#I CAN POST THIS NOW THAT THE FULL ATTACK IS DONE. NICE pose referenced from Act 1's ending cutscene if that wasn't blatant already

[hrokkall]

What's gabriel in this au?

Some loser, probably.

[warsofasoiaf]

Its been awhile since you've done any character analysis on Fallout New Vegas, but would you be willing to go into one for some of the minor characters? I'm actually curios of your opinion on Silus the captured centurion and his motivations.

I’m more than happy to, although this won’t be about Silus so much as it will be about the quest Silus Treatment. It’s one of my favorite quests in the game, since it does a great deal just with dialogue and some creative use with the engine to create an engaging quest that showcases some of the failures of the NCR and the Legion. Given that the central theme is about picking a faction, warts and all, having a quest that puts the two main faction of New Vegas on full display is an absolutely good idea. The game is too old for spoilers, but it’s a long analysis so I’ll put a cut in.

Silus Treatment starts off simple enough, going to Camp McCarran, in the old McCarran International Airport, now the regional command post of Colonel Hsu. McCarran is not in a great spot when you first get there; there are periodic Fiend attacks, tensions in Freeside are causing havoc for NCR civilians, the overstretched NCR supply lines are making it difficult even for their central point of operations, and there’s a strong possibility that they’ve been infiltrated. It’s all Colonel Hsu can do to keep order and function in the base. Perfect protagonist fodder, in other words, for a nice quest hub.

It’s a tough needle to thread in any RPG to build a quest hub where there’s stuff for a character to do. If everyone is incapable of solving even the most basic of problems, it gives a great deal of quests for the player to do but it makes the quest-givers look incompetent, especially if the quest-givers are supposed to be capable figures in their own right. Conversely, if the NPC’s are competent, then the quests would be solved and that would close out on content for the player. There’s plenty of ways to settle this, and the devs do an adequate job here. The war effort means prioritization, and Hsu is dealing with being torn from both angles. He can’t just hunt down the Fiends, because he needs to organize patrols and deal with NCR settlers in the area. He can’t just pacify Freeside because it will engender hostility with House and so he’s delaying the order from his butcher superiors like Moore to go in with fire and sword. He doesn’t have a solution to the Kings but he’s trying to find one, which as far as writing goes is a good solution. Hsu is a decent man but overworked. He’s hoping that he can develop a solution in time before Cassandra Moore decides to pull rank and go on the warpath against all who oppose the NCR, which leaves a convenient spot for the player.

It’s this person that gives us our introduction to the Silus Treatment questline. Hsu has a valuable prize: Silus, a captured Legion centurion! Typically centurions always commit suicide rather than be captured to deny any useful intelligence to the enemy, so to capture a centurion alive should be quite a find. But it’s not going so well. Lt Carrie Boyd, in charge of base security, can’t get Silus to talk. Again, perfect quest writing to get the PC involved in the plot. Normally such a sensitive operation would never be given to an unknown civilian contractor, even for a bureaucratic mess like the NCR. Frontier desperation, hitting a wall via official channels, and the fact that the character is the protagonist in a sprawling open world help it pass ludonarrative muster.

Boyd is a real piece of work, she’s openly sadistic hiding beneath of veneer of civility. She considers the humane treatment of POW’s as an impediment, and so looks for ways around it. Notably, while she wants information from Silus to deliver to her superiors, she’ll settle for just having Silus beaten so bloody that he can’t speak anymore, calling it “entertainment.” This is a person who simply should not be in charge of interrogating a prisoner, she is neither humane nor effective at her job, but here she is by virtue simply of being the chief MP on base.

Not that Silus, the prisoner and the other side of this duo, is better. He openly revels in the barbaric practices of the Legion’s slavery system, even trying to ensure that the slaves can never achieve some level of comfort by tightening the collars and making it difficult for them to feel at ease while eating or drinking. Even if Silus is mostly saying those things simply to get a rise out of Lieutenant Boyd, he knows what the Legion is up to and enjoys it. Silus is arrogant to an extreme degree, he is filled with confidence that he can outlast any interrogation by the feeble NCR without giving up any intelligence, that he could easily escape NCR confinement and that he is so valuable to the Legion that following Caesar’s order would be a waste. Good fodder then, for the protagonist to bring him down to size.

Silus Treatment as a quest is relatively simple. Boyd signs off on the Courier beating the ever-living tar out of Silus and then steps out for a smoke, letting the player do whatever he or she wants to the prisoner. Silus, sneering, dismisses the Courier as just another piece of NCR trash, and it’s up to the player with how to succeed. Violence is always an option, you can beat Silus, and eventually gets something useful, that the base itself will be the target of Legion destruction. Silus admits that his fantasy of escape was always a fantasy, he was dead to Caesar just as surely as he as if he had committed suicide before capture. 

Yet if the Courier has points in Speech or Intelligence, he can completely upend Boyd’s methods and actually deliver a worthwhile interrogation. The first technique, with speech, uses an interrogation technique known as Pride-and-ego-down, where the interrogator routinely belittles and demeans the prisoner, usually their technical competence or soldierly qualities, in an attempt to get the prisoner to “redeem” themselves by explaining a piece of useful intelligence that would explain the deficiency as opposed to it just being a terrible personal quality. The Courier mocks Silus as a coward (bravery being a key soldierly virtue) and he defends himself by stating his bravery and that suicide is a poor death for a soldier of his intelligence and caliber, then saying how good a soldier he is for a “self-appointed megalomaniacal dictator.” Silus then spills that Caesar held his unit for three days because of “headaches,” in actuality, it’s Caesar’s brain tumor. The technique works to an exceptionally high degree, not only does Silus divulge that McCarran has been infiltrated as in the violence ending, but also that the Legion is suffering a crisis of command due to Caesar’s illness. The Courier gets a lot of useful intelligence out of Silus and doesn’t compromise the humane treatment of prisoners in the process. If it actually caused some self-reflection in Boyd, that’d be a complete win, but I suppose we can’t have everything.

My favorite option is the intelligence option, because the Courier goes full-on PSYOPS, posing as a Legion assassin sent to kill Silus for his failure to commit suicide on Caesar’s order. Silus denies it at first, but as the Courier continues to sell the performance, Silus begins to express real terror at the thought that the Courier is actually a frumentarius sent to kill Silus before he divulges anything to the NCR. The Courier fully sells the deal using Latin phrases as the language of Caesar’s elites. The Courier can quote Cicero, “legum servi sumus” - we are all slaves to the law, in what is perhaps a perfect example of Caesar’s philosophy of totalitarian obedience. The full quote "Legum servi sumus ut liberi esse possimus” - we are slaves to the law so that we might be free, means little in Caesar’s totalitarian state where all are subject to his whims and contingency plans for Caesar’s incapacity aren’t even considered. Of course, the Roman Republic was hardly a free state, but Caesar really takes the cake with his dictatorship. If Caesar’s dictum holds true: “Corruptio optimi pessima” - the corruption of the greatest is the worst outcome. how much worse is it when Caesar himself is corrupted? But totalitarians rarely raise the possibility that they themselves are corrupt, because the good of the dictator is the good of the state. After all, L'etat c'est moi is the dictum of any dictator, not just a Sun King.

Of course, fitting New Vegas, you can side with Silus, and facilitate his escape. There, you feign beating him to unconsciousness and slip him a silenced pistol, then Silus makes good his escape, killing the guard sent to bring him back to his cell and sneaking out. Of all the endings, this one isn’t as satisfying. Some of it, of course, is that you never interact or see Silus again, so there’s never any reward to the quest except for the knowledge that the base is infiltrated, which in the pro-Legion side of the quest I Put a Spell on You allows you to complete Curtis’s sabotage operation (and a far better Legion quest, in my opinion, with the NCR quest side being even better given the multiple outcomes), but also it’s not referenced again with Caesar. What would Caesar’s reaction be to the Courier springing Silus? He is quite fond of reciting a litany of the Courier’s accomplishments in Act 2 at Fortification Hill.

If I could improve Silus Treatment, I think I would have made it so the violent path wouldn’t have produced enough valuable intel, and the player needs to do some more detective work to actually get to I Put a Spell on You, or even being mislead by Curtis and becoming the unwitting patsy of the Legion. But overall, I think it was an incredible quest and a testament to the writing in the game.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[v-mundi]

Options and Evolution cards part 1. Here’s where we get to edits done in the name of fidelity. Either in the sense of accuracy by using the actual materials in Digimon intended to be referenced by the cards, or by bumping up the fidelity on what I wanted it to try to depict.

Metal Armor was a 2D frickin image again. So now I’ve gouged the metalmamemon model out of the armor part (do not ask) and brought just the shell for your viewing pleasure.

Giga Hand used to be called Giga Cannon. Funny story, the “Giga Hand” card in the PS1 Digimon World: Digital Card Battle (Arena) game is the same card as the previous “Giga Cannon” I had. But because I only knew dub names and attacks, I didn’t know it was actually Mugedramon’s Mugen Cannon. Also I used totally unrelated art, like wow. So when I went to fix the art, I mistakenly gouged the vertices of a Mugendramon off its cannon and had it all done up nice when I remembered I should rename it. Then I remembered why I kept “Giga” in the first place! So I quickly ripped the hands off a Gigadramon. It’s less gorey than it sounds.

Short Lance is finally an actual Piximon’s Fairy Tale instead of a random trident.

Scummon’s Curse is finally a...uh...well a real looking poop. I used the poop model from a Digimon game...but it gets better. I edited the texture and did a ton of 3D rendering effects to make it more realistic. This one poop took me an entire solid day of effort plus another next morning to make look...well not good. Just look. I think i hand-drew the previous one? I don’t remember but it didn’t fit the aesthetic. As poop often does not.

Chainsaw can EAT A BASKET OF DICKS. Nothing on this list was as hard or time-intensive as chainsaw. Not even the cursed poop card. It took DAYS. I had to source a giromon model which is basically impossible. None of them are rigged. I had to clip every vertex away from its hands manually and I have never done that before. It was the week I finally learned Blender. Eventually, I exported it rendered with a ton of matcaps so I could get the perfect look. It took even more hours in post. That card was really tough. It has gone through the most art changes of any, as I scrambled to find accurate 3D chainsaws for some time.

So Beam Gun is now the actual vademon gun. That’s about all there is to that. It was some atrocious, irrelevant garbage before. I color graded it to look cooler.

Okay is Heap of Junk something I modeled? No. But is it something I at least rendered myself? Also no. BUT is it a free asset? I don’t know. Okay but listen, the fridge full of eggs thing...that had to go man. Eggfridge is out, actual goddamn heap of junk is in. Aesthetic chosen based on the PS1 Digimon World style.

Training manual is a fun one. I figured out Photoshop can convert 2D stuff into 3D extrusions and went to town. So that’s actually some bs vector art of a clipboard I colored green, wrote a bunch of Japanese and english translations of the Hyper Coliseum “Training Manual” card effect texts on, and then extruded to 3D.

Mystery Egg now looks like the damn mystery egg in the PS1 game instead of uh...some weird volcano dragon egg fuzz thing. Look, in all fairness to me 2015 was a weird year. I made almost the entire base release of 200 cards in a few months while high as a kite, and did all the cards in numerical order. So Options were last. And I was getting tired and lazy about it. And I had zero intentions of this ever being seen by strangers. It was made for playing with at home in all intent. That last fact is also why you see such bad art to start with, t-poses, and downright uncredited renders from other people! Absolutely classy. But hey, without that monumental laziness and give-no-damns attitude, this game actually would not exist. Base Release would’ve never been finished until I learned all the immense skills required to make all this art that I do now, which I learned on the way through the last 5 years out of necessity...so basically it would’ve never happened if I thought other people would see it or I needed it to look good and not take random art.

Miracle Ruby is a heart shape still but actually good instead of a terrible photoshop garbage fire mess. I don’t know why the heart does it for me. I guess cause it’s a 1-UP? I didn’t even try to be faithful to the original card. And I could. I could absolutely load up blender right now and have a cut-gem looking ruby in about an hour. But I don’t want to. The heart makes me feel good.

[maiji]

Process and wip images for A House That Holds Long Limbs (Part 4)

Previous process and wip documentation: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

Read the pages for part 4 here (full complete version will be linked from YYH North Bound master post)

This is a rare glimpse into how I tackle action scenes!! It’s rare because I rarely do it. Action is honestly one of the hardest things for me to draw, and as I’m sure I’ve said here many times before, I have the utmost respect for shounen manga artists whose works are steeped in them. It’s a really impressive skill to be able to do it well - to create a cinematic, dynamic sense of motion that doesn’t dissolve into visual confusion and incomprehensibleness.

This was as interesting for me to document my thought process as it hopefully is for you to read and discover what the heck was going on in my head (a big honking mess, that’s what). There was much screaming and crying while working on this hahaha.

Aside from Hokushin’s beautiful face (lmao), Part 4 is packed with things I don’t usually draw. Specifically: action, things taking place in the dark, and corpses. For things taking place in the dark, I heavily referenced the dark room rounds from the tournament for Genkai’s successor in volume 4, because it involves action and Togashi used practically zero screentones in it and I didn’t want to either. For the dead rokurokubi, I looked up photos of skulls and drew on my memory of various horror comics I’ve read, like Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. (At one point I also googled photos of rotting skulls, but TBH I didn’t really want to spend a lot of time looking at detailed photographic references of corpse and decomposing bodies for obvious reasons, especially as I usually work on these comics late at night before I go to bed. The last thing I need is for images to get stuck in my brain when I’m sleeping.)

The rest of this post focuses mainly on action and redrawing things.

Script

The original script for this section actually ran a little further in the story than what’s shown here, but in order to convey the sequence effectively, I ended up stretching a number of key moments out and have booted the later ones to be completed for Part 5.

Thumbnails

In the thumbnails above, you’ll notice quite a few are redraws of the same page as I struggle - pages 31-33 repeat immediately in the rows after, page 37 was attempted three times, etc.

Page count growth

A script of 8 pages turned into 10 pages at the thumbnail stage, and then ultimately netted out at 12 pages in the final version that was posted. As you can see, effective action sequences generally take me more pages than I think they will. With an exception (documented below).

Thumbnailing/storyboarding things out should theoretically minimize the page count creep! But because I tend to treat my thumbnails as such a loose stage (to avoid later disappointment when I can’t recreate it as nicely in the final page), I rush through them. Unfortunately, action sequences require me to think a lot more carefully through the scene as a director - staging the shot and the experience of the motion and coordinating people’s limbs and all the items in the scene more carefully and whatnot than, say, just a couple of heads talking. So inevitably, when I rush to get ahead to the finished pages, that’s when I realize it doesn’t flow as well as I was imagining (or not really imagining it).

As a result, the actual “live” pages turn into constant mental checks and runthroughs of the panels, realizing it’s not flowing as well as I’d like, and restarting. By restarting I mean mentally reenvisioning the sequence, sometimes quickly doodling alternate thumbnails (I didn’t bother in this case, so I have no alternate examples from after I started redrawing), and erasing and redrawing and adding pages. I guess I could probably avoid this if I just stop and put more time into thinking through the thumbnails… but it seems like I end up revising no matter what. So, constant juggling forever.

The evolution of the key action sequence

In my head, the main sequence was:

Hokushin lands.

He gets up and feels something in the dark.

He discovers the rokurokubi corpse.

He turns around to discover a swarm of hands in the dark!

Ahhh hands!! Ahhhh!!

Then he gets sealed and stringed up. End action sequence, back to people standing - or hanging out, I guess - and talking.

I roughed out my panels and pencils for all the pages following my thumbnails instead of doing one page at a time, because I’m impatient and also tend to think of all the pages as a wholistic narrative and then drilling down to the details on each page (big to small perspective).

As I went back over each page and detailing the base pencil art more, I began noticing more issues with the flow of the action and the pagination. Things started really shifting and changing at point 4. Here’s essentially how my thinking played out as I drew:

He turns around to discover a swarm of hands in the dark! - WAIT he just sees the corpse and then turns around? I should have him sense something is behind him first to get you more into his head and experience. OK, insert another panel of him sensing and whatever. THEN he can turn around. This is also good because I can erase the panel where he’s turning around and give the first panel a bit more room so I can draw more of his body in the first one and make his startled falling back motion a bit clearer.

HANDS!! AHHH HANDS!! - Wait, I have hands coming from BEHIND him and don’t effectively show that before they just appear to grab his hair. Which I suppose they do, but when I review panel flow it seems jarring, like a poorly directed cut and something was missing. Let’s try adding some hands behind him in the panel where he looks shocked. Never mind, this looks dumb and he looks dumb and basically seems even more like an afterthought. Ooh, better idea: let’s have him dodge the first wave of hands. That’ll be kinda cool and more interesting. And then he can land and be like OH SHIT MORE HANDS FROM EVERY DIRECTION

Ahhh hands!! Ahhhh!! - Hmm, maybe I should add a page here to better capture his dodge sequence. So the panels will be hands, dodge, and then the next page is he lands, then he realizes there are more hands behind him. How crouched down should he be? I guess in the later pages I basically drew him in a practically fully upright position… eh.. Working this out...

*starts drawing extra page* … Mmm, thinking about this again, no. It stretches things out too much. Now it feels like he lands, the new page adds an extra pause that could be interpreted unconsciously as he thinks he’s ok, then he gets attacked by hands from behind. But that’s ridiculous because he’s a rokurokubi, he KNOWS the hands can come back around or whatever, and he’s a good and cautious fighter, the extra pause doesn’t seem to fit. Thinking this through, basically I need it to feel faster - he lands (typed “he hands” there first time around haha), and he doesn’t have a chance to react again before it turns out hands are coming from all directions. So, I’ll keep it to the one original page and draw the reaction to the sound of the hands coming from everywhere. Done. (one of the few instances where I reduce page count in an action sequence)

Oh yeah, I forgot about his arms and legs getting sealed. Er, add another page. OK done.

For comparison, below are photos of the pencils for pages 35 and 36 before the above process:

... and after:

Redraws

I generally try to avoid redrawing an entire image/page from scratch if I don’t have to.  Even if I don’t like the overall drawing, I’m still terrified of effing up the parts that turned out OK the first time around. However, sometimes you gotta know when to cut your losses and start anew and save yourself time and grief (I’m definitely still learning how to know lol). I do have a few strategies to ease my mind - I often take photos of something before I proceed to the next step or change direction (which is where many of these wip photos come from). This helps calm me down because at least now I have a reference for what it was before I took the leap of faith to move forward. Another option is to just leave it and draw on a completely new blank page.

Page 37, where Hokushin is getting his head pulled back by the hands, was an incredibly rare instance of the pencils for a page turning out almost exactly how I wanted on the first try, so I was loathe to redraw or adjust it. This means I basically forced myself to shuffle things before and after to accommodate not having to change it.

On the flipside, page 40, where the shot backs away so you can see Hokushin tied up with the hands, is one I full-on redrew from scratch. I was having a hard time with his pose and how all the hands were wrapped around him and how everything was actually working. I wasn’t happy with the drawing the first time around, but inked it anyways to see if I would like it better the next morning (sometimes this works, to wait and look at it with a distanced frame of mind). Spoiler, I didn’t lol. However, the process of inking the entire thing helped me better hone in on what parts I liked and didn’t like, so when I sketched it out again I was better able to adjust.

This photo shows the original (with the words REDRAW :/ at the bottom), a sketch I did trying to figure out his posture and where all the hands were/how the wrapping actually worked, and then the pencils of the redraw.

Final miscellaneous things

The end page of Part 4 is once again a last minute addition that resulted because I was facing a blank page (again!) after adding the page where Hokushin gets his arms and legs sealed. I changed the spoken line multiple times. First it was a line that’s been pushed to the upcoming part 5, then it was the “You certainly found my “treasure room” quickly” (that’s on the previous page). In the end, I just wrote a completely new line for it. It seemed to work better with the panel and closing off this part at a good point.

Last but not least, I somehow broke my pen inking this part lmao. Fortunately it’s a Muji pen so I only broke the tip off the cartridge somehow, probably in my intense scribbling/shading at some point. It’s not super clear in the photo but if you look closely at the point you’ll see this thin line coming out of the tip of the pen - it was this metal filament that basically scratched the paper without any ink coming out. I had to make an emergency run to two Mujis, neither of which had the black refills, so I ended up just buying two pens with similar thicknesses. Worst case scenario, I would have just inked with my blue cartridge, since the scanning would turn everything black and white anyways... the original pages would have just looked weird.

Phew! Hopefully it worked out and isn’t a totally incoherent mess!

[niponmirai02]

Black Butler: Book of the Atlantic (My Review)

Wednesday June 14th, 7pm, English Dub

For those who have not yet seen the movie, I would advise to... PROCEED WITH CAUTION! THIS FOLLOWING POST WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!! (Fyi, I have not yet read much of the manga... b/c there they don’t have much copies around here *sad face*, but I am well aware that this film is the adaption of the ‘Luxury Liner Arc’)

= I flipping squealed and clapped excitedly the second I saw Sebastian and heard his english dub voice. Again, I LUV J. Michael Tatum’s Sebastian voice. *internally fangirling like crazy*

= My friend was spazzing out in confusion about Tanaka’s super deformed form. Did Koukai seriously forget? Lolz. Boy did I have to re-explain it to him.

= Hello again Rau and Ran-mao. Such a shame this was the only moment we get to see you two in the film.

= Lol, Ciel’s reaction/response to Sebastian wearing a doctor/medial outfit. Really interesting to see Sebastian wearing anything else other than his usual butler uniform. Regardless, he is still ‘one hell of a [hawt] butler’.

= Alexis Leon Midford cheek rubbing and hugging Ciel Phantomhive. FUNNY AND ADORABLE AT THE SAME TIME!

= Edward Midford “Mc Sourpuss”. I can somewhat understand the typical big brother overprotecting a younger sister, but why can’t you be happy for your sister?! At least their father approves of Ciel.

= Sebastian’s slick back hair. One word:... HAWT!!

= Charles Grey referencing Sebastian’s “death” from Book of Murder pt 1 & 2/Phantomhive Manor Murders Arc.

= Ciel in blonde wig... Cute. Sebastian wearing a ponytail... GAUD DAYUM SEXEH!!!

= “We are phoenixes!!”. Ahhaahaa!! Ciel’s reaction is PRICELESS!! [Woah never expected to hear added content of Ciel’s thoughts. Nice]

= Aleister and Ciel’s interaction! *bursting into laughter with Kouhai and audience*

= The entire Aurora society doing the Phoenix Dance pose. Aww darn, where is Ciel’s reaction where you need it?!?!! XD Lolz.

= Undertaker why are you hiding behind the machine...and smiling. What are you up to? [FORESHADOWING]

= Gotta love Snake feeding the snakes.

= Lost count to how many times the audience laughed everytime they hear Snake speaking out what the snakes are “saying”/hissing.

= Jesus! The soulless body ate Lizzie’s cake for Ciel?! RUN!!! [No joke, the sudden pan to seeing the corpse behind them nearly scared the SHEEEET outta me]

= Snake still calling Ciel “Smile”. Totes love the Book of Circus/Circus arc reference.

= Ronald casually rolling away on his lawnmower death scythe like its some sort of an electric scooter and Sebastian’s confused [yet sexy] facial expression. LOVE IT!

= Oh gaud dayum, the demonic growl/laugh Bassy made

= Ciel recalling back to when he first saw Sebastian in his demon form.

= Demon butler ONE, Corpses ZERO!

= Wait, did Sebastian inverted his blood covered gloves or did he have a spare in his pocket? Lol, he didn’t realize at first his gloves were soaked with blood after his fight against the group of corpses.

= Grell Sutcliff enters the scene. *cue audience and self squealing in excitement. also, insert Kouhai looks at me with a WTF look on his face*

= Grell and Ronald TITANIC MOMENT!! *cue audience and self bursting into uncontrollable laughter* AHHAHAHAHA!!!! Can’t breathe! I’m dying! Is GrellxRonald canon now?! XD lolz. THIS IS FAUKIN’ COMEDY GOLD RIGHT THERE!! CLASSIC!!!! Grell I understand, but Ronald?! BWAHHAHAA!!!

= Elizabeth, darling, I love you to pieces but please quit worrying about your dress. This is a matter of life and death--oh nevermind, she realizes her action. Still is one of my favorite female characters in the Black Butler series.

= Partly unbuttoned soaking wet shirt Sebastian. *intense fangasming* [to self: AWW DAYUM BABEH!!! I would love to have you in bed with me, LMFAO <3] Kouhai: SHIELD YOURSELF! *attempts to cover my eyes but fails. I bat him away, lolz*

= “Mr. Sutcliff--” Ronald totally confirmed to the audience that Grell is definitely a male.

= Dayum Lizzie! You got some mad fencing skills. 360 NO SCOPE BEECHES! No seriosly! She goes full on ninja on these corpses with ease. Running along the walls and ceiling. GAUD DAYUM! Fave BB female character for sure (tied with Mey-rin, of course).

= AWW!! Elizabeth’s thoughts of self and memories of Ciel is soo heartfelt touching! Elizabeth feeling different than the other girls because of her amazing fencing skills. She is worried about what young Ciel said regarding his dislike towards strong female. OUCH! Right in the feels! And holding her true self back just for Ciel’s sake!

= For some reason, young Charles Phipps almost sounded a bit more closely to Sebastian. Maybe that’s just me.

= Present day Ciel doesn’t care about that anymore Lizzie, especially since he said that he said that was a long time and finds no reason to feel mad at her for recently saving their lives. AWW!! I seriously ship CielxLizzie (it is but one of many of my favorite BB ships)!! Kouhai: Sorry I don’t have a tissue [LMFAO! I wasn’t literally crying!]

= Sebastian laughing. I repeat! Sebastian is LAUGHING! And blushing?! HE IS BLUSHING!?! SEBASTIAN MICHAELIS IS COVERING HIS MOUTH AND LAUGHING WITH A TINY BIT FLUSH OF RED ON HIS FACE PEOPLE!!! *nosebleed* *audience laughter*

= Ciel totally calling Sebastian out to stop it with the laughing. That doesn’t mean you can stop US from laughing now does it, LOLZ.

= Sebastian, Ciel, Grell, and Ronald’s response to Aleister making them reenact his version of the Phoenix pose. *audience roaring laughter* First it was like ‘no, don’t kill him’, then later... ‘skrew dat, let’s just kill him’. LMFAO.

= HAHAHA!!! The Phoenix dance pose, Aleister Chamber style!!

= CIEL’S REACTION TO DOING IT AGAIN!!! PRICELESS!!!

= HOLY SHEEET UNDERTAKER!! MAJOR PLOT TWIST!! DUN DUN DUNNNN~!!!!

= What the heck are the corpses standing around for? Undertaker is explaining his big reveal and those soulless bodies aren’t attacking?!!

= Seriously Grell? Did you forget what happened in episode 18 of season 1 in Black Butler?

= Da heck! Added cinematic records... of Undertaker wearing a fake mustache!?! LMFAO!!

= THE ORIGINAL DEATH SCYTHE?!?! Love the design!

= Sebastian reaching out to grab Ciel’s hand scene...dead silent. Random audience member: “Why is it quiet?” *audience laughs* [to self: SHUDDUP! WE ALL KNOW WHAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN!]. *cue all the fangirls shrieking* Me: “NO!! BASSY!!!” [yes I cried that out loud].

= Sebastian’s demonic sounding voice. *nosebleed* They seriously need to use that more often if the series picks in 5 or 10 or more seasons.

= THIS is why many fans believe Sebastian looks closely similar to Ciel’s father.

= Did he originally have regretting second thoughts of forming a contract with a young “brat” who couldn’t remember where his burnt down manor was located? LMFAO.

= Food magically appearing on the table. *sarcasm* Totally not suspicious. Lol, even Ciel called Sebastian out on that.

= Sebastian teaching Ciel to be proper and adult like while Ciel “teaches” him how to be more like a butler... namely making better tasting tea and meals. Seriously love seeing the developmental progress between the two.

= Ciel pouring tea into Sebastian’s hand... as payback for slapping his hands with a stick (or whatever that thing is called, idk). My word!

= A quick few second glimpse of Sebastian’s bedroom!! Sitting at his desk and writing down his own thoughts about Ciel. *internal fangirl intensifies, lolz*

= Is Ciel having a nightmare? I wanna cuddle him soo badly.

= “One hell of a butler”. AHH HE SAID IT!! *nosebleed* I can die happy now...wait, no I can’t, need to watch the rest of the movie.

= Sebastian wincing from the pain. THE FEELS! My little heart can’t take much more of this!

= Uh oh! The luxury ship is sinking quickly now! Time to go everybody!

= Soulless corpses surviving the freezing cold ocean water. [Why do I feel a hint of “The Walking Dead” vibe]

= Sebastian Michaelis vs Horde of Corpses round 2! Liek a bauss!

= Bassy coughing and panting to his injury. AWW!! Poor baby! [Why do I feel so turned on by this?! Answer: b/c of my soft spot for physical or emotional vulnerability]

= What exactly is that thing Ciel took from Undertaker and why is it of much importance?

= Ciel telling Sebastian to rest when they return to the manor. Why do I feel the urging desire to see anime Sebastian ‘sleeping’ or laying down in his bed or something?

= Kouhai blurted out loud “To be continued!” [Lol]

= End of movie scene: WILLIAM!!! Picking up Grell and Ronald with his garden trimmer death scythe... then goes to berating them on their performance and beating the sense out of them, lol.

= Grell, you beautiful silly person you! Swooning over William the second you wake up! He just got hauled you out of the ocean water and you go falling back in once again?! LMFAO! [I don’t know about you guys, but I had a sudden “Notice me sempai!” “Denied!” feeling at the moment]

 My Thoughts: Overall, the animation was utterly beautiful and soo well done. I seriously love the character design...obviously. There were boatloads of hilarious moments from start to finish, along with some heartfelt and tear jerker events particularly about Ciel and Elizabeth’s past memories. So far the only minor thing that bothered me was the mix of seeing both the 3D CGI animation with the 2D traditional hand-drawn animation. Being a visual-learner, I have become rather quick to notice the obvious difference between traditional 2D and cel shaded 3D animation. But that, however, DID NOT STOP ME from watching and enjoying the movie... and LOVING it to pieces. Oh, and additionally I’m a bit sad that it was a one day and one night time thing and only screened in very few theater locations. I understand how many Black Butler fan were sad that they will miss watching it because it was either far away from where they lived and/or were busy with other important matters to tend to such as jury duty, work, stuck in traffic, tending to family, etc. Not gonna lie, throughout majority of the movie my eyes were fixated on Sebastian whenever he was on screen. J. Michael Tatum voicing Sebastian just seriously made me fangasm (I’m obsessed, I know. But I can’t help myself. He’s HAWT!!!).

Rate: 100/10 [And yes I mean one hundred] It was amazing!! I LOVED IT TO BITS! Would so totally love to see it again, if possible. Can’t wait for it to come out on DVD (if it does)!

PS: OMG!! TOTALLY IRREVERENT BUT SOME ONE COSPLAYED AS EREN YEAGER!!

Black Butler Tag: @sebastianshoe