#{ ` ☓ a scripted reply. }

[a2zillustration]

The final day

| First | | Previous | | Next |

[[ All Croissant Adventures (chronological, desktop) ]]

[[ All Croissant Adventures (app) ]]

[pseudophan]

Do you have a plan for at what point we start committing voter fraud back? If we go under 60% maybe?

yeah if (when, lbr) we fall under 60% i think we have to. would be less stressful to start now but also like i don't wanna cheat unless we absolutely have to i want the moral high ground in this so bad. but oh my god they are so blatant about it 😭

[seraphimankh]

As I haven't watched Return to Oz, i wanna know when Mombi takes someones head, are they dead or just now they live as body without a head?

Mombi turns them into stone first so they’re already in a sort of magical coma, unaware of what’s happening. But when she takes the head off they are aware of her doing it. Their body still is in that coma, but their mind isn’t.

Essentially she traps them in their own mind, aware of Mombi’s presence and what they’re doing, but are unable to do anything about it. She is sort of like a parasite crawling in and taking over, and they can’t really fight it since she’s a pretty powerful witch. Mombi can see all their memories and if they have talents/abilities she can use them as well

[emeraldskulblaka]

Needless to say that the changes I made to my online life at the beginning of the year didn't help; the problem is... me. Sometimes I wish I could start over. Delete everything emeraldskulblaka forever. But that would mean losing my friends too, so it's not an option. But I'm so so tired of using this persona. I'm not who I was. The days of me being the LotR Musical expert are past, there are others. I'm no longer trading bootlegs. I don't do streams anymore. I'm not interested in any of the popular musicals of today. I haven't introduced a new person to Tolkien stage adaptations in a year. I even failed to keep my rock opera spreadsheets up to date. I'm not who I used to be, this blog and all my other social media accounts are useless.

[glitzbot]

Could u show how ur process of ur making comics? Its so stylized and charming im amazed at them 🥺

thank you so much, this is so sweet!! and sure! I'm happy to give you a lil peak behind the curtain at my process

under a cut cause I'm a rambler ✨

every comic of mine starts with a script first! it's not anything too fancy, mostly just the dialogue jotted down in a very inconsistent fashion, like so

and once the fun of writing some sassy stolitz banter is over, next comes the most difficult part imo... thumbnailing the layout

the thumbnail is just a messy ass sketch of basic bitch shapes to work out where I think everything is gonna fit. it's probably not very legible to anyone but me. I mean just look at this shit

once I got that down, I scale it up to fit the page and lower the opacity. then before I do any proper sketching, I get that text in there. oooooh yeah! do those text and speech bubbles and panel borders first babes, TRUST ME. that shit's a time saver

then you can sketch AROUND the speech bubbles, instead of having to sketch -> add text -> oh shit the text is bigger than I thought, now I have to alter the sketch -> rinse repeat on multiple panels and cry

so after that, I'll do a first pass sketch but like yikes I got so damn lazy with one?? wow. it's not always like this I promise

here's an example of another first pass sketch as PROOF, sometimes there's more detail

aaaaanyway if I'm in a real rush, I'll skip to inking, but USUALLY I like to do a cleaner second sketch first like so. it makes inking waaaaaay easier

so yeah after THAT comes the inking. it's usually all in black (I color the lines at the very end, typically) but I did not feel like undoing all my hard work for this screenshot sowwy

after it's all nice and inked, I color using the typical comic book flatting method. flatting is easily the most boring part, but alas, it must be done

I use the fill bucket tool in Clip Studio Paint all on the same layer and yeah the colors look wonky as shit right? that's cause it doesn't matter what colors you use, you just have to be able to grab the areas you want later using the magic wand tool (so you can see all the backgrounds on each panel are a different color to keep them separated, for example)

and that's what I do! after the flats are done, I create a new layer and use the magic wand tool to select and color each area properly. minimal shading, because I hate rendering most of all, so I keep the colors pretty flat! I color in some lines after that and call it good!

I hope this was insightful in some way and made sense! I don't know if I'm any good at explaining things, so if you'd like more clarity on anything, feel free to ask and I'll try again! 💖

[seriousbrat]

I'm so relieved we share similar opinions on The Marauders vs Fred and George! Every time I read an elaborate multi-step plan to dye Slytherin's robes red or something, I'd think "this feels off!". I try to find a middle ground in my imagination, because being a magic school, every day bog-standard mischief has got to look at least a little bit whimsical - and James and Sirius earned themselves a reputation of troublemakers somehow. But imagine they'd be more likely to get into trouble exploring the limits of the castle and its magic (not sure if you consider Cursed Child as semi canon, but trying to get out of a moving Hogwarts Express is a good example), and they'd be really smug about knowing how to get around the forest or the best spot to swim in the lake, but not that interested in cheering and applause from the great hall tables for doing some spectacular display of magic. The fact that the most advanced magic they achieved for their age (becoming animagus!) was a well kept secret has got to say something about their type of showmanship. But much like Fred and George (maybe even better), they'd 100% be in charge of throwing parties.

Yeah!! I agree, I definitely think they were darker in tone than Fred and George. Their public stunts seemed to be centred around hexing random students and they were definitely willing to be fairly vicious about it-- they were to Snape, and Bertram Aubrey's head swelling sounds comical but it probably wasn't for Aubrey-- so I don't see why they'd restrict themselves to silly harmless pranks of the sort F&G would pull. I never like reading fics where they have pranking wars or whatever haha.

And you're right that their greatest achievements were kept secret from everyone. They were defined by their secrets! The password-protected Marauders Map, the Invisibility Cloak, their Animagi status. Even their inside knowledge of Remus's condition is what I feel brought them together in a new way.

I almost feel like the times they got into trouble was out of carelessness or cockiness. They obviously didn't mind getting in trouble for attacking other students and the times they got caught sneaking around they were probably being reckless. Nobody ever figured out the map, the cloak, or that they were Animagi while they were at school, so they were careful when it counted.

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

quick question: do you by chance know if dame aylin's "child of the moonmaiden" feature is a combat only feature?

Quick answer: No, it's a passive ability and it's visible most of the time on her character sheet regardless of combat. Here's a couple of example screenshots.

Long answer below, because I had some fun digging into the implementation of her immortality a bit more.

So, Child of the Moonmaiden is visible as a passive when you examine Aylin whenever she has (a specific one of!) her resurrection statuses enabled - which is not all the time, but again isn't tied to combat. You can take a look at how it gets handled in various game scripts here, as well as search for other objects or statuses or absolutely anything of interest. Aylin's immortality stuff can get a bit convoluted to track, though. What you want to be on the lookout for are mainly these three things:

1. GLO_NIGHTSONG_RESURRECTION aka "Moonmaiden's Reconstitution" which is a Status that does nothing by itself, and instead works by giving Aylin a Passive ability, which then applies some effects to her,

2. SHA_NightsongResurrection aka "Child of the Moonmaiden" which is that Passive. It alters Aylin's reaction to being downed by replacing the "normal" DOWNED status everyone gets with GLO_NIGHTSONGRESURRECTION_DOWNED - this implements the downed behaviour you've probably seen her do, and that she might get stuck in if in Myrkul's anti-healing bone chill aura: she's auto-stabilised instead of killed if she hits 0 HP, and when her next turn starts she attempts to regain 1 HP and then has her move and bonus actions if she succeeds. The spell Death Ward is implemented in a very, very similar way to this, by changing a character's default downed status to a special DEATH_WARD_DOWNED status. For reference, this is what that spell is described to do: "Protect a creature from death. The next time damage would reduce it to 0 Hit Points, it remains conscious with 1 Hit Point left." Sounds familiar, no?

3. GLO_NIGHTSONGRESURRECTION aka "Nightsong Soars Eternal" which is a Status that doesn't give any permanent passives (so you won't see it just hanging around on her character sheet like you will CotM), but instead has a short duration, and immediately runs a "Resurrect()" call on Aylin when it expires.

Having done a bit of scripting for the game myself now, I'm finding it easier to make sense of all of these than when I made this post. Still, this is me reverse engineering stuff and if anyone has any corrections or additions, I'd welcome them!

So, about Child of the Moonmaiden/Moonmaiden's Reconstitution, because you don't have one without the other, and about Nightsong Soars Eternal, which resurrects Aylin in a slightly different way and gets applied to her only ever if she's "died".

Aylin doesn't have CotM before you free her, even though she will always resurrect here unless you specifically kill her in the cutscene with Shadowheart and the spear:

How so? Most of the time, if you see Aylin pop up even though she has no CotM passive visible, it means Nightsong Soars Eternal was applied to her. But first, how does the game even apply statuses to characters (or anything, really)? And when does Aylin get CotM?

To apply a Status to a character you execute this call somewhere within your code: ApplyStatus([target character], [status to apply], [duration of status], [force of status - this is an override for resistances and the like and is not super relevant here], [source of status]).

A note in advance, whenever you see this great big unwieldy string of characters: S_GLO_Nightsong_6c55edb0-901b-4ba4-b9e8-3475a8392d9b -> [happy Isobel voice] This is Aylin!

Here's an example of a bit of code that handles Aylin's resurrection and which includes this call. This is a snippet included in the big script that handles the assault on Moonrise Towers at the end of Act 2, but something similar to this appears in several different places and, while there are a bunch of other bits and pieces and failsafes and helpers, this is in general how the game ensures Aylin doesn't stay dead:

IF DB_Dead((CHARACTER)S_GLO_Nightsong_6c55edb0-901b-4ba4-b9e8-3475a8392d9b) AND DB_GlobalFlag(MOO_Assault_State_InProgress_0f3a8f5d-7402-4220-bebb-d4b21d3db08d) AND HasActiveStatus(S_GLO_Nightsong_6c55edb0-901b-4ba4-b9e8-3475a8392d9b, "SHA_SHARSPEAR_MORTALWOUND", 0) AND GetFaction(S_GLO_Nightsong_6c55edb0-901b-4ba4-b9e8-3475a8392d9b, _Faction) THEN PROC_SetRelationToPlayers(_Faction, 100); ApplyStatus(S_GLO_Nightsong_6c55edb0-901b-4ba4-b9e8-3475a8392d9b, "GLO_NIGHTSONGRESURRECTION", 6.0, 0, S_GLO_Nightsong_6c55edb0-901b-4ba4-b9e8-3475a8392d9b);

What this essentially translates to is the following:

IF Aylin is in the database of currently dead characters (nooooo) AND the Moonrise assault is in progress AND Aylin having been permakilled by Shar's spear in the Shadowfell is FALSE (aka zero) AND we were able to correctly fetch data about Aylin's faction/approval THEN set this approval so she is an ally to the player (shows up as green, affected by friendly spells etc.) and give her the "Nightsong Soars Eternal" status lasting for 6 seconds.

She is both the target and the source of this effect, as there isn't anyone else casting it on her. Once the 6 seconds (aka one standard D&D combat round) have passed, the status will expire, and whatever is in its "OnRemoveFunctors" part will happen - and that is a simple Resurrect(100, 10) call. The numbers there mean Aylin is immediately resurrected with a 100% chance and at 10% of her max HP (as opposed to CotM's 1 HP). This usually results in her being at 9HP if this happens.

So there you have it, a friendly Aylin will pop right back up. The Ketheric/Myrkul boss fight in the mindflayer colony has a very similar snippet, for instance. But an important thing to note is that IF Aylin has CotM active aka visible when you examine her, that one will always kick in first. As many people asking for help salvaging their Honour Mode runs after aggroing Aylin in camp will tell you, combat against Aylin if she has CotM literally cannot end. She will keep getting up with 1 HP (she does not state that she didn't hear any bell, but she does loudly exclaim HO! I HAVE RETURNED! and I love her for it). The variant using Nightsong Soars Eternal has her actually leave combat for a bit, so if she's your only enemy, this will usually make combat end and let you exit turn-based mode, plus it makes her non-hostile approval-wise. (And of course, all of these things can bug out in a bunch of different ways.)

This is what it looks like in camp without CotM (sorry, Aylin).

Moving on, there is another way of calling this same function, and that is ApplyStatus([status], [chance of applying status], [duration of status]). A nice example of this appears in a very relevant-to-our-interests code related to the Soul Cage - both in the Shadowfell and in the mindflayer colony. The bit, in particular, that goes like this:

OnRemoveFunctors ApplyStatus(GLO_NIGHTSONG_RESURRECTION, 100, -1);

Just like above, "OnRemoveFunctors" defines what happens when the Soul Cage is removed from Aylin (no matter how this was achieved). So as soon as Aylin's free of the Soul Cage, she's given her Moonmaiden's Reconstitution/Child of the Moonmaiden variant resurrection with a 100% chance and a duration of -1, which means it has no chance of failure and it lasts until it is explicitly removed by some other bit of code. Again, this happens both when you free her in her prison, and when you free her in the colony after she's been recaptured - from that moment on, she has CotM until something removes it.

What's one prominent place this status explicitly gets removed? Why, Ramazith's Tower, and it happens when combat starts regardless of allegiances, as seen here in the script that handles Sorcerous Sundries:

//Tracking final combat IF DB_Is_InCombat(S_GLO_Nightsong_6c55edb0-901b-4ba4-b9e8-3475a8392d9b,_CombatGUID) AND DB_Is_InCombat(S_LOW_Lorroakan_a9d4b71d-b0ef-429e-8210-6dc8be986ee9,_CombatGUID) AND QRY_OnlyOnce("LOW_SorcerousSundries_StartFinalConfrontationCombat") THEN RemoveStatus(S_GLO_Nightsong_6c55edb0-901b-4ba4-b9e8-3475a8392d9b,"GLO_NIGHTSONG_RESURRECTION");

Fairly simple, right? If Aylin is in combat, and if Lorroakan is in combat, and the final confrontation has begun, remove the resurrection status from Aylin. Why? As mentioned above, CotM means any combat against Aylin very literally never ends, so siding against her would be an unwinnable scenario. There is also a fail state in which she gets downed after you've sided with her and you flee from combat against Lorroakan - if you return, you'll see he's captured her. Why doesn't she resurrect using Nightsong Soars Eternal? That whole implementation of checking if she's dead is not present in the Sorcerous Sundries script at all. So if downed in the tower, Aylin will stay dead until one of two things happens: you've betrayed her and you leave and return, upon which she will be caged again and swearing her vengeance against you, OR you've sided with her and the combat ends. Then she'll pop back up for her backbreaker cutscene, and it will be via this custom bit of scripting:

IF DB_LOW_SorcerousSundries_FinalConfrontationCombatEnded(1) AND DB_Defeated(S_GLO_Nightsong_6c55edb0-901b-4ba4-b9e8-3475a8392d9b) AND DB_GlobalFlag((FLAG)LOW_Lorroakan_State_IsPermadefeated_2c446081-2f24-49c4-84d9-b8f64a3d3098) AND NOT DB_GlobalFlag((FLAG)LOW_SorcerousSundries_State_PlayersSideWithLorroakan_24c45d86-9027-48cc-afdd-3e6bac7d5425) AND QRY_OnlyOnce("LOW_SorcerousSundries_NightsongGetsUpAfterCombat") THEN PROC_CharacterFullRestore((CHARACTER)S_GLO_Nightsong_6c55edb0-901b-4ba4-b9e8-3475a8392d9b);

If the combat is over, Aylin is down, Lorroakan is dead and the player didn't side with Lorroakan, get Aylin up and do a "full restore" of her.

This makes way for some of the most delightful of checks in a segment of code marked as "//REGION Nightsong going to WWE Lorroakan":

PROC PROC_LOW_SorcerousSundries_HandleNightsongVictory() AND QRY_SorcerousSundries_NightsongCanSmashLorro() QRY_SorcerousSundries_LorroakanBodySmashable() QRY_OnlyOnce("LOW_SorcerousSundries_NightsongSmash")

The many branching variants handled here were actually really interesting to see, from who is alive at the end of the fight and who the player sided with to whether Isobel is still alive and whether Lorroakan's corpse has a head.

There's also a Patch 3 fix for older savegames, addressing a bug that I remember being fairly common, where Aylin would just not ever resurrect after the wizard tower and sometimes wouldn't ever come back to camp. It basically looks at your save, just checks a couple flags and triggers Nightsong Soars Eternal on Aylin if she is for whatever reason still in the "dead characters database" even though you sided with her against the wizard (and didn't kill her in the Shadowfell, of course).

Just in case anyone missed me dying on my hill, by the way, none of this has anything to do with her "breaking her oath" or "losing her mother's favour" or anything of the sort, because none of that happens at all.

I also love the straightforwardness of some of her behaviour parameters and the comments:

Act2_GLO_Nightsong AI Archetype USING melee_smart //Focus harder on Keth MULTIPLIER_TARGET_PREFERRED 4.50 //Care less about killing the minions - MULTIPLIER_KILL_ENEMY -0.20 //To stop her from overvaluing shoves on the necromites - MULTIPLIER_FALL_DAMAGE_ENEMY 0.2

To wrap this all up, thank you for your attention, hope you enjoyed or found any of this at all interesting. Here's a very sad fact I discovered today:

Boooo. Let her rock out.

[tadpole-art]

About your Zuko post - Dallas Liu did a great job with what he was given and he obviosly loves the character. Unfortunately, he was given mostly rotten scraps to work with. The script of NATLA heavily watered down pretty much every character, and while Katara got the absolute worst treatment, Zuko wasn't far behind.

Oh yeah no hate to the actors at all, they're just doing their best with what they were given! Which unfortunately wasn't a lot 😭 I have heard Zuko and Aang's performances were pretty good despite it. And the things I've heard about Katara,,,she's definitely in the show 😓

[streets-in-paradise]

omg i had no idea patroclus showed the moves he learned from achilles to the girls..THATS SO CUTE AAAAAA (srry i didn’t really understand if this is something canon coming from troy or just one of your thoughts but this is so good anywayyyy)

Tecnically, it is implied in a deleted line on the script:

I understand why they deleted it, the internet is already an insufferable place attacking the version of the movie we got just because Achilles and Patroclus are relatives. It would have been like feeding gasoline to the flames of hate from Patrochilles shippers, so I am glad this stayed as a little in script bonus.

We can enjoy it, add it to our cute movie headcanons. It stays with us: I don't have to see a million edits of the line being mocked over and over by people who didn't even watched the movie in the first place, or did it in bad faith.

Everybody wins.

[mercysought]

❝ Civilization needs its monsters. ❞ /hakkon 2 the priestess

BLACK SAILS SEASON 2 - ACCEPTING / @skyheld

   "Everyone is a monster in someone else's story."

To be a monster or perceived as such was simple. And it was plain. It held no value in the world and where they stood - to be feared was only partial and it lead to having nothing but brutes that would trade you for a better fortune elsewhere. A father who only knew how to love by the use of the belt was one who would find their children rebelling, their children leaving. If the world was kinder, Elgar'nan would have died in that prison - but the world is not kind and so it must be up to their hands that justice be enacted.

Her head turns to face Hakkon - it was clear to her, without the use of blood magic, or the changes in their face from the light of the brand to the sutler aspects, when it was one or the other that spoke to her. What need was there for a God of War in a time of peace? What good were monsters when one was tending the soil to help crops grow. She had no need of monsters, at least not monsters that would not use their gifts to protect others - protect them from becoming just like them "Civilization needs shepherds more than it needs wolves."

Guides. The world needed guides now that they were all gone. Now that every guide officially lay bloodied on the road to the Beyond. The priestess would not have the children be lead into the beyond through puddles of blood and torn images of a distant comfort and warmth that was meant for them. She was no guide, she was no shepherd, but she had working hands - she would make sure that there was no blood, that the lights would keep the monsters and wolves away.

The road would be lonely, but it would be paved, and it would be welcoming. The Lord of Fortune may be dead, but the would at least provide them a warm blanket before they departed.

   "The children are to be trained in fighting, but under strict discipline as to not allow themselves to go beyond the point of stunting growth and potential." her tone is flat, her brow arched as her scarred hands fold in front of her stomach "Show yourself to be a strong and safe beacon, they will flock to you and listen." a pause "You will thank me for it."

Still, it was good to know that if something were to happen to her that at least they would have capable fighters. Not the children, of course, they were first trained to hide and flee - their lives too precious to throw into the grinder. But it was good to see progress in those that volunteered - it was encouraging to see others that were inspired by their own people and the strength and safety they could provide themselves.

She indicates for him to follow, though she stops midstep - her dark eyes watching from the edge of her vision. Taking their form for a moment - head tilting to the side. He was doing a good job, when he was allowed to come out.

   "Do not stray from my word." she doesn't use his name - the name carried too much weight too much connotation. There were some of his people here too, fleeing the south as another blight loomed "I will know."

[nights-at-crystarium]

One user carries my entire mental health with these tags ;w; <3

I love the subtle observation that Vivi half plays the role that was dumped on him, half tries his genuine best. He acts unusual here. Much as I'd like to, I can't show everything about his life at once, that's not how comics (or stories in general) work, and I consider this moment a shortcoming on my end because I randomly decided to show the Titania fight in closer detail while it wasn't part of the initial plan, I just thought some more about Vivi and Feo, and his visual resemblance with Titania completely blindsided me. Suddenly I saw a chance to strengthen Vivi and Feo's friendship by making them overcome a little bump on the road, as well as give Vivi motivation to be kind to Titania (because Feo seems to care about them).

When I really settle down to Think About A Character, such things happen. I just realized that Titania belongs to the same category of a beloved character in ShB that spends an unholy amount of time in terrible isolation as a price for being a hero to their people, and then I needed to give them more love than the canon did.

This arc's turned out decent, but it lacks the precedent in form of other fights where Vivi just. Doesn't care. Normally he tries to finish a fight asap and move on. However, the comic shows us the Titania encounter as the first real fight, and it's an unusual display of empathy for Vivi. Statistically, the first encounter can't be seen as an outlier. Ah well, I'll figure it out x'D

[purplepixel]

I FORGOT ABOUT YOUR TMNP AU!!!

Rest assured i have not, despite being quiet about it on tumblr.

Do you know how often i have to hold myself back?? Curse me for wanting to keep things a surprise and go about this au in the traditional chronological sense. Ive cooked too much behind the scenes, these little guys need to see the light

[randomnameless]

If you had the power to change one thing in FEH, what it would be?

Easy anon!

Add dual audio!

powercreep and more complex mechanics were bound to happen in a 9 years old mobile gacha game to keep things interesting and churn out new content for players to spend on.

Even if I officially abandoned it around last september, only to pop up for forging bonds or new alts, I can say I had around, more or less, six years of "fun" with this gacha, sure, they could have hired writers to make us care for the "plot" of the OCs but I feel that unlike Bamco's Tales gachas, FEH was never the type of gacha you played for the story, but just to see you favorite units in chibi mode to play some maps with them, a kind of puzzle game but with your favorite units (or some you come to love by playing the game!).

However, if there is one thing that sceams "missed opportunity", it's not the powercreep that speed ran to end up to where we are today, it's not even the "plot" or the OCs...

It's just something as minor but, as memorable to me, as dual audio.

The "but not enough space to add everything!!" always felt like a Dexit excuse, that thinly tried to hide that FEH was released around a time where the mainline titles removed dual audio for some reason (FE13 had it, FE14 didn't and FE15, released a few months after Heroes' release didn't have it either!) only to bring it back for FE16 and onwards (Nopes and FE17).

So to reply to your question anon, if I had the power to change one thing in FEH, it would have been to add dual audio.

[thevioletcaptain]

i'm supposed to be sleeping (went to bed like an hour ago) but i spent a decent chunk of today working on chapters 5 & 6 of as a friend and now my brain refuses to shut the hell up about it. which means that instead of being unconscious i've just spent 20 minutes rewriting the [first morning back at the bunker after everyone knows] scene on my phone, and i genuinely hope that it is actually as funny as it currently seems to my half-asleep brain.

[aemiron-main]

thinking about the peoples’ prince 8flix nick tonight… rest peacefully fallen soldier… he made the ultimate sacrifice… i hope he’s doing okay in the duffers’ basement.. those scripts were REAL but netflix CRUCIFIED HIM its ok nick i get what you meant when you said the script made you think brenner was part demogorgon. He was a vessel of knowledge an oracle he was bestowing knowledge upon us that not even he understood the ramifications of and the people TURNED THEIR BACKS ON HIM!!

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

Mark my words, once I obtain (JOB), you WILL see the most deranged asks. Or, I shall try. It's a tough competition out here. To be deplorable, yet not downright despicable to the point where the request isn't taken, that is the question.

You must get a job specifically for this reason alone. It is a righteous cause.

teehee.

Ive noticed that open ended requests get the most um................................................................................................

interesting replies.

yeah.