#to add.. Ai must be so done with all this

[yuseirra]

**onk spoilers** CH 158

no but seriously, what is up with this guy? I think he really IS cursed

[princess-nobody]

Avatar Rant: Snowy Region Na'vi

Am I the only one who doesn't like the fanon snow navi designs? Specifically this (I used shitty AI images I found off of pinterest to illustrate the point and to avoid using actual artwork from people 🩷):

(Before I continue my God these are creepy 😭 AI genuinely cannot create Na'vi without them looking uncanny, disturbing and far too human)

I can understand why people choose the more predictable design philosophy – blonde hair, blue eyes, pale/white skin, pretty two pieces – because that's relatively how this sort of lifestyle has been portrayed to us in the media. Every movie or show set in a snowy region always features mostly eastern European characters, so naturally people decide that their snow na'vi must resemble eastern European people to a degree, and this bothers me.

Not because they look like white people (though that is like 25% why ngl) but because it just isn't realistic? Na'vi may be inspired by humans but they are still a different species living on a harsh and deadly planet that humans can't survive in, na'vi winter and snow would be excruciatingly difficult for them, and they would need to adapt to it.

I just don't see how they would be so thin and petite and pale, people say to blend in, but why? Only a handful of animals in arctic regions are actually white to blend in (polar bears, arctic foxes etc.) so wouldn't it make more sense to base them off of arctic animals from the ice age? Back then, animals were bigger, bulkier, with thicker skin and hair all over to protect themselves from the crippling cold – with that in mind, wouldn't snow na'vi be bigger than average na'vi, and bulkier too? Unlike regular na'vi, it would make sense that the snow ones actually have body hair all over, maybe even fur if you want to take it that far.

And if you're basing them off of INDIGENOUS people, then appearance, features and fashion wise, wouldn't it make more sense to base them off of the actual Inuit people of the arctic instead of Elsa from frozen 😭

Because realistically why would they wear flowey dresses and two pieces in weather that is probably 80% worse than any winter humanity has ever faced... especially since na'vi are all inspired by different non-white/european indigenous communities, and yes... non-white/European indigenous people do in fact live in cold, snowy, arctic regions...

To add a little bit of pseudo-psychology to it, it may be done in an attempt from white avatar fans for the most part to feel closer to the na'vi by adding a white adjacent sub-species, as the closer to europeans the na'vi look, the more they see themselves within the na'vi. However, that is purely speculation lol.

Also, I do NOT think you are racist or anti-indigenous or anything of the sort if your headcanon for snow na'vi looks anything like the examples! You're allowed to draw and design what you want, and just because tumblr user princess-nobody doesn't like it, doesn't mean it's bad.

TLDR: Fanon snow na'vi don't make sense and confuse me lol. Imo snow na'vi would be big and bulky behemoths that are covered in thick body hair and wear large, figure covering warm clothing, not skinny little russian girls in ballet outfits LMAOOOO.

[drarry-mini-bang]

Fest rules

What is this fest about?

Drarry Mini Bang is a collaborative fest in which writers and artists come together to create fanwork. The writers will submit their detailed concept for a fic, and artists will claim one or several (up to you!) to create an art piece.

Who can participate?

You must be at least 18 years old at time of signing up.

We also expect you to treat everyone taking part, including the mods, with respect. 

All work must be your own, and we do not allow any kind of fic or art produced with AI.

You may register as both a writer and an artist, but due to the collaborative nature of this event, you cannot claim your own fic as an artist. All the matching will be done through the claiming process, therefore we will not allow pre-made collabs between artists and writers.

What are the requirements for writers? 

Writers will need to write an original fic of at least 10k.

The fic needs to be a stand-alone, unpublished fic. You will be asked to submit your fic concept with an estimated word count, a list of tags and possible warnings/triggers and the rating of your fic. If any of these details change after you’ve submitted your concept and before preview day, you need to let the mods know asap. If something changes after the teams have been announced, please talk to your partner and let the mods know if there are any issues.

Please do not share details of your fic before you are matched with an artist. You can share small snippets and talk about your story after the teams have been formed.

Your fic must be complete and has to be beta read before the submission deadline. Should you need an extension, please let us know as soon as you can.

When you fill in your sign up form, you will be given a chance to decide what type of art you would like to receive for your story.

We will cap writers at 25 participants, but we will open sign ups for pinch hitters. We will try our best to find everyone an artist to work with, but due to the collaborative nature of this event, should we not have enough artists, the people whose fics have not been picked might have to be dropped.

We are expecting writers to tag their fic appropriately and to make sure that they have asked the relevant sensitivity or beta readers to check the fic.

The mods will check every submission, but you are still responsible for the quality of your own work. We reserve the right to add triggering tags or reject any submissions that don’t comply with the fest rules or require more editing/a sensitivity reader.

What are the requirements for artists?

You can create a variety of original fan work based on the story your writer is working on:

- illustrations, both digital and traditional (they don’t need to be in colour) 

- moodboards (at least 6 elements)

- plastic arts (including embroidery and origami)

- playlists (a minimum of 10 songs)

- fic binding

- podfic

We will ask you to create a minimum of one art piece based on the story your writer is working on. If you would like to work with more than one writer (which would make us extremely happy), please let us know in your sign-up form.

There is no cap for artists.

What kind of rating is allowed?

Any rating is allowed for both art and fics, but please tag your work appropriately. 

We support SALS (ship and let ship) YKINMKBYKIO (your kink is not my kink, but your kink is okay) and DLDR (don’t like – don’t read), so we will not tolerate any shaming. 

For this fest, we will not accept any works that contain darker themes or tropes that are usually covered by the "Dead Dove" tag. If you have any doubts about specific content and would like to know if it will be accepted, please do not hesitate to contact us.

If your work is rated Mature or Explicit, the characters involved must be at least 18 years old (Hogwarts 8th year fic are therefore acceptable with any rating).

What is the schedule for posting?

Sign ups open for writers and artists: 20th January

Sign ups close: 18th February

Deadline for fic concepts and details to be submitted by writers: 18th February

Fic concepts sent to artists: 24th February

Artists claim: 27th February

Teams announced: 2nd-6th March 

First check-in: 6th April

Second check-in: 11th May

Last check-in: 8th June 

Submissions due: 2nd July 

Posting begins: 12th August 

Do I need to keep my creation secret?

You can share your WIPs only after the teams have been announced.

This fest is not anonymous.

What if my partner ghosts me or is being rude?

Please let us know and we’ll speak to them. This is a collaborative event - ignoring your partner causes unnecessary stress and anxiety, and we will not tolerate any rudeness or abuse.

We also ask that you stick to deadlines, because we don’t want anyone to be let down and end up without a partner. If you think at any point during the fest that you need to drop out, please please please let us know as soon as you can, so that we can find someone to replace you.

I still have a lot of questions about this, how can I contact you?

Send us an ask, a DM or contact us at  and we will gladly answer.

Your mods @orange-peony, @pato-roldnart, @bubble-gumhead

[lindwurmkai]

hey, have you heard that pillowfort has ✨ drafts ✨ now? (as in, the ability to save your posts as drafts.) they're still working on the queue feature (update: it's done!), but drafts are a big step forward!

in case you missed it so far, pillowfort is like a cross between tumblr and dreamwidth/livejournal, with a simplified dashboard reminiscent of old school tumblr and some classic livejournal features such as communities, threaded comments, and the ability to make individual posts followers-only or mutuals-only.

what are communities? basically, central hubs for posts about any subject you want that, unlike hashtags, can be moderated. they may have rules, such as "[subject matter] must be tagged" for example. you can post directly to a community or reblog existing posts to it!

since the site is currently experiencing some financial trouble, i thought i'd help out by spreading the word once again.

edit: the fundraiser was a success! crisis averted! i knew we could do it :D

why you should give pillowfort a chance:

no ads

no venture capitalist funding

no spying on the users

completely free to use except for optional premium features

nsfw is allowed except for sexual depictions of minors. if you're unsure what exactly that means, their tos may help

communities and the privacy controls mentioned above are excellent features

great community, low drama compared to other websites (so far)

the site's features themselves encourage genuine connection and good-faith conversation over endless "discourse"

every blog can automatically be filtered by original posts only or reblogs only

reasons not to join:

if you enjoy algorithmic social media. there is no algorithm at all

if you want to post or look at machine-generated art. they're still finalising the wording and personally i hope some exception will be made for models trained on ethically sourced images, but basically an anti-AI rule is in the works (update: finished!)

if you cannot live without reblog additions (reblogging with comment). all discussions on a pillowfort post take place in the comments section, and only your own followers see your tags. this has its pros and cons for sure! a similar feature to scratch that itch may be implemented in the future, but it will never be exactly like on tumblr.

if you need everything to be an app. the website works fine in a mobile browser and a progressive web app will hopefully be released soon (basically it's like an app in your browser and on mobile these can be added to the homescreen like real apps i think? they have push notifications!), but there's not going to be a native app available through official app stores due to the restrictions of those stores.

other factors to consider:

yes, the userbase is still small. depending on your interests, activity may be very slow. but we can change that! and on the plus side, reblogging your post to a community is a good way to easily get more eyes on it; way more effective than simply adding tags imo

the site culture is a bit different than on tumblr. many people read everything that's been posted since the last time they were online and don't follow more users/communities than they can keep up with. it's still somewhat lacking in shitposts and heavy on "essays" but don't be afraid to post whatever 😅

there are no blog themes like we have them on tumblr as yet, but you can customise your blog's colours and use html/insert links and images in your blog description

likes literally do nothing except to let OP know you enjoyed their post. you can't look at a list of all your likes. beware!

the staff is small and development is slow. some highly anticipated planned features other than the aforementioned queue include: - multi-account management - dashboard filters/reading lists - post bookmarking (since likes don't work that way) but we don't know how soon any of those will be implemented.

there is a user-developed browser extension (well, a userscript) called tassel available that adds additional features much like tumblr's beloved xkit :)

✨ okay, so how do i sign up? ✨

if you're interested but confused by the sign-up process or still under the impression that you need to pay to sign up (false), i'll put some clarifications and invite codes under the read more below. plus a note on donating, premium features, the paypal issue etc.

in a nutshell:

it's free

signing up without an invite code is possible, but you may have to wait a short while - supposedly less than an hour atm. just submit your email to the waitlist

if you don't feel like waiting, you can either use an invite code from an existing user or pay $5 to sign up instantly

every user gets plenty of invite codes and we're all willing to hand them out at the drop of a hat. they're really not hard to come by

some invites to get you started (just click the link):

invite 1 ▪ invite 2 ▪ invite 3 ▪ invite 4 ▪ invite 5

invite 6 ▪ invite 7 ▪ invite 8 ▪ invite 9 ▪ invite 10

invite 11 ▪ invite 12 ▪ invite 13 ▪ invite 14 ▪ invite 15

invite 16 ▪ invite 17 ▪ invite 18 ▪ invite 19 ▪ invite 20

i'll try to periodically check if any have been used and cross those out.

...paypal issue?

ok so paypal doesn't like working with sites that allow nsfw. as a result, you need a credit card in order to donate to pillowfort, buy one of those insta-registration keys, or subscribe to premium features*. i personally happen to have a credit card and would be willing to help out anyone who trusts me enough to send the money to me via paypal, but i realise chances are only my friends will do this.

some users are currently organising various activities for the purpose of letting people who only have paypal contribute to the site's survival. it's not super relevant for new users and won't get you access to premium features, but i thought i'd mention it anyway in case someone loves the concept of the site so much they want to support it immediately. a fundraising community has been created to collect posts of that nature!

*premium features are strictly limited to two categories of things:

fun little extras that no one truly needs

higher image upload limits, because obviously big images take up bandwidth and are therefore a reason for increased costs

you will never need to pay for vital accessibility features or anything of the sort. :)

[gallavichthings]

Gallavich Fanart Masquerade 2024

It's here! Our first ever fanart-only event (thanks @michellemisfit for the idea!).

The rules are pretty similar to the fanfiction masquerade. In a Masquerade, artists will create fanarts anonymously, attempting to create something in a style different from their usual in order to fool the "admirers". These fanarts will all be revealed at the same time on May 12th - our Fanart Masquerade Ball! - and admirers (who may also be other fanartists) will have two weeks to attempt to guess who's behind each mask, that is, who did which fanart.

Details after the read more.

Requirements

None. Any art style will do, as long as it's drawn, I suppose. Traditional or digital, colored or b&W or lineart... Just no edits. And absolutely no AI, of course.

I need fanart ideas!

Maybe this will help.

Sign-ups

Signing-up is required and can be done here. For this event, sign-ups can be done up to the time of posting. Unlike other events, this is one where you will need to sign-up only at the end, after the art is done. You'll be required to add your AO3 username and the title of your fanart (yes, you'll have to give it a title, sorry - it can be pretty simple though).

Is NSFW accepted?

Yes, as long as it is correctly tagged. Please keep in mind that in this case, it's possible some people might not be comfortable in viewing it.

What if I don't have an AO3 account?

Then I'm very sorry, but in this case, you won't be able to participate (as an artist). For his event, having an AO3 account is mandatory so that you can post in the collection. That being said, a lot of people have AO3 invites, so ask right now and someone may be able to send you one. (Or, worst case scenario, we can find writer buddies to post for you.)

Posting

Posting needs to be done on AO3 because the Fanart Masquerade Collection will be unrevealed and anonymous. All posting must be done until the eve of the Masquerade, so May 11th. On May 12th, all the fanarts will be revealed and available for the admirers. The fanarts will remain anonymous until May 26th, when the game ends. The winners will be revealed shortly after, along with the prizes (more on that below). After the artists identities are revealed, they are free to post their fanart wherever they please.

Because unfortunately AO3 doesn't host images, your fanarts will have to be hosted elsewhere and linked to AO3. They should stay as hidden as possible. One possibility is posting privately on Tumblr and then using the image link to post on AO3. If you don't know how to do that or don't have a place to host the fanart, please contact us and we'll help you out.

When posting on AO3, choose to do it under the Gallavich Fanart Masquerade 2024 Collection (as in the picture below). I'll take care of the rest. It's important to do so when posting and not after, or it won't work.

Voting

Voting will be done via a new form, which will be disclosed only after the fanarts are posted. All fanart titles will be displayed and the admirers will chose from a menu who they think the artist is.

Points

There are two ways of winning this game, as an artist and as an admirer.

Artists are awarded 1 point for each person who correctly guesses their fanart and 3 points for each person who wrongly guesses it. That's right, you get more points if you're actually able to deceive everyone!

Admirers are awarded 5 points for each fanart they guess correctly, but they lose 1 point for each wrong guess.

Artists can also be admirers, so they have twice the chance of winning.

Prizes

The winning fanarts will get short fics based on them! And the one by the winning artist will be the prompt for one week in the @galladrabbles.

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Kiss-eki: Dear to Me

*Kicks open door*

SURPRISE BITCHES! I am several days late and hundreds of dollars short, but I did finally *finally* decide to watch Kiseki: Dear to Me in an attempt to add one more show to the Completed Watchlist for 2023. This was a show I was planning on watching a bit earlier, probably closer to the time it was actually airing, because I'd heard it was ridiculous and thought it would be a good show to have on in the background during work. But @ginnymoonbeam had my best interests at heart and told me that I Absolutely Could Not Do That because There Was Body Language Dammit!

If I have not made it clear, THANK YOU FOR SAVING ME, GINNY!

Kiseki was absolutely wild and completely insane if you try to describe a single aspect of the plot whatsoever, but I would have given it a ten off sheer entertainment value if it wasn't for those back to back fake outs with Chen Yi being shot and Fan Ze Riyu being stabbed. But, I digress. I have only seen three things from Taiwan at this point, but those three shows have provided quite a lot of evidence to the claim that Taiwan is nearly unparalleled in their ability to portray domesticity and physical chemistry. I have also heard that Taiwan has a tendency to create content on more taboo subjects, and Kiseki was my first forray in to that side of Taiwan considering Ai Di and Chen Yi are brothers and Bai Zong Yi is a minor when he starts his relationship with Fan Ze Riu. I think both of these subjects were very smartly handled in their set up and their structure. I normally hate the like, adoptive siblings falling in love thing, cause like...that's your sibling, but they don't give us a lot if any flashback to these boys growing up together, and they don't share last names, or really call their adoptive father Dad, so there are quite a number of abstractions in that dynamic that means this is the first time I didn't have a squick about it. And having Fan Ze Riu trying so desperately not to succumb to his feelings for Bai Zong Yi and to put that distance between them, to have Bai Zong Yi be living alone and also be 17 so he's pretty close to legal age, and then to have Bai Zong Yi be the pursuer in their relationship both serve extremely well in making that relationship feel responsibly handled.

I have not been in the tags, so forgive me if this has already been done, but I have not stopped thinking about the first kiss between Ai Di and Chen Yi or the first kiss between Bai Zong Yi and Fan Ze Riu since I saw them and I simply *must* do a scene/body language breakdown about both of them. God, it's good to be back!

[side note: I was going to split this up with funny titles like Cat Boy and Mr. Sulky, but I realized that actually could apply to both couples...]

Ai Di and Chen Yi

Okay FIRST OF ALL, I just want to say that I love Ai Di, I love how ruthless and blood thirsty he is and how incredibly dangerous and scary he could be...if he wasn't so easy to pick up and carry around like a football, or like...a feral, hissing kitten. I am going to focus mostly on the first kiss that Chen Yi initiates with Ai Di because holy shit was there so much complex emotion and reaction packed in to that pretty small moment, but before I do that I am contractually obligated to acknowledge how fucking brilliant it is to show how much/how well Ai Di and Chen Yi know each other, by having Ai Di torture Chen Yi for information by threatening to feed Chen Yi incredibly spicy baby corn AND TO HAVE THAT TACTIC WORK. And to show how much Chen Yi tolerates by having him easily get out of the restraints and tie Ai Di up when he gets bored. Fucking incredible character choice to show how absolutely batshit Ai Di is, fucking incredible relationship choice to show how well Ai Di knows Chen Yi, and fucking incredible choice to use for a call back later. Also, fuck this show for that birthday cake scene! Brutal.

Okay. That said:

You know Ai Di has not for one second stopped loving Chen Yi, and now he is being met with some actual interest from Chen Yi. Chen Yi is full reciprocating what Ai Di has wanted for so long and if this were a typical BL with more simplestic characterization, we would have gotten the moment where Ai Di just melts in to it, fully lets himself have it. Accepts that Chen Yi has woken up, gotten with the program, and is ready to be in a relationship with him. And to be honest, that is what I was expecting. Ai Di has been such a loud and obvious simp for Chen Yi that I thought for a moment he would be the kind of person to let himself have it. To not question it too hard, especially because he is young and impulsive. So imagine my surprise when I got this reaction from him instead:

gif by @my-rose-tinted-glasses

Ai Di likes to challenge, likes to push buttons, likes to press. And he starts this scene doing just that. He is on his way to tucking Chen Yi in to bed (folding the edge of the bed spread over him because Chen Yi is drunk off his ass and too heavy for Ai Di to manhandle under the covers. But the second that Chen Yi starts simping over his Boss again, Ai Di stops performing any level of care for Chen Yi, and you can see this little change in his face where he gets annoyed and actually undoes his little moment of care and pulls the bedspread back off of Chen Yi and then he postures and he’s trying to act tough, and he’s needling intentionally, and all of these things where he is trying to be antagonistic to Chen Yi because that is the only way that Ai Di really knows how to express his emotions and he’s butt hurt about Chen Yi once against obsessing over someone Ai Di knows he can’t have when he is right there. 

Now, Ai Di gets manhandled a lot by Chen Yi and while he isn’t able to break out of it, he does very often struggle/fight back to get out of Chen Yi’s grip when he’s been baby carried away from a scene like a sack of potatoes. Which is why I do think Ai Di is giving in to his own feelings a bit here because he…doesn’t do that. He lets Chen Yi pull him closer, he lets Chen Yi push him up against the wall. And he’s still needling but it’s all bark, no bite. When he starts calling Chen Yi impotent his face softens looking up at him. 

And then Chen Yi goes in for the kiss and Ai Di’s eyes go wide, you can see an entire internal monologue running through his head. I am fairly confident there are some what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck’s going through his head when Chen Yi first kisses him. 

gif by @khaotungsfirst

There is a moment, just a moment so quick where Ai Di kisses back, where his heart gets the better of his judgment and he lets himself *have it* for *just* a second, and then his brain snaps back almost immediately and he bites Chen Yi and pushes him away. 

And honestly, I do not understand how actors work, because Ai Di’s face twitches. How the fuck does Louis do that?! He’s out of breath, and his mouth is agape, and he looks horrified, and heartbroken, and confused, but maybe a little hopeful. Like he won’t let himself believe that Chen Yi would actually do this. Like he is thinking Chen Yi is doing this out of pity, or just to shut him up, or mess with him. Because Ai Di messes with Chen Yi all the time.  This is what Ai Di wants. He wants Chen Yi, but now that he is face to face with the possibility he does not have the ability to believe in it. 

gif by @my-rose-tinted-glasses

And in a very rare occurrence he listens to Chen Yi when Chen Yi tells him to get out of his room. The gears are definitely turning, but he simply cannot believe it, and it is so fascinating to me thinking about all these little microexpressive moments we get from Ai Di later on in the show that he really does not believe that Chen Yi kissing him in Episode 6 was Chen Yi actually admitting feelings, because every time that Ai Di tries something like torturing Chen Yi with spicy baby corn, or flirting to try to get Chen Yi to be uncomfortable or to back off, he reacts with genuine confusion when Chen Yi flirts back. 

Case in point: 

gif by @25shadesoffebruary

gif by @shijiujun

Bai Zong Yi and Fan Ze Riu First Kiss

It’s really interesting for me to compare this kiss to the Ai Di and Chen Yi kiss because they feel like completely mirrored (read: reversed) reactions. Where Ai Di leans in to his kiss for a moment for a moment and then forces himself to push away, preventing further intimacy, Fan Ze Rui forces himself to push away for a moment and then leans in to it, allowing the intimacy to proceed.

gif by @alejunsu

The set up is incredible, and in my opinion, foreshadows the fake amnesia plot in that Ze Rui is absolutely laser focused on his task (treating Zong Yi’s wounds) and intentionally ignoring everything else because he knows that it is irresponsible for him to initiate a relationship with a seventeen year old. Zong Yi is the first to lean in and go for a kiss, and he lingers at a distance that is respectful but with obvious intent for as long as it takes Ze Rui to look up and notice. There is a split second where Ze Rui’s eyes flit down to Zong Yi’s lips, and then he puts himself right back on task. Zong Yi is not to be dissuaded and goes in for the kiss again. Ze Rui notices, and grabs at Zong Yi’s shoulder to stop him, furrowing his brow in what I would consider confusion and focus, but once again his eyes betray him and he looks back at Zong Yi’s lips. This time without looking away, so Zong Yi continues, leaning in slowly and Ze Rui is drawn in at this point, he is frozen there, he isn’t trying to disengage from the inevitable anymore, unable to rebel against his own desire. 

gif by @alejunsu

Their lips meet, and to me it looks like Ze Rui is shocked, like his brain has short circuited and he doesn’t know where to go from here. It’s like his body is just reacting and reacting before his brain can catch up with the responsibility. He kisses back before his brain has really processed what is happening, and then he knows he shouldn’t be doing this so he tries to push away in the most half-hearteded attempt to be responsible, and a second later he’s abandoned the effort and started engaging more enthusiastically in the kiss. 

I do not fucking know how Hsu Kai does it because I swear to god Fan Riyu was cycling through about a hundred different emotions in this one moment and they were all acting against his physical reaction to the kiss. The way his arm goes out to Bai Zong Yi's shoulder to try to keep physical distance between the two of them, while he is having a full out internal war with himself? Holy fucking shit. It’s really like his brain is going “is this actually happening? Shit yes it is I have to- fuck it” 

gif by @maxescheibechlinichacheli

And at the start of his active participation in the kiss he is still not letting himself have it. I think he is still stuck on the fact that he shouldn’t be doing this, and as a result he pushes Zong Yi back so he can see his face, study it. All it takes is for Bai Zong Yi to go back in yet again to continue their kiss, and then it’s all over for Fan Ze Rui. He’s all in. His hand goes to Zong Yi’s face, to his neck, and before we know it he is pulling himself in to Zong Yi’s lap from the floor so  smoothly. 

Reunion Sex 

I initially was only going to focus on the Ep 6 Ai Di x Chen Yi and the Episode 7 Zong Yi x Ze Rui moments in this post, but I am so in love with the structure of the reunion sex scene that I absolutely had to talk about it. 

Again, I do not understand how actors work because Hsu Kai just knocks it out of the motherfucking park. I love that when Fan Ze Rui rouses from sleep and starts muttering under his breath and engagin with Zong Yi, you don’t need any visual confirmation from the story whatsoever to understand that Ze Rui definitely has actual dreams of reuniting with Bai Zong Yi. And you don’t need that additional confirmation because of how Hsu Kai sells the talking in his sleep moment here when he’s riding on the pills and alcohol. 

gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

He blinks through heavy lids and reaches out toward Zong Yi instantly, his smile is absent and dreamy, and unrestrained in a way that genuinely impresses me because I feel like it is hard to pull off acting the kind of drowsy you are when you’re still trapped in the limbo between wake and sleep when you’re not actually experiencing it. Ze Rui’s touches are unrestrained, his eyes are barely opened under their own weight, and he’s loose and droopy still when Bai Zong Yi lifts him in to the hug. Ze Rui’s bones look heavy and his muscles look loose, and he’s not really able to maintain his own structure as a result. Settling back flat pretty quickly have Zong Yi has released him from his embrace. 

And then the light changes and the setting gets dreamier despite the fact that Ze Riu is actually starting to wake up, being reminded this is real, Zong Yi is real with grounded touches that we see in close up. And I am so sad we don’t get to see Ze Rui’s face at the exact moment of the scene when it clicks for him that this is real, because it happens during the close up of the hands (which I am also fine with :D). But when we pull back out into the wider shot, Ze Rui is already sobbing against Bai Zong Yi’s cheek. And Ze Rui tries his damndest to be his normal jokey, smiley self once he knows what is happening is real, because that’s who Zong Yi loves, and that’s who Zong Yi deserves after all the pain he’s suffered for Ze Rui but instead he just…breaks. Y’all I lost it at the way all the strength just falls away from Ze Rui’s voice when he says “kiddo”. How small he sounds when he says he’s sorry. The meekness in his voice during his own apology speaks volumes for how important it is, how much weight it carries. Because Ze Rui knows what happened to Zong Yi over the past four years. He knows all of it. He knows that Zong Yi went to prison to protect him, he knows that Zong Yi got attacked there, he knows that Zong Yi has memory problems now because of it. 

gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

He has all of this guilt that is driving the way he interacts with Bai Zong Yi in their interlude here. By the way: “It’s been 1,573 days. Did it hurt?” is joining my list of Incredibly Devastating Lines. And it’s not just because of the line itself, it’s not just because of the way Bai Zong Yi shakes his head no. It’s especially devastating to me because right before Ze Rui asks the question, he slides his hand up to the back of Bai Zong Yi’s head and massages it a little bit with his thumb, like he’s trying to rub at an ache in hopes of getting rid of the pain. It is in no way the focus of the scene, and the action is mostly cut off and regailed to the edge of the screen, but jesus fucking christ it did wonders for me in terms of selling the scene. 

Anyway, Ginny was right, the body language was incredible, and I’m glad I didn’t watch this live or else I’d have gotten zero sleep writing essays every day of the week about some of these scenes

[givrally]

You can't say "Everything humans make is art" right after a whole tirade about how AI isn't art.

Hi op here

I CAN actually.

The machine made to make "AI" is art. Its engineering+programming. Which are crafts and a highly difficult ones.

What that machine makes however is NOT art. Its not even true artificial intelligence. Its just a bunch of stolen work cut up and pieced back together using complicated programming. What is produced is not art. What made it however is. Its a feat of accomplishment that we can get a machine to do that kind of stuff

But what it makes is not art.

Feel like @snitchanon would have a field day with all this.

So Photoshop itself is art, but works done in photoshop aren't art ? It's engineering and programming, but what it makes is not art. It's just clicking buttons and dragging the mouse until you get what you want.

As for true AI, yeah, I actually agree with you in no small part. What we call "AI" right now is nowhere close to having any kind of intelligence, we're basically making a very complicated math function with many parameters and tweaking it until it spits out the right output. There's very little explainability (it's a black box for the most part, we don't know what goes on inside or why this particular input), and every year there's a paper titled something like "We Fucked Up : How we evaluate [field of deep learning] is flawed and gives the illusion of progress".

As for the ethical issues with using stolen works, yeah, I'm completely with you, that's a dealbreaker for me, and unlearning (=getting from a model trained on a dataset to a model trained on a dataset w/o some data, without having to retrain everything, but being 100% sure the excluded data doesn't leave a single trace) is too new as a subject of research to even be usable for the next few years, so for me, AI Art generators are a big no-no.

(Also, the online ones take as much of your personal data as they can, so I'd avoid those like the plague)

HOWEVER, what "AI" image generation does isn't to cut up stolen work and put it back together, that's a myth. I don't know how this started but I've heard that said like three or four times already, it's way too specific a definition to have evolved independently so there must be a Youtuber out there to blame.

It's like saying Photoshop just takes pixels from stolen works and weaves them in the right order to make a new image. That's technically true, but it's a stupid definition that gives Photoshop way more credit than it's due. Likewise, AI image generators don't look through a database to find the right image, cut out the part they like, and add it to their final product. Otherwise, why do you think AI art would have all those problems with hands, buildings, etc... ? There can't be that many people out there drawing weird 7 fingered hands, I know some people have trouble drawing hands but not to that extent.

What they do instead (or rather what they did, because I don't know enough about the newest diffusion models to explain them in an intuitive way), is deconvolutions, basically "reversing" the operation (convolutions) that takes in a grid of numbers (image) and reduces it to a small list of numbers. With deconvolutions, you give it a small list of numbers, at random, and it slowly unravels that into an image. Without tweaking the thousands or millions of parameters, you're gonna end up with random noise as an image.

To "train" those, what you do is you pair it with another "AI", called a discriminator, that will do convolutions instead to try and guess whether the image is real or made by the generator. The generator will learn to fool the discriminator and the discriminator will try to find the flaws in the generator.

Think Youtube vs AdBlock. Adblockers are the discriminator and Youtube is the generator. Youtube puts out new ads and pop-ups that don't trigger ad blockers, and ad blockers in return fix those flaws and block the ads. After a month of fighting, it turns out ad blockers have become so good that other websites have a lot of trouble getting ads past them. You've "trained" ad blockers.

The most important thing to note is that the training data isn't kept in storage by the models, both in the adblock example and in AI image generators. It doesn't pick and choose parts to use, it's just that the millions of tiny parameters were modified thanks to the training data. You can sometimes see parts of the training data shine through, though. That's called overfitting, and it's very bad !

In the middle, the model won't remember every O and X out there. It drew a curve that roughly separates the two, and depending on where a new point falls compared to that curve, it can guess if it's an O or an X without having access to the original data. However, in the example on the right, even if you remove all the O and X marks, you can still make out the individual points and guess that those holes mean an X was in there. The model cannot generalize past what it's seen, and if there's ten thousand variables instead of just two, that means you could change a single one slightly and get nonsense results. The model simply hasn't learned correctly. For image generation, that means parts of the training data can sometimes shine through, which is probably how the "cut up and piece back stolen images" myth came to be.

The reason I don't like to use AI image generators is twofold : 1. Right now, all the models out there have or are likely to have seen stolen data in their training dataset. In the state of AI right now, I really don't believe any model out there is free of overfitting, so parts of that will shine through. 2. Even if there's no overfitting, I don't think it's very ethical at all. (And 3. the quality just isn't there and I'd rather commission an artist)

HOWEVER, that doesn't mean I agree with you guys' new luddite movement. "Everything humans make is art except when they use AI" is not a good argument, just like "It's not art because you didn't move the pixels yourself" or "AI cuts up and pieces back stolen images". The first two give "I piss in Duchamp's fountain uncritically" vibes, and the last one gives "Don Quixote fighting windmills" vibes.

[anopenbookunderlockandkey]

The 118 Sauce Chat

Eddie: I definitely make spaghetti sauce extremely wrong but I’m not going to stop

Chim: please elaborate on the wrong way to make spaghetti sauce; it sounds highly entertaining?

Eddie: 1 chop onion and put in a pot

Eddie: Add 1 or 2 cans of diced tomatoes. Whatever makes the ratio of onion look right.

Eddie: Add a ridiculous amount of frozen peas. Peas should make up a notable portion of this sauce.

Eddie: Add frozen corn also if you wanna be real fancy. If I have bacon I’ll ad that too. But I very rarely have bacon.

Eddie: Cook on HIGH

Eddie: While sauce is cooking, grab the nearest bottle of mixed spices that isn't obviously for desserts. Add some. How much? I dunno, enough that you feel like you've added seasoning so it's technically cooking. (For me this is most often a mix called Moroccan, but it could be anything. Buck reorganised my kitchen recently so tonight it was something called Pizza Topping.)

Eddie: If you happen to have green herbs lying around, add those too. Whatever you have on hand that's green

Eddie: Let the sauce boil on HIGH until all the water is gone. Stir occasionally so the saucepan will be easier to clean later. Serve on cooked spaghetti noodles with no cheese

Eddie: Today I added a new step called "while the sauce is cooking, duck out for 15 seconds to text the group chat about spaghetti sauce, then get distracted and forget you are cooking." This adds a novel Extremely Burnt edge to the flavour profile.

Chim: I am not Italian, or of Italian descent by *any* stretch of the imagination.

I am also not one of those "cooking purists", who believes that everything must be done in a specific/ traditional way (unless you are making a cooking video with the title "how to make x" in which case if you don't specify mid video that your way is not traditional god help you).

I am a firm believer in "If it tastes good, then it is correct for you".

Chim: Except in this case

Bobby: This hurts every cooking bone in my body. The latent ancestors in my soul. The judgmental elf in my brain just bit a cyanide capsule

Hen: Why? The spices.

Using a different spice mix every time, based on what is ready at hand just ... hurts

Eddie: *sends SPICE IS SPICE meme*

Ravi: absolutely deranged, Eddie. Food crimes.

Bobby: Hey Eddie, looks like you forgot to mention the part where you obviously sweated the onions, because nobody would make spaghetti sauce that had straight up raw onions boiled in tomato juices.

Bobby: RIGHT????

Bobby: Please Eddie

Eddie: I don’t know what sweating the onions means

Hen: It means. It means you cook em a little in a pan with a bit of oil first

Eddie: A pan? How many dishes do you want me to have to wash here?

Hen: I mean you can also do it in the same pot you're making the spaghetti sauce in! The important thing is the onions get a little cooked before the wet stuff goes in, so they're not so wet and limp and boiled....

Eddie: Honestly this depends entirely on whether I remember to chop an onion first or I find the can opener for the tomatoes first. The ingredients go in in whatever order they go in.

Ravi: Eddie, who hurt you???

Eddie: A pack of wild chefs herded my mother off a cliff

Chim: Theres probably a hit out on you for this

Eddie: What kind of stupid idiot would waste money assassinating someone who's so clearly going to accidentally poison themself for free at some point

Bobby: hi Eddie, big fan of your firefighting, this is the sauce equivalent of the running up a metal ladder in a lightning storm to try to pull up a 6’0” tall man instead of lowering him to the ground

-Athena

Eddie: Athena, that is the meanest review my cooking has ever received

Chim: congratulations you found the worst way to do it! this feels like a spaghetti recipe made by AI before it got really sophisticated

-Maddie

Eddie: this group chat’s hate mail game is insane

Ravi: at this point please just eat every ingredient raw… please

Eddie: Do I look like Tony Abbott to you

Buck: As a former Committer of Food Crimes, I have decided to make this sauce this weekend after I have a chance to go to the store. I will report back.

Eddie: Excellent, I look forward to vindication.

Hen: No one's going to vindicate your boiled onion in cinnamonny tomato juice on noodles, Eddie

Eddie: Not cinnamon. Cinnamon is a dessert spice. You use the nearest non-dessert spice.

Ravi: cinnamon is absolutely not a dessert spice

Eddie: Yes it is! It's for muffins and pancakes and fruit pies!

Chim: Cinnamon powder is absolutely a dessert “spice” and Eddie if your cooking is this bad I can’t imagine your baked abominations

Eddie: I put lemon juice in everything I bake that isn't bread

Written for the only two gremlins (endearment) who find this as entertaining as I do @professionalprocrastinator22 and @gravelyhalversobbing

Inspired by:

[lu-dao-writes]

— 𝐓𝐨 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 (𝙈𝙝𝙞𝙣/𝙆𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙨)

｡ ﾟ ꒰ঌ 🦢໒꒱ ༘*.ﾟ𝙎𝙮𝙣𝙤𝙥𝙨𝙞𝙨 Mhin finally lets their guard down thanks to a little push.

𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜(𝙨) hurt and comfort, stitches, arguing, mentioning of drinking to cope as well as having sex, crying, thigh riding/dry humping, hair pulling, afab!mhin, subby mhin that also gives switch vibes, maybe some oocness, maybe some bad grammar.

𝘼/𝙉 I love Kuras and Mhin as a ship, they just seem so cute, same with Mhin and Ais🥰. But sorry this took so long! Work is hard and tiring lol. | part 2.

𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 job well done with the cost of a few scratches and a bruised noggin. But they get their pay from Leander, blow off his flirting attempts, and head off to Kuras’s clinic. Thankfully there’s no line and they walk right on inside.

Kuras is perched on his chair, his reading specs on as he reads his book.

Gold meets white and red and Kuras sets his book aside along with his glasses.

Mhin seats themself down with a soft groan and sheds of their torn cloak and shirt.

“Anything else I should be aware of?” Kuras asks calmly, setting out his needed instruments and solutions.

Mhin scoffs lightly. “Must I tell you when you already know? You do have a sick sixth sense of knowing stuff.”

Kuras doesn’t laugh nor smile at Mhin’s attempt of deflection. He sighs heavily and begins to disinfect the cuts. “I just thought you would tell me, is all…”

Mhin resists the urge to squirm at his disappointed tone, their belly twisting and knotting up.

They huff. “Got slammed into a wall and hit my head.”

“Thank you.” But he still sounds a bit disheartened, making Mhin itch and flounder for something to mend it.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” Kuras adds, his tone back to being light, he’s even smiling a little now.

Mhin swallows, their pale face beginning to warm with the rush of blood. They say nothing, keeping their gaze trained elsewhere despite it being useless. They’re certain Kuras knows, because it’s seemingly virtually impossible to hide things from him.

Mhin continues to indulge Kuras by answering his questions regarding their hunt, what they do in the little free time they have, and about their curse… Mhin keeps their answers short and simple though.

They appreciate his care, but sometimes it’s too much. This overwhelming need clawing their heart. A want to be cared for.

Most days they’re capable of holding it back and mucking through it, but other days when they’re so tired and downtrodden it’s much harder.

Sometimes getting fucked wild and rough helps, aggressively hunting till they have no energy works too, and sometimes they just drink in the current place they’re lodging at and eventually cry themself to sleep.

They just wish Kuras would hurry up so that they can fuck off out of here already before they say something they’ll regret.

Suddenly they feel him squeeze their knee, staring at them with concern.

“You’re tense. Is something the matter?”

“It’s just the pain, I’m fine,” they grit out, avoiding his gaze.

Kuras frowns before focusing back on patching Mhin up, placing salve on the wounds and wrapping them up with bandages.

When Kuras begins to stitch up the claw marks on their shoulder he finally voices his thoughts. “Mhin, I know there’s something bothering you besides the pain, and I wish you’d trusted me enough to talk to me… You know I won’t say anything to another soul about whatever it is you tell me.”

Mhin clenches their jaw. It aches with guilt and frustration, feeling as though they’re being cornered.

“Kuras, what if I just don’t want to talk about it?” they gripe, giving him a weak glare.

“I understand,” he replies, his eyes casting off to the side, a shadow of uncertainty overcoming his face. “But I know you enough… You don’t like to talk at all, and bottling it up won’t solve anything.”

Mhin grips their knees and grinds their teeth together to hold back the poison in their mouth.

“And Mhin, you’re rather… Destructive when it comes to yourself,” Kuras continues.

Mhin scoffs and begins to slide off the the chair, but Kuras holds them back. “I’m not finished,” he informs gently but with a firm undertone, side eyeing them.

“Then just..!” they start loudly before sighing, their tone lowering. “Just stop pushing me… Please. Just stitch me up and I’ll be on my way.”

“Mhin, I’m not letting this go,” Kuras says firmly, stitching Mhin with elegant ease. “I care—.”

“You shouldn’t,” they blurt. “Don’t go giving me special attention. Just treat me as any other patient that comes in here and send me packing.”

They couldn’t have Kuras talking anymore. Mhin can see it. See how gentle and warm Kuras looks at them now. How far too fond it is for a hopeless case like them.

They need to cut it from the source, but it’s so hard too when this man has saved and done a lot for them, and is one of the few people worth a damn in Eridia.

“You’re more than just a patient to me,” Kuras implores, ignoring when Mhin bites out his name. “I care very much about you.”

“Kuras,” Mhin spits desperately.

“And you trying to deter me because you believe you deserve to suffer in silence does not mean I think you do, nor will I continue to let you.”

“Gods damn it!” they sob out, covering their face. “Why do you insist on caring!?”

“Why do you insist on believing you don’t deserve it?” Kuras throws back calmly, rubbing medicine on the stitches and wrapping up their shoulder up before taking Mhin’s trembling hand, rubbing circles into their pale skin.

“I will not be intimidated by any of your methods, Mhin. Please just trust me and let yourself be cared for. Trust me.”

Mhin lets themself cry, not pulling their hand away from his hold, even giving it a tentative squeeze, and Kuras in return bring their hand up, his lips kissing yellowed bruised knuckles.

“Will you let me in?”

“F-Fine,” they mutter, pale eyes staring at Kuras’s kneeling form before looking off shyly with flushed cheeks.

Kuras’s lips curl into a slight mischievous smile at their shyness. “Excellent… Now talk to me.”

Mhin watches as Kuras leaves to wash his hands, giving them time to sort out what they want to even say to him. They get lost in thought that they shudder when they feel Kuras rubbing at their head delicately, checking for a bump or any blood.

“My head is okay. You know I’m a lot sturdier than I look…”

Kuras only hums but look relieved there’s no serious damage. But now he’s back to looking at them expectantly.

“You’re… You’re serious??” they balk, blushing harder.

The doctor chuckles warmly and continues gazing at them.

Mhin’s eyes voice around once more as they think, but they end up back on Kuras’s pristine and elegant form. He’s so… Big, and warm.

“I want… I want you to hold me. W-While I’m in your lap.”

Mhin hates anyone poking fun at their height, hates their delicate looking frame since it made them an easy target when all they want to do is avoid others. Sure, it does come in handy at times, but overall it’s irksome.

But… Sometimes it’s tiring to act big and tough all the time. They want to feel small just this once, especially since Kuras was so adamant about them being more open. Mhin wasn’t ready to spill their guts out, but they will ask for physical affection.

“Very well,” replies the doctor, ever so pleased.

They swap places and Kuras mostly lets Mhin settle into him at their own pace. They straddle his leg and hesitantly leans into him, arms bound close and stiffly into their chest.

Kuras, ever so patient, gently rubs Mhin’s back, letting his gaze move to and fro around his clinic before returning back to gazing at Mhin, finding their shy and stiff expression amusing and adorable.

Sometimes the two meet eyes, Mhin being the first to typically look away and hold their tongue.

Eventually though, Mhin’s muscles being to unwind, adjusting their arms so that they allow themself to hold onto one of Kuras’s arms and the other more so on his shoulder.

A soft breath leaves their lips as Kuras gently toys with their hair and the chance a look at him again, not surprised to see him shamelessly gazing back at them still, that all to pleased smile on his beautiful face.

This time they try to hold his gaze, their throat bobbing and cheeks remaining flushed as they admire him back.

It proves to be a slight mistake as they continue admiring him. Kuras is so elegantly beautiful, it’s almost unfair.

And his hands…

They’re perfect and skillful.

Mhin does wonder about the identical scars on his palms, but they haven’t dared to ask that, because like everyone, Kuras has his secrets just like they have theirs. Maybe one day they’ll inquire about them.

Mhin suddenly feels one of Kuras’s hand at their lower back, a finger dipped a little lower. It sparks a scandalous thought that has them hiding again, their face being smooshed into his chest.

Kuras’s chuckle fills the quiet air and Mhin stabs him internally.

“Mhin, what has you hiding from me again~?”

“It’s nothing,” they mutter, resisting the urge to tug his hair.

“Now, now, we were making good progress on being open,” he chides, startling them by pulling them closer.

A pleasurable little gasp leaves their lips, gripping Kuras tight.

Both stare wide eyed at each other, frozen and both flushed in the cheeks.

Kuras’s little movement had caused the perfect amount of friction on their clit.

Mhin trembles and then finally makes up their mind since that just happened.

Kuras opens his mouth, more than likely to apologize. “I did not—.”

“Do it again. P-Please,” they whisper lowly.

“If you’re comfortable-.”

“I am.”

Kuras swallows, golden eyes slowly turning into pools of onyx and tightening his hold on Mhin. He starts out slow, guiding Mhin’s hips and allows Mhin to tuck their face into his neck, Mhin only allowing little gasps and bitten back moans.

Although it doesn’t take long to sink into the haze of lust, not feeling so embarrassed at how soiled their underwear is from arousal.

“Mhin, let me hear you,” Kuras breathes, his typically composed voice now heavy with want.

Mhin ignores him in favor of marking up his neck and under his jaw, enjoying the hiss and shaky breaths from Kuras.

They begin to move their own hips on their own, chasing their impending orgasm. “Nngh…!” they moan out as they feel Kuras tug their short, silvery hair, their head snapped in his direction now.

“I said, let me hear you.”

Mhin bites back a curse but does as they’re told, their long lashes kissing the tops of their cheeks as their every moan and whine is drawn out from their lips.

“That’s it,” Kuras purrs, pressing a sweet little kiss to their cheek and underneath their ear.

They whimper, wanting to feel his lips on theirs.

“Kiss,” they pant, looking at him imploringly. “I want you to kiss me,” they demand.

“Anything,” he murmurs, kissing Mhin like a man starved.

Just as they thought, Kuras’s lips are so soft, so warm, and so bitable.

Kuras groans, feeling Mhin’s teeth sink into the flesh of his lip before their tongues collide together in a drunken dance.

Mhin’s hands then strike, grabbing ahold of Kuras’s ombré strands and yanks them, causing the man in white and molten gold to moan and buck his hips at nothing, a very prominent bulge in his pants.

They both pull away for air, a string of saliva connected from their lips as they stare deeply into each others eyes, maybe even into the other’s soul.

“I-I’m… I’m gonna c-cum.”

Kuras only gazes at them adoringly. “Cum, and don’t hold back.”

Mhin shatters, clinging to Kuras and letting ecstasy burn them from the inside out while Kuras kisses at their throat, shuddering at Mhin’s still tight grip on his hair.

Kuras continues kissing Mhin’s skin, letting them come down from their high, and when they do they kiss his jaw.

“T-Thanks… That felt good.”

“I’m glad to hear.”

Mhin glances towards Kuras’s bulge and they slowly slide off him, not missing how he tries to stop them.

“Let me return the favor..”

“That’s not necessary—.”

“Kuras, just let me suck your dick,” Mhin replies bluntly, staring at him with a blank stare with blushing cheeks, before working his belt off.

“If you insist,” he whispers before a soft moan follows afterwards.

[soft5ku11]

My commissions are open again, now with more pricing info!

BEFORE CONTACTING ME, PLEASE READ THE TERMS BELOW AND THE PRICING INFORMATION ABOVE!!

I will be taking a maximum of 3 SLOTS! (PayPal only, non negotiable) They will be first come first serve, so If you want me to draw for you, lock it in now rather than later on.

PROCESS

Evaluations are free. don’t be afraid to ask if I will or won’t do something but please read the entire post first.

I will only start work after payment. This is to avoid being scammed. Payment will be through PayPal only.

For payment, I will ask you for your email, to which I will send an invoice for the final payment. (I will not accept a second payment during working on your commission to add extras. This will have to be done after completion as an addition. Payment for such will be negotiated separately.)

I will provide you with updates via discord or Tumblr DM.

Once completed, I’ll send you a low-res version for you to OK, and after that I will send the final .PNG file. You may ask for it via Tumblr DM, Email (if file size allows), a Google Drive link, Discord (if file size allows) or you can just have me post it on Tumblr which you can save from the post.

After this point, you cannot ask for any more changes.

—————————————————————————————————-

TERMS AND CONDITIONS (subject to change if necessary)

I have the right to post any commissioned work on any of my social media, portfolio sites, etc. - I may do as I wish with it.

The commissioner does not own the rights to the art I make. They only own the rights to any original character designs within the work.

The commissioner cannot repost the commission on other sites & claim it as their own work. They can, however freely use it as long as I have been clearly & sufficiently credited.

Any reposts must credit me by username “soft5ku11” on tumblr.

I have the right to sell any commissioned work as prints, stickers, posters, shirt designs, etc. The commissioner does not. This also applies to uploading the work to sites like Redbubble to buy items from the site using the commissioned artwork. The commissioner may, however, ask me to put the work on the site for them.

I have the right to deny a commission for any reason and I do not have to disclose that reason.

I will send invoices via PayPal which must be paid in full before I start working. Commissions are non-refundable unless I, for any reason, feel I cannot fulfil the brief given, In which case I will refund the money I received. (It won’t be a full refund since PayPal takes a small cut which they do not return upon refunding an invoice. It will be a refund of the remaining money after it's been deducted by PayPal, unfortunately.)

The commissioner does not have the right to withdraw or request reimbursement through PayPal at any stage unless for reasons listed prior in points 6 and 7.

My art is not to be modified into something else (eg: a character base) without my explicit permission. [If you want a base, commission a base.] 9.5. My art is not to be altered or used or fed into or replicated or to be used to train any or by any AI/program or dataset at all with absolutely no exception.

[the-moth-from-elsewhere]

The Epic Amazing Absolutely Insane TAOCC Song Post

Aka: Elsie assigns random songs to random characters for random reasons, vaguely organized by mod. These are almost entirely vibes and randomness so get ready to be utterly confused. Don’t expect any of these to fit too well, I went more based on the sound and random stuff than the actual accuracy. Also i’m kinda brain-broken from overthinking all this music lol. No, I didn’t add links, just because this took so many hours. Maybe tomorrow, I just wanna get this done.

Feiar’s characters.

Nymn

“Dento takes the Stairs” by Gooseworx

I told you these would make no sense. Idk the amount of nymn just being vibes/silly/lighthearted makes me think of how this song is a break from the chaos of the Elain series.

Jessy

“Metamodernity” by Vansire

Okay, I have a really specific animatic in my head for this song in which we flash between the TAOCC characters as they are in the circus, and then a cool transition, and then it’s them pre-circus. My best example is Dusk and Jessy sitting on a bench. A train passes by, and now it’s human Jessy sitting alone on a bench. Because Dusk is AI. And that very specific part of the animatic in my head tends to stick with me, especially seeing as Jessy is very “just go with stuff” and so I can kinda hear him singing this in my head.

”Apocalypse Now” by PinnoccioP

The first appearance of many of my favorite music artist lol. The song is about enjoying existence even if everything is a violent wreck, and it just kinda fits to me lol.

“World’s Smallest Violin” - AJR

yeah just gonna drop this one here and run

“Sweet Tooth” - Scott Helman

Blame Fei.

Clara

”Drosselmeyer’s theme - Kurumi Wari Ningyo (Nutcracker No. 2 March) - The Princess Tutu Soundtrack

Okay, for starters, you should watch Princess Tutu. Like right now. It’s amazing, and the title does NOT do it Justice. Back on track, it…it’s the nutcracker! Come on, this one was basically handed to me.

Tutu vs Kraehe (Swan Lake Act 1 Op. 20 No. 2)

Fight theme.

Lance

”I Don’t Have a Name For It” - Steam Powered Giraffe

I…I’m sorry I don’t have an explanation for this it just works. Lancia sweep.

Raina

”Nightcall” - Kavinsky

…Once again, very flimsy. But like…switch the gender. I’m sorry but it’s giving “they’re talking about my death but I’m still here.” The miku version works better here in my opinion :3

The pirates

“He’s a pirate” - F-777

“The 7 Seas” - F-777

idk man techno piracy go vrrrrrrrr I unironically blasted these during like the entirety of the pirates plotline frick you this is my rant I do what I want /silly

Star’s Characters

Icia

”Long Live” - Taylor Swift

I swear I have reasons for this just hear me out okay- First off, I can see the voice fitting, second off, I imagine her singing this either for Lance or Starro or both after we finally finally finally throw Hexe off a cliff.

“Santa Salvacion” - Magia Record OST

epic fight theme for fighting the terrifying ice lady. I blasted this while writing the fight scene with The Dark Queen Icia.

Dunite

”Postmeridae” - Madoka Magica OST

Cutesy upbeat theme for making merengues to. No notes.

“Witches Dance” - Magia Record OST

Idk, feels like her fight theme

”Roki” - Mikito P

…Vibes. Entirely vibes. Dunite should start a band /hj.

Starro

“Please Never Fall In Love Again” - Ollie MN

I just…him. Singing this. About Conny. I swear to cheese.

Vaga and Nova

“Class Dance - Rensho Kyoku I” - Princess Tutu OST

…Vibes.

Odette

”Vocalise Op. 34 No. 14” - Madoka Magica OST

Vibes. Piano. Sad string accompaniment. Must I say more?

Achilles

“Doubt #2” - Madoka Magica: Rebellion OST

Starting to notice a pattern with the kingdom characters lol?

Joofie’s Characters

Cardlan

“Main Character” - Will Wood

Ego. So, so much Ego.

“Sayo-Nara” - DDLC OST

I have my reasons.

Minimi

“Not Yet (Epilogue)” - Madoka Magica: Rebellion OST

Accordion and a little bit of ominousness. Vibes.

Xeyshattersiltav1a’s Characters

Sun

“Cowboy Dan” - Modest Mouse

Yee-haw sun. Do not give that woman a truck. Wow, these descriptions are getting terrible lol.

”Popular” - Wicked Soundtrack

Wicked but it’s sun and Dusk lives in my head rent free okay

“Alright” - Mother Mother

please help me I keep making up sun animatics with this song in class

Mix

“Something, Everything is Wrong” - Madoka Magica: Rebellion OST

This song is the reason I associate Mix with the accordion. Also, I imagine Dusk meeting him/his first real introduction in TAOCC’s background music as this song.

“Intertwined” - CMYK, CircusP.

Rip this man’s love life

“Love is War” - Ryo/Supercell feat. Hatsune Miku

Love is still Vehicular Manslaughter /ref

Dialtone

“Cats!” - waterflame

Does the song fit him? Not at all! It is way too techy and upbeat, and would probably better suit someone like Switch. But like….cats. He’d listen to a song called “cats!”. You can’t convince me otherwise.

“Want You Gone” - The Portal OST

Dialtone is GLaDOS coded to me.

“Killer Spider” - PinnoccioP

vibes and vibes alone.

Soup’s Characters

Silhouette

“Scared of you” - Brandon Hesslau

“Whoops, sorry for kinda almost killing you.”

”What Gave It Away” - Riproducer

evil.

”Burial Ground” - Low Roar

sad backstory.mp3.

Clown

“I’m Number One” - Muppets Most Wanted Soundtrack

Look man he’s silly and egotistical and it’s funny. He’s definitely singing this with carbine.

Autumn’s Characters

Pyxel

”Magical Doctor” - MARETU

once again, more vibes than lyrics and the gender’s wrong but, like, the vibes, man

Neb

“Lonely UFO” - PinnoccioP

…it doesn’t fit. The lyrics, as far as I can tell, do NOT fit. BUT LOOK AT THE OUTFIT, THE BLUE HAIR AND VOID SKIN AND MURDER TEETH AND TELL ME THAT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE NEB, OKAY?!

“Finding Sanctuary” - Stellaris OST

Silly space song for silly space person.

Lily’s Characters

The bookend siblings, and I mean all of them as a group, Katrina included for brevity’s sake

“Magical Girl and Chocolate” - PinnoccioP

Okay, I have actual reasoning for this one. Each of the siblings is someone’s “magical girl”, whether metaphorically or literally. They’re each fighting to protect and support someone. And they each strain and struggle to cope with a role too demanding for them. This song works for each of them in a different form and context.

Octavia and Steven/Sign

“Isn’t it “A”” - PinnoccioP

The arguments of all time

Honse- I mean Sophro

“Puzzle” - CMYK, CircusP

He’s just here to help. No notes.

Miscellaneous Others/Not big enough for their own section

Lantern

“Lantern” - Undertale OST

…self explanatory. The song’s vibes fit, too, I imagine this plays in his scenes.

“The Other One Left” - VaneLily

Half due to the “I just want a loving father” line. Gender’s wrong, again, but otherwise the lyrics fit.

Seer

“Seer’s Theme” - Cindy

I literally cannot outdo her own theme. It’s just too good. I listen to it randomly just because I like it so much /gen.

Sigil

“I’m Just Ken” - Barbie Movie Soundtrack

this is mostly a joke but come ON you think that guy doesn’t feel a little overshadowed by his GODDESS FIANCÉE?!

“Business Man” - Tom Cardy

Okay so this one takes some explaining because I imagine sigil walking into Dialtone’s place to spy and Insanity ruining everything and shooting everyone. It makes absolutely no sense but it’s funny in my head so here we are.

My Characters, yes this is gonna be last

Dusk

“Ultimate Senpai” - PinocchioP

A song about being overly pressured and stuff? Yeaaaaah.

“Sis Puella Magia!” - Madoka Magica Soundtrack

….Pretty. That’s it.

Aoki

“Decretum” - Madoka Magica Soundtrack

The reason I gave him a violin.

Alpenglow

“Yume Yume” - DECO*27

I have an ENTIRE ANIMATIC for chip and alpen with this song in my head

Lemonade

“Viva La Vida” - Coldplay

lore. Hehe.

Yume

“What are Children Made Of?” - PinnoccioP

This kid’s childhood has been ruined and boy is processing that hard.

”Everything about Animals” - PinocchioP

an absolute fever dream of a song that she would absolutely sing about animals. And how cool they are. And ohhhh look commentary on the state of humanity

Switchboard

“Kom Susser Tod” - Astrophysics

Idk it doesn’t fit all too well but the mix of utter hopelessness and eurobeat techno is just hercore

TAOCC as a whole

“Something Rotten!/Make an Omelette” - Something Rotten Soundtrack

WHEN I TELL YOU I HAVE AN ENTIRE. FREAKING. ANIMATIC-

”Your Silver Garden” - Madoka Magica OST

I do not know the lyrics literally at all but I could see an OP for TAOCC with this song

[weenwrites]

Hey hey Ween! I wanted to ask about you writing something for bots reaction to a human who is new to the team and trying to get too make friends and make conversation with the bots? But they have poor memory and stiff/rough social skills so they may fidget when speaking and too remember their names they have a paper that they carry around w/ all the bots names written in said bots corresponding color scheme (doesn't have to be this I just thought it would be a cool idea 😊). Also tries to offer help in any numbers of ways. Uhh I don't really have any particular bots in mind besides Wheeljack and while I do enjoy scenarios I'm just as cool with headcannons if that ends up working for you and/or inspiring you more🤝🫂. Feel free to add any other bots if ya want👌! (Also it's still Friday where I am as I send this in I don't want ya to think I'm ignoring your post.)

"What was your name, again?"

Summary - How are you supposed to remember all these weird names? Characters - Wheeljack Content - Crack, Gen Category - Scenarios Trigger Warnings - None

✎ A/N: Sorry it took a LONG while! And also what I meant back then was that the request had to be sent in when it was Friday where I was. I can't remember whether you sent it in while it was still Friday my time or not, but eh I'll do it anyway. And I'm sorry if it's a bit short, but I didn't really want to specify anything in the end to try and be more 'immersive'.

[ Please do not repost, plagiarize, or use my writing for AI! Translating my work with proper credit is acceptable, but please ask first! ]

"Don't forget Bulkhead and Bumblebee!"

"Yes, yes... I've got them down," Y/N mumbles.

They don't bat an eye at the shadow that looms over their shoulder and onto the table, because it's far more important to concentrate on remembering all the names that Miko had mentioned to them. Their colored pencil in their hand glided across the paper with ease, of course occasionally stopping to switch colors.

"Hatche—wait no, it's Ratchet... And... Who was the other one you said, Miko?" Y/N asked, looking up from their paper, "The uh... The one that started with—oh! Wait! Uh, Spokelean!"

"Smokescreen." She corrected with a giggle, placing particular emphasis on the 'screen' part to his name, "So you're done with writing down all their names?"

"Yeah, just about..." They mumbled, brushing some eraser shavings aside and reaching over for their pencil to correct their mistakes.

But they felt nothing but empty space where the correct colored pencil used to lay, and after a quick look around, they had found the escapee-pencil laying underneath the table. With a sigh, they had stooped down onto all fours and scooched underneath the table, reaching out to fetch it when all of a sudden, the heavy thumping of metal footsteps shook the ground.

With a startled yelp, they shot up and the back of their head met the underside of the hard, wooden table. Through gritted teeth and a set frown, they retrieved the pencil and slowly stood back upright, rubbing the back of their head as they looked up to see who had walked in, but they were met with an unfamiliar face.

A white bot sporting red and green streaks on his chest, and a pair of gray... For lack of a better word, finials, on the sides of his head, and a large crest on top. Aside from the fact his paint-job bore a striking resemblance to the flag of Italy, another notable feature of his was the pair of twin swords sheathed on his back.

"Wait... Who's that, again?" Y/N's face scrunched into confusion as they further scrutinized him.

"Oh, hey Wheeljack!" Miko hollered.

And at the girl's beck and call, the bot shoots her a grin upon sight, and he closes the distance between them in mere seconds.

"Hey kid!" He pauses and shoots Y/N a glance, "oh, and who's this?"

"Oh uh, my name's Y/N, and you must beeee..." Their voice tapers off for what almost feels like eternity, and they scramble their mind for a clue—any clue as to what his name was. Miko had literally mentioned his name mere seconds ago, yet now of all times, their brain decided to blank. "Uhh... Your name was..."

"Wheeljack." He finishes.

"Ye-yeah! Wheeljack! Wheeljack. How are you? It's nice to meet you."

"Never better, Bulk and I just got back from patrol."

"Ooh! Did you find anything while you were out?" Miko grinned.

"If by 'anything' you mean 'decepticons', then 'fraid not. We thought we picked up one of the cons' energon mines so we tracked it down."

Miko sprung forward on the couch, "Was it a trap?"

"Nah, it was just an old crater, the cons had sucked it dry and left a long time ago."

Y/N frowns, "did anything good come of it at least?"

"Nothin that I can see, but it is what it is," he shrugs, "Anyway, you're the newcomer, eh?"

"Yes! That would be me."

For a hot second no one said a word. Wheeljack looked to them expectantly, thinking they'd run him through the whole story, not lead him straight to some rather awkward silence. And once Y/N caught the gist of the conversation, they simply pressed their lips shut even harder.

Would it be too awkward to continue now? No one's said anything for some time now, so maybe they shouldn't continue? But if they change the subject now, it might seem like they weren't really listening to him, so maybe they should—

"Soo, Y/N, why don't you tell Wheeljack about how you got here?" Miko spoke up—thankfully being the one to break the ice, "How you met the team and that kind of stuff."

"Right! Right, I should probably do that..." They chuckled, "alright so... it all started like this..."

[blubberquark]

Things That Are Hard

Some things are harder than they look. Some things are exactly as hard as they look.

Game AI, Intelligent Opponents, Intelligent NPCs

As you already know, "Game AI" is a misnomer. It's NPC behaviour, escort missions, "director" systems that dynamically manage the level of action in a game, pathfinding, AI opponents in multiplayer games, and possibly friendly AI players to fill out your team if there aren't enough humans.

Still, you are able to implement minimax with alpha-beta pruning for board games, pathfinding algorithms like A* or simple planning/reasoning systems with relative ease. Even easier: You could just take an MIT licensed library that implements a cool AI technique and put it in your game.

So why is it so hard to add AI to games, or more AI to games? The first problem is integration of cool AI algorithms with game systems. Although games do not need any "perception" for planning algorithms to work, no computer vision, sensor fusion, or data cleanup, and no Bayesian filtering for mapping and localisation, AI in games still needs information in a machine-readable format. Suddenly you go from free-form level geometry to a uniform grid, and from "every frame, do this or that" to planning and execution phases and checking every frame if the plan is still succeeding or has succeeded or if the assumptions of the original plan no longer hold and a new plan is on order. Intelligent behaviour is orders of magnitude more code than simple behaviours, and every time you add a mechanic to the game, you need to ask yourself "how do I make this mechanic accessible to the AI?"

Some design decisions will just be ruled out because they would be difficult to get to work in a certain AI paradigm.

Even in a game that is perfectly suited for AI techniques, like a turn-based, grid-based rogue-like, with line-of-sight already implemented, can struggle to make use of learning or planning AI for NPC behaviour.

What makes advanced AI "fun" in a game is usually when the behaviour is at least a little predictable, or when the AI explains how it works or why it did what it did. What makes AI "fun" is when it sometimes or usually plays really well, but then makes little mistakes that the player must learn to exploit. What makes AI "fun" is interesting behaviour. What makes AI "fun" is game balance.

You can have all of those with simple, almost hard-coded agent behaviour.

Video Playback

If your engine does not have video playback, you might think that it's easy enough to add it by yourself. After all, there are libraries out there that help you decode and decompress video files, so you can stream them from disk, and get streams of video frames and audio.

You can just use those libraries, and play the sounds and display the pictures with the tools your engine already provides, right?

Unfortunately, no. The video is probably at a different frame rate from your game's frame rate, and the music and sound effect playback in your game engine are probably not designed with syncing audio playback to a video stream.

I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm saying that it's surprisingly tricky, and even worse, it might be something that can't be built on top of your engine, but something that requires you to modify your engine to make it work.

Stealth Games

Stealth games succeed and fail on NPC behaviour/AI, predictability, variety, and level design. Stealth games need sophisticated and legible systems for line of sight, detailed modelling of the knowledge-state of NPCs, communication between NPCs, and good movement/ controls/game feel.

Making a stealth game is probably five times as difficult as a platformer or a puzzle platformer.

In a puzzle platformer, you can develop puzzle elements and then build levels. In a stealth game, your NPC behaviour and level design must work in tandem, and be developed together. Movement must be fluid enough that it doesn't become a challenge in itself, without stealth. NPC behaviour must be interesting and legible.

Rhythm Games

These are hard for the same reason that video playback is hard. You have to sync up your audio with your gameplay. You need some kind of feedback for when which audio is played. You need to know how large the audio lag, screen lag, and input lag are, both in frames, and in milliseconds.

You could try to counteract this by using certain real-time OS functionality directly, instead of using the machinery your engine gives you for sound effects and background music. You could try building your own sequencer that plays the beats at the right time.

Now you have to build good gameplay on top of that, and you have to write music. Rhythm games are the genre that experienced programmers are most likely to get wrong in game jams. They produce a finished and playable game, because they wanted to write a rhythm game for a change, but they get the BPM of their music slightly wrong, and everything feels off, more and more so as each song progresses.

Online Multi-Player Netcode

Everybody knows this is hard, but still underestimates the effort it takes. Sure, back in the day you could use the now-discontinued ready-made solution for Unity 5.0 to synchronise the state of your GameObjects. Sure, you can use a library that lets you send messages and streams on top of UDP. Sure, you can just use TCP and server-authoritative networking.

It can all work out, or it might not. Your netcode will have to deal with pings of 300 milliseconds, lag spikes, package loss, and maybe recover from five seconds of lost WiFi connections. If your game can't, because it absolutely needs the low latency or high bandwidth or consistency between players, you will at least have to detect these conditions and handle them, for example by showing text on the screen informing the player he has lost the match.

It is deceptively easy to build certain kinds of multiplayer games, and test them on your local network with pings in the single digit milliseconds. It is deceptively easy to write your own RPC system that works over TCP and sends out method names and arguments encoded as JSON. This is not the hard part of netcode. It is easy to write a racing game where players don't interact much, but just see each other's ghosts. The hard part is to make a fighting game where both players see the punches connect with the hit boxes in the same place, and where all players see the same finish line. Or maybe it's by design if every player sees his own car go over the finish line first.

[lyss-butterscotch]

hello!! I saw you mention your AU a few times, i'm really curious what it's all about! give us the lore 👀

OHOHO a chance to ramble about my hcs yes please and thank you ^-^

Gonna be a loooong post since I'm gonna use this as reference later too and maybe changed according to stuff that i add in

All game events all the way to between Monk and Rivulet is the same. Suns' failing to reach Pebbles, Pebbles' rot, Moon's collapse, and Sig reviving Moon happened.

After Moon's last broadcast during Spearmaster, Suns has spent all this time developing a Travel Puppet.

What's a Travel Puppet?

Another iterator puppet basically, one that is more equipped to move outside the can

It is powered by several neurons and a minor rarefaction cell.

Iterators transfer their sentient AI to the travel puppet to use it, but the Chamber Puppet MUST deactivate and the superstructure goes on Sleep Mode. This is done to prevent excessive water intake (like Pebbles' case when he ran multiple parallel experiments, it'll take alot of processing to have TWO puppets working)

Travel Puppets does NOT replace or have the same functions as Chamber Puppets (ex. Moon)

Travel Puppets has limited memory, limited processing power, no telekenesis, and no access to the superstructure network. But as reinforced robots they are atleast strong and can still somewhat check in on their superstructures via overseers. This is also why I assigned them with weapons.

Travel Puppets are made with biomechanical parts without the self-destruction taboo or any related directives assuming the creator used fresh materials, therefore can be used to do restricted maintenance and modifications towards the superstructure.

Travel Puppets have no default template and later on each iterators can make their own puppets with different modifications and capabilities.

If a Travel Puppet breaks, the iterator can choose to transfer their AI back to the Chamber Puppet. If the Travel Puppet's cell is compromised it will explode.

So Suns used their new puppet to walk to Pebbles and try to get him to stop before fully succumbing to the rot. Mind you this is before Suns added the vulture wings and claws modifications.

Well it works (gonna write the confrontation at some point sobs). Pebbles stopped his experiments and later on used the Travel Puppet freedom to do install Subzero blast cooling modifications in an attempt to kill off the rot.

Everyone in the international sphere eventually hears the news about the loophole that the Travel Puppet brings and it became a widespread thing. You can assume that some finally can do life-saving maintenance on their structures or finally went off to ascend, our main cast continues to live because i want them to live out a normal life ok.

After they were able to repair themselves, the local group tried to help Moon rebuild her structure or salvage what's left before deciding it was too far gone. So Moon is given a permanent Travel Puppet to reside in and she loves to travel especially with scug colonies. For everyone else i'll still haven't thought of so I may update this post but you can assume they all do alot of visiting and travelling!

[pjsk-story-summaries]

You Deserve It! Break Time! Event Story Summary

TL;DR: MORE MORE JUMP! continues to gain followers on their streams. Haruka wonders if their segments are growing stale and decides to brainstorm some new ones.

Shizuku begins to worry about Haruka's well-being. She doesn't think Haruka is taking enough time off to care for herself. Though Haruka tries to reassure her that she's fine, Shizuku's not convinced. She believes the idol persona Haruka carries must be hard to keep up.

With a bit of help from Airi, Shizuku proposes that they all go hang out on their day off together, forcing Haruka to take a break. However, despite their intentions, she keeps using their adventures to come up with new stream ideas. Every idea Shizuku tries to get Haruka to relax ends up backfiring.

Minori and Airi go into a crowded shop together, leaving Haruka and Shizuku alone. Haruka asks what's bothering Shizuku, who reveals her concerns about Haruka. Haruka realizes the things she usually does to relax, like training and brainstorming, aren't really relaxing. Shizuku apologizes for assuming, but insists on helping her properly take a break.

Minori and Airi exit the shop with some matching penguin keychains for the group, reminding Haruka of a nearby cafe themed entirely around penguins. She agrees to split a parfait with the group despite the sugar.

Official English YouTube Upload / Song (Ai no Material ) 2DMV

Chapter 1: MORE MORE JUMP! finishes another successful livestream. Though they've been fun, Haruka begins to wonder if their streams are growing stale. The group decides to come up with ideas for new segments.

Right before the group splits up to head home, a fan approaches Haruka. They're impressed she remembered them from a past meet and greet. Minori, Airi, and Shizuku are impressed by the professionalism Haruka displayed in the conversation.

Haruka finishes personal training at home fairly late. She begins working on homework and show ideas immediately after, though.

Chapter 2: MORE MORE JUMP!'s streams continue to gain traction as they add new segments. They're happy Haruka came up with such a good one, but worry she might be overdoing herself. Minori and Airi want to go get crepes to celebrate, but Haruka decides to go home and work out some new ideas.

MORE MORE JUMP! head to the SEKAI for practice the next day. They're surprised to find a show from the newest member of the SEKAI- MEIKO. She casually introduces herself to the four and asks to help them with their stream ideas.

Chapter 3: Airi jokes about a cooking segment idea. Haruka's glad everyone's having fun. Shizuku notices her yawn and kindly asks her to take a break. Haruka reassures her that she'll get proper rest tonight.

MEIKO runs over to join the conversation, explaining all the wonderful things she's heard about Haruka but also her worries about Haruka's own well-being. Haruka explains that her practice regimine is something she's done ever since ASRUN, so shes used to it, but promises to take time for herself. Shizuku's still mildly concerned.

Chapter 4: Shizuku remembers back to her debut as Cheerful*Day's lead. Though she knew the persona she presented wasn't her true self, she wanted to make her fans happy. Haruka had come to talk to her when they appeared on a show together. Even though Shizuku didn't think so, Haruka that she was amazing and a clear hard worker. Shizuku admires Haruka's strength and love of idols.

Even then, Shizuku thought Haruka was the perfect idol. Now, though, she wonders if Haruka's having a hard time keeping that persona up.

Chapter 5: Airi notices something bothering Shizuku and asks to eat lunch together. Though she understands Shizuku's fears for Haruka, Airi's sure Haruka will be fine. Airi suggests trying to go out and do something fun together on their day off.

Shizuku proposes the idea after practice that day. Minori and Airi are both excited, and Haruka agrees.

Chapter 6: The first stop on their day off was a trip to karaoke. They all had fun, though Minori did go back to fan-mode after seeing the idols sing. Next, Shizuku proposes going to a low-sugar cafe. Haruka immediately wonders if they could do segments promoting places like that. Shizuku's worried that Haruka still can't let go, even on her day off.

Shizuku tried to lead them to the cafe, but got lost. Haruka took them to a different cafe instead. Shizuku tried ordering a relaxing tea set to share with Haruka, but accidentally got too much. The rest of the group pitched in to help finish it off.

They went to make scented candles next. Shizuku was happy Haruka seemed to be having fun, but she accidentally added too much fragrance in her distraction and ruined it. Shizuku feels bad that her plan to help Haruka relax completely backfired.

Chapter 7: Shizuku doesn't want to give up on the day quite yet. She takes the group on a walk. Airi realizes Haruka's just trying to find new stream ideas. Minori and Airi head into a crowded shop while Haruka and Shizuku stay outside.

Haruka asks if there's something bothering Shizuku. She reveals her worries over Haruka's well-being and the true intention behind the outing. Though Haruka's grateful, she reassures Shizuku that she's just fine.

She does realize that she might be pushing herself too hard on accident, since her usual relaxation techniques might not be true rest. Shizuku also realizes none of it felt like work to Haruka because she truly loves what she does. Shizuku apologizes for her assumptions, but still wants Haruka to rely on them more. She offers to do something together where Haruka can enjoy herself.

Chapter 8: Airi and Minori walk out of the store and hand out the matching penguin keychain set they got. Haruka asks if the others would accompany her somewhere quick. She takes them to a penguin-themed cafe she'd been wanting to go to. Minori wants to share an parfait, and though Airi tries warning her Haruka doesn't eat sugar, Haruka agrees. She thinks the penguin on top is super cute.

[heiko-goes-detroit]

Why Gavin Reed Isn't A Brainless Asshole

Very short exposition of the facts in honor of @treeffles And whoever wants to read it.

Well, let's see: the following points constitute a basic approximation, but they can be developed more extensively. They also admit subsequent nuances.

1 – The information offered to us about the subject is partial and limited. The premise is manichaean: they present us with a subject from whom only unpleasant characteristics and behaviors have been selected, compared to other characters that cover a broader evolutionary arc. Throughout the game we can see that everyone can choose various actions, which change their behavior and interaction with respect to the android reality. Not so in the case of Reed, whose gameplay is not as extensive as the rest. He is a character deliberately projected to be "the bad guy."

We can accept the decision that the program has made for us (which, if we think about it, is a small scam comparatively speaking), but if so we must also accept that it is not his fault, he have been designed that way.

Therefore, there could be many possibilities to see other facets of the character, which they are deliberately stealing from us. That being the case, I decide to consider that these possibilities exist. The opposite is meekly accepting the story that the creators have decided that I have to validate as the only possible reality.

“The ones who push the limits, discover the limits sometimes push back." – Gerard Butler

2 – We are not taking into account his background as a worker in a society in which artificial intelligence is severely affecting unemployment figures. What impact has this had on his life, on his family, on his education or lack thereof? It's easy to see him as the "bad guy" without knowing anything about his life and past, especially when his opponent is a cute boy with an initially docile demeanor. The most naïve conclusion would be that Reed is a bastard who abuses a poor boy, but we are letting ourselves be carried away by biases and prejudices.

If we stick to what we just have in front of us, we have the option of considering that we don't know enough about Reed and his background, or his life outside or inside the precinct to conclude that he is an asshole, all the time and for any reason. And for his part, Connor is not a poor boy: the thing which arrives at the precinct is an overdeveloped AI, a highly sophisticated set of machinery with a human appearance. Nothing else. Gavin's initial reaction is no worse than that of Hank and other characters, with the aggravating circumstance that he is not allowed to deal with said machine other than a few specific moments within the precinct. He can't change his mind about Connor because he doesn't have opportunities. Within this scenario, his aversion is predictable and reasonable. Gavin has done nothing wrong beyond his very human aversion to the possibility of being replaced in the future by an an airy toaster.

3 – General conclusion: there is not enough evidence to affirm that Reed is a brainless asshole. In fact, no one becomes a detective without some degree of experience, discernment, and training. We can choose to judge him by the limited features that have been presented to us, that is, what we know about him (which is really little) or to go off the rails that have been imposed on us and consider everything we do not know (which is a lot).

Not to mention that even when we stay within the “Reed is a horrible human being” bias, we can keep in mind that no one is irredeemable: Gavin can open up to the reality of other circumstances as they change over time. Redemption is within everyone's reach, although personally I think he has done nothing wrong. Otherwise, I would be the worst person in the world for all the times I've yelled at my laptop xD

That being said, whoever has something to ask, add or object to, can shoot. Everyone is welcome :)