#absolutely in love with the way you render here!!! and the shapes of the foliage... idk man this is sooo so so pretty

[spellfist-3d]

Guide to that elusive “PS1-pixelated-lowpoly”(but not really)

With the videogame playing population growing up we've finally broke from pixel-art nostalgia into the broadly called "low-poly" nostalgia. On closer look this broad categorization gets further described as “PS1 pixelated textures low-poly”, which is a bit better, but still is a really broad and a pretty wrong description of this style that’s so dear to a plenty of game-playing and game making individuals these days. I’ll try to dive into some of the technicalities and examples of this style in the attempt to find it’s characteristics and some actual technical requirements to meet this style.

Let’s start with the obvious, calling it PS1 low-poly is wrong, mostly because the same games were release on Nintendo 64, Dreamcast and PC. More so, games released later can be put into the same category, plenty of NDS or PSP games fit into the same style and adhere to the same economy principles. The only real surface level thing unifying these games is the game size, that is, the games came on CDs. The advent of a DVD format really changed up how the games look, so the graphical style we’re talking about here is called CD-3D in smaller circles.

First let’s look at the games that fit the criteria would give you some information to describe the style, textures are obviously small enough to have visible pixelation (hidden by texture filtering) and models are obviously low-poly (that is around or less than 500 triangles for a character), but let’s see what doesn’t seem so obvious. Here’s Spyro and Crash, fan favorites

Both games check both points we’ve noted before, but what’s not obvious to an untrained eye is that these games both extensively use Vertex Color, the thing you’ll notice more and more in other games we’ll talk about. Vertex Color is absolutely simple, each vertex of a mesh can be assigned a RGBA value and they’re then linearly blended with other vertex colors. Notice how in Spyro the yellow and purple light is placed on places where texture is repeated, following that you can eyeball where the wireframe is and then you’ll see that the vertex color is used to simulate lighting. Crash himself is filled with Vertex Color, it’s a cheap way to avoid using textures, while having some control over the color of the thing, instead of it being a solid chunk. If you search-engine around you can also find some really fascinating notes on the development of the original Crash and the tricks they’ve pulled! The more ingenious way to use Vertex Color is to take a look at Spyro skyboxes:

Notice how the clouds are diamond-like in shape and are linearly gradiented to the next point in the wireframe.

Vertex color was used extensively and fell off with the increasing complexity of the meshes, delegated mostly to technical masking of stuff like foliage, it’s still a powerful tool for lower triangle counts.

Textures

Now, let’s talk about the textures. Pixelated textures look nice and crisp these days, at the age of 1080p being the norm, turning texture filtering really makes the games look crisp and feel right

Quake 1 is a perfect example of CD-3D style, often undeservingly forgot in discussions about this style.

But this makes us forget that the textures were often authored with texture filtering in mind. Careful step gradienting to make textures seem smoother after being filtered is a craft in itself.

Texture filtering is not bad in itself, some games look better without it these days, because of the display resolutions, but it’s still a valid tool to apply, it can help push low-res texture a bit higher and produce a softening effect make those 4 pixels into a round circle or improve a visual effect.

Of course, some games took a deliberate approach of avoiding smudged look, like Megaman Legends, for example.

Via a very deliberate texture economy and unwrapping the developers were able to produce very crisp and pixel perfect textures (slightly warped by the infamous PS1 rendering), that look absolutely astounding when you render the game in a modern resolution. Pixel-aware UV Unwrapping, is being used in most games that are considered the pinnacle of CD-3D style, this technique is so powerful, that it was used to great effect in PS2 era games, PSP games and even modern games like Guilty Gear (for a different effect though). Let’s take a closer look,

As you can see, our character is unwrapped in square pieces in such a way that a straight line on a texture will produce a straight line on a model. While Vagrant Story is an absolutely perfect in execution of this technique, it’s also used in a same way in Megaman Legends

While I couldn’t find a reliable tool that works with modern 3D modeling software to allow pixel perfect alignment, just using a UV Checker will produce great results. This method also requires some thought put into your topology before unwrapping, but it’s strong point is that you can make changes into your unwrapping and geometry easily, making little tugs won’t break the whole thing.

As you can also note, Vagrant Story textures are authored in a single atlas, while Metal Gear Solid separates this atlas into smaller chunks like this:

Allowing for easier unwrapping, since you can unwrap into the full UV space and then change the size of the texture to scale your results. The other important thing is that you probably want your characters in a T-pose when you’re unwrapping, since this allows for easier use of normal based unwrapping, considering your model would be authored with 4 to 8 sides for limbs and torso it could be box unwrapped and then tweaked for optimal results.

Silent Hill 1 used the same technique, and is also regarded as one of the best looking PS1 games.

While this is the best practice for this kind of look, it’s absolutely not required, Quake 1 used a really loose flat unwrap:

But it’s still looks bloody amazing in the end.

While the topic of using UV Unwrapping for crisper result is endless I’d also love to bring your attention to a certain Jet Set game

It also uses the same technique as Megaman Legends, but it tops it off with some cel-shading, producing crisp, stylish and iconic look.

Here’s some technicalities: Character textures are usually 256x256 for main characters, 128x128 for other characters, character usually have ~100-120 colors per full atlas. MGS breaks down the atlas into chunks so each chunks is usually 8 colors. So when authoring textures, make us of Indexed Color image mode or Save for Web.

 Now let’s move from character textures to

World textures

Universally regarded as best looking CD-3D games share the same trait, not only the characters look amazing, but the environments too. Despite hard limitations, the environments look very much affected by lighting. A lot of the times this is achieved with this one simple trick that was only improved with modern technology. That is, a lot of the lighting is baked into the textures

While this limits you on the amount of lighting scenarios or makes you produce more same-ish assets this certainly elevates the look. While nowadays baked lighting is not something that exciting, it’s also being done on a separate “layer”, so there’s no need to make a separate texture for every lighting scenario, however the resolution of a lightmap should not be higher than your texture, to not produce a cheap and uncanny effect. You still want to bake some fake lighting into your texture, which contradicts the rules of PBR, but since you’re not using normal maps, rules of PBR should not apply in the same way.

The other important tool to use, is the one we’ve talked about, that is, Vertex Color. Vagrant Story uses to great effect, while it’s environment textures don’t have lights baked, they use vertex color extensively to create a variety of moods and lighting scenarios.

Using best texturing practice, Vertex Color and making sure your lightmaps are matching resolution to your textures will produce the best results.

Now let’s talk why I don’t advise using a lot of normal maps for this style. The simple answer, it’s somewhat difficult to produce a normal map that will work with an unfiltered look, but it’s somewhat manageable to do it if you’re using texture filtering. The issue arises when you try make your normal maps unfiltered, this will make your result either a mess or a bunch of visual noise. If you’re trying to make sharp pixel-perfect textures and then will try to make normal maps to match you’ll get very harsh results. The only way I can see it working somewhat nice is to make a normal map that’s less detailed and then use it texture filtered to give some volume to your objects, while not trying to chase pixel details.

The suggested method is to do a rough sculpt -> bake it down -> use ambient occlusion and other masks to author a texture map with more details. Then use a detailed texture and less detailed normal map for optimal result.

 As a closing thought, let’s talk about the

Meshes

A lot of the time you can visually trace the wireframe of things, this makes it easy to pin the style as “low-poly”, but how lowpoly it really is?

Characters in Vagrant story average 500 triangles per character. Characters in MGS go from ~450 for minor characters to ~650 for major characters. So 500-600 triangles is a solid baseline for a main character in a third person game.

This limit brings out some great restriction for every aspiring 3D artist. You have to know your limb deformation techniques (search-engine “Limb Topology” and browse around the polycount wiki to find some great examples and deformation ready examples), but as you might’ve noticed, some games decided to not wrestle with skinning and deformation and straight up detached the limbs or even made their characters out of chunks. This is perfectly noticebla if you compare the OG Grim Fandango and the remaster, where they botched the shading and you can see the bits in all of their glory.

Another easy example is Metal Gear Solid. Characters arms are separate from their torse, but this is covered with other geometry or they’re of the same color and shaded closely.

This way of doing it was used in a number of other games and allows for unlimited range of motion, while not looking weird.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of adding more triangles and loops, but if you’ll follow the rule of “if it doesn’t add to the silhouette, you don’t need it”, you’ll keep to the style. Zoom out often and if an edge doesn’t add anything from the distance and is not critical to the deformation in a character, you really don’t need it.

These principles are so solid they’ve been alive for decades, in fact, one of the best looking PSP games “Peace Walker” sticks to these principles very closely, for example this soldier is just around 1500 triangles

Spilling out of the “low-poly” territory it’s still made with the same economy principles used in CD-3D style, making use of every bit of texture and every triangle available.

Here’s another game of Metal Gear variety, Metal Gear Solid 2 is a direct heir to the design philosophy of MGS1, perfectly pixel-aligned unwraps allow for crisp detailing:

Another honorable mention goes to Animal Crossing on Nintendo 64

Animal Crossing combines meshes and sprites masterfully, uses pixel-aligned UV unwraps and makes up their own trick when creating landscape.

By unwrapping the repeating texture on each triangle of a hexagon they create these smooth patches of sand without the need for big or unique textures. It’s only 64x64 and 9 colors, but the mileage you can get out of it is insane!

 And this honestly sums up the CD-3D style perfectly, it’s the style governed by economy. There’s no need for insane textures for sharp lines, and millions of colors for smooth gradients. Now of course all of these are not rules, but recommendations, you can certainly bend the rules and improve on some aspects. Before we go, here’s some more pictures to get you inspired.

[luckyspike]

Creative Mode - A Good Omens fanfic about friends and Minecraft

HEY GUYS WHATS UP ITS YOUR GIRL 

dont hold me responsible for this i was seized with the spirit of minecraft halfway through building a diorite tower and had to write (ie i was bored and wanted to do something different but minecraft-adjacent)

forever filling my need for found families, we have the good omens idiot circus. behold.

---

There was a laziness about the winter holidays - no school, soft snow coating the ground outside, and nowhere, in particular, to be. It was the week between Christmas and New Years’, and Adam was enjoying himself. He had a good Christmas - a few things he’d been hoping for, as well as the ever-constant box of socks and underwear - and was planning on spending New Years’ Eve with the Them. He had, somewhere in the haze of his fourteen-year-old mind, designs of trying to kiss Pepper at the stroke of midnight, but these thoughts were fuzzy and tentative, and kept bumping up against thoughts of Pepper hitting him for telling her she looked “more like a girl than usual” on a day this past fall when she’d worn makeup to school.

He would need to consider it more.

Still, he reasoned there was plenty of time to consider. After all, he was largely on his own for the week while his parents were visiting his older sister in Spain. Certainly he was supposed to be spending the nights with Wensleydale and his family, while Anathema and Newt watched Dog*, but during the days he was free to wander around the village as he pleased, playing with Dog and just generally Hanging About. RP Tyler had already composed fifteen mental letters to the paper and Adam’s father about it.

It was sort of boring though - one could only strategize one’s New Years Eve romance so much - and by the fourth day Adam was wandering with less intent than usual, up the walk toward his house, Dog bouncing through the belly-deep (for Dog) snow alongside him. He was considering how to best while away the hours until Wensley finished with his piano practice, and was lightly entertaining the thought of finding Brian and asking if he’d like to see how far out they could get onto the ice on the pond before it broke and they fell in, when he heard a car pull up beside him.

He turned, and then he beamed. “Hey, Crowley!” Dog yapped excitedly, while the demon waved lazily.

“Hey, Adam. How’s things?”

“Boring,” Adam responded, completely honestly. “What are you doing here?”

Crowley shrugged. “I was in the area. Need a lift somewhere?”

Adam considered it. “I wasn’t really going anywhere. Home, I guess. Mum asked me to water her plants a few times while she’s away.”

“Ah.” And Crowley leaned across the seat, and popped the passenger-side door to the Bentley open. “Get in, I’ll drive you.” He managed to bite back a remark when Dog also jumped in, immediately leaving muddy pawprints on the leather seat. “What kind of plants?”

“I dunno, she’s got a lot. She left a list. Got directions on it and everything.”

“Ah.” Crowley pulled away after Adam shut the door, only sliding a little in the slush around the corner to Hogback Lane. “Having a nice holiday?”

“Yeah, not too bad. Kind of boring, though. Brian’s got his aunt over so he can’t hang out as much, and Wensley has piano practice for a few hours every day and Pep, uh …” Adam trailed off, and then swallowed. Imperceptibly, Crowley almost smirked. Teens. “I dunno, she has family or something.” A thought occurred to him. “Hey, didn’t Aziraphale say you have a bunch of plants or something?”

“I’ve got a few.”

“Only I’ve never watered my mum’s plants before, and she’s got some really weird directions for some of them.” He looked over, cautiously optimistic. “You wouldn’t have a minute to - ?”

The Bentley rolled up along the curb outside of the Young’s house, and Crowley shut the engine off. “Yeah, I have a minute.” Adam beamed.

Adam began to suspect Crowley had more than a few house plants based on the look he gave Adam’s mother’s plant care list when he picked it up. He read down the very-specific list of directions with Adam, and did a lap of the house with the kid, Adam studiously misting and watering as directed. He did notice, sort of distantly, how the demon would linger at each plant for an extra few seconds, apparently glaring at the foliage over the rims of his glasses, but he was preoccupied with the heavy responsibility of gardening, and the quiet hissing escaped his notice. As did the nearly-silent trembling of the leaves. The African violet, for the first time in four years, started to bloom. 

The boy deposited the watering can and mister back on their usual shelves, and stuffed his hands back into his pockets, surveying the plants around the house and feeling the warm glow of responsibility managed. “Wasn’t so hard, really,” he reflected, as Crowley joined him back in the kitchen, setting the list back on the counter by the sink. “Hope none of them die.”

“They won’t,” Crowley replied, likewise sticking his hands in his pockets. “So … family out of town?”

“Spain.” Adam sighed. “Dunno what I’ll do for the afternoon. Guess I could grab a few magazines and read ‘em back at Wensley’s. Maybe play a few games.”

“Which games?” Crowley asked, with the sort of passing interest that adults and adult-shaped beings used when they were trying to encourage a kid to talk about their interests. “I’m assuming video games, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Adam sighed. “I dunno. I already beat the ones Mum and Dad got me for Christmas. I guess I could play Minecraft for a while, start a new world or something.” Something about that - probably the bit about the new world - seemed to catch Crowley’s interest. Adam went on, “I mean, me an’ the Them got our world, but that’s more fun when we’re all playin’ together, so I guess I could just do a single-player. You, uh, you know what that game is, right?”

Crowley shrugged. “Can’t say I’m much of one for video games**.”

“Oh. Well, it’s really cool. You like … you start with nothing in the middle of like the wilderness, and you gotta build a house and find resources or whatever, an’ there’s monsters and you can starve to death and stuff. But you can build stuff too, like cool stuff.” He trailed off briefly, unsure of how his pitch was landing. “I could show you if you want.”

The demon appeared to consider it for a minute. Then, with a shrug, “Sure, I don’t have anywhere to be. You build stuff, you said?”

Adam nodded, enthusiastic, already leading the way to his room. “Yeah, I’ll show you.”

It took twenty minutes to get the console started, and to give Crowley a crash course on how a controller worked. He picked up it a lot faster than Adam’s father had. Probably, Adam reasoned, on account of him being so old. Must have been something like a controller sometime before in history. Adam perched on the side of the bed, controller in hand, while Crowley sat cross-legged on top of the plaid comforter, Dog happily stretched out between the two, already asleep. “Right, so you’re on the bottom of the screen an’ I’m on the top.” He watched studiously for a minute. “You gotta get some resources. If you punch the tree it’ll break and you get the wood from it.”

“Oh. Naturally.” Crowley twiddled the sticks and obediently began punching the tree. There was a pop, and an 8-bit rendering of a wood block appeared on the inventory bar at the bottom of the screen. “Right. Now what?”

Adam paused in his own tree-punching endeavors. “You can make a crafting table, but you have the make the block into planks first. Once you get a crafting table you can make all kinds of stuff.”

This is a complete waste of time, Crowley thought, as Adam coached him along through the crafting table process. And then, I love humans so much, these absolutely nutty things.

It didn’t take long for Crowley to pick up on it. He may have been new to console gaming, but Adam had chosen wisely in terms of introductory games, and he did have the unique intuition and common sense granted by six millennia living among humans. And Adam was, for the less intuitive parts, a good teacher. He chatted the whole time too, about whatever happened to drift across his mind - school, his friends, the current state of international affairs as far has he understood it (and questions relating thereto), things that annoyed him, and on and on. The light outside got dimmer, and they continued to play, controllers clicking quietly in the background, while in the game a house began to take place and then, by parts, look … good.

“You’re pretty good at this for a grown-up,” Adam reflected, after a couple of hours. He had changed position at some point, laying on his belly on the bed, feet kicking idly as he played, with Dog splayed across the small of his back.

Crowley considered that. “Am I a grown-up, technically?”

“Not sure what else you’d be, 6000 years old. You can’t be a kid.”

“True.” The demon hissed a little in frustration when he punched an existing pane of glass and it shattered, and Adam pretended not to notice. “Not a bad game, this one.”

“Nah, it’s cool. An’ you got the building down really fast. Even Wensley doesn’t make houses that look this good,” he hadded, appreciative, as he ran around the perimeter and surveyed the word done. “You sure you haven’t played this before?”

“Absolutely positive.”

“You played other building games then? Oh, or did you build stuff like, in the olden days?”

Crowley paused, and his nose twitched slightly. Adam had learned, over the years, that this was a tell. He was stumbling in to something, and if he wanted Crowley to hang around for any further length of time today, he shouldn’t push. He’d find out eventually. “Long time ago, yeah,” Crowley said at length. “Not that it was similar to this.”

“But like houses and stuff? Cause like, this is a good house. Looks really cool.”

“Not quite houses.”

“Oh!” Adam exclaimed, after arrowing a creeper to death and collecting the gunpowder for later. “Is anything you made still around? Like, in real life? Could I see it?”

“Yeah.” Adam blinked, and realized that the lower half of the screen - Crowley’s half - had gone mostly still. Mostly. The view, such as it was, was just the digital night sky, spinning slowly around. “You could.”

“The stars move with the moon,” Adam said helpfully, after a few beats of silence. “In the game,” he added.

“Yeah.”

Adam swallowed. And then, cautiously, because curiosity was gnawing him away from the inside, and yet he felt like a man perched at the edge of a vast chasm with the winds whipping at him, he said, “You’re not talking about buildings on Earth, are you?”

Crowley frowned a little, and Adam paused, finger hovering over the save button. He might have gone too far. But then, quietly, Crowley said, “No. Never built any actual buildings. Just …” He shrugged. “Other stuff.”

“Stars,” Adam said quietly, and it wasn’t a question. He stopped time, once, Adam remembered, but even for him the memories seemed just a little fuzzy now, three years later, separated in time by years of mundane things like school and video games and being normal. Sometimes, every once in a great while, he almost forgot altogether. Almost. They’re not just old people. They’re not people.

“Stars,” Crowley agreed. “Not a lot. Just a few. Someone had to do it, and it wasn’t a bad job.”

“Prob’ly.” Adam paused for a second and then, because he didn’t care for the weight of the silence, he said, “I think a zombie might be eating you.”

“Oh. Huh.” And the moment passed. 

The zombie was slain, and Adam returned to mining ore, while the weight of the silence lifted by inches and Adam breathed a little easier. Stars, he thought. I wonder which ones. He didn’t ask. “You know,” he said instead, “if you get a console at your place you could keep playing. Like online.”

“Oh yeah?” Crowley’s eyebrows raised. “Interesting.”

Adam set his controller aside. “I can write down what to get for you,” he explained, even as he pulled a pencil and pad off the little desk. Dog grumbled in protest as he slid from his Master’s back and onto the bed. “An’ the server an’ the password an’ everything so you can find it then. An’ you can text me if you forget.” He bent his head to the notepad, and so he didn’t notice Crowley’s smile, just a quick one, when it happened. The paper tore, and he handed the demon the note, scratched in the messy handwriting of a fourteen-year-old. “You know, if you wanna keep playing after you leave.”

Crowley looked the note over. “I might.” He glanced at the clock in the room then, and asked, “Is someone going to be expecting you home at some point?”

“Yeah,” Adam said, scooping his controller back up and returning to the game. “Wensley’s parents told me to be home by five, though, so I have time. But Wensley’ll be done with piano practice around three so I figured I’d go back about then.”

Crowley glanced over with a bemused grin. “It’s half three already, Adam.”

“Well, yeah, but I’m lost down this mine and I don’t wanna lose all the gold ore I got. We have to make a Tower. I’ll come back, then I’ll go.”

“Right, yeah, the Tower.” Crowley’s grin didn’t fade, and he cycled through the inventory to the map. “Hang on, I think I know where you are.” 

At length, Operation: Rescue Adam and the Gold Ore was a success. Adam shut the console off, and Crowley stuffed the note into a pocket. The house was locked up (with one last plant-check from Crowley, although Adam wasn’t sure he understood why), and the demon, the not-Antichrist, and the Dog loaded up into the Bentley, bound for Jasmine Cottage to drop Dog off. “You want me to wait?” Crowley offered, the car idling at the garden gate, while Adam and his dog jumped out. 

Adam considered it. “Nah. I’ll walk. Not that cold out.”

Crowley looked vaguely concerned, insofar as much as he ever looked concerned in situations that did not involve the impending Apocalypse, his own death and/or inconvenience, or Aziraphale being cross with him. “I could wait, really. Don’t have anywhere to be.”

Adam considered it again, but from the cottage he was fairly certain he caught a whiff of Anathema’s famous Polvorones, and shook his head. “Nah. Thanks, though.” Adam pretended not to notice when Crowley sniffed the air - the cookie smell really was strong - and then waited while he swung out of the Bentley and joined Adam at the gate.

“Might as well make sure you get inside alright and say hi to Anathema while I’m here,” he said, as an excuse.

“And get some cookies?” Adam suggested, cutting to the core of the issue, the two of them crunching up the walk together, Dog trotting between them.

“Aziraphale would kill me if I didn’t.”

Adam laughed. “Right. Oh, uh.” He stopped a few feet short of the door. “Uh, Crowley, um,” he looked up to the sunglasses, the carefully-arched eyebrow, and his mind raced a mile a minute. Which stars were yours? his brain whined. Which ones up there did you actually make? What’s outer space like? Are there aliens? What’s it like to make a star? His mouth, after a minute, said “Thanks a lot for the ride.”

Crowley was watching him. Not for the first time, Adam wondered if demons could read minds. He couldn’t have, he didn’t think, when … things were happening. But he was different then. It wasn’t the same. And Crowley had never said anything, but every now and again, he had this Look he could give you, a thousand miles wide and Adam wondered …

And then Crowley grinned, and shrugged, and knocked on the door. “Not a problem. Thanks for the game.”

“You think you might get a console?” Adam asked, as footsteps approached on the opposite side of the door. Crowley rocked back onto his heels and shrugged, but the amiable grin never dropped.

“You know Adam, I think I might.”

-

* In spite of numerous attempts, Dog and Wensley’s cat had never been able to reconcile their differences.

** This was not altogether a lie. Crowley had never played a game on a computer or a console, although he had been instrumental in the development of the E.T. game for Atari. Phone games, on the other hand, were another story entirely, and Crowley was rather proud of his perfect score in Heart’s Medicine, although only Aziraphale knew about this accomplishment.

[godkilller]

          ❝ I hope we always get to do this, ❞ she spoke wistfully, punctuating her aspiration with the crisp plop of another pebble thrown into the cool waters. Beside her, the lounging deity hummed----thoughtful, though a signature stretching smile soon spread despite her vaguely serious sentiment.

          ❝ ...throw rocks into a lake? ❞ Gin teased. Rangiku scoffed. The familiarity of their exchange, the playfulness, the rolling of her eyes and puff of her cheeks... merely added to the serene normalcy of their getaway. As though they had always been together, here within the trees, for centuries.

          The mountainous horizon met a summer sun with vigor, the vibrancy of life hardly disturbed by the cities and villages at its base----most who shallowly entered were merchants traveling for goods to trade, or hermits, and even then they dared not venture too deep into the mysterious woods far too ancient to be respectfully tamed. Old torii resided, dominated by extending greenery leeching across their faded red husks. No paths were pressed within the soft grass leading through the mountain, they departed from tentative trade routes swiftly under Gin’s leadership long before reaching their secret destination. Through thick foliage he guided her, insistent, and she trusted him to not lead her astray. Gin took her within its depths, past the silver rocks and twisted trees, further still into the army of ancient branches, towering trunks, and raging roots until they spilled into the mouth of a grand lake.

          Water sparkling clear, they rested in a hidden valley of their own. A sanctuary from her human duties; the god could steal Rangiku away to be a little less of a mortal for a few hours... surrounded by all things ( unbeknownst to her ) spiritual... until she was required to retire home. There, they could spend hours undisturbed------though the present visit counted as merely her third time within the deity’s natural domain, she seemed comfortable enough to linger gladly. She stood without her typical elegant robes, fine fabrics, and rather freed herself in the simplicity of a plain outfit best suited for the summer days, wavy locks captured in a makeshift bun hanging loosely by the base of her neck. She looked beautiful.

          ❝ ----no, I meant... like, spending more time together like this. You’re always vanishing off somewhere or I’m too busy to sneak out. ❞ Rangiku persisted, defending her earlier statement with a signature pout, and Gin knew better than to even weakly mock her. Straightening up, the god appeared as anything but divine. Though silver strands did betray his facade of mortality with a tint of strangeness, a slight unique trait to be glimpsed at with uncertainty----the main betrayal resided in his eyes.

          Though the shape-shifting deity could control all aspects of his appearance, whether human or not, it was a different gesture entirely to dismiss the vibrancy of the eyes. Keepers of the soul, it was widely considered by all celestial and dark alike as a great deception to cloud or otherwise alter the eyes with whatever power available. Demons and spirits could not cloak their eye color no matter the unnatural hue, though gods obeyed via unspoken pact, a promise made to not so shamefully deceive others of one’s true form. But the fox-like entity did not quite play to such clean-cut rules, a trickster and maker of mischief. Gin often remedied the tell by simply squinting his eyes to levels that rendered his vibrant gaze unseen. Though, with her, he felt an openness------especially considering Rangiku didn’t know the significance of their gazes meeting, nor the truth behind the potency of his azure eyes.

          Her soul was exposed to him by a mere glimpse, she didn’t know. She couldn’t have known how he knew her with a gaze. Blurred beyond the curves of her body burned her very core, brilliant and tangible if he so wished to reach out and touch her. Brush slender fingers against the wispy humming light of her sheer existence past what soft skin sheltered her. Thoughts of keeping her fire burning for an eternity flowed through his mind, how he vehemently matched her wistful sentiment of wanting this, ALWAYS. What fate guided her to his shrine that night forever linked them. Love seemed far too human, too simple, but perhaps that was the joke of it all. How the bored god had desperately wished for a complication, for an issue to dissect, a puzzle to solve, something new and tangled for him to carefully and slowly unwrap, unravel... now, he wanted plain. Human. Their connection could be of a simpler nature; her, the chrysanthemum renowned within the Hanamachi she called home, and him, the boy from under the bridge. They could remain within their dynamic and he could watch her bloom. Perhaps he’d become her Danna, eventually, in another form. How selfish he became, wanting to encompass her in every way. Emotions expanded beyond the spectrum of colors available to a mere mortal’s soul----here, the divine’s 'soul’ gleamed with tendrils of unseen light, multitudes of flaring flourishes painted across the canvas, ink staining past describable hue. He thought himself incapable, and yet he still looked upon her with it. Enthralled, mesmerized, absolutely captivated, unable to pull away... the god had fallen in love with a human.

        ❝ ----------well, maybe soon y’won’t haveta sneak out anymore. ❞ He spoke smoothly, uninterested in touching upon his vanishing act. Omnipresence did not behave in the ways humans daydreamed about, but he couldn’t fault them for wishing it so. Gin didn’t enjoy his departure, but could not simply dwell as a pretend-mortal to forsake his divine duties. As nice as that idea sounded...

        ❝ Oooor... you could just stop disappearing randomly. ❞ She pushed the issue regardless, bent knees shifting against grass to scoot her frame closer to his in assertion.

        ❝ Where do ya think I go? Y’know, when I vanish and all? ❞ Silver tongue, refined, delicately dipped upon the topic. And he spoke with truth. Intrigue, genuine, tipped his chin upwards in observance of her. There his gaze watched, piercing blue as the cloudless heavens above, and there his gaze entered. Thoughts of him aimlessly wandering off to other cities to flirt among women or perhaps even capture one as a lover, forsaking every thought of her to be overcome with some sort of affair in secrecy, floated briefly in her mind. The image itself was sharp, a thought revisited perhaps or at the very least formulated with focus, worried, and tinges of concern for her own importance. His smile remained as she desperately swatted the concept from her immediate thoughts. He delved no deeper for her internal turmoil of an answer, curiosity appeased.

        ❝ I don’t know, that’s the whole point, you just---- ❞ she waved her hands, uncertain, then flopped them back beside her to absently grip upon blades of grass, tinkering with discarded pebbles and rocks that were of her previous attention. Now, the stress-relieving motion aided her through admittance. ❝ --and sometimes you’re gone for weeks. ❞

        ❝ I always come back though, right? ❞ He lacked any hesitation or uncertainty when he answered----nearing pride by the strength of his conviction: he would always return to her. Regardless, Rangiku whined at his answer, as she deemed it insufficient in terms of strength to chase away her insecurities, though he knew her better than to count a fleeting thought as her ultimate weakness. Over time it would brew, grow, or simmer depending on her emotions at that given moment. Whilst the concept itself upset her, she did not feel distraught nor did she strongly wish to confront him on the matter. The value she placed on their time spent together greatly exceeded her desire for answers----and for that, Gin was grateful. One day, perhaps, he’d indulge her with the truth in its entirety. He’d speak of ageless tales, otherworldly and far beyond human harvests, a quiet prayer spoken with coin dispensed. For today? He wished only to throw a few more rocks into a lake.

          Rangiku sighed lightly, then smiled with warmth as she smoothed her thumb across a round stone she had captured idly to ease her nerves. Clouds receeded across her thoughts, and once more she embodied the very golden rays that danced within stray strands kissed by a gentle breeze. Delicate, yet dazzling.

          ❝ Mm... hey, Gin, can you promise me something? ❞

          Perhaps the gesture was a tad too animalistic in nature----the simple cant of his head with eyes glinting beneath the shade of an arching branch----which therein indicated the attentive energies of someone far greater than a mere man. A promise was not made lightly, even within the mortal plains. What pacts of demons boasted was that of unending loyalty to their bonds despite the parasitic dynamic they presented, and spirits too held themselves to the standards of eternity within any connection made, any promise spoken, seals made. The shapeshifter deity existed in this same eternity, ingrained within the bloodstream of the ground they sat upon, the air they breathed. The very mountains they lay nestled between remained with integrity to their protective force promised upon the feeble villages below to stay off evils that endured for centuries. 

       TO WHAT END, THEN, WOULD HE KEEP HERS?

         ❝ Never change. ❞