#messing with vfx again

[ps-cactus]

[sashasspace]

How to set up the FUN party in the sims? 🎉

Questions to ask yourself

What is the event?

Who's invited?

Is there a theme?

Where is the party located?

What's the age of the sims?

Who is this party for?

Do I have to do any CC shopping for this event?

Do I need to download a mod for this party?

Gameplay Tips:

Take advantage of the seasons calendar to set up the event. Example: party spirit tradition, sims will do autonomous interactions that show they're feeling festive. Example: Give Gifts tradition, sims will give you gifts If you want sims not to work during the event, you can click for them to not go to work that day too

Set up VFX, if that's what your party needs [RVSN mod]

Create a menu for your sims, and prepare the food a day in advance

Consider sim's lifestyles. Is a sim a vegetarian, or lactose-intolerant? Are there any kids to give them pizza? Is there a junk food lifestyle sim you want to give them something greasy?

Buffet Table [use bb.moveobjects] to get more slots available

Set up Cannons in correct placement aligned with where you want your sims to celebrate

Have a recovered copy your save, if you don't want to go through the mess of cleaning/removing build mode objects. Not only that, but sometimes, you may need to film again. If you save before the party starts, you can keep replaying the party until you get the party you want (hope this makes sense)

The baby shower event from growing together, sims give the host gifts autonomously and sims celebrate properly when the cannon is fired

Set up cannons from growing together expansion pack, in a correct placement that is aligned with where you want your sims to celebrate accordingly

MWS wedding events are perfect for events you need sims to follow your instructions such as "dance" "gather around"

Steady seat is perfect for seating arrangements

Have a photoshoot area ready, if the party needs it, so you can pose your sims. I recommend custom pose shopping in advance, but after the fact isn't bad either; just don't delete the copy of your save until you've completed that.

Place gameplay objects you need for the party around the lot. Example: If it's a birthday party and there's space, have the pirate ship "rented". You know how parents add bouncy castles and stuff for events? Think of it like that.

When it comes to arranging the table, have your sim add the placemat from parenthood around the table. Sometimes, your sim may not be able to add the placement, you can go into build mode and move the placement to the one your sim couldn't and go back into live mode and have your sim do it all over again until every spot has a placemat. If you have better-build-buy mod, you can copy the debug object yourself and place it around.

When it comes to decorating and you are having issues with slots, I recommend OMSP. It is explained in my video at 28:18♥

If you're having a dinner party, have your sim "pick up serving" for drinks and food, your sim will place the food in their inventory and you can place it yourself around the table. Perfect example to see this is Joy of Life Legacy challenge when my sim had a Winterfest dinner party (33:26)*

Don't forget to add kiss of freshness lot modifier on your lot, so food doesn't expire

Place the food over the placemat, and have their drink to their right side.

Zero's drinking mod works like placemat where your sims can place drinks around the table. There's age appropriate drinks too like juices and sodas for child/teen sims.

The Sims 4 gallery contains rooms where there's food for your sims and if you didn't have time to cook. Miss_frogstar has a bunch of rooms for your sims that contain food. It's really detailed for you.

Have a serving table, if your party is meant to have a lot of guests and food. It takes the load off you, when you don't have to worry about table slots for larger events.

Create sims you can hire for events. Think of these sims like Nurse Joy from Pokémon. You can have this sim be a townie in all your saves. Cheat their skills and hire them for events/set their outfits.

Lock them doors LMAO! Sims love to misbehave and go everywhere, so it's easier to have them be in certain areas by locking the door of the rooms you don't want them to be in.

I also recommend saving the party decorated home in your gallery, so you can just place it again in the future and remix it to how you want it

Sometimes you got to combine different events to create the atmosphere you want in your game, so don't be too hard on yourself, if you feel like it's not going how you want. We all know parties in the sims isn't perfect at all

Mods Mentioned Sasha's Space party mods recommendation TheGoldSims Better Birthday Set Better build buy Zero’s drink on table mod Gala place setting by somik and Sevrinka  Surelysims placemat mod OMSP OMSP SHELF Pick up all servings by brazen lotus

WCIF SYB UNICORN COLLECTION Sims 4 ACNH birthday cc BrittPink adopted mods Rex Baby Shower set + Birthday set Platinum Luxe Sims wall letters* (I saw on Platinum Luxe's website, you have to contact them atm) Dreamteamsims birthday Anye Party Inabadromance birthday Happy birthday sign by simmerkate Birthday photoshoot set by simmerkate SG5150 (idk the link for the party banner if you know pls help)

The Sims gallery to follow miss_frogstar (food rooms)

It is best to prepare in advance, so things fall into place by the time the event is set up for you in game. Thank you to all the simmers who helped me create this bday party, CC, Mod creators💕

[herotome]

Finally-official-devlog #112

Also known as FOD112 hi-ho, Wudge here.

Gosh there's just. So much. I'm actually drafting this devlog a few days early so that I'm not suddenly overwhelmed on devlog Tuesday again. But without further ado-

This is the big cheese right here -- each character has their own layer, each character's clothes and expressions have their own layers, and there's a separate layer for the soft orange lighting on top of it all. 😭

On that note, here's most of the individual image files that create the CG with their powers (and my code) combined:

And since this is a cropped version of a BIGGER CG (featuring ALL the love interests sitting together), I had to tinker with the position code a great deal to properly feature these three goons Of course it was worth it of course twas merely at the cost of all my energy and sanity at the prospect of eventually possibly also adding in blinks and expression changes--

Mad props as usual to the sweetwonderfulamazing Remnantation who first completed this CG -checks watch- sometime last year! With some additional edits by me since then~

And, did you happen to notice something new in the lower right?

Tadah... a brand new click-to-continue icon animation! I made (mostly) all by myself! The lil sparkle burst is free from production crate, but I drew the star and added the rotation code... ... Honestly, the hardest and most time-consuming part of this was finalizing the design. Originally I was gonna make it rotate 45 degrees, flip, rotate 45 more degrees, flip, etc-- and messed with that concept for several hours before scrapping it for a simpler, more graceful idea. :| Part of the process, I gots to tell myself, part of the process...

Next up is Jade's powers, as you may have seen in the preview last week. Much like the CTC animation, I did a lot of research on other ideas - various glowing VFX like vertical veins across the cheeks and smoky rising from the eyes, as well as a bigger low opacity character zoom effect - before settling on something simple. Jade's power usage here is... pretty mild in context, and I figure I can always store the more dramatic animations for later in the story.

Here's a still of the effect btw:

Her eyes look like headlights lmaooo. Honk honk!

Do I have more to update with? Believe it or not, yes.

I made some icons, which took a fair amount of trial and error: on the left you'll see an earlier draft, on the right are my more final redesigns from the same day(...night. midnight. I worked on these until midnight).

I had to look up some guidelines because most of my previous icons did NOT look good or legible when sized down to 50x50 pixels. What I learned was, tadah, I had to draw with an unprecedented line width of 200 pixels! (For non-artists: I typically draw with a pen width of 12 pixels at most).

I also studied the icon styles of Persona 5, which saved me a lot of time - they had a cool stylistic choice of diagonally tilted color blocks and thick black outlines.

Here's yet another gif of icons in action...

Did you see them? Did you?? For a split second, in the upper right.... Still gotta adjust some of the text overlap, don't look at that.

Oh and the "How to play" page is brand new. I coded it from scratch... That also took all night...

... Oh. Oh. And remember your MC's phone?

This old thing? Yeah. Visual upgrade:

Also rendered and colored in by Rem <3 Where would I be without them...!

The text, though, can be updated in code!!!! I spliced the phone into layers, with the screen on top and code-generated text just below it, so I can update the caller ID at any point in-game without making any new images.

Took a little while to get it to work... honestly it doesn't look 100% centered... but it's fine. This is fine...

And then... more code. After much tears, blood and strife, I got a musical crossfade to work. It shouldn't have been challenging but it was a nightmare -- when calling the crossfade the second track would either not play at all or its volume wouldn't change and I was starting to develop a preference for eating gravel. But I persisted, found a much simpler code that actually works. After the tearsbloodstrife.

And...... lastly... I simplified this big block of code:

vbox: pos (269, 76) add "sprites/MC/mc[mc_number].png" hbox: if mc_number ==1: text "DEFAULT" style "MC_label_text" elif mc_number ==2: text "LAVENDER" style "MC_label_text" elif mc_number ==3: text "PETUNIA" style "MC_label_text" elif mc_number ==4: text "SUNFLOWER" style "MC_label_text" else: text "TBD" style "MC_label_text"

...(not properly indented bc tumblr is mean 2 me)...

down to these lines, to make my future life easier:

default PrintMC = ["Default", "Lavender", "Petunia", "Sunflower", ""]

text PrintMC[mc_number] style "MC_label_text"

Two!!! lines!!!!!

🎊

Instead of typing out additional if/else lines, I only need to add new names to the PrintMC list. Won't really affect the player at all, but it's a HUGE quality of life update for me!

...Anyway that's it, thank you for checking in. <3

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.

PS screw it I'm gonna queue post this early.

PPS have you listened to our composer's new single yet? No?!?!?!

Every click, every listen helps, and every song of his is a BOP that deserves recognition!

ok that's all for real now xoxoxo,

wudge (again)

[cupisims]

MAGNOLIA STRIP MALL - A 40x30 LOT

It's time for another community lot! on Friday i just really REALLY had the burning desire to build a strip mall. This venue has 7 individual shops, from a Starbucks to a nail salon.

The shops are: Hector Finch, a small bookstore business with lots of rare and unusual finds Starbucks - For the pumpkin spice latte addicted Sims! SavOn Pharmacy - If it itches, oozes, burns or stings, this pharmacy has everything a Sim needs to feel well again! Futura - a neon bar and the newest store on the strip. Mochi - Very popular with high schoolers, Mochi has plenty of space to relax, socialise and eat delicious sweets! H&M - A little pricier than they used to be but H&M is still clothing Sims who live near the strip 7 days a week BEKKED - Cannabis is fully legal in this world! Fancy a high with low prices? BEKKED has you covered! Also takes medicinal cards. Flawed - What use are all these shops if your Sim looks like a mess walking round them?! Flawed is the long standing nail bar and spa. The stylists are in demand and appointments are snapped up fast so be quick on the dial to secure your pampering paradise sesh!

Thank you to all the CC Creators who allow their CC to be included in builds!: 13pumpkin, Blackmojitos, ATS4, BillLS4CC, BodegaBaby, CecesimsXO and more!

YOU NEED THESE MODS:

Basemental Drugs (Basemental) Activity Lot Challenges (chingyu @chingyu1023vick) City Vibes Lot Trait Collection (WICKED PIXXEL @wickedpixxel) Functional Venue Lot Traits (Bar) (WICKED PIXXEL) Beauty Salon Lot Trait (KiaraSims4) Easy Peasy Lumen Squeezy Light System (RVSN) SideFX VFX Controller Emitter (Ravasheen @ravasheencc) MultiLot Traits Pack (SayHeyyMsZoey) Everyday Clutter Kits Become Functional (Cepzid @hanalinori) Smooth Sensations Condom_MultiPack Colors (simdulgence @simdulgencemods) Outdoor Floor Light Override (BoneSimsDesigns @bonesimsdesigns) Starbucks Custom Cafe Bar (Insimnia @insimniacreations) Snack Vending Machine (QMBibi)

I RECCOMEND THESE MODS: Functional Nail Salon (WICKED PIXXEL)

DL in title.

[risingshards]

I'm reading the new interviews with Jackson and Doc (done prior to the strike) and uHGHGH i'm gonna be so emotional watching the Venture Bros movie, I dearly missed my idiots and I don't wanna say goodbye to my idiots.

Also these bits from the interviews really resonate with me:

Publick reflected on the hardships of shouldering so much of the show's production, including in his case directing and working on VFX of episodes. "Every time, the production is really hard on me, in particular," he said. "So, when I get to the end of the season, I've been working like 70 hours a week for a year straight, and I hate it, and I go, 'I don't know if I want to do this anymore.' But then you get a month or two off, and...like, these idiots [meaning the characters] start talking to you again. You start writing stuff down. We've always reinvented it as we went. Any time we felt like we were getting a little stale, we would go, 'Let's fuck it up.'" 

io9: Without giving the plot away, the movie both resolves and leaves dangling certain big questions that have been at the heart of The Venture Bros. for a long time. Was that something you deliberately set out to do, tie up certain plot threads but leave others open-ended?

Hammer: We came to a conclusion between the two of us years ago that ending the show is nothing we’re interested in. The Venture Bros. lives on forever, and we knew that when it was time to end it that we would have to leave it open-ended. Because it’s not done—this show should live on in the fans’ heads. And these [characters], there’s never going to be a monumental thing where everybody collapses or a monumental thing where everybody saves the day. That’s not the show. It was never set up to be that show. So we knew that we were going to leave a lot unanswered. But we had a few questions that we thought, we need to get these out. And it was a bit of a puzzle for us to go, “We’re getting them out, yet even after these monumental ideas come out, we want to end it with: the show keeps going.” You know, the very last scene is the show going, “and the fight continues between these people.”

Hammer: They’re not just toxic masculinity, but hopefully looking at it where people can find a roadmap out. We’re not giving you the answers, but we’re definitely pointing and going, you should recognize this paradigm. This is everywhere. This is the road to forgiveness, that you have to embrace this and not perpetuate it. Venture Brothers wasn’t trying to be a public service announcement. It was trying to entertain you in a way that made you kind of uncomfortable, but go I think I’m learning about myself watching this mess. And that’s all we ever wanted to do. And we made our mistakes as creators. We’ve done some things that we look back on and go, boy, that was a young kid trying to be funny. And we luckily were on the air long enough to go, forgive us. And please understand us. This is I think what we’re talking about here, and our viewers just go Yeah, yeah, I think that is what we’re saying. And we talked about topics that were horrifying to people. We had a lot of gender issues in our show that were handled in this David Bowie casualness of just like, people have gender problems. That is just who we are. They’re not frightening. They’re not weird. They’re just something that happens.

[feastingonfanfiction]

First watch through of the witcher season 1 finale

(A series of unfiltered thoughts) (I am here for tissaia/myanna buring)

Geralt in the wreck

...

Oh it's been a week since that first place ciri went to...

A guy tries to organize and pay some respects to the dead

But he's told to run....who else is out there? Is nilfgaard still around?

(....I'm assuming through this whole thing jask left him?)

Oh shit it's zombies!

Geralt save him

Thank whatever deity he saved him

He's gonna still work?

One bite will kill you

Man go, you still got a family...

...how far was nilfgaard when geralt gets here...how far was shapeshifter and all that?

He's taking down these undead

But they keep coming, bro one bite will kill you! ....tho He's a witcher....I wonder if the law of surprise protects you from death until surprise?

...shit he got bit...no way he'd die...

Unless law of surprise? Or magic?

OK to lil princess pov

....WHO THE FECK IS THAT?!

oh is this the lady she stole horse from.....her horse is dead!

God I feel bad for the lady who was just trying to help her...

She still helps her...

BUT ALSO IS SHE NOT GONNA QUESTION HOW??

just a casual they got what they deserved???

Cool opening shot with the symbols wonder how they did it

3d animation in some way with vfx? Probs

Shot of ocean

They on the way to the elven keep

me seeing tissaia:😃🫠

Proceeds to focus on her and not the plot

Like God her voice

Fortifying the keep that's the strat

Sometimes it's not shifty ale sometimes it's a bed in a pigpen....

Nilfgaard is going for ciri ☹️

But she got point when she pointed that out

Why did you come along yen?

Hold sodden take continent....place is small...

It's heroic

And stupid

...yen who's side are you on truly? Like if you think it's stupid offer up a better plan?

Take children and hide, you can only hide for so long till they find you...

Ooo montage scene of prepping for battle

Rocks in bottles and magic

She can't go down, she gotta fight back.

Magics more feathers

Wish she could do that she says...that'd probs touch a nerve-ish cause things were sacrificed for power and they have two different experiences

It's magic it's not real

"Is vilgefortz to be our new-"

Again spoiled by tumblr knowledge before even knowing but I know vaguely that something happens and not to trust guy

But also nooooooo

Triss and geralt save the princess striga

...wonder how yen feels knowing triss and geralt worked together

Weary of his kind, so often disappointed....bish the drama I sense there

The ale won't disappoint 😃💕🫠

The way she holds it out to yen like gahh

Yen seeing the negative I can relate

"Must you always be fatalistic?"

"All the more reason to live tonight"

The way she looked at her when saying it

Gah then they cut to shot of vigelfortz

But then they give that knowing glance to eachother and chuckle....

Sudden seriousness are you ready for death?

Not satisfied after living many lifetimes

No legacy no family, sometimes family is not blood

You still have so much left to give(again thinking of fall out boys phoenix)

Evil guy and

Fringilla

What is their magic?

I'm not liking fringilla

They are going for cirilla

Who's the white flame again

They want lil princess

Lil princess!!

Oh son of nice lady, he's frickin mean

Heh she smack him, good sound

She's so nice like why????

Fire in the sky

Ominous they're here

Yen stops the fire ball, you go girl

Make a fire ball lady looks to the side where another cloak is

I assume the last person

Oh she's withering away Jeez, all for a magic fireball?

That's messed up they just dispensing people

I'm not liking fringilla

What is that????

No way it'd be over

Unless nilfgaard has a guy on the inside

Oh lovely shot of tissaia

Fog rises in....do they perish like fireball lady?

Yen is last resort reserve your chaos

Oh geralt got bit by zombies

What a nice guy

...I wonder if a guy can die before receiving the law of surprise

Obviously he doesn't but like

Imagine geralt gets turned into a half undead state where he's part zombie but the law of surprise is keeping him from

And he becomes zombie guardian of ciri

Her protector

Oh? Is he hallucinating

Life flashes before his eyes

We must live and let live

Or it's chaos

It's magic it's not real

Yen strategies on where to send people

Can any one hear me? Tissaia?

I can

Go triss goooooo

Oh poisonous mushroom spours

Who she?

Do we ever get like names of some of these mages

Yens like commander mode on this bottle explosion

Damn what magic is this???

Damn vigelfortz despite my knowledge of what you do-kinda that entrance was very cool

Vilgefortz going off script

Bro listen to yen but nooooo

What do you want? To get to the center of it all.....what?

Bro falls off cliff....i know what he do and like 🤔 imagine he perishes there

Dammit they broke in

...can't they just jump in?

No instead they shoot arrows

Was that vanielle?

Shoot....(pun unintended)

[I question this cause someone asked for request to draw her and tissaia]

But damn in the first season

Shoot its the sus box

And they guy dies to do that and deliver it....they really use their soldiers and not give a damn to their lives that's messed up

Tissaia!!!!

Answer her tissaia

Oh tissaia vs fringilla

Girl no! Don't give her a chance her stance is clear

How nilfgaard takes cintra

That was fringilla....

NOOOOOO TISSAIA

HOW DARE YOU

WHAT THE FECK IS THAT

Worms in the black box

Oh geralt scene

Did geralt keel over?

Oh no he's alive

He needs his bag, never know if the guy he...saved? Is it the same guy it's been a bit since the last episode, never know if someone takes his stuff

Oh he going for the drink...yikes

Like that pour it burns him

Blue mountains???

Who??? Smacks man to wake him up...

Home?Lil geralt

....oh no...lil geralt was left behind...

Vesemir? Who's he

Yeesh they're going down

Tries to do magic immediately cut down....Trish.....

Please be ok

No way she'd go down in this right?

Oh she making plant wall

Live plant wall

....are they...hypnotized?

What are you gonna do with the blue rocks....no way they're of sound mind....

TRISS NOOOOOO

shit please let her be ok......

She was burned but it looks like she's ok....

Slow mo scenes like these never seem good

Where IS SHE WHERE TISSAIA

OH SHE STABBED YEN WTF

OH ITS THE BAD WORMS

GROSS NOOOOOOOOOOTHE PEOPLE

THE EXPLOSIONS....

....is Sabrina OK?

Like if she still fell does the worm still have control?

Oh no....

Yen find her......

TRISS PLEASE BE OK

oh this is so sad.......

You the one who said it was stupid says we can still fight....OK yeah no that's really a nice moment she's still trying despite everything

Oh.....

FECK off fringilla

Vigelfortz lives...bodies around

Did....was that guy one of them?....like that wasn't nilfgaard and vigelfortz....just ended him....

So he betrays them from the start? Like right now??

TISSAIA

She gets up!!! What a queen, I mean rectoress....I hope she's ok🥺

Geralt scene

RENFRI???? IS THAT YOU????

OK so it's...not Ren or Yen

Who are you?

She's a mage?

....destiny?

Geralt can't see too well....

His MOM?!

.....

She abandoned him.....

But won't give him the reason as why....

She saves him but he can't get over this

His mother would rather destiny then look for him.....ouch

Most likely it'll hurt you both....

Move ON?!

oh lil princess find your law of surprise.....

Did his mom just leave? Was his mom really here?

Bro really decides ok I'm ok I'm off to battle

No NO NO MORE LAW OF SURPRISES

lmao just give him some booze

TISSAIA!!!!

She's weak....

She saved her....oh

Your turn?

Oh...damn this scene is good

The close ups ...let your chaos explode

Off yen goes....yen the last resort...if tissaia was at her 100% they'd be beat.....

But it's a teaching moment

(Again fall out boys Phoenix comes to mind raise you like a phoenix)

....also tho....how does yen do that control magic....like the people who made fireballs disintegrated but she lives.... is it cause she ascended or a different reason?

Damn this scene is cool

Tissaia basked in orange lighting yen using that fire

Weird evil dude....

Is that back up?

They a lil late but at least they here....perhaps they can help the injured

Why is this lady so NICE

like damn lady your kindness....she took horse but you still brought her in

Oh she want to adopt....I'm sorry lady but this law of surprise is for geralt

Ciri says nothing

Are geralt and tissaia in the same place?

Tissaia screaming for her

.....but why would geralt be calling?

Oh it was ciris dream?

Off she goes....sorry nice lady....

She just picks a direction and runs

Bruh

YOUVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME

THEY MISSED EACHOTHER BRO WTF

they gotta meet by the end

Lmao it could've been any girl but bro was like my surprise!

Off they go to the woods

.....

I hope yens alright if tissaia is screaming for her....

Bro is meeting child but getting cold feet he nervous

THEY MEET!!!

the way she runs up to him ....

Does she recognize?

The HUG????

Wtf first question

Yo who's yen?

Like what a question that's gonna be

[lionesswisdom]

Season 2 Episodes 1-3 Thoughts

So this will be all my thoughts on the first three episodes of season 2:

The pacing this season is so much better, we get to sit down with these characters and the scenes are allowed to breath. It adds so much more depth and I’m glad the episodes are longer

The Moiraine and Lan scenes hurt so much but god Rosamund and Daniel are doing phenomenal with these scenes.

Now I’m terrified that the bond passing will happen but with Alanna

Also don’t like them mentioning the Carniera thing. Especially with the smiles of their faces. I need to rewatch it again and see what Lan and Moiraine were thinking

I love what they are doing with Perrin’s arc and I am looking forward to him learning more about his connection with the wolves and his relationship with violence. As well as seeing more of Perrin Golden Eyes!

Donal is amazing as Mat. I am enjoying his performance so much. And that scene where he tried to go to Egwene to comfort her but decided not to. My heart.

I love how they are handling Nynaeve’s relationship with the one power and her block. You can see that her trauma from the s1 finale is affecting her. And oh the accepted test. I cried at throughout it. I love that it showed why Nynaeve really is in the tower and how she’s scared of being powerless to protect the people she loves without the one power.

And Egwene!! I really like that they explored her jealousy of Nynaeve and her insecurities. Madeleine did such a good job with her facial expressions at any time the Aes Sedai wanted Nynaeve. But as Elayne said it wasn’t a good look on her and I liked that Egwene realised that. Also so curious about the using the one power without her hands they are doing with Egwene.

Oh and where to begin with Rand. Those scenes we got of him and Selene were just wow. But Rand honey I need you to realise that you cannot trust Selene! I really liked his scenes with Errol and we got his red coat!! So happy we got that and I like that we are already getting into Daes Dae'mar and people showing interest in Rand.

Ceara Coveney is Elayne. She made me love Elayne even more. I really loved that she looked out for Egwene and how fast friends they became. Also her thinking Egwene was a servant was hilarious and assuming that Egwene just got here cause her room was a mess. Love that she soon got a reality check but took it with pride and acceptance her punishment.

The channeling also looks so much better! I loved the coloured weaves and exploring more of the one power. The vfx on the show has also improved as well as the set design and costumes which I loved seeing. You can tell they got a budget increase.

Also other stands outs were Verin and Adeleas. They were fantastic and I loved them the moment I saw them.

[daakjenaar]

The greatest use of CGI in movie history (I am being unironic) (SPOILERS FOR SPEED RACER)

It’s the final five minutes of 2008’s Speed Racer. Of course the greatest CGI sequence was in a movie directed by the Wachowski sisters, that makes perfect sense.

For years, films with obscene budgets have been racing to try and reach the point with CGI where it can perfectly mimic reality, where practical effects and props are entirely done away with and replaced by some underpaid VFX artists working obscene hours. Any Disney project of the last decade is perhaps the finest example. With budgets to match a small nation’s GDP, they have repeatedly tried and failed to make the finest examples of bland hyper-realism. The trailer for the new Ahsoka series, where the titular Ahsoka fights with white lightsabers in a mostly grey environment, is just the newest case of this. In the drab, depressing Lion King remake, the last few MCU movies I bothered to watch, and seemingly every new Star Wars project, Disney has used a titanic budget to make a shoddy simulacrum of what 70’s movie prop artists could do with a box of scraps.

The real reason for this is that, at the time of writing, VFX artists lack the same union backing as those who work in practical effects. It is cheaper to make people slave away in front of a computer for months on end to render Chris Evans in his newest low-contrast, boring American flag outfit. The fault lies with the executives, who decided that this was the best way to both spend money and treat their fellow human beings, and that this is the direction high-budget cinema should go in. So many high-profile films are just messes of shitty CGI that seems to get worse every year. And I don't want this to be some annoying "RETURN TO TRADITION" post, this is specifically calling out the really big-budget stuff. I've gotten really into low-budget indie horror movies again, and the last few years have been an incredible time for those.

Now, back to that scene in Speed Racer. What does it do right? First of all, I think it justifies itself. The idea of making something so vivid and fluid with mostly practical effects just doesn’t seem feasible. This is a bizarre, cartoony neon-coloured nightmare of a racetrack that refuses to make sense. Bright colours pour out of every single place they feasibly could, and then a few others. It’s absolutely sensory overload, but it’s beautiful sensory overload. Every scene in the movie is high-contrast and visually appealing, even the dark and gritty moments.

On another level, I think it also knows how to hide the weaknesses of CGI. You mostly view objects from a distance and behind a layer of effects, and that makes it hard to see how bad some things might look in a clear close-up. Even when it really zooms in on a car, it’s in a moment where it feels so weighty and is still moving around too much to pick out flaws. Even managing to get across the vibe that these are heavy machines with momentum behind them is impressive, and more than I can say for a lot of CGI-heavy scenes. Nothing feels like it moves in an unnatural way, and the real humans inside of these color-vomit deathtraps don’t look out of place.

I think the thing it does best, though, is context. This movie is many things. Goofy, shockingly earnest, and stylish. The final scene is the culmination of all of that. The cars are doing frankly absurd things. The Mach 6 is doing some kind of car judo flip in the end of the grand prix scene. The flashbacks that come up help set the mood and take your mind off of analyzing the visuals of the scene to the point of finding flaws. I cannot emphasize this enough, this movie is about someone who loves his family and drives cars so well that he ends up halting an attempted corporate monopoly and reveals an insider trading scandal, and the film is all-in on this. They want you to be genuinely invested in this plot, and I still am on every viewing even as an adult. The visuals, the music, the culmination of the plot, it all gives this scene what it needs to work and stand out as perhaps the greatest application of CGI ever. I am being unironic.

Again, if you wish to give pointers or kill me with hammers, please do so and/or kill me with hammers. I finished this at 3am while listening to nu-metal and installing bootleg Starsector mods.

[konggodzuko]

Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender... is fine

(Minor spoilers ahead)

Finished it yesterday, and honestly I enjoyed it. Is it perfect? No. Some of the VFX aren't great, some of the costuming is a bit, uh, costume-y, many of the wigs are real bad, the dialogue is sometimes clumsy or corny, and the acting is a bit wobbly (though this is excusable since it's mostly young, inexperienced talent). And from an adaptation perspective, it kinda messes up Katara and makes some odd choices with more minor characters like Bumi.

But it's far, far far from being bad, as either an adaptation or its own show. When the show's writing is on point, it's on point, delivering both funny and heartbreaking scenes. The actors are doing an overall good job (Gordon Cormier is perfectly cast as Aang), both in line delivery and action sequences.

One of the most surprising aspects of the show is that it's actually really good as an adaptation, for the most part. It hits most of the important plot beats from the original Book 1, but remixes them so you feel like you're watching something new instead of a direct retread. They mixed in a lot of lore we only got well after the original show (actually naming the Water Tribe settlements we go to, for instance). I also appreciated a bunch of the new ideas introduces. Azula doing counter-revolutionary espionage, the Air Nomads being concentrated at the temple(s?) for a comet festival, and (slightly more major spoilers) Zuko's crew being the 41st division all come to mind as ideas I actually PREFER over original canon.

Again, unfortunately they kinda screw over Katara, giving her less to do and less of a defined character. She lacked the righteous anger that so defined original Katara, and lost several of her best scenes. It's a real shame, but it doesn't sink the whole show for me.

7/10 I actually hope we get another season just because I want to see their re-imagining of Book 2, and live-action Toph especially.

[novelmonger]

Thoughts on FMA: The Final Alchemy

tl;dr - All the live-action FMA movies suck like an industrial-grade vacuum cleaner, and watching them will only not be a waste of your time if you do so with friends who are already familiar with FMA so you can have fun bashing them with each other. Still, this one managed to suck ever so slightly less than the previous one...maybe???

Elaborating slightly on the notes I took while watching, here are my thoughts:

I can't get over how unbelievably stupid and nonsensical the title is! "ThE fInAl AlChEmY" What does that even mean? Not "The Final Transmutation," oh no; we can't make the title be an actual reference to a line Ed actually says in the original ("the last transmutation of the Full Metal Alchemist" or however it's worded). "The Final Alchemy." I ask you -_-

There were so many scenes where they didn't play any music at all, and it was super awkward! What kind of creative choice is that? Instead of it being used to make a statement or ramp up tension or whatever usual reasons people have for not putting music in, it just came across like they forgot to add any music in some scenes.

What on earth is up with Raven's actor? He was overacting so much, it was distracting - especially when contrasted with Mustang's complete lack of expression, lol. It's like Raven's actor just saw that one panel of Raven guffawing and decided that was his entire character. Like...there's overacting like some of the villains in the Rurouni Kenshin movies...and then there's this. Super weird and out of place.

Not that I'm surprised at all, but the CG looked really bad for the most part in this movie. By far the worst was Sloth, though. I can't remember when the last time was I've seen something that bad x.x Not only did it look super fake, it just looked...really low-quality even compared to some of the other stuff in this movie, like a child's scribble next to an art student's painting. All of the effects around Sloth (like broken pillars and crumbling walls) looked terrible and fake too, like he was infecting the entire VFX team with his mediocrity or something.

But on the flipside, I actually thought the effect of Ed, Ling, and Envy flaking away as they went through the Portal of Truth was really good! Guess that's where all their VFX budget went.

Al's actor was nowhere near emaciated enough. Sure, they didn't go into the whole thing about Ed eating and sleeping his share, and I get that they wouldn't want to make the actor starve himself or anything...but still. Just sayin'. Also...he had zero emotion, even after soul and body were reunited. What's up with that?

And speaking of which, just like in the other two movies, they hardly had Al do anything at all, nor did most of the other characters act like they cared about him much at all - not even Ed most of the time. If I didn't have such a wealth of other versions of this wonderful character, I'd probably think he was super boring. Which is a crime, I tell you! He's one of my favorite characters ever!

So many of the sets were so empty. You could really tell when they were using greenscreens.

When they showed Greed inside Ling's head, they made him blue??? When it's supposed to be depicting the torrent of souls that is a Philosopher's Stone, and the Stones are red??? Just...why?

Oh, also...when the Stones were in a liquid form, it totally looked like sweet-and-sour sauce you get from a Chinese restaurant ^^' It was like...almost pink! Weird. I always assumed the Stones were supposed to look red like blood.

Yet again, the way they messed around with the timeline is paying dividends of confusion in this movie. Because they shoved all of Scar's character arc into the second movie, and everybody's okay with him now, they have him just come out and show Ed and Al his brother's research notes, which is how they find out about the country-wide transmutation circle, and only after that discovery does Ed decide to go to Briggs. Or how about Greed just immediately deciding to leave Father practically the minute Ling accepts him? And Father doesn't do anything about it? And later on, Greed joins up with them for literally no reason other than "lol I'm a rebel," because there was nothing about Devil's Nest or the previous Greed, so he didn't have the realization that Wrath killed his friends.

Wait. They didn't do Devil's Nest, did they? They didn't do Devil's Nest. THEY DIDN'T DO DEVIL'S NEST HOW DO YOU MESS UP THIS BADLY ALDKGFJSLKDGJSLDKGJSDKLGF

Also, because they never bothered to put Yoki into these movies, Mei's brainwave for the secrets within the notes make waaaaaay less sense. Sure, you could say her figuring it out because Yoki sneezed is too convenient, but she had even less reason to think along those lines in this movie. Oh, and they never even tried to explain why she's the only one reading the notes, and Ed and Al can't.

Buccaneer's head looks just as lumpy and bulbous as Armstrong's. Why didn't they just shave these actors' heads instead of slapping a bald cap on top of their hairy heads, or whatever they did? It would have looked a million times better.

Okay, Olivier is practically perfect in every way. A+ casting job for once. She looks about as natural as a blonde Japanese woman can, and she gets across the disdain, poise, and hyper-competence of the character really well.

They never explained why Ed can't speak freely with Olivier about the Homunculi, etc. The revelation that Winry's being used as a hostage isn't revealed yet when Ed first shows up, and Raven's not there yet, so why did they have to go to the trouble of going into the underground tunnel to talk? Yet another example of the film creators trying to condense and simplify while still keeping in iconic moments from the anime, but showing a glaring lack of understanding of why those moments happened the way they did. Because now you've got a bunch of disjointed scenes that are supposed to be iconic, but will make no sense unless you already know the story.

Speaking of which...why did Ed go to Briggs in the first place? Because he already knows about the country-wide transmutation circle at this point, his stated purpose is to stop them from carving the last crest of blood they need at Briggs and completing the circle. And yet...the crest gets carved anyway, and Ed just sort of...leaves? Without much, if any, protest? At first I thought they were going to do the whole Briggs arc because they wanted to show what I would definitely classify as an iconic moment: Ed getting impaled. But they never did that scene at all! Kimbley is absent from this movie, so there's no scheme to get Winry away from him, Raven disappears as soon as he shows up (yeah, they don't even do the memorable scene of Olivier stabbing him and shoving him into setting concrete), so they don't even need to get Winry away from him, there are no chimeras (probably because it would be quite taxing on the budget, which I kind of understand), and they've already covered the whole Winry-forgives-Scar scene in the previous movie, so I guess they decided there was no way to work in Ed falling down a mine shaft, getting impaled, and then closing his own wound by using his own soul as a Philosopher's Stone. Nope, instead they just abruptly shift to a goodbye scene between Ed and Winry whose dark hair still bugs the heck out of me whyyyyyyy is she special like that.

Wait, let me reiterate: Kimbley is absent from this movie. I actually don't remember if he was in the second movie or not (it was that forgettable if he was). Yeah, they just decided that one of the most interesting and memorable characters from FMA didn't need to be in their movie. Besides the part I mentioned above, Kimbley's absence also throws a wrench into a very important part farther down the road: Ed defeating Pride. In the original, Pride eats Kimbley to take advantage of the extra souls he has in his Philosopher's Stones, but because he absorbed such a strong, rebellious soul, Kimbley is actually able to help Ed overpower Pride in the end. This is a very important factor in Pride's defeat, because he looks down on humans, while Kimbley points out that the way he's acting is actually dishonorable. "You are nothing to be proud of," I think is how he puts it. If you consider the thematic implications of the Homunculi and how each one dies, you'll realize that this is the only way Pride could be defeated, because Homunculi are defeated by their opposites. But then, I don't think the people who wrote these movies would recognize a theme if it smacked them in the face. Many of the events are the same in these movies as they are in the original, but they're stripped of any subtlety or significance.

Oh, also Pride's death is much stupider in this movie because it looks like he just stands there and lets Ed do it, rather than it being an actual fight with the shadow-spikes and everything, and Ed getting the drop on him because he knows what it's like to be shorter than his opponent....

Okay, but one thing I will say in favor of this movie is that Ryosuke Yamada was by far the best actor in the whole cast. He captured the various sides of Ed's character, and there were far fewer moments where it felt like he was an actor on a stage than anybody else. I believed him. I've thought that in both of the previous movies, but I don't think I realized just how good of an actor he was until this installment. Because he doesn't just have to play Ed. He also has to play teenage Hohenheim in the flashback, and Father's final form on the Promised Day. And in both instances, Ryosuke Yamada utterly killed it. He didn't just do a good job of delivering the lines with appropriate emotion and expression. He also made the characters feel like completely different people. Everything, down to his stance and the way he talked, was different! And I could tell that he'd studied the way Seiyo Uchino had done his performances as both Hohenheim and Father, and was trying to match them in his own performance. That was so cool to see. I've never seen Ryosuke Yamada in anything else, but now I kinda want to.

Oh, and while we're praising the cast, Kokoro Terada did such a good job as Pride! It's a tall order to ask such a young kid to act like such a creepy monster, but he did an excellent job. That kid's got a future in acting for sure.

They cut out soooooo many of the best scenes about Mustang and his team, and what they didn't cut out was so rushed and just gutted of all emotion T_T They didn't even bother taking the team away from him, which leaves the Homunculi looking a bit stupid and lax. Because the whole fight with Lust went down differently (in the first movie a;ldkjfa;dlskf;sdlkfj DX), Havoc isn't even paralyzed! I never thought I would be upset that he didn't get paralyzed! But because we don't go into any of that, a huge chunk of character development is just gone completely. And though they did do the whole showdown with Envy, which is one of my absolute favorite parts of the story, it was taken out at the knees by the actors being terrible and emotionless. Oh, and the coup is introduced very abruptly and just as abruptly forgotten about, and there's nothing about Mrs. Bradley. And the moment with Hawkeye's neck getting sliced open? Blink and you miss it. Mustang barely reacts, and they don't even use Hawkeye's life being threatened as a way to try to coerce him to do human transmutation! Hawkeye doesn't give him the signal with her eyes, Mei doesn't close up the wound...I honestly have no idea why they bothered wounding her at all.

They already did the zombie things in the first movie (ad;lkjfgda;slkjg;sdklfj;dskfl), so they show up in one scene in this movie, have little to no impact because we've already seen them, and then are never heard from again. What even.

Why in the name of Flamel did they wait the entire movie to reveal that Miles is part Ishbalan? Why did they bother revealing that at all? They literally could have just said they were going to help Scar rebuild Ishbal, and left it at that, instead of having Miles dramatically take off his sunglasses and make the audience try to figure out why because it's not immediately obvious that his eyes are red because they made the color much duller than it is in animation and a;lkdjfg;ladkjhg;dlksgjlsdgj;ldksfjdslg

Oh, and you wanna know what the biggest kick in the teeth is? THEY DIDN'T EVEN HEAL MUSTANG'S EYES. Marcoh isn't in this movie - I can't remember if he died or what in the first movie, and can't be bothered to check - so there's no one to use the Stone on him. So Mustang's storyline in the movie ends with Hawkeye saying, "Maybe we'll find a way to heal your eyes somehow." Maybe. MAYBE?! -_-

So yeah. To sum up, this is a terrible movie and an even worse adaptation. I didn't think it was possible to take such a phenomenally good story and butcher it this badly. FMA is one of my very favorite stories of all time, and even though I've read and watched it more times than I can count, the fight scenes and tense moments still grab me to this day. But I kept on finding myself bored while watching this movie, and checking to see how much time was left. I never thought I would be bored watching the Briggs soldiers or the Armstrong siblings fight Sloth, or Wrath and Scar duking it out, or the last stand against Father.

But here we are.

[thebadtimewolf]

So we now have the Piper!Doctor. Doctor Who now has the opportunity to do the weirdest thing ever and have Rose Tyler reunite with the Doctor who now looks exactly like her.

It really makes you wonder if Rose's eternal love for the Doctor would include this new form.

Also it would have to mess up the Doctor to now look in the mirror and always see one of the loves of their life in the reflection. One that they might never get a chance to see again.

Well, billie would be down to shagging herself.....written by Lucy Prebble.🤣 im waiting for Lucy Prebble to be a showrunner of doctor who or a writer for it.

But jokes aside, this isn't the first time in expanded canon the doctor regenerates into a crush. Maxil (Colin Baker), the 5th dr then regenerates into Colin Baker and in expanded lore - maxil was one of the doctors crushes; admitted aloud by 12 about his mancrush on the Master and now 13 is forcibly regenerated into Sacha Dhawan (and if i count third doctor as a regeneration you bet your ass i was gonna count him as a Dr regeneration too ESPECIALLY SINCE 15 JUST USED SIMM!MASTER'S ELECTROBOLTS) and now this?

Yeah based upon the various 2004/5 interviews, the confidentials with eccleston and the constant talks then at the time as well as the now - Billie being a Doctor incarnation was talked about LONG before it now currently came into fruition. This was a long time coming, even if rtd didn't hamfist it as a romance, if it was treated as how eccleston intended and not how it was edited and heavily marketed, she would've been a face much sooner than the later we have now.

That being said, this is also wrapped in guilt. The Doctor also regenerates into people he feels guilty about leaving behind that's tied into simultaneously saving said people. If it has hallmarks of who he left behind, he will regenerate into the person mostly associated with those in line. This season was very... 'what would happen if Jimmy stone just didn't get killed off by the autons in Rose on screen as the burglar climb out of an apartment building while Clive dies and Jackie screaming' even down to essentially doing what he does to Rose by forcing her ie trapping and verbally manipulating her to choose the hand in a jar ie the 'is that it? Get a job eat chips do nothing? say no' speech that shows loudly her distaste in settling down doing the day by dayvlike he does with Belinda and Poppy on a massive scale who Belinda didn't want to have a daughter, that's what Alan wanted, she has a career yeah but the whole settling down? The marriage the kids? It wasn't what she wanted but it was shoved as an ending for her. (Im happy poppy get to stay but I think that's because her character momma is doing bridgerton again so adapt overcome survive methinks).

but hey what do i know. We got Susan triad part of unit and her and the hand in the jar are roughly the same age in terms of 'birth' with him what? 4? Like poppy?

What im hoping is that Billie DO NOT DO ROSE COCKNEY ACCENT JUST USE YOUR VOICE OR HELL GO FULL SWINDON since you brought up the fact an interview ago that the voice you use for tv and film isnt even your fr voice DONT. EVEN TOUCH ROSE VOICE EVER AGAIN. DONT DO WHAT DAVID DID USE YOUR VOICE YOUR FR VOICE.

SHE AINT ROSE NO MO, SHE THE DOCTOR NOW. TALK THAT FUCKING TALK oh theycantunderstandmeSUBTITLES GET THESE AI DUMBFUCKS READING AGAIN. THEY KNOW HOW TO USE SUBTITLES IT AINT GONNA HURT THEM NONE AND IF IT DO CHANGE THE DAMN CHANNEL. I WANT TO HEAR HOW THICK YOUR SWINDON ACCENT IS OKAY.

also hearing the doctor have crushes and mourn over Sarah jane again but this time its billie? Meeting and flirting with River but its billie??? Don't threaten me with a GREAT TIME. Imagine she regenerates into billie and david returns as tentoo to reveal rose died that would fucking suck butreally shows 'oh its a budget crunch' and thats why they just went and killed her. Just we had to save our vfx money to resurrect the master out of a tooth so rose dies off screen in battle and billie can get extra chunk change screaming with clashing swords and blasts while Murray gold use a 'definitely not xena: warrior princess theme rendition' score. Yknow for fun.

I wrote this at 4:40 am. It's not coherent. I just want Lucy lawless in Doctor Who now. I need to see billie as 16th doctor blush! Flushed and giggly but what I really want is the most is piper revealing she the valeyard. I want her to be the Valeyard I need her to be a villain in doctor who. This is the perfect way to do it. He can't kill himself, the valeyard is a amalgamation of every evil thing the doctor has inside of themselves and tostart off being the very face of BILLIE?? TWIST THAT KNIFE INTO A POWER DRILL THATS THE WAY THE TRUE WAY TO GO but aside aside aside all of this. I think this going to be an apology to eccleston by giving him what he always ALWAYS wanted: billie piper as the doctor.

[pkkstrikesback]

May 12th - Tsukiji & Ginza

At first glance, I thought it was a rather unassuming building, but inside sat the Tsukiji Hongan-ji temple, which was actually quite pretty. Above the doors were floral stained glass mosaics, I think they were water lilies. I got another stamp for my shrine book, and we even managed to snap a group photo!

Our main excursion for the day was the Tsukiji fish market, something all the foodies in the group were especially excited about. Most of them followed Akane-san to a sashimi restaurant, and I heard it was amazing, but I wasn’t really in the mood for raw seafood all day. So a smaller group of us wandered the streets instead to sample what we could find. Aidan and Will.I.Am kicked things off with some rather large sweet potato chips. They tasted a bit different than American sweet potatoes, but I thought they were delicious. We were mostly on the hunt for these 300-yen unagi skewers I’d seen at the beginning of the walk, but of course, I couldn’t remember which stall had them. In the meantime, we grabbed some meat skewers: mine was tuna and tasted like sea air, Emily got octopus (which I actually liked for once), and Aidan went for wagyu. As I was eyeing some croquettes, I looked to my right and realized we had stumbled right upon the unagi stall. I called everyone over to grab some. They were really good and pretty outside my comfort zone, I loved the sweet yet tangy sauce they were covered in. I paired mine with a crab cream croquette, which was also amazing. I’m a sucker for any kind of mush encased in a crispy breaded shell.

Emily decided to get some sashimi and kindly offered me a bite. I didn’t want to order raw fish myself, but I couldn’t leave Tsukiji without at least trying some. She also got some mochi, which I tasted before ultimately deciding I wanted strawberry ice cream instead. Will.I.Am got a tanghulu that was oddly cold; I liked it, but he very much did not. Honestly, I expected the market to be a bit more diverse in offerings, but it kind of ended up feeling like a pricey tourist trap, even though there were a lot of locals. I guess quality comes at a price, but (fortunately for my wallet) I just don’t have a refined enough palate.

The last official stop of the day was a train ride to Ginza to see a Godzilla scene brought to life at the VFX team’s building. After that, we were set free, and I quickly realized Ginza just isn’t for me, probably the only part of Tokyo I haven’t enjoyed so far. A group of us stopped by a toy shop nearby that featured a lot of American cartoons and Studio Ghibli merch. We got Gui a little kid keyboard to mess around with while we browsed. Sammie couldn’t find the toys she was looking for, so we headed off to Harajuku.

Our first stop there was the Fender Café, where Gui showed off some of his musical talent on these beautiful, Japan-exclusive Fender guitars they had. From there, our group split up, some went to the otter café again, others to Cosme. Emily, Anh, and I did our best with the hour we had to meet all of our skincare and makeup goals. Honestly, Anh was the MVP of that store, his mom trained him well and he was the decision-maker for both of us.

After that, I rushed over to Venus Beauty, where Akane had so kindly booked me a manicure and pedicure. I was there for three hours, and I swear it's the most beautiful set of nails I’ve ever had on my being. It was also my first solo adventure, and it made me realize I need more time abroad than this program alone could offer. That epiphany was perfectly timed, when I got back to the hotel, Emily proposed the idea of going to South Korea for a few days after the program ends. Details are still in the works, but we’re such perfect roommates, already reading each other's minds.

The rest of the night was lovely, aside from Professor Smith dunking on the group’s 196 recommendation (though, to be fair, I can’t totally disagree, it was mid). Most of the group finally came together to hang out and play some get-to-know-you games. The night ended early since we were all exhausted, but it was nice to finally have some bonding time as a big group instead of staying in our usual little clusters.

Academic Reflection

Harvey’s reading on Mahayana Buddhism and the Bodhisattva path helped uncover layers I didn’t realize existed within the different Buddhist sects. Amitabha’s teachings, especially the focus on reaching the Pure Land and achieving Enlightenment, honestly felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. Even though I’m not a devout Buddhist, I’ve always appreciated how the religion has evolved to meet the needs of people across different places and times. It makes sense that Amitabha’s version of Buddhism is the most popular in Japan, considering how deeply workaholic culture is ingrained here. A belief system that doesn’t demand excessive time or effort probably fits well into people’s lives.

I also found the juxtaposition between Tsukiji Hongwanji Temple and Ginza fascinating. Ginza, with its high-end fashion and polished consumerism, stood in contrast to the incense-filled quiet of the temple. Yet both neighborhoods reflect different facets of Japanese urban life: Tsukiji, rooted in history and spiritual ritual and Ginza radiating glamour and consumerism. Experiencing both in the same day made me think about the second aspect of the Dharma-body, the “self-existent body.” I still don’t fully grasp the concept, but something about the idea of emptiness, of simply existing and moving through life, felt personified in these two very different spaces. I felt like I was just experiencing, I’m not sure how to describe it. 

[loovser]

the guy she was interested in wasn’t a guy at all - chapter 4

synopsis turns out the cute guy from the cd store is actually… a girl

wc: 3,3k

cw: feelings all over the place, love you jesse and dina, ellie’s trying hard… my pookie. mentions of weed, cursing, lila is now kinda cool, angst, fluff and oh my god the ending just made me crazy and dizzy aaaand don’t kill me.

ellie fucked up. she knows that, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. for what it’s worth, it hurts even more to know that she put you through all of this. it was wrong from the start. a misunderstanding that she should have solved as soon as it came to her knowledge.

but how could she? when all she thought about was you. how everything felt so easy with you. for once in her life, someone was really seeing her — and it was you. she wanted that. desperately.

she was selfish. but the way you flooded her with so many feelings — it overflowed. and you got swept away in it, too.

it’s been a whole day. she hasn’t seen you around campus. not even in your classes — don’t ask her how she memorized those. but she wasn’t sure if she should look for you. well, she knows she should give you some space. but still, she already craves seeing you. she misses you, misses talking to you.

her mind is stuck on the way she touched your face. the way you were so close to her. how you looked at her. she messed it all up. and she doesn’t know how to deal with that. the solution she came up with — staying in her dorm all day — isn’t really working. it was just making it worse. she wants to go home to joel, but he is out of town. she knows that, if she calls him, he will go back instantly. that’s why she doesn’t. suck it up, ellie.

she tried calling you when you left. no answer. she tried contacting you, it hurt to see your old conversations. she wonders how it feels for you. probably worse. it confirms her suspicions when you leave her on read — every message she sends is totally ignored, just like the ones she’s sending right now.

ellie Do Not Answer (2:54) talk to me… im really sorry

ellie Do Not Answer (2:54) i miss you

no answer. you lock the screen, fighting back the tears. you’ve already cried too much over this. it feels so… embarrassing. you feel so dumb. how could you not recognize her? the way she sounds, the way she moves. it’s all so… ellie. you should’ve known better. but at the same time, how could you doubt anything about her when you connected so deeply in such a short time.

when you found out, you were so hurt. you felt betrayed. it pained you deeply, how you felt like you were being played. how she was making a fool out of you. did she laugh about this to her friends? did she think you are stupid, just as you feel? was it a dare? some kind of twisted joke? one of those bet things from crappy rom-coms?

deep down, you know that she must have had a reason for it. if she’s really anything like she was showing to you, there’s no way she did that because she was trying to hurt you. it’s so confusing how your thoughts oscillate between thinking about her feelings and reasons or just sticking to yours. like you are on a damn seesaw, feelings tossed up and down, again and again.

you missed all your classes today. your friends were texting you like crazy. leah even mentions ellie — as the quiet girl who sits next to you during VFX classes. saying something about how she went to all of your classes, looking for something and how she finds it weird. you snort. she’s such a loser.

and you are crying again. because, even if you try not to, you miss her too. you miss talking to her about songs, about you and about her. just… about everything. you weren’t even talking for that long, but you already knew so much about each other. except her real identity. the damn seesaw.

what are you supposed to believe? was she being herself around you all the time? even during texts? she did mention her roomie was a bitch when you thought she was miller and it turned out to be true. she also told you that she didn’t go to college, which she does. sharing fucking classes with me, yeah — surprise. i get it now.

it is too much. even more when you think about having to see her again. you have a fucking project to finish together, or you will fail the class. you can’t fail it. even if you want to change your partner now, you’ll have to talk to her at some point.

which is bothering her too. a lot. but not for the same reason as it’s bothering you. she definitely wants to work on it with you, but she gotta make things right first. somehow… there has to be a way you can forgive her. even if you don’t want to be friends — or whatever it is that you were — with her anymore. at the very least, she just… really wants to finish this project with you.

she opens her spotify, to check the playlist you made her and- oh my fucking god.

it’s gone. deleted. as in: doesn’t exist anymore. she feels like crying, again.

she needs to do something to fix it. anything. whatever it takes.

meanwhile, all you want is to rot in bed all day. or even better, all week. it’s funny how someone you’ve known for less than a month can have such a huge impact on you. well, at least talked to for less than a month. because really, she’s been around for a while. and it’s not like you haven’t noticed her before. you just haven’t really seen her and you wish you had before all of this happened. things could be different, no lies to hurt you in the process.

but it didn’t happen. and still, your heart flutters when you remember the moments you shared together. the way her calloused fingers felt so soft on your cheek. how her green eyes sometimes flicker with this hazel shadow when the sun peeks through the cd store’s window.

how you would do anything to see her flushed cheeks underneath her face mask while she flirted with you. or how pretty she must have looked when you could hear the smirk in her voice. somehow it makes you feel relieved that miller and ellie are actually one. the same. how all your worries were never really a problem because you were not confused between two people. in reality you were falling for the same one, all sides of her. of ellie.

you unfollowed her on instagram and deleted the playlist you made her earlier and you kind of regret it now. even if you never felt anything close to what you feel about her, you always had in mind that it is never a waste to feel. whatever it is that you are feeling, just feel it. but it’s hard when you don’t even know what you are feeling. you are sad, disappointed, embarrassed. but you are also relieved — and missing her.

gladly, a knock on your door gives your tortured brain some rest. you sigh, not really knowing what to expect when you make your way to open it. when you see jesse and dina there you can’t help but feel a pang of disappointment. maybe you should just answer her and actually talk about it like grown-ups do.

“what the fuck..” you murmur, curiosity getting the best of you. they are her friends after all.

“hello to you, too.” jesse chuckles and dina elbows him slightly, flashing you a sheepish smile.

“we have a delivery for you!” she adds, taking a little zipbag full of weed from his jacket’s pocket.

“um… i don’t remember buying this”

“that’s cause you didn’t.” the guy deadpans.

“it’s a gift!” dina barges in. “from ellie.”

“oh…” it’s all you manage to say. of course it’s from ellie. is she really trying to buy me with weed right now?

you blink, staring at the bag. they stare back at you, waiting for your reaction. you sigh as the silence stretches just enough for it to get awkward, grabbing it from her hand gently. taking it to your nose, you don’t even need to make an effort to sniff it. this is not your usual. it’s the more expensive one. some really high quality shit.

“wow. she put some effort into it, didn’t she?” you bite back a smile.

“yup. made her pay full price because of the bullshit she pulled-“ dina smacks his arm to stop him from talking any further, earning a loud ‘ouch!’ from him.

“can’t really pass free weed now” you shrug, trying to act nonchalant, but by the way they smile you know they can see right through you.

“i guess you can’t” she chuckles. “what you can do, tho it’s showing up to the college’s rooftop tonight.”

“that would be great, yes, dina. great idea! like, you could just go up there at 8 p.m. sharp.” jesse adds and you can’t help but laugh at how they are really doing this right now.

“you’re good friends, y’know? i’ll think about it.”

“okay, yeah… keep playing it hard to get like we don’t know you will be there… can’t fool us!” he jokes, pulling dina together with him so they can leave your apartment’s door.

leaving you there, the damn gift weighing heavy in your hand — and on your heart. how much money did she actually spend with that? it makes you feel bad, somehow. you know she hurt you and you know she knows it too. your heart clenches at the thought that she must be suffering with this whole thing, too.

yet, she’s been reaching out to you, from the moment you left her dorm. she’s been trying to fix it, in some way. you never expected someone to care about you that much. your friends never did. even if you know she’s more than that. or was. it’s been a whole day and she is still doing what’s in her power to try fixing the mess she created. thinking about you, about things you like.

and all you can do is sigh because you know jesse is right. if you didn’t want to forgive her, not even a little, would you have accepted her gift? you know the answer to that.

thinking about what she could do to fix everything with you wasn’t easy at all. ellie had to literally sit down on her bed and write down a lot of ideas — 43 to be exact. and most of those were shit, like finishing the project all by herself so you wouldn’t have to do it.

where’s the fun in that? she would save you from seeing her again, yes. as she had in mind that you absolutely despised her at the moment, it would be a huge favor to you. but complete torture to her. and she still wanted you to like her again, so this idea had to go.

the atmosphere in her dorm was pretty shitty. she couldn’t hide the fact that she was crying to lila, which made the girl stare at her for, like, 50 minutes. non-stop. without saying a word, too. not that ellie was expecting her to, it was just… weird as fuck.

but then “what’s with all this crying today? you are freaking me out”

the cinnamon-haired girl looked up at her, furrowed brows and face drenched in tears. “you are such a comforting presence. fucking hell”

and lila giggled. like it really amused her. this fucking girl… “sorry. it’s just that i’ve never seen you cry in my whole life. does this have anything to do with that girl that was here yesterday?”

as ellie cries harder at the mention of you, her roomie nods, understanding. “right, so what happened? if you want to talk about it.”

honestly? ellie did. and she is glad that they talked because, after calling her a dumbass and many other things, lila actually gave her good advice. which helped her think about the two ideas she hoped would work because she couldn’t afford to actually lose you.

after a few hours, the first step was done and she couldn’t stop smiling and feeling the little feeling that was now blossoming on her chest: hope. after reading jesse’s text, telling her you accepted her gift.

which explains why she is now kicking her feet on the bed, giggling and ignoring how much of a fool she must be looking.

lila raises an eyebrow at the sudden happiness, contrasting to the conversation they had earlier. “whatever it is you are doing, never do it again.”

she rolls her eyes, still smiling “she accepted the weed!”

“who the fuck would deny free weed? anyway, i’m out again. don’t do anything i wouldn’t do.” she shoots a smirk in ellie’s direction — teasing, but there’s something in it that makes ellie want to vanish into her bedsheets.

you’ve already tried all the clothes in your fucking closet and nothing seems good enough. you hate this feeling of having to go somewhere you don’t know what to expect or what to wear to. you don’t want to overdress! or underdress! dina and jesse could have hinted you what to wear.

sighing, you wondered if ellie was going through this too — yes, in fact she changed her clothes four times before her friends dragged her out of her bedroom or she would be late. you just couldn’t stop thinking about her. like you’ve been doing all day. and all week.

yes, you are, indeed, still very sad and embarrassed. but a lot of other feelings are there too, making sure you can feel all of them at once. how thoughtful. the human mind is so great.

finally, you settle with an outfit that you like and feel comfortable in, too tired to keep overthinking everything. today was… draining. you just hope whatever it is that waits for you in the rooftop doesn’t make things worse. but something tells you it won’t.

as you leave your apartment, the cold breeze makes you shiver slightly. winter is almost coming, which makes you happy. you love everything about it, snow, the holidays, hot chocolate with marshmallows, boots, beanies. it’s just a very cozy season to you.

the way towards college is soothing, even if your heart drums in your ears loudly in anticipation. you really hope you can see ellie soon, even if you are afraid to do so. you live near the campus, so it doesn’t take too long until you are quickly climbing the stairs, aiming for the main building rooftop.

what you do realize is that the building is way more packed than it should be. as you reach the 4th floor, your eyes catch this big poster that you seemed to ignore before. you had to double check to know if you were seeing it right. the words ‘talent show’ written on it in big, bold letters. what the actual fuck.

you had totally forgotten that this was tonight. that’s because you didn’t really pay attention to these things, normally. and you don’t see why ellie would, either.

she’s nervously bouncing her knee as she seats on the parapet next to the stage. well, it is a small one, really. built exclusively for this event. she didn’t know that so many people would be there when she submitted her name last-minute. but now it’s too late to back off.

and when she sees you arriving the rooftop, searching for her, she knows she did the right thing. you don’t look at her right away. but then you do. and she’s already with her eyes locked on you, a soft smile on her lips. ellie couldn’t be more relieved to see that you actually came. that you are there, staring at her and she almost giggles when you bite back a smile. oh, you think you are so smooth.

you clear your throat. you are sad and mad and disappointed! act like it, damn. but it’s hard when you see those green eyes you like so much. you find a seat, one that is close to the cute stage. you wait for her to come and sit down next to you, furrowing your brows when you see her grabbing her guitar — which you haven’t noticed before, too lost on her pretty features — and walking to the stage. no fucking way.

there’s something else you notice now that you let your eyes roam through her figure. she’s wearing a deftones t-shirt, short sleeved. her tattoo on display. some grey loose jeans and all-stars. just like she would dress if she was at one of her shifts on firefly. but she’s not wearing a face mask and her mullet is down.

it’s her. really her, not hiding, not trying to go unnoticed. it’s like she’s telling you that she won’t be someone she’s not anymore. she’s being herself, not college ellie, not miller. just ellie williams.

your heart nearly stops. she’s all you can see, like there is just you and her there. you don’t even pay attention as someone introduces her as the first one to perform. you miss how the boy says that she actually asked to be the first one. she wanted to be there when you arrived at 8 o’clock.

and she is. sitting down at the center of the stage, her gaze never leaving yours. that you don’t miss. not even the tiniest moves she makes, you catch them all. your attention is solely on her, just like she craved it to be. it’s overwhelming. all ellie wants to do is close the distance between you. but she takes a deep breath, striking the first chords as she starts singing.

“talking away. i don’t know what i’m to say, i’ll say it anyway.”

it takes your breath away. her voice is so beautiful. you always thought so. how it would send shivers down your spine every time she talked. but hearing her sing? a whole other level.

“today’s another day to find you. shying away… i’ll be coming for your love, okay”

everything else have turned into white noise. it’s just you and her. she is not just singing to you, she is singing about you. you sit there, hands clutching the hem of your jacket, feeling your chest tighten with every word.

you don’t know what it is. maybe it’s the fact that she keeps looking directly at you the whole time. or how the lyrics sound so genuine coming out of her lips and carving your heart deeply. permanently. or if it’s how pretty she looks in the dim lights of the rooftop.

you just know that, in that moment, any doubts you could ever had about her are long gone. buried, forgiven.

because no one has ever made you feel so special and so cherished before. not like she’s doing right now.

the way you smile at her and the way you look at her are enough for her to keep singing ‘take on me’ by a-ha without any struggles. it’s coming from the bottom of her heart and all she feels in this moment is you. all her eyes can see is you. all her heart craves for is you. it’s always been you.

and it’s always been her. no matter what came with it, a boy’s name or her discreet persona in class. it was her all along.

she is the one you’ve fallen for.

posted earlier cause you asked here you go!! so… next chapter is also the last one. tell me what you are thinking i love to read your comments!

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taglist!

thank you for the support babies, hope you enjoy it!

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[capyquest-logs]

Daily Log #18

Once again, I forgot to post yesterday, so this is another two-day log.

10/23 - 10/24:

Finished rigging and weight-painting player character

Created waterfall splash animation

I finally managed to get my player character weight-painted, and this time I had no issues. I'm not sure what was causing problems last time, but now it's working beautifully and is ready to start animating! Some progress shots:

Moving on to the waterfall, I really just messed around with some new nodes and made something that looks decent. Very stylized, which I love, so I didn't have to use particle effects or any VFX at all. Finishing this is such a weight off my chest!

There's the blueprints if anyone's interested. It was mostly just layering different panners and alpha masks at different speeds and intensities to make a nice, chaotic, random-looking mess, which is great for my purposes! Here's how it turned out:

I'll probably still fiddle around with it a bit, but it's good for now.

Whelp, that's all folks!

[skiplo-wave]

They paid RDJ 80 million to come back!?

Yup, star power and desperation trying bring back a brand will do that.

On one hand, I’m not surprised. High Jackman was done with wolverine until Ryan ( and fat check) changed his mind. It’s no different with Robert and Russo brothers. Robert coming back as different character and a villian is ballsy move. But nobody can tell if it’ll be worth the cost. Fantastic four has had such bad streak of getting movies. Maybe first steps and doomsday do it justice.

Oor its just okay movie, with okay vfx, story etc. cause 80 absolutely just covering RDJ alone and who knows if he’ll play doom with the mask on or off. The staff and crew probably still won’t be paid nearly as much per recent union demands :/

The MCU is a wholeass mess. Between outdoing endgame, there recently movies not being big success like their predecessors. I’ve seen lot of people wishing they cast someone Romani(?) which is Doom actual race. And let’s be honest would that be enough because again Doom and F4 haven’t been treated the best movie wise.

Seats will be filled because folks want to see how RDJ can pull it off. It won’t be treated like blade currently that’s a fact. We’ll see on 2025/26 if this be biggest win for Disney or biggest fumble of all time

[randomshipperhere]

Space with Markiplier Stream on MiltonTPike1’s twitch channel summary

I really thought the stream was gonna be Stan coming back when I heard the announcement yesterday 🥲🥲

Minor spoilers for part 2 will start with a ⚠️ and when I say minor, they really are minor. So much so it’s negligible info but it does give you a tiny bit more heads up

(most of them I wrote while watching, I just made it comprehensible enough)

Mark arrives somewhere in the 3 hour mark of the stream.

First topic. How to deal with burnout. Solid advice and discussion

Unus Annus and the meaning of it

Bitch I’m crying I miss that channel. RIP

Memento Mori

[Talking about the endings of ISWM PT.1] Yeah sure, Mark… there’s a lot of endings

No spoilers 🥺 awww come on Mark. Just a little pleaaaseee

Messing with your audience and how fun it is

[chat reaction] D:

I mean considering our relationship with Mark, we do love this back and forth.

Milton talking about Jerma’s Dollhouse </3

A few stories about the BTS

50-60 crew members a day. Holy shit.

In their busiest day there were 20 actors on set. Sheeesh.

Milton has a commercial story. I feel bad because man, even finishing a meal is hard. Having to eat the same thing for retakes sounds like hell.

Mark went over budget a lot during the filming. Interesting.

Last sound session happened last week.

⚠️“-last scene in the show” 🧐 minor spoiler? Kinda hard to tell if this means there’s only one ending or it’s like AHWM where there’s a true end.

Japanese Breakfast Club “Paprika”. I’ll give it a listen after. I’m not even sure if I spelt that right.

No F*p November 🤨 Mark??? Someone take his mouth away lol

Milton made a UFO 5 hour stream. Man

Mark and Amy loving video essays.

Habo Hotel…? huh???

Mark loves space but found that it really is expensive to make a space related production even when others already said so beforehand 😅

Industry calls write/director/actor people pompous douchebags. Good on you Mark lol

Isn’t that also Actor tho…

No one in the crew knew what the fuck was happening until the very end but trusted Mark enough. It also helped that a lot of them already understood Mark’s crazy process because they were in Heist before.

Space is the next thing for humanity

back to back movie night last night with Mark and Amy. Moonfall and After Earth.

Disonsphere??? hah?

UFO stuff

[chat reaction] Among us and Sus

ball lightning? red balls. Alien going wtf at nukes

Earth speed running any%

I seriously love the jokes in this part of the stream

Humans are just like the Orcs from Warhammer. You heard it here folks

I love the unga bunga human stories

Mark mentions Corridor Crew yet again

AI and the future

All I could think of was vocaloid

Mass Effect 3 mention

Milton has 5 space questions

[chat reaction] Wee Woo borpa spins

I knew about that gravity can create waves but wait black holes don’t succ??

Mark is very knowledgeable about space

He still loves kurzgesagt

Interstellar vs Inception

Mark likes Inception better (he still loves Interstellar tho)

I have not watched either movies (: I actually don’t watch a lot of movies you guys. Last I watched was Spider-Man: NWH

Mark would watch Ratatouille over a million times but How the Grinch stole Christmas (Jim Carrey) is his favorite movie

Any future plans?

Mark just wants to focus on youtube again 🥰 We miss you too

Once again the Pokemon smash or pass vid gets a mention but the backstory is much shorter here compared to the stream with Jack.

MEOW mocks him

jingle the keys in front of the audience m’dudes. Well… it worked on us

⚠️ Minor Spoilers. There’s a lot more stupidity in Part 2

YAAAY WE’RE WATCHING IT IN CHAT. With some commentary maybe?

OST being put out? 👀👀 Guess the answer is up to Schmoyoho. I’d love to actually listen to it. The bgm is so cool y’know.

Mark’s face watching ISWM 🥰🥰🥰 He’s so proud of it.

The design of the Invincible ship is based off of the Event Horizon movie

I see the similarities

COMMENTARY COMMENTARY

Burning Tractor gets another mention! He’s so proud of the VFX team. Corridor Crew mention again

Fun Fact: apparently the things on the ceilings are from Home Depot. Budget stuff

Mark basically saying how everyone’s reaction to the first video is “omg is that MatPat from Game Theory”

Champagne Glass scene. Mark had to drink 12 glasses of sparkling apple juice. RIP Mark’s throat after that shoot.

I mean, I like the taste of sparkling drinks but holy shit 12 of those bad boys…

smh everytime Mark finishes a project he says he doesn’t want to do 1st person ever again

Mark tells he used to do Biomedical engineering. He did civil engineering before that. He dropped 2 sems before graduating .

⚠️“Most is 3 at the moment” AYO MORE MINOR SPOILERS. You telling me my dumbass post about a 4 option path happening is possible

Mark: Recovery is for the weak

Proceeds to say that he’s been focusing on Elden Ring and gettin’ some oreo lol

4:33:55 is the time when he left

Thanks for the existential crisis in the middle of the talk you guys. This is why I just shut my brain off for space stuff. There’s some info that’s repeated but it was really cool to just see these two nerd out about space.