I thought that using felt would be a great alternative to having to buy an entire yard of fabric for a one time project, but besides the paint, it was the hardest material to work with. If I have to pick and choose, next time I think the body will be felt, and the clothes will be cotton, or maybe I'll actually invest in some fleece, so it can be soft all the way~ Since the clothes are removable, I could theoretically make him his default sailor suit and just replace the straw with his proper hair loop to convert this into a "canon" design plush, but we'll see what the future holds. I did get the felt colors to make my *other* babygirl, but given this experience, I may hold off on making him until a much later date.

#gbunny makes #plush #nsr #no straight roads #green 1010 #1010 #1010 malt shop #short story time: so I think i've said this before #but i originally started the malt shop series because i just wanted to make a pink white!1010 and it just evolved from there #and i wanted a pink version of him because in the off chance that i ever decided to 'make' something of him #i wanted it to fit in with the rest of my things #which are mostly pink #well the day finally came when i wanted to make something #that said #i made green because 1: i thought the contrast would actually work better for my pink things #since green and pink a complimentary colors #and 2: all of green's hair accessories would give me more things to make #and thus more skills to use/improve on #since it's my first 'original' plush i wanted to practice as many techniques as possible so the next one can be even better!#this experience has taught me that i DEF need to sew in his head accessories BEFORE the hair #and if i'm going to add an undercut using this method #I also need to do that before the hair #i'm telling you. sewing the base was the easiest part #it's all the hair that was the biggest hurdle for me

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arabellas · 1 year ago

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could we get a tutorial of the tinder gifset then? it is soooo good

absolutely! unfortunately tumblr only let's to upload 30 photos per post, so now i'm posting the first gif tutorial since it was the most requested one! pls let me know if anyone wants a tutorial of other gifs <3

anyways, here's my tinder profile gif tutorial! (can be found here and here)

alright, let's start with making the gif. my gif's size is 540x540, after coloring, sharpening, etc. here's what I've got (also let me know if anyone wants a coloring tutorial!):

next, let's make the little square frame inside of it using the rectangular marquee tool:

so, add a new layer and using the tool create a square in the center of the gif. my square's size is 410x410. next up, left click > stroke :

and adjust the settings to your liking. here are mine:

(btw don't worry if it's not perfectly in the center, you can adjust that by pressing ctrl + a while you have selected the layer, then clicking layer on the top of the screen in the menu > align layers to selection > vertical centers and then horizontal centers)

next up, duplicate this layer! right click on the layer > duplicate layer:

now you should have two layers. for the bottom one, set it to difference setting:

for the top one, right click > blending options > gradient overlay

my settings were something like this, but you can play around until you're happy with how it looks:

now you should have something like this:

now the fun part! right click on that top layer that has the gradient overlay on > convert to smart object

and set the layer to color:

and there we go, we have a sexy gradient border/ frame/ whatever it is!!

next up, adding the text and little icons. so, I used this template for all of that, highly recommend it! all I did was play around with the text, I think I just used arial font and placed the job and location icons next to the text. then I placed the swiping icons onto my gif and centered them, so it here's what I've got now:

I think it's looking really cute but I wanted the icons to match the whole color scheme, so we're gonna do the same what we did with the frame to make it gradient. so what we're gonna do first is convert these 2 layers to a smart object to make things easier for us. select both layers > right click > convert to smart object:

now that we just have to deal with one layer, let's duplicate it (also renamed it to icons, so it's less confusing). right click > duplicate layer. we'll make one layer black and white, because it has some green, blue and red colors and we don't want that if we're sticking to our specific color scheme:

below the layers click on the little circle in the middle:

and select vibrance (you can also do this with black white, but since it's just simple little icons we need to make b&w, it's a little bit quicker):

my settings were these:

now let's select our bottom icons layer and the vibrance layer, right click > convert to smart object:

our icons are b&w now! now let's work with our top layer. select it > right click > blending options > gradient overlay

it's basically just like what we did with the border/ frame thingy, adjust the gradient settings to your liking, click okay and then once again right click on the top layer > convert to smart object > make sure the setting is color:

and now make sure the bottom layer's setting is difference:

and guess what?? we're done with our first gif wooooo!!

as I've mentioned in the beginning, tumblr lets to upload 30 photos per post, so I cannot include tutorials for all 4 gifs, but let me know if you'd like one with some other gif and I can totally do that. I'm pretty bad at explaining stuff, so please let me know if you have any questions!! hope this was helpful and have fun making gifs!! <3

#ask #anonymous #tutorial

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healpeony · 4 years ago

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Betrayal

Eren Yeager x fem!reader

Warnings; NSFW, smut, Profanity, 18+, kinda Dom Eren, rough sex, choking, degradation.

If you're not comfortable with this one shots, please don't read it. If you're a minor, don't read this either, have some respect. This is also my first time writing smut, I'm pretty sure you would notice that xd.

Gif not mine

Y/n knew it wasn't a wise decision to kiss him after everything he had done, but she couldn't help it. It has been so long since she tasted those addicting lips.

Now here she was kissing him, a panting mess while running her hands desperately through his now long hair.

“Eren, more. I-I need more” she whispered, through kisses

“Desperate, aren't we?” Eren smirked, kissing down her neck marking his territory for last time, of course she didn't knew that

“E-Eren!, Do-Don't leave marks” she said trying to catch her breath still pulling his hair

Eren continue kissing her neck not listening to her, he ripped her shirt open, along with her bra, to which she yelled at him for claiming that it was her favorite (it wasn't), he let his lips explore the exposed skin he hasn't seen in so long, rolling his tongue around the hard nipple in each breast.

“You're.so.freaking.gorgeous” he said connecting his lips to her scars with each said word

Y/n took Eren's shirt off, moving her hands up and down his chest while admiring him. It seem like he didn't have any scars apart from the ones in his face (from his transformation), his chest was smooth and those abs had her mouth watering.

“You done staring?” he said smirking, before connecting his lips to her, his hips moving against hers, trying to create some friction

His kisses were now really rough, compare to the ones they shared when they were younger and deep in love with each other. Now it seem like the love was just one sided, and Eren was just doing it for his own pleasure.

She could feel his cock against her, the layers separating them irritated her to no end. She pushed him not breaking the kiss, just to undo his trousers pushing them down, till they fell down to the floor. She broke the kiss looking down at his clothed cock.

They had experimented before when they were younger, she had seen the most private part of him just like he had with hers, she had touched him, but they never took it too far. The anticipation of what's to come was killing her.

Eren took matters in his own hands and took off his underwear, while y/n was watching his hard cock hit his stomach.

She started to take off her own pants along with her panties in a hurry, wanting them off as soon as possible.

As soon as they were off, she was about to go close to Eren's warmth again, but Eren stopped her looking at her in the eyes “If you don't feel comfortable now or any other time while we're doing this, tell me immediately” he said, the lust gone from his now serious voice

Y/n nodded “Yes, I'll tell you” she responded before attaching her lips back to his

Eren grabbed the back of her thighs firmly with his hands, silently asking her to jump which she did wrapping her legs around his waist while he walked over to her bed dropping her there and getting on top of her.

His fingers begin to wander downwards towards her area, getting between her wet folds. He played with her clit a little, loving the moans escaping her lips while she try hard to keep them in, slowly he slide a finger in dragging it in and out softly, then something past through his mind,

of course how could he not think of this.

“Y/n.. are you a virgin?” he asked bluntly making her gasp

Guilt crashed into her, as shame filled her eyes. Eren looked at her directly in the eyes before taking a hold of her neck.

“When?” he asked with gritted teeth, anger feeling his veins, he remembered when they were 15 and she had told him, she was a virgin.

Meaning that she had lost it while being with him or when..

“Your were in Marley, I was angry, I missed you and — and I'm so sorry Eren” she said tears in her eyes

Eren's grip on her neck tighten “So you cheated on me?” he asked, but it was more like a statement

“You — You broke up with me!, It wasn't cheating!” she defended herself

“You fucking slut, you're mine”

With one movement of his hips, he was deep inside of her, the air left her lungs as she gasped at the fullness she was feeling.

“E — Eren!” she moaned loudly

Eren didn't let her adjust to his side, slamming in and out of her in a fast pace, his hand still firmly around her neck.

“I was loyal to you, and here you were giving yourself to another or should I say others huh?” he asked, his movement going even faster

“No — No it was — just one Eren!” she said through moans

“Was he fucking you like I doing right now, huh?” Eren asked

“No!” she said her eyes rolling to the back of her head

His hand went from her neck to her hips grabbing them and continuing his pace. After a while they both came, and he pulled out after doing so deep inside of her.

“Who was it?” he asked anger still in his veins

“I — I can't” she couldn't tell him, the shame returned to her

“Who was it?!” he yelled

“Armin..” she said looking up at him with guilt

“What?..” he said betrayal flashing in his emotionless eyes

Well that took a big ass turn xd, should I make a part two or something? Sorry for any mistakes btw!

Here's is part 2

#shingeki no kyoujin #aot x reader #aot #aot oneshots #aot smut #eren yeager x reader #eren yeager smut #eren yeager #eren yeager x you #Dom Eren yeager #armin arlert x reader

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luminouslumity · 2 years ago

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THOUGHTS ON: THE COSMERE SERIES

So I said last year about how I was going to be reading the Cosmere books for the first time, one book/series at a time, and I've finally done just that!

So I started with Elantris and it was... eh. Yeah, I can see why this one isn't really talked about much. I didn't even hate it, tbh, but I still found it to be pretty boring overall. I know it was Branderson's first book, though, so I'm willing to cut him some slack here. Hopefully I'll enjoy the sequel more, whenever it comes out.

Next was the original Mistborn trilogy, which I've actually been wanting to read for awhile now! I can certainly see why it's Branderson's most popular work and I myself really liked it, too! Kelsier is probably my favorite character since I love how many layers there are to him. Elend is a close second, and considering what happens to the latter... Yeah...

Speaking of villains, I still can't tell if we're meant to pity Rashek or not due to things like this:

It's calling him "a good man" is what has me thrown off. I know his actions were at least in part due to Ruin's influence, but still! As for Ruin himself, again, I love Chessmaster characters! I do however think I would've preferred it if the Hero of Ages did turn into a tyrant, just because I've always loved this sort of trope, but I'm not too bothered about the twist, either.

So since I finished Era 1, I decided to read Era 2 while I was still on Scadrial, and as someone who's not too fond of Westerns in general, I thought the Wax and Wayne series was okay. I was feeling so bad for Wax throughout it, though! And I'm also really looking forward to the inevitable big crossover that's been teased at this entire time after getting a taste of it in a main book.

And now we come to my favorite of the Cosmere books, Warbreaker! And it's just fun! Really, really fun! Of the PoV storylines, I think I liked Vivenna's arc the most and how determined she was to rescue her sister, but Siri's was still a close second. Favorite character in general, though, Bluefingers. I repeat, I love a good Chessmaster! But more than that, I really liked how sympathetic he was, just trying to free his people, but he and his supporters ended up taking things way too far! Which brings to what is really my only big complaint with the book, and that's how abruptly it seemed to end, especially where the conflict with the Pahn Kahl is concerned, so for better or worse, I really hope their fate gets explored in Nightblood. Which reminds me, I loved the chaotic sword, too!

White Sand was next and it was another story I found to just be alright, both the graphic novel as well as the prose version.

Now comes The Stormlight Archive, another I've been wanting to read for awhile now, though I know it won't be completed for a few years now. I actually read the audiobook to the Prime version of TWoK first, so it was fun to compare it with the official release and I really hope we get more Sanderson Curiosities in the future! All that said, I'm really enjoying the story so far and how grand everything feels, but oof, did these scenes make me cringe:

On one hand, I totally get scolding Kaladin for just automatically assuming the worst of everyone who's a lighteyes and being fed up with his cynicism. At the same time, though, I also really hate how dismissive Shallan comes across in this chapter. At first, I thought that was the intention, but then we get this:

This isn't even the first time I've felt like anger towards oppression was being dismissed in one way or another, btw (again, Warbreaker, my beloved), these are just the moments that stood out to me the most. It'd be one thing if it were just condemning extremists, but when you have scenes like Shallan's talk with Kaladin and... Yeah... Again, I totally get the intention, I just wish the scenes had played out better, because I actually do like Shallan otherwise.

Anyway, I ended up reading Arcanum Unbounded afterwards, as well as Dawnshard, and I liked them just fine. Secret History is probably my favorite of the short stories, and I really hope Nalthis gets a short story eventually. I also received Aether of Night literally yesterday (thank you, 17th Shard!) and it was interesting seeing the similarities between this and other Branderson works, such as Ruin and Decay.

If I had to rank them from favorite to least favorite, it would probably be Warbreaker, The Final Empire, Wax and Wayne, The Stormlight Archive, White Sand, and finally, Elantris.

So yeah, great stories by someone who seems like an overall great guy, I just question some of the writing choices.

#brandon sanderson #branderson #cosmere #the cosmere #fantasy #elantris #mistborn #the final empire #wax and wayne #warbreaker #white sand #white sand prose #the stormlight archive #the way of kings prime #arcanum unbounded #aether of night #thoughts

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xsarcasticwriterx · 4 years ago

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Au Volant-part 1

Summary: You were free, you had control until bucky and Steve showed up at your door.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

Warnings: Angst, swearing, minor tfawts ep 2 spoilers.

Notes: This is a series btw and I'm not sure how long it'll be (not like I do for any of my series) and yea that's all just know it will be pretty....dark pfft. Also, this does NOT fit in the marvel timeline even if references are made to such.

Steve knew when he was out-matched, hell even before the serum he knew when he'd lose he just didn't know when to stop. Bucky did though and nothing about that had changed in 100 years. Not even now when steves ass was being handed to him. after getting bucky back steve and bucky had gone off on their own mission to find other super-soldiers who may still be alive. of course they expected this to be easier than it was.

Of course, bucky could've just brought steve to Isaiah Bradley but he still knew steve would be pissed after finding out what had been done to him and he just wanted to leave Isaiah to his own thing still.

Then there was you. Bucky met you back when he was first becoming the winter soldier. you were their first test into becoming one of them. of course, your trigger words hadn't been finished before you killed those who were working on you and escaping. it s why they advanced buckys mechanism. You'd had tried to free him but they were already in the works of triggering buckys words.

Bucky knew you were free but only by self-discipline and no one knowing the words aside from hydra who, by this point, you'd spent the last century running from. He wanted you to stay out even if he knew where you were at.

That was until now, they needed another super soldier to win. Sure he could call Isaiah but as far as triggers go you were more likely to not only survive this but even join it. So with that process bucky grabbed steve ignoring his words and ran to your house.

you were 95 years old, despite how you looked. you had managed to escape hydra. Ever since hydra fell you ere truly free for the first time in a long time. you had enrolled in college majoring in history, ironic yes but you figured with your overextended life maybe you could use it and become a history professor.

This was your plan until there was a knock at your door. you figured it was the pizza you had ordered until you opened it seeing a bloody avenger and the weapon that hydra used over and over again to kill people. So with that you slammed the door, locked it, and walked back to your living room. "y/n come on" you heard bucky say. "nope" you yelled back.

"I thought you said shed be willing to help?" you heard steve groan. "I never said willing I said she could help" bucky replied. steve sighed "look y/n I know-" steve started to say "you don't know shit about shit star-spangled man with a plan," you said back.

"I spent the last 70 years running from this man ok. Now I know he is back to Sargent Barnes or whatever crap he was before but guesses what it does mean I am willing to just jump back in the man who was on my ass trying to kill me just yesterday, and it sure as fuck doesn't mean that I am willing to jump back into war" you wished they just go away. You were finally free safe. "steve go" "huh?" "go ill be back with you in a few minutes" and so steve walked away out of hearing distance. bucky said down but your door.

"look y/n I know what you've been through ok. I know they hurt you because they hurt me too. See this difference is I was a soldier before this...you were just someone in the wrong place wrong time. Me and steve here are looking for the others those who were like us, set them free too. Though they seem to either be like you, Isiah, or are still trying to fight. now I'm here because most are trying to fight and they're gathering together and fighting. I don't blame you for not trusting me I get it, some days even I don't trust me but know that I never wanted to hurt you." bucky cleared his throat "I am James 'bucky' Barnes and you are part of my amends" bucky said before the door opened and he fell back.

You stuck your hand out "give it" you said which bucky only looked up at you confused. "come on there's only so many therapists for brainwashed murderes give it" you said again. bucky handed you the tiny book. you opened it and crossed out your name handing it back to him. "get up and get your boy toy over there to come inside. I need to get ready if we're going to war." you said walking upstairs. "so you'll come?" bucky asked. "sure James why the fuck not but be aware you may be fixed but I'm only free out of pure will, soon as someone says the words I'm no longer free" you said walking to your room.

Bucky opened his notebook writing down ten words. he handed the paper to steve. "what's this?" he asked looking down at the words in both Russian and English. "her trigger words. just know as soon as there said she's one of them" bucky knew the words. hydras orders were if he found you to trigger you. "so she's not...." steve trailed off "nope she's only free out of self will" bucky shrugged sometimes he wished he had been able to be like you. "is it safe to bring her?" steve asked fearing what would happen if you became like bucky. "ill be fine" you said from the top of the stairs. you were wearing your gear which consisted of a black long sleeve made out of bulletproof gear that you stole from the police, black leggings for movement, black boots, and a hoodie. your hair was out of your face and you had your daggers on one side of your belt and your guns on the other.

"don't be a moron and say those words and everything will be fine," you said walking down. "now what's the game plan what do I need?" "what you have and spare clothes and weapons," Steve said. you nodded walking to your garage where the rest of your knives and guns were at along with your disguised clothes. "so you said that the soldiers are grouping up and fighting. know why?" "There are only rumors some say they want new hydra, others say they're scared some say they are forming a 'better' hydra," bucky said following you.

you grabbed a bag stuffing clothes in and ammo along with some daggers. "so are we staying with the rest of the little einstens?" you asked turning to steve. you were met with two confused faces. you blinked, how on earth are you, a person on the run, more educated on pop culture than these two "its....its a kids show" you said clearing your throat "im asking if were staying at the avengers headquarters" you said awkwardly. "oh no were tracking the group and certain people, those suspicious and then we just stay in hotels" steve said. you nodded and walked to the front door. "lets go then shall we"

you two got into steves car. "so how come no ones ever heard of you if you were on of them?" steve asked. "got out before i become one fully they never were able to trigger me" you shrugged. "she tried getting me out but...she was too late" bucky looked down. steve shut up from that point on. you all drove to a motel close to where they had seen a few people hiding out at from the sights of it.

the motel was kind of well really bad, not quite what you expected when rolling with the avengers. they said it was to stay undercover, large purchases and such could trigger that someone famous is rolling in. So here you were sat on a rigidy bed in the motel. there was 2 beds but 3 of you so someone had to share. "not it" steve said flopping back onto a bed. you and bucky looked at each other. "come on you two have known each other for almost as long as buck and I" steve said sitting up.

you grumbled sitting on the bed before sighing. not like you slept much so maybe you wouldn't have to actually share the bed. "for tonight we will fill you in" steve said. you 3 sat at a table and they told you the information they have and what they're plan is.

They said how they have a few places where they think people are hiding out based on the hours of activity and a few spots look like people are hiding out there. They said their plan was talk until people started noticing bucky and then chose to fight, then they came to you. Now their plan was talk but with back up incase shit takes a turn again.

Bucky and steve had gone to sleep but you were still up sat at a table. you were sharpening your daggers. you were zoned out for a while at this point. you didn't sleep often due to fear that if you let your guard down you wouldn't be able to hold back the soldier part of you. you really only slept when you were on the verge of passing out. This started when one night you had a dream, not long after you escaped, of the man saying the words. you felt your whole brain shift, luckily you woke up and were able to push back before anything happened. since then it was too close of a call to risk anything ever again.

You saw movement and looked up seeing bucky look around in almost a panic before he saw you. his breathing steadied "hey" he whispered out of breath. you nodded to him "you ok there?" "hmm? yea why are you up isnt it late?" you looked at the clock. last you looked it was 12am. you shrugged "same reason your up" "guess being brainwashed has its cons" you huffed "ysupposeou could say that"

"you sleep at all" bucky asked standing and walking to you. "i sleep when i feel like im going to pass out" you returned back to sharpening your daggers "last time i casually slept the world almost had another winter soldier" you scoffed "never doing that shit again" you looked up at bucky. his hair was a mess and a thin layer of sweat covered his chest. he was definitely muscly and you'd be lying if you said he wasn't hot.

"you should rest ill watch over you make sure you don't change" he said looking at you. "no its fine got another" you looked down at your watch looking at the date "few days before i pass out" you shrugged. "y/n. sleep" he stated. you shook your head. bucky groaned, walked to you and threw you over his shoulder "come on sleep time" he said putting you on the bed. you groaned but soon as you were laying down you felt your eyes insticntly close. "stupid body" you grumbled

soon slumber took over. bucky smirked down at you. you two were one in the same except while he was forever free you, you were free on pure will and keeping your guard up. "ill keep you safe doll, no one will change you even yourself" he said brushing the hair from your face. soon he felt as peace seeing you so calm and he laid next to you. the bed reminded him of the ones in the military. sleep took him over not too longer after.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #the winter solider fanfiction #the winter solider x reader #james bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #sebastian stan #mcu #mcu fanfiction #mcu x reader #marvel cinematic universe #marvel

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familyagrestefanblog · 4 years ago

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Miraculous Shanghai theories and analysis

All those leaks and informations we got for the Shanghai special caught my interest BIG TIME and I wanted to post my theories and thoughts before it airs.

Just as a warning, I wrote all of this yesterday before the new promo poster got released this morning but fortunately it's doesn't disprove anything I'm about to say.

So let's go!

Let's start with my tamest theory of this post to clear the track for the batshit craziness that gonna follow: The Peacock miraculous will be involved in the Shanghai special as well.

This doesn't necessarily mean that we will see Mayura but at the very least the Peacock miraculous will be brought up.

I'm certain of this because of two things:

1. The specials logo

It's nothing wild. The yin-yang is obviously Ladybug and Chat Noir and when we cross out the other rainbow colors of the Renling promo pic we are left with two colors: Hawkmoths purple and Mayuras blue.

And 2. In a trailer we saw Gabriel in an old ruin which definitely could be the Guardian temple before Ladybug restores it in "Feast" (the special takes place somewhere in between s2 and s3 so that checks out).

Maybe he goes back to where they found their two miraculous and the Grimoire and then checks out the ruins (cuz honestly why not?) or maybe he is on his way to the creepy underground place. We will see.

Okay but now, let's start with the good stuff! :D

I'm putting it under "continue reading" because it's quite alot and it gets... specific lol

Let's continue with the Renlings and the fact that this time around we are not going to get a new Miracle Box but they are all combined into ONE Miraculous.

That may sounds incredibly overpowered and out of nowhere without context but I think I might now what we are looking at.

The Renlings were called the Kwamis "cousins" so we have to go back to the Chinese Zodiac our Miracle box is based on, because it isn't only made of 12 animals. Cause our 12 animals are also segmented under 8 guardians of the zodiac. And how many Renlings to we get? 8.

Four of these Zodiac guardians are assigned to 2 animals and the other four guard one.

They are segmented as the following:

Thousand Hands Guan Yin - Rat

Akasagarbha Bodhisattva - Ox & Tiger

Manjusri Bodhisattva- Rabbit

Samantabhadra Bodhisattva- Dragon & Snake

Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattva- Horse

Vairochana Buddha - Goat & Monkey

Acalanatha - Rooster

Amitabha Buddha - Dog & pig

But let me get back to this later.

Unfortunately I legitimately can not explain why these particular animals were chosen to represent the guardians. All I can say is that my initial thought still holds up and the monkey, bear, tiger, dragon, mantis, snake, horse and hawk (look im calling it a hawk in this post idk) are all martial art styles. But they neither belong to one group nor is one of the groups complete.

Maybe I just missed something here (which is definitely possible) but I just can't find the reason for these animals for the guardians. Beside the Dragon as most important one of course, but that's a given.

Anyway, let's continue. A detail that can support my zodiac guardian theory is that while we can only see two animal circles in the promo pic entirely, one of the two has ONE DOT in its picture and the other one has TWO.

Signifying for how many Kwamis the one guardian is assigned to? Possibly.

The dragon in the middle is shown with 8 dots all together, that means is it fair to say that the dragon functions as the main guardian that combines them all. That explains why our new girl for the special has a 8-in-1 Miraculous, why her eyes change for each Renling and why she is trained so professionally.

We don't know yet why the Renlings are all put into one Miraculous, since they work differently from the Kwamis, but I have this thought that the Renlings (in their ONE necklace) were created because of what happened to the guardian temple almost 200 years ago.

Countless Miracle Boxes were lost that day and Fu's Box with the Ladybug and Cat were thought so as well. Possibly the Renlings were an attempt to recreate the powers of at the very least the lost zodiac Kwamis. The Dragon was made into the main guardian and is supposed to step in place for the LB and Cat as we can see on its different color coding echoing the yin-yang, but It obviously didn't work and the Renlings neither possess the same powers or can they be put in separate Miraculous nor is the Dragon a healthy replacement for the yin-yang.

But is was a desperate attempt in a situation that was believed to be lost and I find that thought exciting!

(Btw i have a similar theory for the Superheros from the New York special but that's a theory for another day)

Where to continue, where to continue?

Alright let's stay with the 8 Dragon dots because THOSE caught my interest in more than one way.

As I already said, I think the 4 white dots and 4 block ones stand for the 2 types of zodiac guardians, but now let's take a look at the animal circles surrounding the dragon.

We can see the Bear, the Hawk and a bit of another one between the Bear and Chat Noir in addition to the Dragon. These four circles have animal pictures that are completely colored in (just like the dragon brighter dots)

And now look closely at the animal circles around Chats head. Those are not colored in! Just like the other four Dragon dots. So isn't in interesting that they had our two leads basically hide those four particular animal circles? Almost as if there is a reason for this, huh?

And you know, I looked further and maybe I found something here. And for this let's take another look at the Renlings, shall we?

Four of these Renlings have something in common with our two main characters, can you guess what?

I'll give a hint: The eyes.

I compared all the promo picks we got from the Renlings and noticed that:

1. The snake and the horse have blue eyes like Marinette

2. The monkey has green eyes like Adrien

And 3. The Mantis is the only Renling with special eyes like Chat

The other 4 Renlings have brown eyes in different shades.

But this on it own isn't too exciting. So what if some Renlings share the same eyes as our leads? Well, would you believe it? When I filled in the placements of the other animals circles, through a shot we got in the leaks, I noticed that those 4 Renlings that shear their eyes with Marinette and Adrien are ALSO the 4 animal circles our leads just so happen to hide from us.

How interesting

But that not all I got. Not even CLOSE, I'm just getting started here!

Because not only do Marinettes Snake & Horse and Adriens Monkey & Mantis stand out here, oh no, it gets BETTER!

Now let's take the two promo pics from the Renlings we got where they are finished and colorized.

Did you know that both times they are put in the same formation, just with slightly swapped placement among the Renlings?

And once again here one could say "So what? They were lazy while designing the pics, that's it" but NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH hear me out!

Not only are the Renlings put both times into the same formation, the way they switched their placements isn't random at all:

1. Marinettes Snake and Horse stay both times on exactly the same spot.

2. The tiger and the bear switch places

3. So do the dragon and monkey

4. And the mantis and hawk.

The way the Renlings are shown to us on the promo pics is anything BUT random and that is something that will always get me interested! :D

But you know what? I'm still not done yet. Let's continue with this creepy ass stone door we see Gabriel at

Because as I mentioned, while Marinettes Snake and Horse stay unchanged in their formations, Adriens Monkey and Mantis not only do change places but they aren't paired with another either. So does that mean that Adriens guardian Renlings are just inconsistent? No, not at all. They just have a different meaning and place then Marinettes.

First of all: the Renlings special hair is bright green, just like the color of the tiger (a CAT) on the rainbow scale we got and Adriens/Chats + Monkey & Mantis eyes. And second: in the other promo pic the Renlings have a pink background, just like the rainbow scale color or the Mantis!

Coincidence? I don't care anymore, next point! :D

Because not only THAT but when we take a closer look at the creepy stone door we can make out the placement of every guardian animal as well. And MY, is this fascinating:

As the colors make it clear when you compare these guardian animal door placements to the rainbow scale from the promo pic, here Adriens Monkey & Mantis are in the right places but Marinettes animals are a bit off.

In fact. Everything about the placements of the animals (besides Adriens) are just a bit off.

- Marinettes animals and the bear are almost in the right place just mirror-reversed.

- The Tiger and the Hawk are one place too left.

- And the Dragon shouldn't be in the middle, it should take the place between Adriens animals but it was forced out of position to replace the yin-yang.

But taking the dragon out broke the balance of the animal circle. Everything here is slightly off by one point and that is much more significant than you would initially think. Because when you now turn the whole circle one quarter to the left (there is a reason for it, trust me) and put the dragon back in place then you will get a good part of the picture I've been looking for a long while.

What I'm showing you here are the 4 Chinese creatures of the cardinal directions and they are basically what I would expect to be on the upper layer of a Chinese Miracle box (I'll get to this on another day). And as you can see here, we are basically almost there aren't we?

The tiger of the West and Dragon of the east are in place and while the creature of the North is normally the turtle it is always accompanied by a snake, which is now on the upper place.

"but what about the bear? And a snake is NOT a turtle!" I'm getting to it, my goodness :/

Regarding the bear one thing needs to be said: it is definitely true, the bear is in the wrong place. I don't even know why there is a bear in this formation in the first place and it stuck out to me since day one. The creature of the south is a bird, the HAWK should be here.

But there is a difference between "this thing is in the wrong place and completely random wtf??" and "This thing is in the wrong place but I can see a pattern continuing from other formations that are off as well".

The bear is not only here, it's also:

- alongside the tiger (who is btw suspicious af as well) covering the center points from the Renlings formation that should belong to Adriens animals.

- is with Marinettes animals the only other one that is basically on it right place on the creepy stone door, just mirror-reversed.

-is the new "peak" of the zodiac guardian animal circles because moving the dragon out to the middle left the other ones off-balance and now its kinda tilted to the left. But when we look at the creepy door with not corrected animal placements we see that this was indeed the hawks place. And remember as well, the bear and the hawk are the only two animal circles we see in the promo pic besides the dragon

Meaning in short: That damn bear stole the hawks place and I need it to stop.

Which brings me to the turtle and a whole new can of worms (miraculous should pay me for this omfg...).

Because what if I tell you that the snake, who is normally just accompanying the turtle, being the creature of the north here instead of the turtle is not only "okay enough" it is actually the needed puzzle piece to connect this zodiac Renlings circle with the Chinese Miracle box in the design master Fu had it?

Let me explain

Do you remember when I started talking about the Renlings I said I would come back to the way the rl zodiac guardians are paired with the zodiac animals "later"? Well, later is NOW, because there is one more way those 8 dots from that damn dragon caught my interest and it also explains why I just turned the guardian stone circle one quarter to the left.

Because believe and behold, this is not the only place where things are "slightly off".

A while I started taking closer looks and research on the original miracle box design and the Kwami spirit circle we saw in "Sandboy".

I will try to not go into unnecessary details with this now because all of that needs its own post. I'm already going off the hooks with this one. But just like here I noticed with these two things rather quickly that "things are slightly off, but in a suspiciously systematic way".

Going straight ahead to the example I'm talking about, the order the 12 zodiac animals follow on the side of the box is straight up upside-down. The first zodiac animal is the rat (or mouse) and the last one the pig and YET in the box the rat is right at the bottom and the pig on the top.

This upside down arrangement of the animals results in the wrong animals being the 4 who have a guardian assigned for themselves

The four single miraculous in between the 4 directions are obviously the ones I'm talking about. Here they are Tiger, Snake, Pig, Monkey (I hope you are making a connection here) but that's wrong, as are the other 4x2 ones.

BUT

When we now flip it upside down again, having the rat start on the pigs place and the pig end on the rats, then things suddenly are correct.

Here the rl guardian pairings again:

Thousand Hands Guan Yin - Rat

Akasagarbha Bodhisattva - Ox & Tiger

Manjusri Bodhisattva- Rabbit

Samantabhadra Bodhisattva- Dragon & Snake

Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattva- Horse

Vairochana Buddha - Goat & Monkey

Acalanatha - Rooster

Amitabha Buddha - Dog & pig

As you can see, now it's correct.

You may wonder what this has to do with the Dragon dots, so lets look at the Kwami spirit circle next.

I've been analyzing and taking this thing apart now for MONTHS now. And while I'm certainly having a blast, the fact that I now officially have an entire FOLDER at home dedicated to this thing alone is quite...

Bruh...

But thankfully we will really only need the basics for this theory here.

Through zooming in and watching the "Sandboy" Kwami spirit World scenes over and over again I was able to figure out the placement of each Kwami.

When you now follow the moons in the middle towards the Kwamis you will notice that only the moon at the top alignes with one and that's DUUSU. The other 4 miss the Kwamis just by a bit.

But remember what I said the entire time. Everything is just slightly off by ONE little factor but when we "fixed" that factor for the stone wall there was still something left that didn't fit. That's because not only are the Shanghai zodiac guardians structures off, it was built on top of a structure that is ALREADY slightly off by another factor!

Something is fundamentally WRONG with Kwami balance in the current ml universe and what I think happened to throw everything off is NOOROO.

Keeping this point short for everybodys sanity, in the french version of "Sandboy" we find out that Nooroo is having his 3500 cycle birthday and him being the Kwami which gets its birthday pointed out is no coincidence. (Guys please just go with me here, I really dont have the strenght to elaborate on this now as well)

So when Nooroo is the factor that brought imbalance to the Kwami system then how does the spirit circle look like WITHOUT Nooroo?

Now THIS is more like it!

Without Nooroo the size of the circle changes slightly all around and now the other 4 moons align with the Dragon, rat, chicken and horse.

And believe it or not, but take a guess what it looks like when we now highlight these 4 Kwamis in the arrangement of the 12 zodiac Kwamis both upside down and correct?

It's the 2 types of Dragon dots.

And let's take this further. When the 12 Zodiac Kwamis are upside down then so is obviously the entire upper layer of the Miracle box as well, which explains why, although the 5 Miraculous places around the yin-yang are based on the 5 chinese elements, the way they are arranged here is once again upside down.

Meaning the yin-yang is upside down as well, but not only that. I always found it weird that the yin-yang here is placed SIDEWAYS when this is not exactly the normal way of showing it.

So when we now turn the yin-yang a quarter to the left and take the 5 Miraculous surrounding it along, we might be closer to the puzzles solution. Because when we now take Nooroo out (as he wouldn't be there when things had gone right) then Fu's miracle box should have looked like this:

Notice 2 things here in particular:

1. Now the Turtle is at the top, which completes the connection between the Renlings Snake and the Kwamis Turtle to create the only creature of the 4 directions that is portrayed with one accompanied: the Turtle of the North.

And while I'm already at it, this is also the reason why Fu's/Ninos Miraculous is the only one that doesn't fit the hero color scheme when activated.

The Turtle of the North is colored BLACK and sometimes with additional white, just like the activated Miraculous.

And 2. Now after being mirror reversed and turned one quarter to the left the Ladybugs and Cats yin-yang isn't sideways anymore and looks EXACTLY like the yin-yang used in the Shanghai promo pictures. Almost like this is the way it is supposed to be or something.

Alright. Ive told you ALOT now but this is precisely the reason why I wanted to post this before the special airs. I'm definitely not entirely right with all of this, there is alot I haven't figured out about these things yet or simply haven't seen yet. What I just showed to you is not anywhere close to done so some questions are still left open.

I wanted to make another point about how the zodiac monkey, mantis and horse are the only 3 Renlings that do not have any symbol on their bodies and how this could connect to the object Hawkmoth has in that one leak

But even i think this is going to far now and I should wait until I watched the special xD

But my point in all of this (and everything I haven't even touched upon here but will in the future) is that everything in s1-s3 was influenced by this fundamental off-balance of the Kwami system that I think was caused with Nooroos creation. Which is very fitting for the Kwami of our main villain I may say. And the fact that these 4 miraculous are also somehow linked to the peacock out of all miraculous gives us an explanation for its villainous usage as well.

I think the Shanghai special will start the exploration of what happened by at least laying down and introducing the most important aspects of this particular topic.

To say that I am TRILLED for this special is quite the understatement and I'm gonna have a BLAST analysing the hell out of its lore!

So I guess there is only one thing left for me to say:

Miraculous crew

#miraculous #Ml theory #Ml Shanghai theory #Ml Shangai spoilers #Ml spoilers #Ml leaks #I'm thrilled but in so much pain right now wtf

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vintagesimstress · 5 years ago

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IV. The most useful meshing tools in Blender

(Previous: IIIb. Method II: The sneaky way)

Only in my own, very subjective opinion, of course. I bet many other creators would disagree with me on this selection, but those are the tools I use almost every time when I mesh something new.

This part is going to look a bit different that the previous ones: it won't be a step-by-step guide, but rather a short explanation of different options (some of which I already partially covered) and their possible usefulness, so that you could just implement whichever you want in your own projects.

1. Snap to symmetry

You can find this option in that dropdown (dropup?) menu hidden under the 'Mesh' button, in the bottom bar. It does just what it says on the tin: if a vertex on the left side on your mesh has it's exact equivalent on the right side (so, let's say, vertex A has x = 20, and vertex B has x = -20, and y and z are the same), Blender will recognise them as mirrored.

Make sure to use this option only on parts which really are symetrical! Otherwise you might end up with some of your vertices being symmetrised and others not, and then it'll all become a hot mess. So, in case of our dress, you shouldn't use it on the skirt, but it's perfectly safe to use it on the upper body parts, which are, by default, completely symmetrical – even if Blender doesn't necessarily know it yet. Of course, that applies only if you used the same top as me – I can't speak for others!

2. X mirror

A follow-up to the whole symmetrising process. You can find that option in the toolbar on the left (T), in the 'Options' tab. Just tick it. And now select any vertex of your symmetrised top and move it wildly around. You'll notice that the same happens on the other side of the mesh as well.

3. Proportional editing

I know, I know, we've already used it so many times...! But proportional editing is pure magic and I think it deserves another mention. Depending on the falloff type, you can use it to quickly create a variety of different shapes. Just as a reminder: you turn it on by pressing either O (for all vertices) or alt+O (only for connected vertices) and then select the falloff type in that bottom bar. By default it's set to 'Smooth', which is probably the most universal option. You can make a bigger or smaller area affected by your edits by moving the mouse scroll – by default it's set to VERY big, so probably your whole mesh will be moving. Don't panic and just scroll until you see a white circle – that's exactly the 'affected area'.

Why mention it now? Because combined with the 2 previous tools it's a perfect way to make those 1890s puffs! Let's take a look at it, shall we?

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Practical Application Corner

I think by now I can admit it: the dress I'm trying to make here with you is this 1897 wedding dress:

As you can see, the dress has some shoulder-puffs: moderate in volume and rather roundish, so they shouldn't be hard to make. I already symmetrised the mesh, turned on the x mirror and proportional editing. I'll just change the falloff type to 'Sphere' and I'm ready to go.

Now I'll simply select a vertex on one of the shoulders and move it up. It's probably the best to do it while looking at the mesh from the front (num 1) - that'll make it easier to see what's going on.

Doesn't look bad, but I'm aware that the puff is still very 2D. You can see it very well if you switch to top view (num 7). To solve this problem, I'll select two vertices this time, one on the front of the puff and another on the back, and scale them – still with all the same options. Much better!

If you want to, you can spend some more time fine tuning your puff. Depending on how much you enlarged it, you might also want to select both puffs, turn triangles into quads (alt+j), then subdivide it smooth (W, select from the dropdown menu) and change to tris again (ctrl+t). However, it might be quite difficult to just 'select your puff' now, so maybe wait with it till the next part, where I'll talk about uv maps...? That'd make stuff a lot easier.

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4. Dissolving

That's a very simple and very useful tool, which lets you just dissolve – but not delete – vertices, edges or faces. What it means practically is that if you use it instead of deleting, you won't get a hole in your mesh. Lets say you subdivided your puffs, triangulated them again and discovered some weird lines here and there...

When you switch to edit mode, you immediately see that it's because some of your new vertices aren't proprely connected. At the same time you see that if you let Blender do it automatically, you'll be left with very unpleasant, narrow triangles. It'd be better to get rid of those diagonal lines which I marked in red.

And how do you do it? Very simply: select them and either press x (or delete) and select 'dissolve edges' from the dropdown menu, or – while in edge select mode - simply press ctrl+x.

And how do you change them into sensible triangles? Well, you either triangulate them automatically (ctrl+t), hoping that Blender will be reasonable... Or you can use another simple yet super useful tool.

5. Knife

You activate it by pressing k. It's just what it sounds like: a tool which lets you cut your mesh in any way you want. You can use it to manually cut proper triangles (which I'm going to do right now), but also for a variety of other things. Cool feature: it gently snaps to existing vertices, so if you want to connect vertex A and vertex B, you can do it without much struggle. Press enter when you're done.

But why would you want to use it for anything else than correcting triangles? Why would you cut some random shapes in your mesh? Well, because then you could use another cool tool.

6. Extruding

The principle is very simple. You select any vertices, edges or faces you want and then press e – and suddenly new vertices, edges or faces appear. You can freely move them around, or – which is almost always a better idea – right after that 'e' you can press s to scale them, or x/y/z, to limit the movement to only one axis. You used it while making the skirt and way earlier, when you were meshing a cup. But extruding isn't limited only to this; it's also a perfect way to make 3D collars, belts, cuffs, trims, random deco – almost anything, actually.

7. Flip direction

An interesting peculiarity of Blender meshes – no idea how other software deals with it – is that meshes have only one side. In other words, if you extrude something from your main mesh – let's say, I don't know... Wings? - they will be visible from side A, but if you look from the opposite side, it'll be as if they weren't there at all. Perfectly invisible. That's why in case of such parts you have to duplicate them and then flip direction of that copy, to get the texture on both sides.

Select the part you want to duplicate. Chances are the texture is not even all on one side; in such case press ctrl+n or open the left bar (T) and, in the Shading/UV tab, choose 'Recalculate'. Now press shift+d to duplicate, press enter immediately, and from the same tab select 'Flip Direction'. Your mesh should be double-sided now.

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Practical Application Corner

I want to make that weirdly shaped deco piece my dress is supposed to have on the front. I dissolved some edges and recut them, to get a pretty smooth curve, and now I'm going to extrude it. Whoops, I almost forgot to turn off the X mirror!

So I press e and, immediately afterwards, y, to extrude that part to the front.

As expected, the extruded part became a mess. I'll switch to face select, select all the faces and then hit 'Recalculate'.

And here comes the surprise: I won't duplicate it and flip direction immediately. First I'd like to adjust it, so that it sits perfectly; some subdividing, some proportional editing, moving vertices around to get a natural, smooth look. Creating the other side is usually the very last thing I do, just before taking in-game screenshots and posting my CC. Single vertices are easier to deal with, and every piece requires tons of corrections and small adjustments, long after you first think it's already done.

In any case, in some distant future, when I'm sure that this... Frill? What even is this? ...works properly, I'll select those faces again, press shift+d, enter, and then flip direction. Let's just see how it'd look now...

The frill is double-sided. Victory!

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8. Knife project

My absolute favourite tool ever, which I use in almost every second mesh. Similar to knife, but way more sophisticated. It lets you project a shape of one object on another one, cutting it into the mesh. Let me explain...

So, let's say your dress is supposed to have a round collar. You could dissolve some edges, make new ones and move already existing vertices, hoping to get that perfect, round shape – but for reasons which we'll discuss next time (uv-1) I would advise against it. So what's the alternative?

Go into object mode and create a new circle (shift+a). Move it around, rotate it, scale it etc. - do whatever you have to to position it exactly in the place where you want your mesh to be cut. Watch out: your viewpoint matters! Knife project is cool, but a bit dumb and will just cut through the first layer it sees on its way. From my experience, it's the best to make two cuts: one exactly from the front, the other from the back. So press num 1 and put the circle (which you can also make into a half-circle btw, that might be easier) in the right place. Let's say we want it here...

Now, go back to object mode. Click the cut called 'Circle' and then, while holding shift, your mesh: s4studio_mesh_1. Go to edit mode. You'll see that you're back to your base mesh, but the red half-circle is still floating in the air right before it.

Open that sidebar on the left (T), go to the 'Tools' tab and click 'Knife Project'. Now, before you do anything, go to back view (ctrl+ num 1) and click 'Knife Project' again. Hide the circle by closing that little eye on the right (or just right-click it and choose ‘delete’, if you’re sure you won’t need it anymore) and admire your newly cut collar.

What about all the new vertices? There's so many of them, how to clean them? Again talking from my own experience: merging (alt+m) is safe only in case of vertices which are located very close to each other. Also, if you merge after using knife, always merge at center. However, the rule of the thumb is: it's always better to dissolve and cut new edges than move the existing vertices. Uv-1 can be nasty and trust me, you don't want to deal with it more than necessary. Be extra careful if you're merging or moving anything in the breast area! In there every tiniest mistake is immediately visible.

9. Edge split modifier

The last point on the list is not really a tool, but a modifier. Maybe you remember how Blender Guru was using something called 'Subdivision Surface Modifier' in his tutorial? The one we're going to use can be found in exactly the same place. Go to the little wrench on the right, click 'Add Modifier' and select 'Edge Split' from that menu.

Untick the 'Edge Angle' option, leaving only 'Sharp Edges' selected.

Why would you want your edges to be split in the first place? Because Blender by default smoothes any edges in your mesh. Normally it's a very welcome feature, but sometimes can be annoying. For example, if you 'close' your dress at the bottom – select the lowest row of vertices, extrude and scale them and then merge at center – the bottom edge of your dress will get slightly curved, creating an ugly, dark line:

There are two ways to fix it: either you select that lowest line, press ctrl+e and click 'Edge Split'... Or you choose, from the same list, 'Mark Sharp' and leave the actual splitting to the modifier. The immediate visual result will be the same; however, by only marking edges as sharp you don't actually split them yet, which makes it way easier in case of any future corrections. You don't have to remember to select each vertex twice, as they're not doubled. You can select all and remove doubles, and your edges still will stay marked as sharp. It's super useful and I wish I knew of its existence earlier – it would have saved me SO much work!

Just as a side note: obviously, those closing lines of skirts or sleeves aren't the only places you might want to mark as sharp. The same goes for anything that's layered, so e.g. edges between a shirt and a jacket, edges around a necktie, around a belt etc. If you're not sure what you should mark and what not, just take a close look at your mesh in solid shading. Any weird shadows visible? Mark the edges. The problem should disappear.

And you know what's the best? Even when you apply the modifier – e.g. because you want to be able to quickly select only a certain, separated part of your mesh (with L) – the edges still stay marked as sharp! So you can just do your corrections, select all and remove doubles, and then add the Edge split modifier again. It's so quick and simple.

By the way, you don't even have to click apply for the modifier to work. Even if it's left unapplied, S4S will still recognise it and import your mesh with all the sharp edges being split. Magic!

*** *** ***

I'm sorry it got so long, but I think I really managed to cover every important aspect of meshing. You know all my secrets now :P. Unfortunately, meshing is only a small part of CC making, so there are still many things we'll have to discuss – but hopefully it's somehow comforting to you that at least that part is over. I hope I helped you feel more confident in Blender and saved you some meshing struggles! I know for a fact that not knowing the majority of those things was the reason why meshing my first dress took me two months ;].

Let me know if anything isn't clear and stay tuned! We'll finally talk about uv maps next time.

(Next: V. Adding missing body parts / Frankenmeshing / Finishing touches)

#tutorial #meshing #Blender #Blender 2.79 #playtested on hubs

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deans-haunted-baby · 4 years ago

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Curious. What do you mean by Dust till Dawn going against it's Characters? I know I have my own feelings, or confusion, with how they left Kate's story.

From Dusk Till Dawn effectively character assassinated every single character in the very last episode including Kate Fuller. No one is acting like themselves in that series finale it's like some deranged fanfic writer came aboard and hijacked the show while no one was looking. If you thought 15x18 & 15x19 of Supernatural were bad and believe me they really are; those episodes are minorly salvageable against the slaughterhouse that Dusk 3x10 was. It utterly contradicts and ignores everything the show put forward in all 3 seasons. I will never watch that episode again.

I'll first explain what that piece of shit did to the show's lead protagonists, the Gecko brothers. Regardless of how you or anyone else feels about Supernatural's series finale; that show was a saint to Sam and Dean's storyline beginning to end compared to how From Dusk Till Dawn definitively butchered Richie and Seth. I'm sad saying this because Zane Holtz and DJ Controna are outstanding as these characters. I freaking love their chemistry man, it's a great rival to J2! They're the badass dark clones of the Winchesters. Their arc starts out fascinatingly complex because they went from cold-blooded criminals/bad guys and meanwhile during their escape over the Mexican border with this hostage family the audience is told pretty quick by Professor Aiden Tanner that the Geckos are destined to become these foresworn warriors The Mayan Hero Twins in an ancient prophecy (based on real Mesoamerican lore) who battle the Underworld. So right away the show is telling us ahead where Seth and Richie are suppose to end up in their journey and when you introduce a storyline this big I expect a satisfying payoff.

At the end of season 1, Richie Gecko is *SPOILER ALERT* transformed into a culebra (snake-vampire) while Seth Gecko remains human symbolizing their night and day Hero Twin counterparts from the legend. And they're separated in the first half of season 2 where both try to navigate this new supernatural world they've stumbled on individually. What they find, no different than the Winchesters, is that neither can function properly without the other making their destiny all the more valid. That season is practically constructed like their swan song to the criminal lifestyle since the brothers are meant to become more than crooks; and since Richie's a vampire they can't ever go back to basics. Their adopted father aka uncle Eddie actually says the line "this is my swan song" in 2x07 to Seth and Richie in reference to their final heist together which is not a coincidence. That's the writers telling us that the Gecko Brothers' role in the show is going to shift from anti-heroes to heroes very soon. Eddie and Kate Fuller's fates in S2 act as the primary catalysts for this transition taking shape in the finale.

Going into season 3 it's business as usual for the boys until the prophecy of the twins officially rips a hole in the damn universe via demon queen Amaru. Who's now possessing Kate. Throughout that season Seth and Richie embark on a journey of heroism; find themselves battling monsters, actually saving civilians and dealing with their own personal demons (guilt and remorse over past sins). That year is presented as their redemption arc and final phase into their new role. No one ever tells them about their destiny (despite most of the other characters knowing) but we as the audience are already aware as we watch the brothers in action. The best episode is without a doubt 3x06 the crown jewel of From Dusk Till Dawn because it's about overcoming the darkness inside. And who best represents that than Richie; the show's most important central character whom began the series as a deadly clairvoyant criminal into the tortured vampire hero struggling with his own humanity. Now I won't spoil the whole episode for anyone who hasn't seen it or the show in general but it's an incredible moment of character development for both the Gecko brothers. Not only does it cement their powerful bond it's the episode that defines who these two are once and for all. The ones who lead the battle between good and evil; keep the balance of light and darkness. One day I plan to do an entire analysis of that episode because it's so fucking brilliant and shot so incredibly eerie at the same time 😁

You want to know what 3x10 does to these characters? It shits all over their entire storyline and pisses away THREE FUCKING SEASONS of character development. Just flushes it all down the toilet rendering everything they've ever done up to that point completely pointless! Their destiny which is the WHOLE POINT OF THE SHOW is suddenly dropped last minute and the Geckos hit reset on their former criminal escapades; dragging Kate along with them. I hate that finale with the fire of a thousand suns for what it does to Richie and Seth 😡

Moving on to Carlos Madrigal. He is the best villain character in the history of show villains hands down. I can actually say that without blinking. Wilmer Valderama is phenomenal, he steals the show as Carlos. He's is so freaking awesome, evil and badass! I just want to keep seeing this man tear things apart while being the sexy asshole he is 😈For all intents and purposes I don't want to spoil his whole storyline on the show for those following me in case they're interested. But what I will say is 3x10 destroys this character; so don't watch it if you want to keep the memory of who he was alive. I'm actually depressed over what was done to him as much as I feel sorry for Wilmer having to perform that shitty script. It's laughable in a very bad way. Gotta hand it to the writers and showrunners of FDTD they certainly knew how to humiliate their best characters in this series. Carlos basically goes from charismatic yet lethal Hannibal Lecter to a very captain obvious Gandolf caricature. Yah you heard that right, it's really fucking sad.

Next we have Freddie Gonzalez; the audience's avatar into the series. This character is connected to everyone on the show for a reason because of the crucial part he plays in this universe. The "Peacekeeper" destined to police the line between the supernatural world from the human world. In the beginning he's a Texas deputy on a quest to avenge the murder of his father figure/partner Earl McGraw via the Gecko Brothers. But once he steps in that territory of monsters there's no going back. And FDTD repeatedly tells him and the audience this in the first 2 seasons. But then 3x10 pulls the ultimate fuckery by giving him the most cliched, nonsensical hallmark ending effectively cancelling out his entire purpose in the series. He instantly forgets that he ever cared about Kate, watching her bleed out on the ground, then leaves the Geckos high and dry rushing his family (who isn't injured) to the hospital. And he stays there while the battle continues 😣

Kate and Scott Fuller OMG words cannot describe my anger over what was done to them so I'll make it fast. I'll begin with Kate the bright light and heart of the series. Her arc in the first two seasons is excellent. It's emotionally driven because she begins as an ordinary girl in broken yet seemingly-happy family to a young woman finding her way around the supernatural world maintaining her faith and moral compos while trying to help her brother after he's *SPOILER ALERT* been turned into a vampire; paralleling the Geckos's situation. Scott being only a 16 year old kid, like Richie, struggles immensely after his transformation; searching for meaning as a cursed individual and coping with his duality. He was already different to begin with so being a vampire adds some interesting layers to his character.

Btw Kate plays a vital role in Richie and Seth's lives, though in my opinion is more strongly connected to Richie. The show even goes as far as developing the early glimpses of a romantic arc between Kate and Richie (seeing as they kiss twice) with angst at the end of season 2 that is never resolved. You want to know why it wasn't? Not only does season 3 mute Kate's voice and agency but 3x10 ruins her character and demolishes her whole arc with Richie (who spent all of season 3 trying to save her) at the last second due to fan pressure of those who shipped her with Seth. They don't exchange one word nor barely look at one another it's like seasons 1&2 never happened. This is the biggest fuck you to fans of these characters I've ever witnessed in a series and they did my boys Adam and Michael so dirty in Supernatural. Poor Scott whom the show enjoyed kicking around all season barely gets a thing to do in that series finale either than listening to his sister and Seth gab about prom lol. Yah you heard me I'm not making this shit up I swear. Then he gets abandoned by Kate while she goes off to be a bank robber with the character assassinated versions of Seth and Richie. How extraordinary 😖

Santanico Pandemonium is really the only character in the series who manages to get out unscathed. HOWEVER her arc is handled very poorly beginning to end. They set up an arc between her and Seth that also goes absolutely nowhere. Give her zero closure with Richie whom she sired, dated and used in S2. And randomly throw her in a scene with Kate that makes no fucking sense after these two had nothing to do with one another all series. On top of that Santanico is barely in season 3 so by the time the show wraps her arc feels incomplete.

Other characters go missing that no one notices, the new bad guy whom they've set up at the end is just left hanging. And Richie Gecko, you know the show’s other lead, is horribly sidelined after 3x06 to make way for the Seth Gecko solo show. When I say FDTD series finale is bad I mean it's really fucking terrible and blasphemous.

#from dusk till dawn: the series #from dusk till dawn #richie gecko #seth gecko #kate fuller #carlos madrigal #fdtd #scott fuller #kichie #richiekate #seth x richie #freddie gonzalez #Santanico Pandemonium #anti fdtd 3x10 #the Gecko brothers

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fizzingwizard · 4 years ago

Text

Frantically playing catch up because I’m gone the rest of the weekend so here’s day 6 after all! Blatantly Takari. This one surprised me by how easy it was to write so it got a bit longer than the others. I’m sure there are many typos, please overlook. Also has two quotes, one in the text and one at the end, from my long-time favorite poet, Walt Whitman. BTW, I don’t really get everything that went down with Ordinemon, but I did my best to fit canon.

One month post-Bokura no Mirai, Takeru and Hikari go on a date and Hikari encounters something unexpected, which leads to a very overdue conversation with her brother.

Warning - there’s mention of the death of sick baby. It’s not huge but it matters to the story. I don’t want to shock anyone.

---

Tri week day 6 - Journeys - Death of a Comet

"How are you?" Takeru asked, watching her carefully.

Hikari only smiled and pretended not to notice. "I thought we'd known each other long enough to skip the niceties, Takeru-kun," she quipped. It was a far cry from her old playfulness, she knew, but she also knew he wasn't going to call her out for it it just yet.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Takeru rolled his eyes with an exaggerated, put-upon sigh. "I didn't realize relationship length was proportionate to amount of shits given."

"It is, at least when the last time we talked was an hour ago over text."

"Duly noted."

"Let's go?"

He nodded. He was wearing another hat she'd never seen before, a dark blue beret that looked about to tip off the side of his head with a light breeze. She wondered if he went out and bought a new hat each time before they went out together. Like how a girl shouldn't be caught in the same outfit twice. He probably did. That was Takashi Takeru, vain as fuck. But there was also something kind of adorable about it.

They'd "officially" been dating for a couple weeks, and Hikari wasn't sure yet how she felt about it. Of course, she'd agreed to it when he asked her. What else could she do? They'd been flirting and toying with each other off and on for years, in a childish way, but she couldn't pretend she didn't know full well what she was doing. She'd even sometimes daydreamed about what dating him would be like. Mostly she imagined it would be a lot of sitting in the bleachers at his basketball games.

She didn't consider Takeru the most mature of the boys in their year, but he wasn't as bad as some. Plus, they'd been through a lot together, so she knew what he was made of. And he really liked her. And she liked him. It seemed unavoidable. She'd said yes because she had no good reason for saying no.

It still felt a bit weird when he reached to hold her hand. Two weeks in, and they had yet to kiss. For the most part, it felt like nothing much had changed between them, except that Takeru no longer tried to hide his excitement when she was near. That was... flattering. And she had no qualms with taking it slow either.

They got on the Yurikamome train and stood together by a window, watching the Odaiba waterfront speed by as they traveled over the Rainbow Bridge. The sky was blue and cloudless. It was the kind of weather Tailmon loved, but Hikari had already talked to her about why she sometimes couldn't come along when she and Takeru went on an "outing." Tailmon had blinked lazily and said that was alright, and given her claws a long, purposeful lick. ”But if he ever hurts you, don't you dare hide it from me.”

Hikari promised, but thought the reverse scenario was far more likely.

Takeru had a more difficult time explaining it to Patamon, she'd heard. Supposedly, after Takeru had given his spiel about how growing up meant needing more time to oneself, Patamon had blurted out, "Are you going to kiss Hikari!? You've got to kiss her, Takeru!" loudly enough that some boys at school had overheard, and as a result everyone knew that they were an item before they'd even been out on a single date.

Such was life with Digimon.

"You know where it is, right?" Hikari asked as they got off the train.

"Yeah, I've come here with my mom for other exhibits," Takeru said, leading her out the exit and onto a busy street. "Mom's really into modern art. We've gone to see Kusama Yayoi's sculptures on Naoshima like four times. I'm pretty sure she goes whenever she breaks up with a boyfriend."

Hikari laughed. "Wait, really?"

"Well, she never introduces them to me, but I can tell when she's seeing someone. She touches up her roots more often."

The art exhibit they were going to see was some sort of interactive light show. Hikari had seen pictures online and thought it looked beautiful. Her father was of the opinion that they only ever put the best pictures on the website, and the rest of the exhibit was probably in some big, white-walled room that smelled like someone had microwaved fish for lunch. Her mom had been more enthusiastic, and added that, if the art did turn out to be a dud, it was as good an excuse as any to sneak off somewhere quiet with her Romeo and, you know, romance him.

Hikari was definitely not going to do that.

She'd timed things with care. Taichi had morning soccer practice until ten. After that he'd come home for lunch. The exhibit opened at eleven, but her concerns about there being a line fell on deaf ears, since Takeru claimed he knew this museum and it was never crowded. (Which didn't do much to mitigate her concerns about the exhibit being any good.) So the earliest she could convince him to catch the train was ten fifteen. So if she left right at ten and headed directly to the station, she ought to be able to miss her brother coming home completely.

It felt like fate was laughing in her face when she ran into him on her way out.

Her shock was mirrored on his face as they both stood in the doorway, staring at each other as if unable to understand why their biological sibling would be there, in their childhood home.

Taichi spoke first, if speech it could be called. "Uh," he said.

"Oniichan," she stammered back, "why - how - you got home fast."

"Yeah... Yamato was having band practice and he gave me a ride on the scooter," Taichi replied.

Hikari kept her mouth shut. Had Yamato orchestrated this? Was Takeru in on it? She knew it wasn't likely in either case, but her hackles were raised. "Oh," she said.

They continued to stand in the doorway. This was, Hikari reflected, the longest conversation they'd managed to keep going in almost a month.

"You... going somewhere?" Taichi asked after a while, tilting his head and looking up and down.

"Museum. With Takeru-kun."

"Oh. Well, have fun."

"Thanks."

As if suddenly realizing he was blocking the exit, Taichi stepped to the side, and Hikari barely restrained herself from running down the hall. The damage was done, though. The minute the elevator door closed, the tears started leaking down her face. Dammit. She'd been so careful.

She'd had to stop off at a nearby convenience store to hide in the restroom. She splashed her face and dabbed her eyes with her hand towel until they were less red, until the evidence of the havoc wreaked just by seeing her brother was hidden under a fresh layer of make-up. She never even wore make-up much before - after all, she was fourteen and blessed with good skin. Dating Takeru had been a convenient excuse to explain to her mom why she suddenly needed extra allowance for concealer, despite having no acne.

She wound up ten minutes late meeting Takeru and still, he could tell right away that something was wrong. She'd managed to deflect, but...

Hikari had never been any good at lying, even to herself. But she was surprised by her own cruelty, dating Takeru because she needed the distraction, an excuse to be anywhere but home. His feelings for her were genuine. She was a monster.

"Hikari-chan?" Takeru gave her a nudge that jolted her into the present. There was, indeed, no line to get in at the art show, and Takeru was trying to hand her a ticket. "Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

She nodded resolutely. "Yeah, of course."

"It's just, you're being kind of quiet."

"Well, sorry but I'm not a professional entertainer."

He didn't reply to that barb. Hikari felt even more miserable. If only Yamato's stupid motor scooter had broken down on the road...

They handed in their tickets and went through a pair of double doors, into a wide room lit by myriad streamers of blue and purple lights wafting on the air like strange, hypnotic jellyfish. No pictures were allowed, so Hikari kept her camera stowed, but she couldn't bring herself to regret it. Any pictures she tried to take while in such a stormy mood were bound to end up in the trash bin anyway.

They followed the path laid out through fiber-optic tallgrass in silence. Takeru was still gripping her hand, even though her own hung like a dead fish. The next section was a blacklight room with an even more obvious sci-fi vibe, bright cables painted brilliant colors in the impression of sea snakes creating circuitous archs on the walls and ceiling. The heat-sensor flooring lit under their feet as they walked.

Takeru leaned towards her, the blacklight setting his white T-shirt aglow. "This is like some disco-era alien planet," he joked, offering her the olive branch.

Well, she owed it to him not to let this date be a total disaster. "The room before reminded me of the tree in Avatar," she said.

"I bet the next one's gonna be something from Fifth Element."

"No way."

"Could be."

"Completely different aesthetic."

"It's gonna be that giant McDonald's sign made of stained glass. Wait and see."

It wasn't, of course. Takeru continued to insist they'd see the sign in the next room, and the next, until they reached the end of the exhibit, where he finally admitted defeat. At least room four had clearly been lifted from Finding Nemo, he said.

The final room was, in fact, an open space with white walls, but Hikari didn't notice any stomach-turning smells. A combination of 2- and 3D works of art were mounted around the room, and they took their time browsing, continuing to try to outwit each other with their increasingly outlandish, and even somewhat insulting, art critiques. It was a lovely show, Hikari thought. If she'd come to see it in a better frame of mind, she would be raving just now. But though she'd recovered her ability to match Takeru quip for quip, she still felt heavy with gloom. Geez, why did he want to date a rain cloud like her?

"Want to go for lunch?" Takeru asked as they took in the last piece of art, an abstract mosaic made of vibrant, blinking lights laid into a glass frame on a large tabletop. Hikari circled it slowly, watching lights ripple across the frame, stitching the full picture together bit by bit.

"Sure."

"There's a cafe my mom and I go to nearby. It does amazing pancakes."

"Sounds good," she said vaguely, her brow creasing in thought. She took a step back, gazing at the table from what she'd discovered was meant to be the foot, where you could see the picture in full if you craned your neck just so.

It wasn't abstract art. It was Ordinemon.

Her whole body stiffened.

"The orange marmalade pancakes are my favorite - you listening?" With a confused look, Takeru glanced from her unchanging expression to the table. His eyes went wide. "... Let's leave, Hikari-chan."

He gave her arm a tug. She didn't budge.

"Hikari-chan, there's no need to stay here. Come on."

"Why," she said. It came out in a harsh whisper, like a frozen wind. "Why would someone make art of... that."

Takeru didn't answer for a minute. "Because... they saw it," he said after a while. His grip on her arm tightened, as if expecting her to try to break away. "So they want to express what they saw."

"It's an abomination," she choked out. Humiliating tears welled up in her eyes.

Takeru seemed to hesitate. Then he stepped back, and his arms circled round her shoulders, locking her in a tight hug from behind. The warmth of his body flowed into her ice cold one, solid, real. Her mind flashed to another day, with a roiling sky black as night, when she'd come to in an unfamiliar bed with Takeru at her side and known, with a rush of deadly certainty, that she'd destroyed everything she ever cared about.

Her brother. Her beloved partner. Her friends.

By her own will.

She didn't know what she'd done. Or how. That almost made it worse, the not knowing. Her heart broke, watching her brother disappear in the earthquake. That was all. Her heart broke and she... stopped. And when she started again -

It was too late.

Tailmon had told her she didn't regret the fusion with Meicrackmon, that she'd been able to hold poor Meicoomon together, just a little longer. There was nothing for Hikari to regret, she said. Powers beyond her control. Yggrasil and Homeostasis felt they could wage their little war and pick their champions, and dispose of them when they felt like it. No sooner had she shaken off Homeostasis's hold over her that Ordinemon happened.

Hikari hated that once upon a time, she'd believed Homeostasis was a benevolent presence. That she'd willingly let her into her mind.

Now she didn't know what to believe.

Rage flared, hot as ice. Her whole world, none of it made sense anymore. She was adrift, she was unmoored, there was no safe harbor, not even in the brother who she loved like no one else. He could make a choice like that, to kill Meicoomon, to kill their friend's irreplaceable partner. The one person who deserved the most to be saved. And she'd helped, because that was what you did, on a team, at least, if you couldn't come up with a better plan yourself.

She realized she was shaking. Takeru only held her tighter, his nose buried in the crook of her neck.

"Hikari-chan," he said, and he sounded - terrified. "What if - what if it's not, though. What if it's not an abomination. What if..."

"How can you say that," she hissed frostily.

"I mean - I'm not saying it was good. I'm not saying I don't wish none of this had happened. But - I think - Ordinemon, she was created from despair, yours and Meicoomon's. She was used, and it tortured her. We freed her from that. She would have destroyed everything, even though it's not what she wanted, and she was in so much pain -"

"Stop!" Hikari yelled, pushing away from him. There was enough strength behind her need to get away and he was not expecting it, so he toppled to the floor while she raced out the exit. She kept running, hardly aware of dodging people on the sidewalk, and ran until she found herself in a small park with nothing but a two-seater swing set and metal slide. She sank into one of the swings and dropped her head in her arms. And cried.

Cried for Meiko, for Meicoomon. Cried for the future they would never have.

Cried for her brother, who had changed, and she understood why, but she still missed the way he used to be. Her guiding star.

Cried for herself, a lost comet streaking through an unfamiliar galaxy, wondering if she would vaporize shooting too close to an alien sun, or if she'd putter out slowly until she was nothing but lifeless, crumbling stone.

Her phone buzzed in her purse - Takeru, surely, trying to find her. On top of everything else, she'd ditched the boy she was stringing along, who cared about her, and who had tried so hard to let her know she wasn't alone. She didn't deserve Takeru. She would break up with him - she had to. He should be with someone stronger than her, who wasn't going to fall apart at the seams just from a silly piece of art at a museum gallery.

After a while the sobs let up enough that she could see without tears clouding her vision, and she figured she should at least let him know she was okay. She pulled out her phone and scrolled through her messages.

12:35: Takaishi Takeru: i'm so sorry. i didn't mean to upset you.

12:35: Takaishi Takeru: where did you go? someone said you ran past the 7-11 but I have no idea where you went from there

12:37: Takaishi Takeru: please tell me where you are. If you don't want me to come, I won't. I can call someone if you want.

12:38: Takaishi Takeru: I just want to know you're okay

12:40: Takaishi Takeru: hikari-chan PLEASE respond

12:45: Takaishi Takeru: I asked at the 7-11 but they said they didn't see you. am walking around aimlessly now. no idea where to look.

12:48: Takaishi Takeru: hikari-chan if you don't reply soon I'm gonna have to call Taichi-san

12:52: Takaishi Takeru: wound up back at the train station, if you want to meet me here.

12:55: Takaishi Takeru: if you don't respond in five minutes I'm calling Taichi-san, I mean it.

12:58: Takaishi Takeru: I love you, by the way. think I always have. thought you might want to know

Fresh tears pricked her eyes. Leave it to Takeru. How could he pick now to spring that on her?

She should be happy. She wanted to be happy.

13:02: Me: I'm okay. I'm sorry. Go home. I'll talk to you soon.

Her finger hovered uncertainly over the keypad. She typed:

The real abomination is me.

Then she deleted it, and pressed Send.

---

Little though she wanted to go home, Hikari didn't have an excuse for staying out past dinner. She stayed in the little park until it started to get chilly. A couple times, the occasional grandma stopped to ask if she was alright, but she smiled and waved away their concerns. Finally, when twilight fell over the park in a gossamer curtain, she stood and stretched out the kinks in her back before heading back to the station. It felt like she'd been out much longer than a few hours. She thought briefly of asking a friend if she could spend the night, but didn't like the idea of needing to pretend to be peppy and cheerful.

On the ride back, she did a search on the artist who'd made the Ordinemon mosaic. Why, she had no idea. Some self-hating side that wanted her to hurt, she guessed.

The artist's name was Matsuyama Risa, a Tokyo-based sculptor, whose partnership with Fujii Fiber-optics had given birth to the displays they'd seen today. Hikari let her eyes skim the article, categorically uninterested in the number of lights used or how they were installed. What she wanted to know appeared like magic, tacked on at the very end of the article.

Art of Nippon Now: The last room in the showcase features a magical light-up mosaic of a subject that could be disconcerting for some viewers. What led you to recreate the monster that much of Tokyo watched terrorize the sky last month?

Matsuyama: I put that piece together in a feverish rush. Most of these installations took weeks to install, but I insisted on this one, even though it was such short notice. I had to have it. I heard that many people never saw more of her than her massive wings, but I happened to have a very clear view at the time. It made a huge impression on me.

ANN: You said her?

Matsuyama: It was a she. Or, perhaps it's better to say she might not have a gender, but she deserves better than the pronouns we use for inanimate objects, things without personality.

ANN: Are you saying this monster was a person?

Matsuyama: I don't know if you heard her cries, but they were deafening. They reminded me of how my son wailed in the night when he was first born. We didn't know why he was so colicky. Nothing we did calmed him. I was so afraid that he wasn't getting enough sleep. It turned out he was very sick and we just didn't know. The illness was hidden. We spent many nights in the ICU, holding out hope that he would be alright. I remember thinking, if he wasn't, it would destroy our marriage.

ANN: That sounds like a terrible experience.

Matsuyama: When our son died, it was terrible, but it also came as a relief. At least we knew he was no longer suffering. I was depressed for months. I couldn't make any art. Every day I expected my husband to leave me. The first day I pulled myself together enough to sketch something, he said I should sketch our son sometime.

ANN: So your husband didn't leave?

Matsuyama: No. He stayed by my side. When I cried that he deserved a woman who could make him happy, who would give him healthy babies, he told me I was the strongest woman he knew, and that I'd given him the best son in the world.

ANN: Wow - would that we all meet men like that.

Matsuyama: And women. That's why, although the creature that appeared over Tokyo was very frightening to look at, when I heard her cries all I heard was suffering. I thought, that is a real creature, who wants her pain to be understood. She represents something. Perhaps she was sent to show us the harm we do when we choose not to act to help others. She shouldn't be forgotten.

ANN: So you memorialized her in this mosaic?

Matsuyama: Yes. It was the right moment, even though I had no time. I wanted to recreate her likeness using lights. I set her into a table, because I felt that putting her on a wall would be too imposing, and viewers would only remember the fear she engendered. Lying down, it would seem as if she were in a coffin, finally laid to rest. But she's lit from within, and it's the light of life, desperately clinging on till the final moment, the same as any being with a soul.

ANN: Did you ever complete the sketch of your late son?

Matsuyama: No. I never did. But I think I will soon. I want to lay him to rest in my heart.

ANN: It's interesting that when you say 'lay to rest,' you seem to mean we should remember them.

Matsuyama: Our memories make us who we are. The past is always with us. My son, that creature, they are both part of my journey, as an artist of course, but also as a person in the world. You could say my son is the light of the world and that creature is the darkness, but I hold both light and dark in me, just by existing and being human.

ANN: You added a quote to the piece that said something of that nature.

Matsuyama: Yes, from a Walt Whitman poem, 'Song of Myself.' The quote reads: "I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also."

ANN: Maybe Whitman never expected his poem to be used in this way.

Matsuyama: That's the nature of art. It is a journey in and of itself. It fluctuates and changes to nourish the times. I hope everyone who sees my art understands that they are on a journey as well, and everything they do creates the work of art called "the future."

ANN: Thank you for your time, Matsuyama-sensei.

---

Her brother was home, but her parents were not. The arrangement of shoes in the entryway said as much. Taichi was seated at the kitchen counter, eating a bowl of noodles and reading something. He looked up when the door opened and pushed his seat back.

"Hikari - you okay?" He peered at her, concerned. "Takeru didn't do something stupid, did he?"

So Takeru hadn't told her brother that she'd run off. Gratitude flooded through her. "No, of course not."

"Good." Taichi's hand rifled through his hair, the other planted on his hip, and he looked perplexed. "Then why do you look like you've been crying all day?"

Hikari walked inside and sank down on the couch. "Because I have been crying all day."

She could feel his hesitance as he wavered in the hall, trying to decide if he should press her for more. If that was still something he was allowed to do. She knew he would try. He wouldn't be Taichi if he didn't.

"You want to talk about it?" he asked, moving to sit on the arm of the couch, but he didn't relax, as if expecting her to tell him to leave her alone.

"No," she replied.

He nodded. "Okay." There was a pause. "You're sure Takeru didn't -"

"No, Oniichan."

"Okay, okay."

She sat there for a few minutes, staring blankly at the black TV screen. Soon Taichi slid off the arm into the seat beside her, allowing several inches of space between them. He didn't try to talk anymore. Didn't even get up to bring his bowl of noodles over, even though it was going to get cold.

Hikari tilted her head ever so slightly to peer at him. Dark circles ringed his eyes. She knew he hadn't been sleeping well. Something about his face looked more defined, less roundness to his jaw, starker cheekbones. Hadn't been eating much either, she guessed. It gave him an oddly grown up look. She would have to call him on losing weight from not taking care of himself, but that could wait for later. She was struck by how little he looked like their father. Everyone always said Hikari was the spitting image of her mom, so it seemed natural that Taichi should take after their dad, but though she searched she couldn't find many similarities. Taichi was just Taichi.

He gave a start when she leaned toward him and settled her head on his shoulder, but didn't say anything.

Hikari thought about many things.

How unbearable it was to feel helpless. How much she wanted everyone who cared about each other to be together, and for no one to suffer who didn't deserve it. How deeply she loved her friends. How easy it was fall apart.

Maybe all that meant was her worldview had been too delicate to begin with. A painting on a porcelain vase wouldn't stand the test of time unless handled with the best of care. The real world was too chaotic, too disordered. She could wrap her dream in newspaper, cover it in packing peanuts, tape it into a box marked "Fragile," and it would still end up in shards. She would try to put it together again, but the pieces were sharp, and she kept cutting herself on them.

She still wanted it. So, so much.

"You stay that way. You can hate me if you want," her brother had told her. Trying to put everything on his own shoulders, as usual.

"I will probably never forgive you," she'd said, and wouldn't let him. "But that's why I'll fight with you."

"Oniichan," She slipped off his shoulder, buried her face in his chest. She didn't know how she could still have more tears, but they darkened her brother's shirt as her hands hugged him tight. "I'll always fight with you."

Surprised, he didn't move for a moment, but then his arms wrapped around her the same way they always had, ever since she was small. His grip was sure, but not out of naivety. Yes, he'd lost his innocence. It wasn't coming back. But what grew in his place, she realized, was his choice. And she got the feeling he'd already decided.

"That's good to know," he murmured softly, lashes brushing her cheek, and she thought they might be wet as well. "Because I'm never going to stop fighting for you."

They held each other for a long time.

---

The next day, Hikari showed up at Takeru's door with flowers and a box of chocolates. He made a funny face, looking her over.

"Flowers and chocolates? Shouldn't this be reversed?"

"Didn't know you were such a traditionalist," she joked. "But I'll eat these myself if they hurt your manly pride."

A hesitant grin spread over his face. "To hell with convention. Those are my chocolates, keep your paws off them."

It was silly, and cliche, but this was her life. She could be as silly and cliche as she wanted. She pulled his shoulders down and kissed him. It was light and quick, but he still looked flustered when they parted.

"My mom's home," he said with an unmistakable note of regret.

Hikari only nodded. "Figured. Video games and chocolates?"

The grin unfurled for real. "Yeah, that would be great."

Nothing had ended. She hadn't gotten over anything. But she felt, for the first time, that now she could accept it. It was a piece of who she was, and it would be a piece of who she became. But just who that person would be, she intended to decide for herself. Even if her path got buried under mountains of broken shards of glass, that was just a part of being Yagami Hikari.

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes)."

#triweek2020 #takeru takaishi #hikari yagami #taichi yagami #takari #digimon adventure tri #fizz writes #digimon

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thoseindarkness · 4 years ago

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DtD News Nov 2020

Thank you to anyone who came back for this nonsense. For brevity I have an announcement that I want to make up front. I didn't have room for it last month so I pushed it back, but I can't anymore. I had to make one major revision to the published story. I want people to know about it.

This is the TLDR version. I tell a more in-depth story at the end.

ANNOUNCEMENT

The summary: I had a bad outline walking into writing Mistrust Goes Both Ways. I ran into a problem mid-story. Instead of stopping and taking the time I needed, I challenged myself to creatively solve my way out of my problems. I re-started with about half of what I'd written, published Mistrust Goes Both Ways, and restarting my outline with high hopes. I was proud of myself for rising to the challenge.

Despite my best efforts, it didn't work out. In the end, I had to scrap my outline. I was able to structure the end I was going for and spent the end of 2019 trying to link the first two stories to the ending I wanted. It wasn't working. Then TRoS. Then COVID. Here we are. In June, I started experimenting with scrapping Mistrust and restarting from Read Between.

Mistrust Goes Both Ways will not be part of the finished story when I'm done. I know some of you love it. I love it. I have no intention of taking it down. I might, for a short time, when I'm posting the final story. I'll let you know if that happens and it will go back up afterward. I don't have specifics as there's no point planning for it now.

For right now, nothing is changing on my AO3 account. Feel free to read and comment to your hearts content. I promise it will stay up forever to remind me that some mistakes are worth sharing with others. I learned good lessons from this mistake. It stays.

That being said I think I owe you an actual update on the progress of this story.

WHAT THE HELL I DID THIS MONTH

After my first update I needed to re-integrate with Reylo friends. Funnily enough, that pulled me into another fic. I've been working on that between following this election. Now that it's called I can get back to writing. I tried a couple of times since I voted on Oct 30th, but I knew it wasn't what I wanted to be thinking about.

Thankfully, I've also begun doing more social/political essays lately. I'm not sure what overall form or shape those may take and I haven't published any. Still, I was creative and I did plenty of writing. Interestingly, all this political focus is good for Deceive the Deceiver. Spinning and listening to conspiracy theories is a big part of weaving a world like this one. A great deal comes from my thoughts and perceptions of the real world.

WHERE DTD IS

As of right now I am in the process of first drafting the entire story with Read Between as the starting point. That is, every one of the short stories in the series. What I'm doing is somewhere between a history, an outline and random scene writing. All of these elements are currently strung together in one long, continuous, chronological, first draft. It's everything from the history before Read Between (which starts in the 1930's), all the way to the final scene of DtD.

I'm taking all the good ideas I've created in the last couple of years and re-organizing them into a first pass. It's the skeleton and some of the meat now. I'm slowly building out now that I have a blank-er slate. It's about choosing what works and what doesn't.

I call it accordion writing. It just gets bigger and bigger. This outline will later level up into the first full story drafts for each part. I've got so much history when I finish this I might… I'm getting ahead of myself. Don't want to give too many clues away.

Another interesting thing that's happened recently is I've started pulling bits of other fic ideas that I’m just not gonna finish. A big chuck of the history I stole from a modern/academia AU where Ben and Rey are history students specializing in the ancient Jedi religion. Another was a complication between characters came from a canon story where I wanted to paint the relationship with a new layer. We'll see if I can pull that off.

I spent a lot of time prior to this year focusing on the heroes but my villains hadn't gotten much love. Filling in the history has given me a chance to flesh out the villains. All their moves and countermoves, woven through the bits I already have, are spinning a pretty tapestry. Oh, the villains are so much fun to write!

This other fic came together in the same sort of accordion fashion and it's been fun working through the kinks in the process now that I've seen some of the weak points on a scale like DtD. I think I've mentioned, but this is a writing experiment for me and I'm most invested now in improving my process and clue-threading with DtD. This other fic is helping me test it on a smaller scale.

Not that this needs to get any longer, I'm just going to throw pretense out the window and go with complete vanity. If you don't give a wet shit about my life (and I don't blame you) you have reached the end of your journey. I hope to see you next month. If not, then I leave you with this parting:

May we meet again in our next fandom, through mutes and not as rival shippers.

The following is the ridiculous story of my ups and downs with Deceive the Deceiver. I figure if I explain to you how much I'm invested in this story some of you will stop worrying that I'm going to abandon it. Trust me. I'm not.

This tale stretches from NANOWRIMO 2018 and the prompt that started it, through the ups and downs of 2019 and 2020, to the writing of last month's letter. Buckle up. I love bumpy rides.

DtD: from NANO '17 to COVID-19

This story truly starts in December 2017 when I drenched the seat beneath me during Last Jedi. I'm a TLJ shipper. I got caught on the thirst train. It hit a time when writing was becoming a really big part of my life. I've been writing since I was a kid. I stopped for a while and came back to it. It's a long story. Ultimately, I'd started writing a lot a few years earlier. A mix of fic and originals but I was running into problems so I start reading a bunch of books to get better. TLJ lit the fires. NO joke TLJ came out on the 15th. I have pages of writing from the 20th.

2018 was Reylo year! I was already on Tumblr for my previous fandom (Batman comics). I found Reylo AU week which is in August. I submitted a story for that. It was the first fic I published for Reylo. Fast-forward August to November. I'm in the Writing Den on Discord and someone throws out this spy prompt. People start running with. Throwing ideas around. One of those was the snuggie in Mistrust! I have that conversation saved and story spots for each crazy thing they threw out. Finally, I said I'd do it!

Mind you, this is November 2nd. Nano has just started and the event is about "turning off your internal editor." This prompt consumed me. I was trying to keep up with SpaceWaffleHouseTM that first year. I did, btw. We both crested 100,000. It was my first Nano. Word count is not my problem. Organizing my crazy ambitious ideas is my problem. Some of that 100k was other stories, like Custard which I wrote half of in November and the other half Jan/Feb 2019. Most of it… probably 80k of it… was DtD.

Read Between the Lies is currently 33,710. I wrote at least 20k of that during that first Nano, as well as outlines and scenes for what I thought would be the starting point. I remember wanting to write Read Between to "get into their headspace" by writing their first meeting. I didn't think it would become a whole story. I was just going with it then. Any idea that came to mind.

I took December 2019 off for a few reasons. Some personal. Some burnout. I'm one of those people that can use writing to relieve stress, but I was so exhausted from that month-long writing sprint. By the last week I was dragging to get the final four or five thousand words to hit 100k.

Also, what I had by the end (no internal editor) was a bird nest of ideas that had too many beginnings, not enough middles, and endings to go around. I knew one thing right away: I knew I had more than one story. There were so many fun ideas. I figured, what the hell. I knew another thing right away: the prompt was at the end of the story. Like, the very end. Like, the last short story. Or the second to last short story, at the earliest. That hasn't changed. Ever. That's just where it ended up.

Between January and April of 2019 I touched DtD a few times. I kept coming back to it, reading through it, trying to untangle it. I made new notes on the stories. Expanded ideas. Tried to structure it. I figured out a bunch of good notes, but no real substance. The hardest thing was figuring out where to start! Did I:

(1) Start shortly before the prompt with Ben/Rey's relationship established and fill the story with the history?

(2) Start a lot earlier and build Ben/Rey's relationship from the beginning I'd written in Read Between?

If I'm being honest, Read Between was a lot better than I thought it would be and I didn't want to get rid of it. For a while I was thinking of publishing it last as a "prequel" if people liked the series.

Funny enough, the turning point happened May fourth weekend 2019…

In the week leading up, I was struggling through another story and decided to take a break for the weekend. I'd start writing again on Sunday when I met with my writing group. I met them through Nano. We used to meet at Panera. Now they meet on Discord. They mostly sprint though and I'm not a sprinter. I miss Panera. Anyway.

May 4th was a Sunday (look it up). I gave myself a writing break for the weekend and marathoned Star fucking Wars. It was nerd weekend. I was going to nerd out. I wore exclusively SW gear all weekend. I remember it well. It was the start of something fucking magical in my life.

Have I mentioned recently I really love this story. Trust me I will fucking finish it. Oh my god the demons won't leave until I do. Get them out of my head…

I had a pretty rockstar weekend. I believe the reason I skipped the PT that weekend was because I'd watched it the month before or so. Right after finishing the Clone Wars animated series (which is awesome and I strongly recommend both it and Rebels). I skipped them and SOLO.

Starting with R1, I went through in chronological order. I stopped at RotJ. I was with my family on Saturday and they were playing RotJ in the living room during the party. We talked about my marathon. My mom came over to my apartment after. We watched RoTJ properly. Then Force Awakens. It was too late by then to watch TLJ. I know I went straight to bed after my mom left on Saturday night.

Somewhere during or right after TFA I started thinking about Deceive the Deceiver. I don't remember what sparked it. I went to bed thinking about DtD. I know this with 100% certainty because I woke up thinking about again on Sunday and I thought it was quite odd.

I dream about this story in a way I have only dreamt about a precious few. Technicolor folks. It keeps me up at night.

I went to my writing group with (a) no plan for what to write, (b) a gordian knot that I had yet to untangle, (c) a sudden urge to re-read it. I opened my notes and read DtD through all our sprints. I read most of it during that writing session. We go about three hours.

That night I had Game of Thrones at my parent's. It was the (spoiler alert) episode where Arya kills the Night King. I remember because two minutes into the episode my brother's car broken down a few blocks from our apartment and we had to go help him. Derailed the whole night (this is foreshadowing).

Side note: I live with my younger brother and he's the best roommate I've ever had in my 35 years of life. Love you, Mo!

The episode was recording so we ran out. Had to leave the car in a parking lot. Someone had already helped him push it out of a puddle but my brother was soaked to mid-calf and the engine was shot. We dropped him off at home and I rode back to my Momma's crib to watch GoT. It was only the beginning of a wild night.

I went to bed late. I had to get up a few hours early to deal with the car before work started for either of us. I guess we were both hoping to avoid taking the day off. That wasn't going to happen. I drove home but I couldn't sleep. That crazy episode and the fact that my brain was already on fire with DtD.

I spent the wee hours finishing my re-read through the rough draft of Read Between the Lies. It saw my starting place. I started writing. I wrote through waiting in a parking lot, for the tow truck, in my car, at 6 am, with no sleep. I did a voice recording as I drove from the parking lot to the mechanic where the driver was taking my brother's car. I thought about it the whole way back. I sat on the sofa a wrote some more when we got home. I went to bed at 11 am and I'd written 10k more words for Read Between the Lies.

Somewhere between the chaos of May 5th and the official publish date on June 5th, Read Between got written. I know it didn't take too long. I remember sending it off to beta (by my amazing beta team on 1 & 2: Em, Jen, and Sai) and immediately pivoting to my outline. I slapped that together far too hastily and kept moving. I was going on holiday in the UK (I'm American and I'm ashamed) in early August so I planned on trying to publish Part 2 when I got back. At the very least I wanted it ready for beta.

Also some to admit, around the middle of 2019 I was fatigued with the fandom. We were hitting a lull. I was psyching myself up for the end and the exit. I was trying to clean house. I wanted to push out unfinished fics. To make them work. There was a lot of that mood from me in 2019. I was trying to make everything work. It's why Read Between came out, and that was a good thing. It's also why Mistrust came out, and that was a bad thing.

With that mentality looming, tough outline in hand, I started writing Mistrust before the end of May. I hit my snag sometime during the period I was publishing Read Between because by the time it was all done I knew I wasn't going to have a finished story by the time I left for London. I would figure it out when I got back. I picked up another project to distracted me from my problems for a little while. That is going to be an original if it's anything. One day…

At some point after I got back I started focusing heavily on problem solving. I had two stories already and a number of plot threads I had to resolve. I have heavy, heavy, heavy notes from September to December of 2019. Lots of possible ways to run this story. It sucks that a lot of that stuff isn't going to make it, but I'm recycling shit every day and I learned so much about the characters/story in that four month period. It really shaped the finished product in an important way.

This period is where I started to look at the bigger structure and how I was going to solve specific plot problems in each short story to bring the whole together. That focus on the different parts is important because it was the last thing on my mind when TRoS happened.

December 20th (the release date) is my birthday. My ass drove up to one of those Reylo-only screenings and I was surrounded by amazing people as I watched a movie that ruined my 35th birthday. Thankfully, I spent it in incomparable company. Thank you to all the hosts and super special thanks to Jen. Not only was she a DtD beta on both, she invited me. Thank you love! You are the reason I still remember that trip with joy.

Side note: I no longer hate TRoS. I've made my peace with it. I'm a far happier person now.

Needless to say, the only Reyloing I did in January of this year was venting frustration. Then I took a few weeks away from the fandom. I'd done my purging into the void. I knew other people still needed the space to vent but I had to get away. Once the toxin is out I couldn't let it back in.

What occurred starting in February of 2020 was a series of situations in which, every time I logged into Twitter I was faced with the kind of vitriol in the fandom that I don't need in my life. Some of it was still TRoS stuff, even as late as May. I'm not judging, I'm just saying, with the world on fire (literally), I didn't need it.

I don't think I have to explain why I've avoided social media like the plague since early this year. I live in America. If you heard anything about our recent President I don't have to explain any further what this year has been like. That has been par for course all over the world.

So here's my secret to happiness. I don't fux with the trolls. Do not engage. Sometimes that means radio silence. I'm breaking that silence because I want you to know 2020 has not destroyed DtD. It's only leveled shit up.

I have pretty much been working on this story consistently since March of this year. I go back and forth with reading, history, documentaries. I'm learning to wield many new weapons. They take time to settle in. DtD is the de-stressor I go to in between the real shit.

Sometime in June I was screwing around with the order of the parts. I had worked out the end but I was trying to bridge the gap between the ending I was certain I needed to get to and the two beginning stories I'd already published. I couldn't bridge the gap. It had been a year since I published Read Between and it wasn't working. Then I had an epiphany.

What if I got rid of Mistrust? Read Between is a pretty blank slate. I didn't want to re-write it and I still don't. I have no intention of getting rid of Part 1. I may clean it up and add some stuff at the very last minute, but it will be right before the new stuff drops as a pre-cursor to the flood of subsequent stories. I may add a few new clues or alter a scene or two, but I have plenty of room to move with it exactly the way it is.

What does that mean for Mistrust Goes Both Ways? To make a long story short, there was no good way for me to continue with what I'd published and still write the story in my head. I'm sure there are cool places to take the existing story, but that's not what I'm trying to do. In truth, I should have left 1 and not published 2 when I hit a snag. Lesson learned.

In June I basically threw Mistrust out and asked myself, "Now what?" I have months of great ideas rife for reshuffling and no restrictions on how to bridge the gap from 1 to the ending I wanted. But the end had shifted.

That brings us up to speed. The last thing I did before taking a much needed break was get through 90% of the history in my accordion outline/draft. I poured the foundation that was missing. I walked away in early October and let it set. I'm going to button up this other fic I'm working on and then go back to DtD and check the foundation I laid.

I'm very confident that not only will it hold, but that with fresh eyes and the fun side stories I've had the chance to lay to rest, I will finally be able to start building the finished products on top of it.

IN CONCLUSION

I'm still as excited as I've ever been for this story. It frustrates me all the time, but that means the medicine for my soul is working its magic. Change it painful, but pain is transformative. I've embrace changed. That ache is just a sign the muscles are getting stronger. Growing pains. As I learn to live with them in my family, my country, and my job, I find that life's lesson's often end up reflecting in every place in our life if we but open our eyes to look.

Growing pains exist in my writing process too. They are as transformative in this corner of my life as they are in every other. They have revealed as much about me as a person in my writing as they have in my politics. They have taught me how to compromise with my family as I learn to compromise with my characters. As I consider how people treat each other I am reminded that struggles in understanding our fictional counterparts may shine a light on our struggles to understand our truer selves.

Take care of yourselves. Once you've got that covered, if you can, take care of each other. Feel free to poke me and say hi. If not, until next month.

Fari.

#deceive the deceiver #reylo #reylo fanfic #reylo fan fiction #modern au #spy au #fan fic #fan fiction

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lily-lilou · 5 years ago

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My understanding and analysis of the magical system in The Dragon Prince. Part 1 - my first thoughts on it - primal and dark magic aren’t the only kind of magic.

Ok, I promised to several people I would post this today so there it is! (@beautifulterriblequeen, @kotikala, I’m sorry I don’t have all the account... Julia, mama and the others ;_;)

It’s long (so I separated it in two post... but it will be long anyway, especially the second one. So I wish you a lot of courage to go through this until the end...) but it’s because it’s the result of some month of searching and digging. It’s still not complete, however. But if you have some time to lose and in love with this world, maybe this theory (and I insist, it’s a theory, maybe I’m totally wrong) will interest you:

Anyway, let’s just begin!

You can see the magical system in TDP like a diamond with several facets: we saw some of them, and some of us dug to find more.

For me, this theory _ the idea that the magical system in TDP is wider than what we saw_ started from a simple thing in Callum’s spellsbook, the “secret” we can find in the ASL section, the one Sarai repeated when she was alive.

My first reaction was “greeeeaaat! Another show where “love is magic. Yaay! =_=’”

Okay, "love" is an important theme on the dragon prince, yes. But magic ?

But let’s be honest: I don't think they would have placed something like this in the book for nothing. After all, we have to admit that, in this show, NOTHiNG is ever done simply. So maybe this time “love is magic” would be more elaborate than usual?

We do know that the first thing the creators talked about when they started to imagine this world, was the magical system. Not the characters, not the creatures or landscape or anything, but the magical system.

And what do we have so far? Primal magic and dark magic. Is it really that simple? I had to think it through!

1. My first thoughts about dark magic:

Thinking about this above led me to think about dark magic, about how it's "wrong", like Callum said. That point have already been discussed by many of us and a lot disagree, it's too easy to classified it as "wrong" like it’s stated in the show, because the reason you had to use it can be understandable.

Only... the creator of the show have NEVER chose easy/simple road in writing. So why just put dark magic as "wrong" without explanations? Maybe there's something more here too?

I understood dark magic as bad, not for the reason, but for the concept, about what it represents: it's taking (life, will) without asking. It's stealing, it's killing, no matter your excuse. You can invoke righteousness, justice, revenge, self-defence, strengh, power and all, the result is always the same: death. And as you kill to achieve your goal, you pay a heavy price. It staint you, it... "take" something for you (like it was implied in several interview and even in the book, but we’ll talk about this later). (ok, nothing new, here)

But you must have noticed this: those aren't only related to dark magic. It's darkness and everyone can do it. Sol Regem did it, Runaan did it, Harrow did it. They chose to kill and they tainted themselves too, even if it's not in the way pure dark magic does.

So you have the "dark" side with death and all, and opposed to this, the "white" one. Life, forgiveness. love. And all the people have to choose between those white and black sides, between life and death. Only the area they moved in to make their choices is grey. It's the result who, in the end, is more black or white than grey _ but sometimes still a little grey_.

So, it’s absolutely interesting (hehe… hem^^’) but these thoughts are the ground of the theories and analysis that will now follow in this post and the next one!!!!

2. The “reward theory”

As said by Sarai in the image below : "love is magic".

My first question then, was: “…But what is “magic”?” Not Primal magic or Dark magic. Just… Magic. My first thought was: magic is life. Or at least, it should be. Remember the human land deprived of magic who was dying? And look at Primal magic, it’s all life-related at some point. So, yeah, Magic is life!

And so, if magic is life and love is magic, doesn’t this mean that love is life, too?

If that's true, then maybe the opposite is true too? Hate is death.

Why not, after all?! If magic is love, and life… how could dark magic, who's litterally death, came from the same source? How could dark magic… be Magic at all if they’re opposite to each other?

And more importantly : where is this "magical love" in the magic system here ? It's not primal magic, it's not dark magic, but it is magic.

From that point, I assumed Magic is wider than Humans and Xadians (and us, humble fans, obviously) know. It's probably something more... powerful, a more primal form of magic. More subtle but powerful.

Why subtle?

This is the first thing I noticed in the show, the impressive succession of miracles, of “what if” who went just right. “What if Callum left to go to Rayla just one minute later at the storm spire?”, “What if Ethari didn’t saw Rayla in the reflection?”, “what if Viren hadn’t captured Lain and Tiadrin, letting no traces behind so people wouldn’t misinterpret what happened?”, “What if Marcos hadn’t been here?”, “what if Runaan had send someone else to kill him?”, what if…

It gave me the impression that there’s something more. Is it Destiny? Is it something else? Someone? Anything?

But that’s the first layer. There’s another one:

In this show, it's as if every action who implied a choice about doing the right thing, about choosing life over death, love over hate or the opposite, is somehow... repaid? Rewarded?

By... Magic itself? Destiny again? Fate? the world? Some unknown entity? by Magic who is an entity? Why not? “If magic is life, if she brings life to everything, how could she not be alive?”... or something like that. Anyway!

Maybe it’s this, or maybe you’re rewarded by the side you choose?

In both case, when you chose life or love, then you will live. You chose death or hate, then you will die. (I am putting thing in an extreme way, I know... ^^)

In other words, when you choose life/love or death/hate, your act is related to magic. but not the magic we saw until now. It's something else. Just like Dark magic is not Primal magic.

So okay, that’s nice once again, but what could prove it?

Well, just take a look at this:

You use dark magic, it stains you. It "takes" something from you, empties you as if the world itself can't allow you to make others beeing to pay for the choice you made.

Why not? but that's general, let's see more concrete exemples (and my headcanon interpretations) when our characters did the "right" or "wrong" thing:

Zym's egg falls in the frozen lake and Ezran risks his life to save him => Ez (can already talk to animals, yes) got an unusual, powerful bond with our little dragon, so strong the little dragon do the exact same things as him while sleeping, so strong he can see through his eyes and talk with him even when they're separated. As if his self-sacrificing act had been rewarded: you choose to risk your life to save him ? then you two will be linked even strongly than before.

Rayla spares Marcos => our lad is the first one to rebel against Viren, act who instill courage in others who follow him. Marco became a part to the rebellion and was one of those who rallied Duren's forces (I guess) : you spare an innocent even if he was your enemy? Then he will become your ally.

Callum breaks his primal stone to save Zym and, by this, accepts the idea of returning to a "I'm nobody" state. Then he uses dark magic but choose to completely reject it and end up with the sky arcanum. You sacrifice your magic, who was important to you to save a life (and the world btw) ? then you made the choice to use a magic meant to kill but in the end decided to not go on that path ? then you will retrieve what you sacrificed in the first place, in an even stronger way.

Amaya save Janai when she could have killed her, her enemy, Janai end up fighting with her.

Same for Janai, she saved, even trusted Amaya.

In a general way: children, you fought for peace ? you let go of your grudge, your grief and all of your biased jugments ? then peace you'll have (more or less, we know not everyone want peace)

Ezran chose to forgive Soren and Claudia. Soren end up saving him in return and turning to his side. As for Claudia, I'll talk about her in a while.

Callum jump after Rayla to save her, it's love who made him mastered the spell to save them both. You're ready to sacrifice yourself for her? then you will both be saved.

Rayla tackle Viren from the peak of the storm spire. She doesn't search “death”, she's trying to save Zym. She's ready to lose her life to save him. out of righteousness, out of love. Then she get saved by Callum.

Now what about the "dark side" we call the “narrative of strength”?

Avizandum killed many people, especially Sarai who had a pure heart. He got killed by Harrow.

Harrow chose hate and death by killing him, he got killed by Runaan.

Runaan is the most interesting one so far: he had a choice to make too. Two choices. He could have backed up but chose to kill Harrow anyway and so chose “death”. However, even if we’re still not absolutely sure he decided to spare Ezran, he did chose (we know this from the team at Wonderstorm now, so it’s canon) to spare Rayla despite what law and duty said. Killing her was never in his agenda. So Runaan had to choose between life and death, he chose both and ended... between both, literally! "the irony is wonderful"…

Kesha, with all her arrogance (who was so predictable) and her hate toward humanity got killed in a not so soft way.

Viren... I think his many "rewards" have already started. When he chose to kill the magma titan, Sarai (they were friends, it's canon) got killed and Amaya hates him for this (it's canon to, thedragonprince official on tumblr mentionned it once). He lost 2 friends on that day. When he chose to kill Avizandum, he lost his other friend, Harrow. Here in a most terrible way and I will, once again, talk about this later. He inflicted a terrible spell to Rayla's parents but this turned against him. If not for them completely vanished, no one would have thought they had ran away, Rayla _ the only moonshadow elf who had her heart in the right place_ wouldn't have to go to this mission to clear her name. No other assassin would have spared Marcos, or listen to callum, no other assassin would have followed Ezran, found the egg and chose to "make things right" including the humans. Runaan proved it. And I'm not finished with Viren. He lost his son, he will lose is daughter and he's currently in the grasp of a powerful being who's obviously toying with him and he don't even know it. And he's so blind he can't even see it.

Edit: kinda forgot about Sol Regem who torched down a city of hundred of thousand people, who got rewarded by being blinded, losing his throne and being hated and feared by everyone. 1200years later, when he could have change he didn’t. So okay Callum used dark magic. But that wasn’t a reason to kill Zym. Reward? Lux Aurea, the city who had been built to honor him (according to Callum spellsbook) fall, a lot of Sunfire elves seems to have died and, if we believe the summary of the tabletop game, it’s pretty ugly... a city for a city? Maybe.

Claudia is also very interesting, in between love and hate, death and light. Here’s an excerpt from an interview I found:

As for Claudia, she really seems to have committed to this dark path now. Is there any hope for her in the future? Richmond: Yes! There’s totally hope. Ehasz: But it might get worse before it gets better. [...] Ehasz: Claudia is, ahh… Richmond: She’s super complicated. She’s a fascinating character. There’s a long way to go with Claudia, she’s super exciting. Ehasz: But she’s not about power! She’s about **love**. I mean, that’s one thing that’s interesting about her. She’s on a very dark path, but her core motivation is love, and I think that’s going to be very interesting.

She really is the best character to represent that grey area. And if this first part of my theory, about "rewards" is true, it could truly end up good for her. When she had to choose between Soren and Zym, she chose her brother. She chose her father over Soren (I'm talking about the scene in the dungeon, not after Kazef's transformation) not out of malice but out of fear. She loves her family and deceived herself because she's not strong enough to see the truth. I really think she will do the right choice when she will finally see her father for what he truly is (as Richmond said : "there's totally hope").

3. That’s nice and interesting, Lily… but this looks like “destiny” at worst. Is there really another kind of magic than dark magic and primal magic?

If the creators really put so much thoughts and efforts in creating the magical system, it’s really likely this way. But what would be the point in telling how it works right away? We do have to discover it with the characters themselves.

However, the existence of another kind of magic, something deeper, has been implied several time.

We have clues:

Like here (8:29min and especially 9:00min if the link doesn't work correctly), where Aaron Ehasz talked about an earlier and less differenciated kind of magic.

Or like what happened to Ezran in the ice-lake. In the novel, we have an interesting description form his POV, something magical happened (I’ll come back to this in a later part)

And that new or maybe forgotten kind of magic will, maybe… be the magic that will be used to free our dear moonshadow elves from the coins? Because we have some clues :

Question: [...] Runaan got turned into a coin [...] Can they be restored to their original forms?

Ehasz: “My gut is, it seems like the kind of thing that would require incredible and powerful magic to reverse. [...] We do not answer that question in Season Three. I’m telling you, it would take incredible magic and probably dark magic to reverse it, but I don’t know [if that’s going to happen].

(I promise, that last point isn’t here for nothing :3)

Okay, this post is over. The next one will be about the magical system in itself and that “other magic” implied here, about what I found in the show about it.

#TDP #magical system #tdp theories #reward theory #ezran #runaan #zym #dark magic #primal magic #narrative of strengh #narrative of love #love is magic #callum's spellbook #love-magic #TDP's magical system is awesome #Rayla #Callum #arf tags are complicated #tumblr is complicated

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the2020romanceproject · 5 years ago

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Review: Red, White, and Royal Blue

You guys. This book. This book is FREAKING AMAZING. This is basically everything I wanted from a romance novel. I am probably ruined for other romance novels now because this one is SO GREAT.

Not going to do a full summary of this one, because 1) lots of stuff happens (which is part of why it’s so great), and 2) I want everyone to read it and don’t want to completely spoil it. But the basic premise is that Alex is the son of the sitting U.S. president and Henry is a prince of England, and—according to Alex, anyway—they start out hating each other. Then they inadvertently cause an international incident and have to pretend to be friends for P.R. reasons, and feelings happen and so do lots and lots of other things and it is ADORABLE and ANGSTY and PLOTTY and all the characters are amazing and I can marry this book, yes? Thank you.

I was worried when I started reading romance novels. I was worried that the strength of the romance-focused plots found in fanfiction would be diluted by the need to include other aspects of plot. Then I read a couple of romance novels and was worried that the strength of the romance-focused plot would be diluted by romance-genre customs like having the characters sleep together halfway through even if that destroys all the tension. This book is proof that neither of those things has to be a problem. It had an excellent romance plot that was only enhanced by the very robust political and interpersonal subplots that happened around it. I am SO impressed.

Okay, the romance plot first. Here are some of the things I liked about it (spoilers, caution):

Alex didn’t realize he was attracted! He didn’t even realize he was bi!*

But he obviously was attracted to Henry

Henry was obviously into him (obvious to everyone except Alex, that is)

We were only in Alex’s POV and not Henry’s and so we got to enjoy the dramatic irony of the above

Alex is very stupid about his own sexual past and how normal best friends act together

Everyone else knew basically all of this before Alex did

Even after they got together, Alex lied to himself about how he was falling in love even those it was clear that he was

Henry had real reasons for backing off from the relationship and being scared

The characters had SO MUCH DEPTH omg

Their banter! It was so good

I really liked both of them and believed that they were better together

(*It’s super legit to write characters who do know they’re queer. I just personally love it when they don’t know, because it speaks to my didn’t-realize-she-was-bi-until-age-25 soul.)

These plot elements are not specific to fanfiction. There’s plenty of fanfiction that doesn’t do all or even any these things. But they’re also all very common in fic, and when you put them all together it felt very much like the kind of romance plot I might have come across on AO3. I hope these plot elements aren’t unusual in the romance genre, either, because I find them SO effective and satisfying.

Take Alex not realizing at first that he was attracted. This is something I was surprised by in the other romance novels I’ve read so far: that those characters saw each other and were immediately like, “Yup, that’s my type of person, super into that body!” And...that’s fine, I guess? A little alien to me, since I don’t tend to experience attraction that way, but I guess there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a bit of a missed opportunity, though, because it jumps right over the potential tension of us watching and waiting for the character to realize they’re attracted.

Granted, it can be hard in a book with original characters to signal to the reader right away that yes, these two people are going to be into each other. I can see why many romance novels include that initial recognition of attraction. But this book is proof that you don’t need to do it that way. It’s completely clear to the reader that Alex is going to be into Henry—that he already is, and isn’t recognizing that attraction for what it is—and we still get to watch him go on the delightful journey from, “Ew, this guy is the worst” to “Oh crap I’m actually super into him.”

I think this is getting at a fundamental type of tension that was missing from the first two romance novels I read. I talked about the difference between sexual and romantic tension, and that stands, but each of those comes in a couple varieties: there’s the tension between what the characters want and what they have, and then there’s the tension between what the characters want and what they THINK they want. In The Soldier’s Scoundrel, those two things are pretty much the same: the two characters know they’re attracted to each other, and then, as they go through each step of falling in love, they acknowledge it openly in the narration. That’s fine but kind of boring, and it means that instead of waiting for the characters to catch up to their own feelings, we’re waiting for those feelings to form. It is just plain not as interesting to wait for a character to develop a feeling as it is to wait for them to acknowledge a feeling they’re hiding from themselves. Plus, people are bad at recognizing their own desires! It’s a thing! Especially when those desires are inconvenient or unexpected or would leave them vulnerable. There are plenty of good ways to introduce this tension without it feeling forced, and it can add so much.

(This is probably part of why I like characters who don’t recognize that they’re queer, actually—it adds another layer to the knowledge gap. But, again, that’s largely a personal preference, and I recognize the value of a variety of queer experiences in literature.)

The other thing this book did that I think strengthened the romantic plot in a major way was to stick to one point of view. I honestly don’t think I would have said a month ago that I felt so strongly about this. Most of the fic I’ve read is in one point of view, and I’ve never really thought about the alternative. But I’m starting to realize that switching points of view can take a reader out of the characters’ heads in really unfortunate ways. The human experience just never involves knowing absolutely what someone else is thinking. So if you’re living through a character’s eyes, experiencing the world as them...you shouldn’t know what a different character is thinking. Not every story has to immerse us in a character’s head to this degree—but romance should, I think. That’s the fun of it. And it just doesn’t work as well with two points of view. Plus, you lose the question of what exactly the other person is thinking, and even if you can pretty much guess—well, again, you’re going to be more fully in the main character’s head if you have to guess instead of knowing.

And the tension. Oh man. There isn’t one thing this book did to ensure continual tension in its romantic plot; it just did a fantastic job of transitioning between one kind of tension and the next. (Major spoilers ahead.) First Alex doesn’t think he’s into Henry, even though the reader can tell he has a crush. Then Henry kisses him and Alex realizes he’s attracted, but we get sexual tension because Henry’s not talking to him and then because it’s hard for them to end up in the same place at the same time (situational tension). Then we start to get romantic tension where Alex is in love but doesn’t recognize it, and then later when Alex knows he’s in love but isn’t saying it yet. Then more romantic tension when Alex finally confesses and Henry walks away (which, btw, major props to this book for succeeding at having someone walk away from a love confession and not having me think any less of their potential relationship). Then they finally get together for real but there’s the situational tension of them maybe doing serious damage their respective governments. Every single time one kind of tension gets resolved, there’s another kind waiting in the wings, ready to take over. It’s just...what a masterpiece.

So, yes, excellent romance plot, top marks. Everything surrounding the romance was fantastic, too, which just...that is SO HARD TO DO. One of my questions at the start of this year of reading was whether romance novels would feel more like novels than fanfiction does, and this one certainly does. There’s a phenomenon in fanfiction, and I noticed it in previous romance novels, too, where the outside world just sort of...dips into view where convenient, and then recedes from view without having real consequences or significant continuity. And that’s fine. It works better in fanfiction than in original works, I think, because fanfiction can draw on an independent canon or fanon. But in both places, it results (or can result) in a very strong romance where nothing else in the world matters much to the story, and that’s okay.

But this book. There was so much plot! So much world, and I cared about all of it! ALL the characters are extremely well-drawn, and I cared about their mini-arcs. The political situation interacted with and enhanced the romance plot but also mattered in its own right and had its own complexities. And none of it made the romance feel any less present or central or powerful. It was so well done.

Okay. I’m done gushing now. I’m moving on to what I hope will be a recurring new feature: fanfiction I’m going to recommend based on this book. These are all stories that I thought about while reading Red, White, and Royal Blue, and if you liked the book, you might want to explore these. (It’s worth noting that I regularly read fanfiction without knowing anything about the canon. I know that weirds some people out, but if you’re on the fence, I would encourage you to give it a try!)

Let Toretto Be Toretto (The Fast and the Furious political AU, by astolat)—oh man, astolat. Truly the best of us all. This one is much shorter and doesn’t have the prince aspect, but it’s a fanastic journey through gay pining and the presidency.

The Student Prince (Arthur/Merlin college AU, by fayjay)—this felt like the most obvious comparison story for me. Fanfiction boasts a plethora of modern-day prince AUs across many fandoms, but this is one I read recently and really enjoyed. The non-romance plot is less robust than in Red, White, and Royal Blue, but there are a lot of strong similarities.

Not Easily Conquered (Steve/Bucky, by dropdeaddreams and WhatAreFears)—Henry and Alex’s emails reminded me so strongly of this one. All-around gorgeous.

And now, on to the next romance novel that I will almost inevitably be disappointed in after this phenomenon. Someone tell me when Casey McQuiston publishes something else.

#reviews #romance novels #red white and royal blue #fanfic meta

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jeanandthedreamofhorses · 6 years ago

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You're into ASOIAF too? Oh wow. You certainly made the right call dropping this shitshow -and yeah, looking back, I didn't think it possible to have a worse season than S5 but hooo boy, was I wrong-. Knowing its abomination of an ending now, I'm trying hard not to let it ruin the books for me, too, so take this as a cautionary tale, lol. And bc some positivity would be nice and I do always enjoy reading your opinions, if it's okay, could I ask you about your fave ASOIAF characters and such? thx!

Frick yeah, the question I’ve been waiting for! I can gush about pretty much every character since they’re all so amazingly well written, but for a brief list of the top contenders… (TWOW spoilers ahead!)

5. Asha Greyjoy

“If there are rocks to starboard and a storm to port, a wise captain steers a third course.”

Irreverent, cynical, mocking, confident and dangerous, what’s not to love about Asha? She immediately made an impact with such scenes as her “sweet suckling babe” quip and was one of my favourite side characters in ACOK.

AFFC, however, was when she really got to shine, where to my elation she got a POV chapter, and more in ADWD. Despite her seemingly Ironborn-to-the-core personality, we discover she’s actually one of the least zealous of the Ironborn, sympathetic to the New Ways and those influenced by the culture of the ‘greenlanders’ like Rodrik the Reader. As one of the few reading Ironborn, she’s clearly one of the most intelligent of the Ironborn and certainly more open-minded, which leads to her down-to-earth sales pitch for the Kingsmoot, a sensible, realistic policy which would be genuinely best for her people - while still, of course, maintaining some elements of conquest: she is the kraken’s daughter, after all.

This side to her personality that sympathises with the fringe elements of her society and is able to make realistic assessments of the possibilities of success comes largely from the difficult position of being a prominent woman in the hypermasculine, heavily patriarchal Ironborn culture. Being raised as Balon’s substitute son has landed her more freedom than most Iron women, but in a complicated position nonetheless. She manages to handle it to the best of her ability, however with Balon gone she comes to realise just how precarious her position always was.

Now, like many other characters in ADWD, she is dealing with the hardship of broken dreams. Disaster piles upon disaster for Asha, from the failed kingsmoot to the loss of Deepwood Motte to becoming captive to Stannis (a dynamic I can’t wait to see more of btw, what an interesting clash of personalities!). Like Tyrion, her bravado serves to mask her insecurity, and her sense of powerlessness from recent events - both in commanding her own destiny and the heartache from the ruinous state of her family - really comes out in her inner monologue during ADWD.

How fitting, then, that this is when she reunites with Theon, another character whose lofty ambitions were torn brutally to the ground. Asha lorded it over him in Winterfell, but perhaps now she can relate. Mock as she may, Asha genuinely loves her family, and it’s another appealing aspect of this lonely character navigating her way through her unusual existence on the tightrope of social norms.

4. Tyrion Lannister

“You poor stupid blind crippled fool. Must I spell out every little thing for you? Very well. Cersei is a lying whore, she’s been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and probably Moon Boy for all I know. And I am the monster they all say I am. Yes, I killed your vile son.”

Everyone loves Tyrion, and how can they not? He’s one of the wittiest and most intelligent characters in the series, and the first stumbling block when it comes to which side we should root for. While he was always one of my favourite characters from the start, factoring in his complex family life and struggles on account of his dwarfism (and later the maiming of his already ugly face), my favourite part of Tyrion as a character is how all the things we love about him are flipped on their head in ADWD.

Tyrion tells us in AGOT to wear your shame like “armor and it can never be used to hurt you”. It’s an empowering statement, but throughout ASOS we see how insecure Tyrion still is inside, and his ignoble treatment at the hands of his father and the people as a whole in the kangaroo court for Joffrey’s murder, can, ultimately, be boiled down to his being a dwarf. His armour fails him, and he is still utterly unable to be loved, appreciated, or respected by anyone. Only by Tysha, as he finds out, who is now lost to him - ripped from his hands by the machinations of his father and the one family member that Tyrion still loved, his brother.

It’s at this point that Tyrion is never the same again. He murders Shae in cold blood, and he murders his father, and he regrets none of it. He is becoming the monster they said he was.

When we see him in ADWD, the dark side of Tyrion that had always been hidden behind the hope he had clung onto creeps all too shockingly for the surface. His jokes are now too cynical to laugh at, dark and disturbing and cruel. He uses his intellect for no greater good beyond his own personal amusement, deliberately influencing Young Griff to attack Westeros prematurely just in the hopes that his sister might get the axe. He is on no side but his own, acting brazenly irresponsibly as he has no interest in the grand schemes others have set out for him, or even in his own life. The chips on his shoulder are now genuine murderous intent, daydreaming about raping and killing Cersei and mounting Jaime’s head on a spike next to her. Where Tyrion’s whoring habits had seemed roguish and humorous before, in Essos he is depicted raping clearly reluctant sex slaves.

What makes this all the more disturbing, and all the more literarily brilliant, is that it casts aside the biased curtain we had seen Tyrion through before, and the result is shocking. How much more free to consent is a Westerosi prostitute than a Pentoshi sex slave? How worthwhile were the barbed comments he made so frequently when they ultimately led to a litany of testimonies against him as soon as he lost his privileged position? The worse devils of Tyrion’s nature come out in full force, and we see much more of the black of the character Martin described as “the grayest of the gray”. Perhaps the difference now is that Tyrion’s POV lacks a single element of self-love. The readers are repulsed by him in the same way he repulses himself.

Nonetheless, Tyrion seems to be rekindling something of a purpose in ADWD, as characters nurture themselves back up from the wreckage in the aftermath of the War of the Five Kings. He has lost the Lannister’s golden influence, but his silver tongue still serves him well. However, we may never see the old Tyrion again. This Tyrion has not repented for the vile things he has done, or the vile things he intends to do. He was caricatured by the citizens of King’s Landing as an evil advisor whispering into the monarch’s ear - this may become something closer to the truth when he at last meets with Daenerys.

3. Jaime Lannister

“Does my lord wish to answer?” The maester asked, after a long silence. A snowflake landed on the letter. As it melted, the ink began to blur. Jaime rolled the parchment up again, as tight as one hand would allow, and handed it to Peck. “No,” he said. “Put this in the fire.”

Who saw a Jaime POV coming? What an incredible way to open ASOS after the prologue, to see things from the eyes of one of the series’ most notorious villains. I don’t think I need to explain at length how impactful it was to gently peel off the layers of Jaime’s character, revealing the true reason he killed Aerys, his growth in his interactions with Brienne, the embodiment of the chivalric values he abandoned, and most significantly, losing the hand that was his entire identity and vanity. Anyone who has read the book or watched the show can relate.

Since then, he continues to fascinate. He is discovering talents beyond swordsmanship, entering into a negotiation even Tywin could have been proud of. He has learned how to use his bad reputation for nobler ends, scaring Edmure Tully silly enough to end the siege of Riverrun without shedding a single drop of blood. He is still fighting for a Lannister king, true, but that is only staying true to his role as Kingsguard: now that he has lost his sword hand, he is discovering what it means to be a knight again, in an unconventional and thrilling way.

I chose the above quote because it captures the beauty of AFFC Jaime, breaking away from the sister he fought so hard to return to and decisively cutting out her influence for good. In Jaime’s reverse knight’s fable, refusing the call of the damsel in distress is one of the most upright things he has ever done. How fitting that he should then meet up with the woman who influenced him to take the other path - only she seems about to betray him, too…

It will be so interesting to see Stoneheart’s perverted justice on a character whose head we once wanted on a chopping block but now want to survive at all costs. I don’t think Brienne will be able to follow through with it to the end. After all, Jaime must live on to fulfil a certain prophecy…

2. Euron Greyjoy

“The bleeding star bespoke the end,” he said to Aeron. “These are the last days, when the world shall be broken and remade. A new god shall be born from the graves and charnel pits.”

It’s common enough to hear writers and critics talk about how your villain can’t simply be evil, and that they need to have sympathetic motivations or else they’re badly written. I think that’s true sometimes, but only when your evil villains fail to capture the raw horror of what evil really is - that’s when they feel wooden or cartoonish. To successfully capture that heart of darkness, however…

That is what George R.R. Martin achieved with Euron Greyjoy, the most terrifying character I have ever read.

Everyone underestimates Euron. They know he’s mad, but they don’t know how mad he is. They think they can outmanoeuvre him, like Asha, or betray him, like Victarion. They think he’s lying when he says he’s sailed to Valyria and means to conquer Westeros with dragons. Only Aeron knew. Only Aeron knew the depths of Euron’s depravity, and how far he means to fly. Because he’s the only one who heard the scream of the rusted iron hinge.

The Forsaken showed that it was all true, that Aeron was right all along - that he, like the oracle Cassandra, warned the Ironborn but was condemned to be ignored. Euron has an ambition unparalleled by any other character in the series - he means to turn himself into a god. He’s the only one depraved enough to go to the lengths it would take to make that dream a reality.

We should fear Euron, we should fear him very much. And yet, I think his dreams of godhood can never fully come to pass. He is, after all, still a man - still fallible, as we saw him shrink away at the Reader’s reprimand in The Reaver and change his tactics accordingly. His humanity will be the death of him - not any goodness in his heart, but a weakness common to the human creature. The dragons he means to dance with, and potentially the Others too as some theories go, will move at a pace beyond those mortal legs.

His attempt to fly will inevitably end with a fall. But that headfirst plunge will take the Seven Kingdoms with him.

1. Stannis Baratheon

“I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning… burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?“

Here is a man so totally dedicated to his duty that he is willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish it, even if it means his own destruction.

He is a character that believes in justice and the word of law more strongly than any other, and watching his dogged persistence to put a corrupt world to rights no matter the odds has always struck a chord with me, especially in this world teeming with such selfish and barbarous characters.

He is not such a performer as other characters, not as openly humorous as Tyrion (though lowkey he has an incredible dry wit), nor as pretty as Renly, nor as lighthearted as Littlefinger. He’s a dour person, hard and unpopular. But if you listen to the conversations he has with Davos, there is an incredible heart to this man who has placed all the troubles of the world on his own shoulders, and strives through cold and stormy weather to make the best, most just decision he can for no other reason than that - because it is just. Justice is hard, sharp and unyielding, not pretty, not humorous, not lighthearted - but necessary. In a king more than anywhere else. That’s why those who do follow Stannis, like Davos, follow him with such faith and loyalty.

He often proceeds about this goal in questionable ways, compensating for the imperfections of his forces and of his own personality. This is the rickety bridge Stannis walks on, as a man who will go to any means necessary to accomplish what he feels must be done. Sometimes this might mean unleashing dark forces better left locked up, sometimes it might mean committing so terrible a sin as kinslaying, sometimes it might mean sacrificing a child to awaken stone dragons - and sometimes it will mean rescuing the realm from a wildling incursion when no other king cared.

Moments like that unforgettable “STANNIS! STANNIS! STANNIS” stick so powerfully in my memory because, much like Jaime, the real virtue of this character had yet to shine so brightly as it eventually would in ASOS. Something which had always been there takes us unawares. And he is evolving, too, ever becoming more flexible, more willing to compromise, more hesitant to burnings, more dedicated to the good of the realm over himself.

And there is a whole other layer of tragic pathos that lies behind his character. Try as hard as Stannis might, and God does he try, he is not Azor Ahai, and every reader knows he will not sit the throne at the end. Even Stannis knows where this road will leave him. But he persists anyway, in the face of death. The courage of that, the self-sacrifice - how can one not be moved by it?

One of the finer points of Stannis that often goes missed in (understandably) overzealous attempts to correct the show’s butchering of his character, is that there is a part of him that does want to be king. He’s lived in Robert’s shadow his entire life, as Asha thinks to herself in ADWD, and there is a part of him that does yearn for recognition. Quotes like “Robert could piss in a cup and men would call it wine, but I offer them cold clear water and they squint in suspicion and mutter to each other about how queer it tastes.” reveal that, I think.

So this is a whole other internal battle within Stannis - he must be careful not to allow his judgement to falter against the part of him that is jealous of Robert, of Renly, that wants to be the hero Melisandre says he is. This very human aspect complicates further the already complicated war between deontological and utilitarian ethics that wages in his head, with Davos and Melisandre as their respective spokesmen. Much as he may want to be a perfect king and avatar of justice - he is still human.

The depth and tragedy of Stannis Baratheon is Shakespearean. My heart shatters in advance for the moment Stannis has made his greatest sacrifice of all to halt the advance of the Others (not the Boltons, he’ll flatten them like pancakes), and for it to do nothing, nothing at all. For him to realise he was never the hero of this story, and that now he has gathered all this blood on his hands where there is no spring to wash them in.

A man so just as Stannis could never forgive himself. But we, the readers, shall never forget the battles he fought as an axle of this universe striving to be something greater.

Honourable Mentions to Aeron, Victarion, Barristan, Jon (Snow and Connington), Cersei and Brienne. Yes, I really like the Greyjoys 🦑.

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #stannis baratheon #euron greyjoy #jaime lannister #tyrion lannister #asha greyjoy #not snk

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badanimereviews · 5 years ago

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summer 2019 anime sum-up

lmao i realized i never did this and posted the fall season b4 this.... oops

kimetsu no yaiba: tbh started out kinda meh. and now it’s turned into one of the new big shounens. i was not expecting that. nearing the end got rly good and i was rly looking forward to more episodes! tanjiro gets cooler and cooler! animation is rly nice (thanks ufotable) and the way tanjiro’s water is animated. like. aesthetic asf. it’s so good. i love black-haired emo dude and zenitsu (my spirit animal) and ofc nezuko she is adorable im c r y. side note: the hashira? i think they’re called? some of the ugliest fkn characters i’ve seen in ages like flame boy? stone boy? i HATE them. and the gem dude too like man get a new tattoo artist on god.... he needs it.,,,,,,and inosuke is so pretty it’s unfair

dr stone: ok man dr stone rly went off. tbh. i’ve always been a whore for chemistry since reading the flavia de luce series (btw, i want more books of) and watching this just tickles my noodle brain in a good way... who needs prozac when i get a shitton of serotonin from watching senku dick around.... (btw what is going on with what’s his face and the girl. yuzuriha????? i can’t remember. i love senku don’t get me wrong but i need their perspective too... bc i hate lion dude... so much.... dick....) again i will repeat that i am a whore for chemistry so i get oFF on this. backgrounds are amazing/ animation so nice n clean (most o the time lmao). i thought i would hate the black n white haired trickster boi and ms yellow ponytail and suika but no! dr stone is such a good show that they are now great, loveable characters. also i am senku and chrome’s whore so jfc. man, i love the explanations of all the chemistry shabang, but some things i think would be better if explained! like senku doing physical labour at the beginning- ex. making all those pots and building that shit by hisself. i know he weak af. yes he smart but like. construction? difficult. pottery? even for me the artist . difficult. and that shed of his was filled to the brim. HOW. anyways, i love this so much i am crying constantly

just realized i didnt need to write about dr stone. oh well.

danmachi 2: wtf yo. haruhime is so pretty but not a fan of her personality! bell still cute af and still don’t rly like aiz! animation good as always, and my god i shit myself whenever the argonaut theme starts up bc that is ? one of the best pieces of non-sawano hiroyuki pieces i’ve ever heard? addicted to it. and the opening! love the dynamics, the brief ‘rain’ scenes like when mikoto slashes the raindrops and just her motion basically? as an animator that is what i aspire to accomplish because i just love that. tiny little scene.

arifureta: this would have been so much better had they dragged out mc’s op-ifying process! made him suffer more! i explained this briefly in my ‘first thoughts’ post for this season, but story-wise and pacing-wise his power-up could have been so much more deserved and gratifying. think shield hero- loser suffers, gets angry, slowly builds up power in an epic payoff! would have been so epic too. and also if they’d made his gained powers less.... crazy nerfed. again: HE SHOULD HAVE SUFFERED MORE AND THIS WOULD HAVE MADE A BETTER SHOW. harem thoughts: yue- meh. sucky char honestly. shea- my fav girl, she is a great character don’t judge- sexy and love her personality and love her character design and love how much fanservice she gets lol. panty flash ftw. dragon girl- discount darkness honestly , tho nice design. and mermaid girl- yuck, annoying, DO NOT like the ‘papa’ trope! (ahem sao.) it’s gross. also just fuck mc’s classmates honestly- paladin dude sucks ass, healer girl OOF that last episode ruined her, samurai girl is ok i guess. hate ai-sensei too like shut UPP annoying ass HOEEEEE (postscript: opening=very epic too)

kanata no astra: plot twist? check. trillion well-done plot twists? check. this was done very well. i am so happy. all those plot twists and turns would usually suck in any regular anime- but this was written with GODLIKE ability. thank you, lerche. legit, this was such an enjoyable ride, i eagerly awaited each new ep! typically i hate space-related stuff but like! survival stuff gets my goat.... like this was good- (tho maybe more technical-stuff in the survival theme would make it so cooler) what shocked me the most: (spoilers alert) didn’t end up hating quitterie or funi. (tho the puppet made me want to strangle smth) luca’s gender had rly confused me but i’d decided on him being a boy- so basically that reveal left me like WHOA. i died. did luca rly have to show emo boy their tity tho... kanata losing his arm gave me the yeeeks, charce being the traitor was made sO WELL into a surprise even tho i’d kinda already suspected him<- like that was just fucking amazing writing there. gj. and ares the princess! ok man! shocked! AND also the whole clone thing, just fucked me right up. up the ass. like there are probably more plot twist layers in this than a fkn ogre has.... anyway shrek aside, yun?’s character arc was very pleasing, i think that was done very well! and the ending made me UwU like BRO? goals tbh. yeah this is a hidden gem and is just so good, so well-written overall.

cop craft: didn’t have high expectations. i am now,,, quite,,, shocked &,,, blown away. sweetheart this is a good fucking show. so why @ livechart.me DOES IT HAVE 7.40 STARS WHEN FKN ARIFURETA HAS 7.72. can someone explain this to me? i’m outraged. LIVID. matoba and tilarna were amazing characters btw! loved their dynamic! briefly i thought it might get romantic! nope, it didn’t, so it’s all good. actions scenes were epic, tilarna’s design and outfits were so much nicer than i thought they’d be like. she is so cute. and the op- man, if that is not such a bopper vibe then idk what is. i could watch it forever. it deserves so much more than what it’s got rn.

naka no hito genome: (serious question: is this considered some sort of isekai?) genome gave me btooom vibes honestly but like- this is SO much better than btooom and most game/trap/ kinda shows. fkn BOP of an op, especially the sequence at the end with short clips of each character in action (nutt). paka-san was a good boy and he deserves irl merch. i fell in LOve with all the characters (bubble boy= hot, akatsuki= ok meh actually kinda boring, karin= hot and i want her to punch me, ruromori= beautiful 12/10 would let her stalk me, sleepy eyes boy= baby + dazai vibes and hot af, twin boy= also hot, onigasaki= hot and love him so much, and loli girl= her light grenades got annoying but nice char design) anyways yeah more of this would be epic. i wanna see sakura and her twin reunite, and how they get out basically! also animation quality was very good which is surprising considering it’s a silver link anime.

kono yo no hate de koi wo utau shoujo yu-no: i include the whole title bc this is a good anime. (also livechart.me why 7.27 stars i will fuck you up) only meh part of this is the return to earth from dela granto bc that was like a culture shock and honestly at that point i’d forgotten a lot about what had happened on earth and didn’t care as much. btw, f ayumi and f the other brown-haired oneesan. mio and kanna ftw. obvs i didn’t understand the sayless x takuya thing like dumbass horny teenager . why u gotta creampie the worst girl. u have mio. bruh. (tho mio x ‘oyabi!’ boy is a great ship) also, takuya’s mom? keiko-san? idk if you’ve noticed but that’s literally my name so yeah just glad to finally have some keiko representation. altogether goodass anime. the time travel/ rezero esque reset thing almost got me but this was done well. so no problems. both ops very good. first song was bae, second also bae (just realized it’s by konomi suzuki, one of my waifu idols, so yea nice) and ed2 also so pretty! also yu-no’s design was rly pretty, the outfit colours, and her pigtails rly suited her :)

granbelm: sorry this is the last one lol this was a long ass post! other than the fact i dont rly like mecha this was good.... action, CHARACTER designs aesthetic asf, honestly rly pretty ok. i liked the cast, very diverse and more depth than most shows of this ilk. op was nicely choreographed- especially the part where the girls’ faces are contorted by their gems, showing their magical girl side. nicely done. mangetsu didn’t end up being that bad a char, and honestly? suigetsu is best girl and deserved better. and the ending too- like, bro, that made me kinda sad. some off points: anna’s mom was a little unrealistic as a mom like woman- please learn to control your child, and, white-haired girl’s sister should have played a bigger part, based on how her parts in the opening were emphasized! (quick note- blue girl, love her, great bad guy, when she dumped anna made me so happy honestly, she is beautiful, and i couldn’t actually decide who i wanted to win between her and suigetsu....)

hope u enjoyed this bad review. pls share ur opinions w/ me on some of of these more controversial shows. thank.

#anime #review #anime review #textpost #long post #dr stone #danmachi #kimetsu no yaiba #demon slayer

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