#also probably the most on model animation I have done especially without reference

[ramiikin]

Shhhh…

[cy-cyborg-draws]

It's been a very long time since I gave Kiesse some proper love!

I've been hyperfixating on the setting she's from and her story lately, so I wanted to redo her design since I'd been unhappy with for a while.

One of the biggest issues I had with it, was the prosthetics she used. I think I actually had an anonymous ask on my main account about how to make wing prosthetics work, so consider this an answer to that, if you're still out there anon lol.

In the past, I had hand-waved how her prosthetics worked because there are no functional wing prosthetics irl to reference. The previous solution was basically "magic robot wings" - which folks from my main page might recognise, is an example of the "perfect magic prosthetic" trope, a trope that I, as an amputee myself, absolutely hate lol, but I just couldn't think of another way to do it without giving her wing-elbows back. It didn't really fit the technology level of the setting either, so I got to work trying to think of something better.

I ended up digging up my old animation stuff from university, modelling a very basic dragon and spent a few days animating a flight cycle (and watching a bunch of slow-mo footage of birds and bats) to see what would be needed for the full range of motion in a wing-flap, and what could feasibly be altered, as a mechanical wing prosthetic will require some alteration to the way the whole wing moves, especially since the only natural joint Kiesse has on her wings is the shoulder.

The system I came up is a wing using a pretty simple pulley system anchored to her sides. There is a wire (which is mostly hidden) pulling the wing's elbow closed by default when the wing is back, but when the shoulder is rotated forward (which it would need to be during the majority of the wing-beat) a different set of wires an pulleys pull the elbow and hand/finger open again. This allows a pretty decent (if a bit awkward) range of motion for a wing-beat, and allows the wings to fold when she's not actively flying (though the tension line attached to her side can be unhooked to prevent accidental wings-to-the-face if she was to move around a lot on the ground).

I also wanted to make the prosthetics so that Kiesse could put them on herself. With this design, the harness would be placed on her back first and done up around her stomach using her front claws or tail with some kind of reinforced zipper. Next would be the sockets, which could be slid on with the assistance of some kind of frame to hold the wing when she's not wearing it (these are not common but do already exist for prosthetic legs to help elderly people/people with other mobility problems get them on). The membane can then be pulled into a track with a locking mechanism on the harness using her tail with the loops, and finally the tension wire can be pulled down and hooked onto the harness, most likely using her tail (the hook is, admittedly, not a great design since it wouldn't be very secure, but Kiesse would lack the dexterity for much else, so I'm still figuring that part out as of right now).

As much as Kiesse herself would hate it, I also had to dim the colours of the prosthetic, since the materials they have access to wouldn't allow for the bright colours I was using before. I feel like Kiesse will probably end up painting something on it instead during her story though lol.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my little nerd-out lol. This took me a lot of attempts to get something that could *potentially* work without a heavy reliance on magic/tech, and I feel like a lot of the issues I couldn't solve are pretty reflective of actual mechanical prosthetics, which I have used in the past (being convoluted to get on, requiring weird alterations to how the limb naturally works to get a functional result, being a bit finicky to actually use) so I'm pretty content with it for now!

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

It's Showtime! - June 2024 Devlog

Howdy! Cobalt here, for another devlog over It's Showtime. This month was actually really swell, especially since I got more of my adhd meds recently. So I should be getting way more done in the coming months, yippee!

Programming wise, not a lot was done this month I've mostly spent it changing a few things about the way the map is built. Particularly I'm gonna need to rebuild most of the first floor. However in the long run it should be for the better, for stuff like performance and making it easier to add more to it. I also just needed a break after all I did last month. I have created things like the base for the main menu, a proper testing room and a lot of coding for the cut scene system though!

Writing wise, a ton of progress was made. Most of the major writing for Chapter 1 is done! Or at least on a great first draft. So very soon Chapter 1 will be done writing wise. [For the record currently the in depth writing for Chapter 1 is 7,122 words long] Chapter 2 also had a significant amount of its in depth writing done, almost all of the 'intro' is written out but obviously I'm trying to focus more on Chapter 1 right now. Speaking of the other chapters and such. Chapter 2's summary is almost done, with some things just needing some elaborating or bridging with other parts of it. Chapter 3 has 3 thousand words written in its summary currently, so a lot of what goes on in that chapter has been written out. I recently had a ton of revelations about what is going to happen in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 has also had a lot added to its summary. Sadly, writing wise, I simply cannot reveal much more without getting into spoilers.

I've also been learning Blender a lot lately. I'm working on a few models, none of them for It's Showtime quite yet. [well besides the walls and floors for the first floor] However soon I'm gonna be trying to make Henry's first model and animations for the game. Probably won't be the final one used for the project, or even the one you'll see upon chapter 1's release, but we'll see. Sadly, a lot of this process is simply tutorials and looking things up, then double checking those things to make sure they can be used in Unity, aren't performance heavy and will work with the systems I've already got in place. Art wise, me and my partner have gotten a lot of fun concept art done.

We've also started a sketchbook purely for Encore! related drawings. We've got so much fun stuff to show you guys when more is done, but for now, I'd love to show off a proper look at Henry's design.

Here we have Henry's reference, specifically for his in-game appearance.

The sketchy reference made for modeling him out. Yes, he is tastefully nude in this appearance. That's just the way it has to be.

Then finally a rough run cycle I animated to show off his character and as practice for when the proper 3D gets made. I'm really proud of how this came out and I hope it gives you guys a good idea for what to expect from him character-wise. As always, feel free to ask any questions about this project and its story if you'd like. I'll do my best to answer them without giving too much away! See you next month!

[imagine-a-sanctuary-like-this]

Genshin Problem-Solving Wish List

I, like many players, have been going throuhg a bit of a break-up phase (not to be dramatic, of course) with Genshin over the Natlan patches. The bulk of my problems with the game is with the story and the questionable design choices for both character and environment, but some of them are with the quality of life issues that have become more noticeable to me as the story got bad enough that it no longer compensates. So, here's a list of things that I personally would have liked to see in Genshin, mostly related to gameplay growing boring, the '4 star problem' and the lack of good endgame content (in detail under the cut).

The 4-star problem

Bland protagonist design + more skins

Simple new combat mechanics

Companion interactions

New story mechanic

Different endings for events

The 4-star problem

Which refers to the mismatch between the growing pool of 4-star characters and the fixed number of banners in a year. This dilutes the chances of a specific 4-star featuring on a banner with every new 4-star released. There's been many solutions proposed for this. In an ideal world, I would see these: (1) new characters added to the starglitter shop. This doesn't have to be every 4-star in the game, but the roster available in the shop is long overdue an expansion. Some have suggested a 'fate point' system, but this only addresses half the problem. While yes, this will allow one to guarantee their desired 4-star, there's still the issue of there just being too many 4-stars to re-run with any good consistency.

So, (2) make the 4-stars customizable on a banner. Let the players choose from a roster of 6 which will be on the banner, kind of like charting a course for fate points, and this cannot be changed later.

Addtionally, (3) Honkai 3rd had 4-star exclusive banners at a lower cost. Something similar might be implemented in Genshin - maybe the banner will cost 80 primos/pull. This would turn out quite unprofitable, of course, if the banner features very sought-after characters, but maybe Hoyo could feature those that are less wanted and not extremely good, just so people that want them will have a chance to get them.

Bland Protagonist Design + Skins

To this day I don't really understand why Hoyo has opted to release so few skins for characters, especially so few 5-star skins that change animations. The existing, Diluc's, does not even change them that much - it's actually quite baffling. Adding more such skins would add variety to gameplay, and people would probably pay quite a bit if the new animations are good. Most confusingly, they had this in HI3, so I cannot comprehend why they seem set on creting a skin scarcity mindset in Genshin.

Something similar could be done for the MC, because at the moment the Traveller is just so bland to both look at and play. I would have loved to see a customizable MC, but alright, there's more ways to make them visually unique without changing their physical attributes. The simplest thing would be region-specific outfits, perhaps as keepsakes from our adventures. It's honestly riciculous that the Traveller's stayed in the same clothes this whoe time like they're glued onto them or something. We get the little customizable floaty things (seelies, the oceanid, the dragon, etc.), so why not something like a couple region-specific outfits? Maybe even quest items that are wearable and show up on the model, like everyone was siggesting with the mask from that one Inazuma quest.

There's also more than one way to customize that makes the player feel like they're actually contributing to the way that their Traveller is. I would have loved to see the MC either choose a different weapon or be able to learn other weapons. Perhaps one per region discovered? This would reguire some work for new animations, but it would make the gameplay feel better, in my opinion.

Simple Combat Mechanics

Blocking! Just adding this one mechanic would of course be far from 'simple' in the game dev sense, but imagine how cool it could be from the gameplay perspective without adding anything super-complicated in the gameplay mechanic sense. Perhaps characers might even have unique 'counter attacks' with cool animations that trigger upon a perfect parry (like in Beidou's kit). Block at the exact right moment and be rewarded with a powerful counter. Casual players would not be impacted, but the gameplay would probably feel a lot more rewarding for others.

Another thing that might feel nice on a gameplay level is rewards for dodging an attack at just the right moment. Maybe it triggers an animation or some kind of visual cue, and the enemy gets a disadvantage or perhaps our character performs a different counter to the perfect parry one.

Companion Interactions

Something that Genshin misses out on is the feeling of the playable characters being part of the world. You cannot see, for exampe, Hu Tao going about her business if you visit Li Yue, or see Yae Miko at the shrine. Imo it would make the world feel so much more immersive if we could, for example, see John Lee drinking tea or chilling around the town, or run into Navia at some locations in Fontaine, or find Alhaitham bickering with Kaveh at the library or next to their house. Imagine walkin around Sumeru and seeing Nilou prectice for performing, or walking around Fontaine and catching Furina at a musical rehearsal. I feel like this would add so much depth to the world, and make it feel like the characters are actually people liviing in it, instead of some constructs that just spawn in whenever the Traveller appears for a quest or an event.

New Story Mechanic

In a similar vein, the format of the character quests locks the player out of doing anything that feels impactful. Yes, there's different ending to the companion quests for 4-stars, but by their nature they cannot be very impactful or interesting. This is fine if we're going for the 'spend some one on one time with character x', but sometimes it feels to me like something's lacking. There are so many interesting lore events to explore that are not directly relevant to the main questline, which are right now locked behind boring NPC dialog and info-dumps.

This is obviously a rough concept, but I'm imagining something like a new quest mechanic. Let's call it a Simulated Memory Mirror, or something of the sort. This magical object might allow you to go into simulations of companion memories or past locations. Think of this as the Pensieve from Harry Potter, but one where you can play out different outcomes. Genshin's done something like this before, where we could go into the past, or simulations of the past, and interact with them.

Perhaps there might be two modes: one where you go as yourself, and one where you can act as the companion whose past it is. This could be a fascinating characer writing opportunity on top of just covering things that the main quests don't have time for. For example, it might help explore some character's regrets, how they might have done something differently, etc. Maybe too we could learn more about dead characters - imagine playing through a memory of Signora's or Capitano's past. Imagine playing as someone who acts the antagonist in the main story - a snippet of their memories, some regret or something that they might have done differenty.

To make this gacha-friendly, maybe you can only access the companion memories for the characters that you have. Now you have incentive to pull, and some interesting lore/character implications to who you're pulling. Sure, this locks these behind a paywall, but if enough are accessable without it (e.g., non-playable characters, villains, dead characters, memories where we go in as the Traveller), this might be worth the trade. And Hoyo is, after all, for profit, so that would make sense.

Different endings for events

To the same point about feeling like what the Traveller says and does is set in stone, it would add a sense of agency to introduce some events/quests where the ending can differ. Something like the Natlan victim count, but for something more interesting (imo). The most trivial way of adding this is just making the dialogue choices provoke different responses. As it is, the Traveller's dialogue basically has no effect on what response we get.

On a bigger scale, this might look like events where the ending will vary depending on what we choose to do. There's much talk about the MC being a self-incert, but when it comes to things that matter, like voicing moral opinions or agreeing with things that characters say, we cannot actually do anything but what the game has set down. I noticed this most recently in Kinich's quest, where there's no option to disagree with Kinich/to say that to kill the green round boi is the better, more mercyful choice. Sure, it all works out in the end, but I'd have liked to at least have a different way of getting to the same ending, if not a different ending altogether.

If adding this much variety/choice in character quests doesn't fit the story, there's always events. Imagine events with actually interesting stories that you can actually personally affect, involving established characters and the option to express different opinions. Now that's something I'd like to play.

[superb-owl-sunday]

Watching the Rise of the Titans movie and I'll be documenting all of my thoughts/reactions here. [Spoiler Warning]

So instead of reblogging every new update, I'm just going to have this post up on my phone as I watch and type my reactions in a bullet list format.

Nari's human disguise is so cute. As someone who does have a cottagecore aesthetic, I want to cosplay her so bad

Are Skrael and/or Belroc non-binary coded? Regardless, I'm also obsessed and I want to fuck Skrael and be Belroc.

STEVE CARING ABOUT JIM BEING HURT YESSSS!!! My god his redemption has probably been one of the greatest there is because he doesn't just suddenly go from being a bully to a completely good person. You can see the gradual shift in learning better throughout the shows which is awesome.

IN NEW YOOOOOOORRRRRRRK!!!!!! CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!

The mugshot montage reminded me of season 1 of trollhunters when toby and Jim were arrested at the museum.

STRICKLER PUT A RING ON IT??? HE'S THE ONLY DILF IVE EVER ACTUALLY AGREED WAS HOT WYM I CAN'T HAVE HIM??? well I'm still really happy about his arc over the series probably one of my favorite character growths.

Eli my guy got his growth spurt!!! As an 18 year old who is still 5'0", I'm happy but envious for him

So I went into this movie without watching any trailers or promo, but I doubt anything could have prepared me for the existence of mpreg. In fact, I wasn't going to document my reactions until I saw that.

NAMURA!!!!!!!!! MY BELOVED!!!!!! I CAN STILL THIRST FOR YOU WITHOUT GUILT

The coach teacher just called the kids zoomers so I have to dock one point from my final rating just because of that. Unforgivable

Those husky animation models suck lmao

Oh fuck the titans got power ranger zords!!

God why did they include the mpreg??? This movie would have been perfect without it.... After that plot point being revisited only one time I'm already beyond done with it

Like it's bringing me back to the v*ltron days where they're was a suspiciously high amount of klance omegaverse and mpreg fics and art created and it physically hurts because Steve and Keith's voice actor is the same person meaning this is especially cursed to me since I was unfortunately in the v*ltron fandom and remember all of that

But like on another note, how old are these characters again??? I haven't checked any wikis because of spoilers but is Steve an adult??? I know aja might be technically a lot older than 18 because alien but is whatever age she is equivalent to an adult as far as emotionally and physically in Akaridion development??? IS THIS A TEEN (M)PREGNANCY IN A KIDS SHOW????

Like bruh I saw a singular post on here before going into the movie that was like "rott spoilers without context" and there was a pregnant belly but I was absolutely not expecting the actual context of it. I'll find the post after I finish and edit this post to tag the creator right here: @makoden

This entire post is just gonna be me ranting about mpreg huh

Anyway I love the whole roundtable allusion to the legends of king arthur (not the toa version but the one he's based off)

THERE'S 3 TO 5 BABIES????? I need to take a break bruh this is just too much

Alright I've taken a 30 minute break got some food and did some things i love (decompressed by tactile stimming with some owl plushies and watched some videos on my favorite owl, Garu. He lives in Japan with his owner and is a domesticated eagle owl who basically just acts like a sky cat. If anyone else needs some eye bleach, here is their YouTube channel)

Blinky and ARRRGHHH!!! saying their "if one of us doesn't make it" talk my god one of them is going to die I can see it and I will be utterly crushed. Jim can't lose another father figure and Toby can't lose his wingman again I will riot if this happens

On a similar but unrelated to the movie note, can we just talk about how toa started with Jim having 0 dads and (if strickler and blinky live to the end) will end with 2 dads? Like I just really feel happy for him that he has two dads who actually figured out how to put the past behind them to not have any infighting between them so that both of them are healthy father figures. Jim has already been through literal hell and back losing his actual humanity in the process so if he loses one of them, I'm going to be really pissed because at this point, this is just Jim torture porn. Y'all know how as SpongeBob SquarePants went on, the show just became Squidward torture porn? It's starting to feel that way for toa and I really hope they cut the shit by the ending

Jlaire is such a good ship but like I feel like it's too perfect they never disagree with each other

YESSSSSSS Someone finally doesn't treat toby like a fat waste of space who messes stuff up!!! I think out of all the characters that would have been most deserving of a rewrite, it's Toby. Sometimes I just feel he's only comic relief and any heartfelt moments he's had in the series was also born of stupidity (ie his flour baby project being unharmed was seen by him as divine intervention from his parents but was actually just Eli and Steve behind the scenes).

Ohhhhh yesssssss Archie's father!!! I was hoping I'd see him again because we got so little of him last

Ooooooooooh Asian trollmarket!!!!!

Oh never mind slavery trollmarket

Bruh titanic camelot

I feel like we're not seeing enough of the villains because I completely forgot about the power ranger zord things

NAMORA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY LAST CRUSHHHH

STRICKLER NO NOT YOU TOO PLEASE

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE ONLY TWO CHARACTERS I SIMP FOR ON THIS SHOW DIED WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF EACH OTHER

THAT WHOLE ASS RANT I WROTE IS COMING TRUE FUCK THIS MOVIE THIS SERIES IS JUST JIM TORTURE PORN

WAIT JIM'S SPERM DONOR INFO?

Oh thank God I don't want to know anything about that person

For the record, I call that man Jim's sperm donor because he has no business being called a father to him. All he did was donate some swimmers to the creation of him and give him abandonment issues

Oh another blind troll elder???? This fucker is just if vendel was a bad guy

Bruh I was grieving

PACIFIC RIM WITH GUN ROBOT VEX AND THE BELROCZORD? I've never seen that movie but I know the reference

Bruh Blinky doesn't read horoscopes? Does he realize conspiracy theories are just the manly version of horoscopes?

NO DON'T KILL VEX STOP KO-ING FOUND FAMILY MEMBERS

Oh thank God he's okay

NO NOT ARCHIE AND CHARLEMAGNE OH MY GOD

oh never mind they're just gonna coup de tat I believe in them :))

But I want to see him again

But I'm glad to see vex

Yay they're in arcadia!

But yeah I wondered why the trolls and Merlin didn't keep the whole "daylight doesn't hurt trolls" feature from the eternal night but now Guillermo del Toro I see you were playing the long con in that just to kill my girl Namora :(((

Oooooh I love the animation of the Narizord over Chihuahua!! It looks very good and realistic (if only they could have put some of that into those huskies from before smh)

Bruh the character designs of the arcane order are so good I want to be them

Nari making sure the Skraelzord doesn't crush the bus

DAMN DOUBLE HOMICIDE

Bruh I'm just glad we finally have an answer on why arcadia had everything going on as opposed to literally anywhere else!! I always found that as a weird coincidence for plot convince.

BRUH WERE BACK TO THE MPREG IM SO JEALOUS I FORGOT ABOUT THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BECAUSE I WAS GRIEVING THE LOSS OF MY LOVELIES.

Oh that's real convenient that the ninth configuration meant all of them. Way to not decide which character gets more attention. Though it probably was a smart way to not have any infighting in the fandom between each character's stan group.

Bruh I just realized where is Barbera did they just ditch her on the Camelot ship???

And where are the other trolls that migrated at the end of trollhunters s3? They said something about new jersey but obviously Jim and the other main characters got on Camelot instead.... This feels like a plot hole

And we never learned the process of how changelings are made and bonded to humans and stuff. We just know it's super painful but I'm curious ffs!!!!

THE DONT THINK BECOME HERO SPEECH ALL SAID TOGETHER!!!

BRUH THEY REALLY HAD TO SHOW HIM GIVING BIRTH??????? WAS THAT AN ABSOLUTE MUST??????

Plus the main audience for this series is little children (the rating for the movie is literally TV-Y7) so even though my adult ass is not in the target audience, I STILL DONT UNDERSTAND WHY WOULD MPREG AND ANAL BIRTH WOULD BE AN IMPORTANT THING TO 7 YEAR OLDS???? THIS IS A LITERAL FETISH HIDDEN IN KIDS CONTENT ITS ELSAGATE ALL OVER AGAIN Y'ALL 😭😭😭😭😭

Though it's probably hypocritical of me to think fetishes don't belong in kids tv when I've openly admitted to thirsting for strickler and namora

HUZZAH

NEW AMULET WAZ GOOD????

STAB THAT BITCH JIM

WAIT NO I SAID STAB NOT GET STABBED

Alright good job just missed the directions at first but you fixed it

SEVEN KIDS?????????

T O B Y ????????????

W A I T NO

N O

IS HE ACTUALLY

OH MY GOD THERE'S HOPE

NO THERE ISN'T

F U C K THIS SHIT THEY REALLY JUST HAD HIM TO BE BULLIED THEN KILLED

Y'ALL IM ACTUALLY CRYING THIS NEVER HAPPENS

I NEVER ACTUALLY GET SO EMOTIONAL OVER MEDIA THAT I CRY IT ONLY HAPPENED ONCE AT THE END OF VOLTRON BUT AHHHHHHHH

W A I T

HE'S GONNA BE BROUGHT BACK?????

HOLD UP THEY'RE JUST GONNA BRING ALL THOSE DEAD PEOPLE BACK??????

WAIT IS HE

BLINKY CALLED HIM A SON

HOLD ON IS THIS GOING TO BE A CLIFFHANGER???????????

BRUH THEY REALLY JUST CAN'T END THE SERIES WITHOUT CLIFFHANGERS like there's always an open ending

TROLLHUNTER TOBY????? You know what forget the whole rants I had on how toby was written they just redeemed it all

And that's all! I'd rate it a 6.5/10 because it's definitely the weakest of all the sequels but still had amazing animation and some good plot points. It's just really hard to look over the bad stuff enough to rate it any higher.

[solacefruit]

would you ever talk about your original writing here? sorry if this is a weird question, it's okay to just ignore this if you don't want to answer!

Hello there! Thank you for writing in. For future reference, there’s no harm in asking, so don’t worry about that! I can always decline if I don’t want to talk about any particular topic. :) 

It’s a pretty interesting question, and one I ask myself a lot. I’m not sure I have an answer yet, to be honest. 

In theory, I really like the idea of sharing my real world (not fanfiction, not anonymised) work on the platforms I have. In part, because I like sharing what I create and I’m proud of it and it’s disappointing to think that there’s people who follow here who like what I do and might miss out if I don’t directly link it. For example, I have a couple of small publications already out and some projects in the future that I’m very excited for, but since all that’s attached to my real life actual full name, I’m tentative to share that info and basically doxx myself to every passing stranger who drifts through this blog. So that’s tricky.

Another part is just good business sense, you know? If you’ve got people who already like what you do and want more of it, it only makes sense to give those people an opportunity to access more of what you make. Those people are often your biggest champions in the early days of a work -- the hipsters, if you will. They knew your work before you were cool (n.b., you may never be cool) and they’re the people most likely to pick up future work, because they trust you as a creator, and also most likely to recommend your work to other people, which is huge. So much publishing (professionally, independently, self-published, zines, any project without a megacorporation marketing budget) gets a massive leg-up from word-of-mouth. Can’t flourish if you can’t be found, and all that.

Ultimately, I think what’s going to happen is if I hit a point where publicity and reaching my audience for my work is more valuable overall than anonymity (+ not being associated in my professional life with cat fanfiction, ha) then I’ll probably start sharing links to my real world stuff here when/if that time comes. I’ve thought an option might be a newsletter or something, especially if I ever feel I’m done with this blog? We’ll see.

As far as talking about what I’m working on/will be working on in the near future, I always have a lot of projects bubbling away in my mind (unbidden). Ideally, my next five years will be dedicated to making:

Novels

adult fantasy court intrigue-style novel duology, feat. a massively underrepresented (underappreciated!) fantasy race & the non-normative relationship + community models I’ve created for them

new adult (? not sure what the boundaries for these genres are anymore) fantasy novel that poses and perhaps answers a question that has always haunted and intrigued me for many, many years -- “what if Jesus Christ Superstar’s messy m/m/f throuple of revolutionaries was happening in a biopunk-solarpunk world and had some really fucked-up dragons?” 

Games (TTRPG + other)

collaborative work with a talented industry friend on a science fantasy fusion ttrpg 

short ttrpg very much still in early development about grief, history, nightmares, loyalty, faith, skeletons, art, immortality, regret, reparations, legacy, and dogs  :)

in my dreams: a functional CMS (construction + management simulation) game about haunted houses; in practice, as I have very few of the skills required for that dream: an illustrated guidebook for the game that does not exist (but feels like it could)

ditto above but this time for a CMS game about mythical + fantastical +folkloric creatures. Imagine Zoo Tycoon. But for animals that don’t really exist. 

Poetry

get to the Australian national level for the slam

In among all this, I still want to be getting smaller poetry and short fiction publications out there as much as I can. I believe in that whole “aim for the moon -- if you miss, you still land among the stars” thing, so that’s what I’m doing. 

Not sure if this is really of interest, but I hope it answers your question! 

[mystery-star]

The Biggest Compliment – Spock

Pairing: Spock (AOS) x gender-neutral reader

Warnings: none

Words: 3944

Please do not repost my work on other sites or platforms!

-

Of course everyone in the 23rd century knew about Starfleet. But while you were certain that you would never join them, you had not believed that you would need to work together with their Academy one day. You hadn’t known what they wanted of you, when you had been told that your designer talent was needed. First you thought they might want to have new uniforms but probably a tailor would be better for this. Then you speculated over the possibility that they wanted a new logo. Or maybe it just was something like an advertisement for new recruits or so.

The thing they needed your help with, however, turned out be a test. Well, a simulation, to be exact. They wanted to animate the whole thing new. And not just animate, as you heard also the coding hat been redone, for whatever reason. After they had shown you what the old simulation looked like, you were introduced to your co-worker; the one who had written the new coding. It was a Vulcan and you didn’t know what to think of that. Not because he was not human but because you had never seen a Vulcan ‘close-up’ but hat heard a lot of, not so good, things about their race. As it seemed, also the instructor who was showing you around didn’t seem to be a big fan of him and leant closer to you before he left you in your new office.

“Don’t mind him, he can get pretty prissy sometimes” he whispered to you before he wished you good work and then left, leaving you alone with the man you’d spend the next weeks with. You looked at him for a while and didn’t know what to say.

“May I see what you have?” he asked. It was the first time you heard his voice and you had to admit, it sounded quite good.

“What do you mean, what I have?”

“I am certain you have already prepared something” he said it with such a certainty that made you feel bad that you had, in fact, nothing.

“No?” he raised an eyebrow “Look, I literally heard what they want from me half an hour ago. Before, they only told me that they needed my as a designer and I had no idea what it was” he remained silent and you didn’t like that “All I have are a few notes. I’m sure you couldn’t have made drafts beforehand if they just called you to their office for making a new code without telling you what it was about first”

“That is not quite correct. I have asked to reprogram the test myself and therefore have arrived to the meeting sufficiently prepared” you rolled your eyes

“Well as I said, I only took a few notes during the simulation I watched”

“May I see those?” he held out his hand to you

“It’s just the basics, like what notes what it is about. Because I was told that you would tell me exactly what you need” he still didn’t move his hand, so you sighed “Fine, here you go” you pulled out your PADD and placed it on the table. Because you didn’t want to give it into his hand if he behaved like that. He had a look then pointed at the title.

“The simulation is called Kobayashi Maru, not Cobrayoshi Moru”

“Well excuse me for understanding it wrong” he didn’t reply and continued

“What do you mean by ‘good ship’?”

“The ship, this Kobayashi Maru that is in distress”

“Then please describe it accordingly

“As I said” you hissed “this are only first notes”

“Besides, I already have defined the amount of the Klingon warbirds to five, so your note that reads ‘ca. 4-5 enemy ships’ is inaccurate”

“I counted them on the screen of the simulation I watched. And apparently that wasn’t good or else you wouldn’t have reprogrammed it, right?”

“I have solely noticed inconsistencies in the coding. The animation itself was not much flawed”

“Okay” you took a deep breath “How about we sit together and you tell me exactly what you want, so that I can get working on it?”

“For now, I solely need one of the animated warbirds”

“But that’ll take hours to make. I could make a sketch in 5 minutes or so”

“I need a three-dimensional model of it”

“Well, I don’t have one right now. The only ship that I can offer you as a model of a cruise ship. Or no, maybe we also have one of a science fiction starship somewhere”

“I do not need a cruise ship or a random starship” he explained that he needed the actual ship that would be used in the simulation so that he could finetune the programmed movements with the animation.

“Good then give two hours and you’ll have a draft-model. I can still change it later on when you have calibrated it”

“Very well” he gave a nod and you sat down at the desk that had been prepared and started unpacking your stuff before you got working on some sketches. Suddenly, you noticed that someone was standing behind you and you turned around.

“Please don’t do that”

“What are you referring to?”

“Looking over my shoulder. It’s distracting. I can’t work like that” he raised an eyebrow but left you alone.

-

About half an hour later you were ready to present him your three drafts of the ships.

“I only requested one”

“Yes, but I made three versions. Drafts”

“I have not asked for drafts, especially multiple ones”

“Do you have any idea how design works? Obviously not or you’d have done the damn animation yourself” you muttered the last part “I always make drafts for a client after they told me what they need, which you didn’t even do, so sorry if I don’t get it quite right on the first try.”

“I have informed you that I need to have a model of a Klingon warbird”

“And here you have three drafts” you pointed at three models “Which one do you like best?”

“I do not like them” you had to bite back a sigh and a part of you just wanted to smack him right in the face.

“Good” you said, taking a deep breath and picking up your stylus “Then what would you like instead?”

“I would have preferred if you had invested all your time into one model instead of three”

“Look, I will put more work into one of them, just tell me which one is the best”

“They are all flawed” at least you now totally understood what this other man had meant with that he could get prissy.

“Well it are only drafts” you explained “Don’t Vulcans do drafts?”

“We do not prepare several different versions if only one is needed since it would be a waste of time”

“Good speaking of wasting time; just tell me which model you want me to edit and make it perfect”

“No matter how much work you will put in it, it will always stay an animated model and therefore will never be perfect”

“Which. Ship?!” you hissed gesturing at your PADD.

“This one” he pointed at the second draft “However….” You had to fight not to roll your eyes. Of course you knew there was a ‘but’ coming. You did your best to not become upset when he told you what mistakes you had made on your draft, while you made notes on the most important points. A part of you wondered how long you could take it before you just broke his nose, cut off his ears, ripped off his bangs or rammed your stylus in his eye. Or all together.

-

While you started to get working on the chosen model, Commander Spock took the draft to link it with his coding, while you tried to make the starship as authentic as possible which was not so easy without an accurate source or idea how it looked like except for the description you had gotten. When you left for the day, your client seemed to be a bit disappointed that you could not finish the model already. For that reason you decided to come an hour earlier the following day but to your dismay, the Vulcan was already there

“Did we not agree that you may start at 0830 hours?” you had been in the office for three seconds and already were pissed off by him again although you had tried not to be anymore.

“Yes but since I didn’t come as far as I wanted yesterday, I decided to come earlier today. The sooner I get the animation done the better” because it meant, among other, that you would be rid of him. Luckily, you didn’t need to talk to him that much today. But then he requested you to get a second model for the second ship. “Give me a second”

“I doubt you can create an accurate model in a second”

“Just watch and see” you tapped on the model you were already working on and duplicated it “there. Took me a little under two seconds”

“You cannot just duplicate the model”

“Oh but I can. I can also centuple it” you glared at him, tapped the model again, called up the settings and set the number of duplicates to 100 and when you returned, the whole screen was filled with ships “There. That should occupy you for a while”

“As I already said, there are only five ships that I need for the simulation. Besides, I cannot use these duplicates. If you wish to copy your models, you need to use a template”

“Well okay” you said “But that’ll take me a couple of minutes” he gave a nod “Why thank you, (Y/N)” you muttered to yourself “Thank you for your co-operation and withstanding my coldness”

-

Because he wanted all ships to be visually different, you decided to change minor details on them before you gave him the new model. Once you had prepared all ships, even the Kobayashi Maru, you needed to take care of the surroundings for which you designed the space, of course in the dimensions that Spock had told you. Then you set your models into it and adjusted their positions so that they more or less corresponded with the coordinates that Spock had programmed for them. When he had a look at the model he raised an eyebrow

“What now?” you asked, knowing that something did not please him at all.

“The positions of the Klingon warbirds one, three, four and five need to be adjusted slightly” At least he was now calling the ships by numbers and not the stupid model names he had given them in his code. It had taken you almost two days to get him do that and you had just written his model name onto the according ship in ugly red letters so that you knew which one he was talking about. “Move ship one 2.3 millimeters to the left and 1.8 millimeters down, ship two….”

“Woah wait… I never heard anyone saying decimals of millimeters. This model doesn’t even accept them. I can give you half millimeters but not point three or point eight. Besides, no one can actually know if the ship is perfectly aligned when they do the simulation. And if we align the weapons right they will still hit the ship if they enter the coordinates of the ship”

“I know but I wish that it is as accurate as possible. Speaking of accuracy” he explained that the surroundings were not accurate either because the constellations were wrong and did not look like this ad the place the simulation took place

“In other words you want me to fucking re-align every single star correctly?”

“It does not need to be completely accurate, yet I do ask you to adjust their positions so that it does have more similarities with the coordinates where the simulation occurs”

Well, in contrast to you I don’t have a fucking stellar map saved in my brain” he walked away and then handed you a PADD, explaining that it would turn into a 360° stellar map if you opened the correct program and entered the coordinates you wanted.

-

So you just spent the following three days on redoing the whole surroundings, this times even with micrometers as unit so that you could adjust the ships perfectly as he wanted. At times you found it easier to agree to what he wanted and have more work instead of discussing with him, which would result in you doing as he wanted anyway. You hadn’t even been able to make it clear to him that sometimes you need to be polite and say please and thank you, to which he replied that such formalities were illogical since they did not change anything about the request and that he would never say please in an order to subordinates.

Since it was a bigger project, it took up several weeks of collaboration with Spock and somehow the thing that bugged you most about working with him was the fact that you had to admit to yourself that, despite everything he did or said, your stupid, illogical heart had managed to develop romantic feelings for the Vulcan. You didn’t know if that just was because of his appearance or if it also was his almost dominating behavior that made you feel that way. One thing was for certain; the more you worked with Spock the stronger these feelings got. So, you were a little relieved when the semester started again and he wasn’t around all day but spent a great part of his time teaching classes. But at times that also brought problems because you had learnt that sometimes it was better to just ask him if he was okay with something sooner rather than later because if he wanted you to change many things about it you’d have more work later on. So you would just leave your office and go looking for him instead to show him what you had done. He had forwarded you his timetable so that you knew where to find him at which time. If you found the correct classroom, of course.

“Spock, I think I finally could make the final….”

“Can you give me three minutes?”

“Fine but then don’t complain that we’re three minutes behind in schedule” you muttered

“There is no such detailed schedule. I even do not have a fixed date on which we need to be finished but rather a time interval”

“So that means we don’t just have one more month but two in total?”

“Yes” you gave a nod

“Good then I’ll let you finish your stuff”

-

One thing you always loved about your work was to see it in action. In that case that was, when everything was finished so far that some test people could make the simulation to see how everything was working. It was mainly to test the simulation itself, to see if the coding worked but you had been asked to be there as well so that you could have an eye on the animation and make sure everything happened in life time and correctly. You were quite proud when you noticed that almost everything was working perfectly fine and that there only were a few details you had to change. As well as some details on the ships themselves because Spock still was not perfectly happy with them.

“And?” you asked after four goes at the simulation

“What do you wish to know?” Spock asked

“Well what you think of it”

“I have noticed that there are a few instances that you will need to go over” you crossed your arms

“What?” you couldn’t believe that this was his answer and to your dismay he started listing up some flaws.  “Stop” you growled, making him raise an eyebrow “I know that there are some imperfections but I’m sorry that I’m not as perfect as you”

“I never claimed that I was perfect. I am a being and all beings are flawed”

“Wow that I got you to admit that”

“To claim that I am perfect would be a lie and highly illogical”

“You and your stupid thinking in code”

“The assumption that I think in ‘code’ is not correct”

“But logical. You think logically, as a Vulcan. Coding is pure logic”

“I see, yet the conclusion is still incorrect” you sighed

“Wow, you’re never ever gonna compliment me or my work, huh?”

“It would be illogical to point out points that do not need modification anymore. Therefore I only tell what you will need to work on again”

“Well but I’m human and we sometimes need reassurance that what we did is good!”

“As you can derive from my statement, your work can be considered as good, when there is nothing that I ask you to change about it”

“You don’t get my point, do you?”

“I do but I do not think it is necessary to point…”

“Just one compliment about my work. I stood your behavior for weeks now”

“Four weeks, five days and 3.6 hours to be exact”

“See, even worse. You have to be so precise and perfectionistic every fucking time”

“However, if you had a problem with something you would have addressed it”

“No. Because humans don’t always do that. But I am complaining now”

“Very well. What do you wish me to change?”

“Well you could make just one simple compliment or something that you like about the way I work on this project” he raised an eyebrow and was silent “Or are you just as fed up with me as I’m with your behavior?”

“You work highly focused” you let out a huff

“Well at least something”

“Besides” he added a bit more quietly and after a pause “I find your hands and fingers to be pleasingly shaped and they move gracefully”

“Okay that was hella unexpected” and even a little creepy “Did you pay that much attention to my hands?”

“When you were showing me something, yes I was at certain times” you frowned. How could he still have noticed so many flaws in your work then if he had just stared onto your hands?

“That is a little weird, don’t you think?”

“No”

“No?”

“Hands hold a different value on Vulcan” he explained that their hands were extremely sensitive and often were something like a symbol of love in their culture.

“So if you told that another Vulcan… what would happen?”

“Usually, Vulcans will only compliment their bondmate’s physiology”

“Hm okay. Are bondmates something like a spouse?”

“Or what you call fiancés”

“But back to my question, what would happen?”

“I cannot say because some might react emotionally in such a situation”

“So you’re saying that you’re not acting emotionally? Like never?”

“We are sentient being so we all will act emotionally at times, whether we want it or not”

“Okay. But what do you want to do, now that you told me how much you like my hands?”

“I have never stated that I like them” you frowned

“That sounds like something is bothering you”

“It is of no consequence”

Come on, tell me. You already told me you like, no wait you… whatever, find my hands pleasing or how you’d want to formulate it. And now something is bothering you”

“I was wondering… whether you would let me touch you”

“And you ask that?” you just took his hand in yours and ran your fingers of the other hand over the back of it. His hands were softer than you had imagined but also colder. When you looked up at him, you saw a slight green blush on his cheeks and smiled “Suddenly so flustered, huh?”

“Touching hands is something rather intimate in Vulcan culture”

“Oh” you let go of him “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t know that” but maybe you could have thought about it, considering what he had told you about the meaning of hands on Vulcan.

“I did not tell you, therefore you could not know” he said “You do not need to reproach yourself” you gave a nod and were surprised when he continued “In fact, I have found it rather pleasing” you smiled. For some reason you just held out your hand to him again and he actually took it. Well not really, he more or less just traced his fore- and middle finger over your skin, making you shudder a little

“You’re right that feels nice” he raised an eyebrow and placed his other hand at your back and pulled you closer, then lifting your head and leant down until your lips were inches apart

“Do you mind?”

“Not at all” you breathed and then his lips were on yours. For some reason you could not really say what you were feeling and you wondered if it was right to do this, you were working with him after all, at least for now. Contrary to what you had imagined, he was a pretty good kisser and his fingers still were stroking yours and while you liked the feeling, you wondered if it felt even more sensual to him. When you felt him pull you closer, you thought that this probably was the case and felt yourself smiling into the kiss. You placed your free hand at the base of his neck and pressed your whole body against his. He didn’t seem to mind but some seconds later you parted, looking at each other

“Perhaps we should not have kissed”

“We should” you corrected and leant up to do it again and he responded immediately. This time, the kiss came to a more abrupt end when suddenly the door opened. You let go of each other and quickly stepped apart. While Spock turned to the visitor, one of the people that had tried out the simulation, you touched your lips which were still tingling from the kiss, making you smile

“I’m sorry, if I interrupted something or came at an inconvenient time I can just go and well… leave. We can discuss it later”

“I will be with you momentarily” Spock said and told him to go to a briefing room. You awkwardly played with the hem of your shirt, not sure what to say.

“Well, I should get working on my faulty animation then”

“It is not faulty, (Y/N)” was there a difference in how he said your name now? You had had a long time until you got him to call you (Y/N) instead of his formal for of addressing you with your surname and he had allowed you to just call him Spock in return.

“Was that just another compliment?”

“If you wish to take it as one” he replied and you gave a nod, wanting to return to your workstation, but he took hold of your wrist

“Huh?” you asked

“I do not know what humans will do after such occurrences but on Vulcan, the logical conclusion is that the two individuals will start a relationship”

“You’re asking me for a relationship?”

“If you approve of it”

“I…” you looked down but then found yourself nodding “Yes. I think so”

“Very well” you didn’t know if there was something like a tiny curl in his lip that may have been a little smile. This made you smile as well “I suppose that the discussion will take up the rest of my time at work. Would you be amendable to accompany me to dinner later?”

[llycaons]

baccano for the ask game?

ahh baccano, one of my old faves. I will answer as anime/light novel

My rating (1-10) anime: 7/10 - super fun and the dub and music choices are excellent, but the anime lost a lot of character depth and the dialogue sounds a bit stupid. the action and animation was good for 2007 but the off-model shots in the ova bring it down. light novel: 9/10: I can't rate the novels accurately because I've been in love with it for so many years but I always found the plots, character arcs, writing style, originality, impeccable structure and planning, and illustrations magnificent. I used to do a yearly reread but I lost steam a while ago. must say the portrayal of samsa was awful in both versions and in general narita has no idea what he's talking about when he tries to address antiblack racism in america. besides that, his treatmenf of racism in the novels overall feels very shallow and awkwardly done to me. but I do love his enthusiasm for mob movies and stuff, it really shines through and I always enjoyed his perspective and portrayal of new york. to the extent that I got excited in hs when we visited the city, lol. ah I miss my baccano liveblogging years

My favourite character: chane, claire, jacuzzi, nice, and firo/really hard to choose between all the incredible characters but my favorite character for only her novel appearance is ennis, and my favorite novel-only characters are probably rail (nonbinary traumatized scarred arsonist rly hit me) and nile (heart eyes)

My least favourite character: poet is rly annoying :/ christopher without fail is deeply hateful but only in his first appearance? after his first book he's fine. also I do not like novel firo lmao he's a better character with a lot more depth but he's a homophobic misogynist and he pisses me off. tim is boring. also renee fuck her. anime ladd is even worse than novel ladd and that's saying something

The character I think I’d be friends with: everyone would be friends with isaac and miria :) otherwise...hard to say. I'll go with nile because he's very straighforward and sincere like I hope to be and also he's very hot. oh and niki :( niki my girl. and chane and ennis too!

The character I think I won’t hit off with: FIRO. actually most of them tbh everyone is off the walls ad I would be afraid for my life

My favourite episode/scene: RAIL TRACER REVEAL/*googles novel titles* Grand Punk Railroad obvs, The Slash, Crack Flag is slightly messy but struturally brilliant, uhh for scenes I don't remember too many specifically but anything with claire and chane just makes me melt even tho they are slightly problematic. end of grand punk railroad with jacuzzi too! the anime got some of the greatest scenes from the novels in imo

Whose clothing style I like best: anyone in the 1930s arc plus monica. I LOVE 1930s style especially with the caps I think they're so neat. nothing in the 2000s I really disliked that arc. it contains every trope I hate for married couples and for romantic plots. even though I think it was rly well done and I love illness and the Reveal is Very Good

Times I watched it (and if I would again): 5 or 6 times?/ at least 5. idk if I'd watch the show again I kind of have it memorized and I like the novel plot more. I will definitely read the novels again we're just waiting on those last two books.

for anyone reading, I want to note that the baccano anime is extremely gory and contains depictions of torture, including child torture, fantasy cannibalism, child abuse, and gun/knife violence*

the light novels contain all these, plus fictional cults that abuse children, suicide, references to sexual assault and child sexual assault as backstory, and joking references to incest (thanks, 2002) - this is not comprehensive, it's been a few years. it's an intense series so stay safe if you're interested. I think a lot of the assault and cult topics are used for shock value tbh.

thanks for the ask! I miss it...I used to run this blog so if you want a detailed tag list to go through, it's essentially an archive at this point

[shoichee]

GoMs + Kagami, Hanamiya, Teppei as Pokémon Trainers

Pokémon x Kuroko no Basket Crossover

Headcanons on KNB characters if they were trainers

For only the “Generation of Miracles” (plus Kagami), I wanted to show that they are prodigies in the pokémon universe by each giving them the appropriate specialty legendary/mythical pokémon respective to their anime counterpart abilities/personalities.

Also, as GoMs in the pokémon universe, I was careful to also choose some of their respective pokémon based on base stats and the consideration of type variety, unless a team had most pokémon sharing a type for a reason, in addition to already choosing pokémon based on their pokédex entries.

I have also given pictures of said pokémon suited to each KNB character below the cut.

Warning: spoilers on KNB characters, it’s a given

Kuroko Tetsuya 

his lack of presence would directly translate into the pokémon world pretty nicely and would make him pretty attuned to ghost pokémon floating about, but that won’t necessarily mean he’ll have a full team of ghosts

I feel like he would accidentally just pick up the mythical pokémon, Marshadow as a kid without knowing its reputation and would just let it follow him around like a buddy… and then they would become an official trainer-pokémon relationship later on // they’re both tiny and usually unnoticeable; they’d be best friends

he’d definitely have a Zoroark, since these pokémon require very strong bonds with their trainers, and they’re infamously known for their illusions and trickery; for Kuroko, he probably saw right through a Zorua’s (pre-evolution) tricks back in the day and then it became intrigued by him and joined him along the way before evolving into the Zoroark we see present day // this is a tribute to Nigou as well, since they’re both dog-like/fox?????

surprisingly, he’d have a Hatterene just trailing behind recently; Hatterenes hate extreme emotions emitted from humans and I’d feel like it would just be lured in by his dry personality

Hatterene’s color scheme is literally the same blue and pink like Kuroko and Momoi, so Hatterene is very much a Momoi who chases Kuroko around while he doesn’t mind it at all

his 4th pokémon, Vanilluxe, came to be when he spent hours hiding in the tall grass for a Vanillite (pre-evolution) to show up; he was willing to go out of his way to catch one because he wanted an ode to his love for vanilla milkshakes

all in all, he would be the trainer who is able to instantly connect and make friends with other pokémon around without even trying; ironically, he would have the most variety of typings in his team because of that

he’s the protagonist trainer who would always be the first to openly stand up against the villain teams and foiling their plans, but he would need the support of the other GoMs (cough) to take down the team bosses

he would definitely be friends with N (BEST franchise character)

he’s a “youngster” trainer like a “youngster joey” vibe KDJWORKWKW but like he’s pretty OP by the end of his journey

Kise Ryota

Cinderace with its hidden ability Libero is perfect for our blondie; Libero is an ability that allows the user to become that type of the move it just used until it uses a move of a different type, and then it’ll switch to that next type (I thought about Greninja with its Protean ability at first because it’s the OG ability and it's the exact effect just a diff name; but Cinderace’s design is a soccer motif and it reminded me of Kise in the old Teiko days)

Kise would very much be a renown model in the pokémon universe, and he’d idolize Elesa (from Pokémon B/W and B2/W2); both are blonde models too LOL (except she dyed her hair black in B2/W2)

so he’d have a Luxray (non shiny OR shiny, both suit him), because since he looks up to her so much and she’s an electric-type gym leader, he’d probably have an electric-type of his own

I would think he’d have a dragon-type pokémon like Haxorus to connect him with Aomine (a dragon-type trainer) since in the anime, Aomine was Kise’s mentor and role model in basketball; it would give him a fighting chance with Aomine if they ever faced each other in a pokémon battle

he would have a shiny Sylveon, and he would love to dote the ever living fuck out of it and feed it poképuffs (maybe from Murasakibara’s café LOL) and sing with it, and every time it sweeps someone’s team with its Moonblasts, he’ll cheer it on so much BDHWIRWI it also adds a certain connotation to his idol reputation as this “approachable guy” with his adorable Sylveon too

this guy has an idol status not just in the beauty/fashion industry, but also in the sports world (especially in Unova’s sports stadium in Nimbasa city)

he’d meet tons of other models and fashion icons like gym leader Nessa, champion Diantha, etc. WHEW JUST SAYIN

he would have his face plastered everywhere on trainer PR videos and even getting offers for some minor acting roles in Pokéstar Studios

one day, while he’d be at the studio, there was a whole commotion how the studio and the museum had their deliveries mixed up because the studio had the real meteorite while the museum had the well-made prop of a meteorite; and uh, it turns out this meteorite had the alien virus that pretty much had its DNA mutated into a Deoxys

long story short, being a very experienced trainer, Kise would manage to catch it after hours of chasing it in the wild areas nearby

over time, he and this particular Deoxys would come to have enough mutual respect for each other to be able to battle as a proper trainer-pokémon duo

that being said, he won’t resort to using it unless it’s life-threatening; note: he changes its Formes using a chunk from the meteorite in the studios he broke off (Deoxys [and its many forms] is further reference to his versatility as a basketball player)

Midorima Shintarou

as a man who seeks for good luck and fortunes he’d stack up on a Chimecho for sure and… 

Togekiss; he used to have its pre-evolution Togepi to solely to try to make it stand up while sleeping for good luck (according to the pokédex), and the more he kept trying, the more he made it attached to him and before he knew it, he had a fully evolved Togekiss // he’ll NEVER admit that he loves it to bits, though

this might be unexpected at first glance, but he’d have a Mega Absol; hear me out, it’s called the “disaster pokémon” according to its pokédex, however it is only named so because it warns others of disasters when it appears SO IT WOULD WARN MIDORIMA OF INCOMING BAD LUCK

he’d probably receive a Rowlet from Momoi as a gift from her laboratory, and he didn’t have the heart to abandon it; he’d evolve it to a Decidueye… and just… keep it (this pokémon is a reference to his no-miss shots)

ultimate good luck bringer: Ho-Oh ✨

would have the most “balanced” team out of everyone in terms of type-coverage (reference to him having the most coverage in skills for basketball, from shooting to absolute defense to having ball-handling skills)

he’d totally avoid Akashi’s Kadabra (pre-evolution of Alakazam)—who will be mentioned later down in the list—because it’s said to bring bad luck, as well as avoiding all the Ninetales because he doesn’t want to risk accidentally pulling off one of their tails and be cursed

he’ll avoid caverns as much as possible (but it’s impossible to avoid them all) because those are the habitats of Golbats (who will supposedly give bad luck if one bites you) but if there wasn’t a leeway for him, he will literally LATCH onto his Chimeco and keep his Togekiss and Absol out of their pokéballs to guard him LMAOOO

I would feel he would constantly strive to fill up his entire pokédex, so he’d be a pokémon master in training in a sense; he’s someone who wants to prepare himself for any situation and opportunity, so being a pokédex filler would always provide him an encyclopedia on potential pokémon to either stay away from or catch more of because of certain luck factors

make no mistake though, he’s a seasoned pokémon battler, don’t fuck with him

Aomine Daiki

an intimidating Garchomp would be his ace™️ pokémon, ummmm have you SEEN its base SPEED stat??? it’s a monster

we’re gonna go overkill and give this man a Mega Rayquaza just for the sole fact that he’d be the “ace” trainer of ALL ace trainers and veterans alike

however, because of his “lack of practice/training” like in the anime, he’d probably just stick with these two pokémon, since usually Garchomp already sweeps everyone’s teams without a sweat

homie is probably napping on top of one of the laboratory roofs (probably the one Momoi works in) or escaping to a nearby cliff or hill to relax and keep a lookout for any promising trainers that pass by him

is a trainer who pretty much kept one-shotting all the trainers throughout his journey in the region (aka that’s us protagonists when we play against NPCs)

he would also be that trainer who wiped the floor with the current champion so badly that he felt that all his “training” leading up to that moment didn’t even feel rewarding (plus there’s those countless trainer battles before where it didn’t feel thrilling), and so, he just left the league after, waiting for the day a sufficient rival could show up in his life

he’s definitely cleared the challenging battle systems of each region (probably back when he still had some passion for battling and had a good full team): Battle Frontier, Battle Tree, PWT tournament, Battle Manson, Battle Tower… you name it, he’d probably be done with most of them, if not, all

Murasakibara Atsushi

he’d have a Bewear, Appletun, and lots of variants of Alcremie’s just hanging around him

note: you should search up all the variations of Alcremies yourself, hint cough, it’s 60 variations total

maybe he’d have a Snorlax chilling nearby because it’s so huge

Murasakibara would be a Pokécafé owner AND HE’D HAVE HIS BULKY BEWEAR AND HIS SNORLAX GUARD THE SHOP, YOU CAN’T ARGUE WITH ME 

or he would UNLEASH his G-MAX forms of Alcremie’s

and he’ll just use his pokémon to make the tastiest poffins, poképuffs, and pokécurry

he’ll never bring out his final pokémon, Melmetal, unless it’s an absolute emergency and his shop is in danger

he would love Kuroko’s Vanilluxe, in a sense where he would always impassively joke about eating the ice-cream pokémon and Kuroko would just constantly hope he’s not being for real

he wouldn’t be motivated by ambitions like other trainers would have, he just wants to chill and loaf around all day; if someone pissed him off about he was a “weak” trainer or how they were becoming overly cocky when talking about their goals, he’d be right there smiling and ready to annihilate them | (• ◡•)|

Akashi Seijuro

Espeon would totally fit him as his first pokémon; its eyes are very reminiscent of his feline irises, and it’s tiny in size but a very powerful sweeper when set up right AND THEY’re ~calm~ while being capable of either sweet or very calculating later on / LIKE PET, LIKE OWNER

Tsareena; this one has a literal attitude of a queen and its pokédex is pretty terrifying in which one kick from its legs “leaves a wound in the opponent's body and soul that will never heal”... sound familiar?

Nidoking, cough I wonder why I picked this guy he’s a king, but jokes aside, it’s here to add more type variety to his team, and it’s mostly there to be a status inflictor (aka poisoning) and hazard setter with traps for his opponents… sound familiar with how he initiates his shogi strategies?

Mega Alakazam. that’s it. this pokémon has 5000 IQ like ?? would totally wipe the floor with Akashi in shogi if it tried

you thought Aomine had an overkill legendary, but Akashi has Hoopa, who’s capable of a Confined form and Unbound form, representative of his two contrasting personalities 

he’s an ambitious trainer aiming to become a Pokémon Master, and he’s one of those feared prodigies that all the region champions just lowkey sweat hearing about him coming to wreck their leagues apart

his pokédex would be damn near completed

he looks more into a pokémon’s utility and how it can fit into his strategies; it just turns out that most of the capable/eligible pokémon he ends up picking are psychic-types because they all tend to have extremely high intelligence to pull them off

Momoi Satsuki

Mega Altaria fits Momoi’s aesthetic of being cute, but very dangerous if you underestimate it, and I wanted a cute connection to Aomine who I primarily headcanoned to be a dragon-type trainer, so Altaria is a dragon-type pokemon that I picked out (perfect alternative would be Mega Gardevoir if she never met Aomine)

Blissey is a pokemon that brings happiness to anyone that eats their eggs, and it very much fits Momoi’s personality

Tapu Lele is a totem pokemon that has incredible knowledge, and is known to be able to outsmart any opponent during battle, referencing her pre-cognitive defense research abilities

she would definitely be constantly mistaken as a pokémon “Beauty” (yes that’s a trainer title), but in actuality, she’s training to become a pokémon professor as an assistant 

Momoi’s “professor specialty” would definitely be her researching about a pokémon’s current stats (plus their EVs and IVs) and would pinpoint their level of potential and thus, predict their growth (and the steps taken for a certain type of growth) // she’d probably become really famous in the world of competitive battling because a lot of trainers would try to approach her to help “train their teams”

Kagami Taiga

I think he would ironically have a Lopunny because it used to be Alex’s but she just left it in his care and now he has this prankster bunny that’s basically an Alex 2.0 to other pokémon in its vicinity ?? but it has hops like Kagami so

a hotheaded, short-tempered guy like Kagami would have an Incineroar (they… kinda look the same) 

Krookodile would be very much up his alley… its offensive stats are also not something to take lightly, especially when paired with moves like Earthquake and Foul Play

Kommo-o would be a pokémon that embodies Kagami’s personality very well: it seeks to battle only strong opponents for the reason to defeat the “darkness,” and its presence is more than enough to scare the weaker opponents away; Kagami has been mentioned as the “light” many times throughout the series, and his piercing gaze on the courts generate suffocating pressure on the opposing teams // it’s also a pseudo-legendary pokémon on the same base-stat caliber as Aomine’s Garchomp (hinting at their game against each other) ( ᐛ )

last one I’d find really amusing to give for Kagami would be Victini, the adorable mythical pokémon said to bring only victories for its trainer… and it’s a reference to his ascendance to the top of the Winter Cup after defeating all the GoM’s teams

oh yeah, I forgot Mega Lopunny existed so I’ll just attached that right below

anywho, so he’s a rising pokémon trainer who wants to become a pokémon master… but only for the battling part LOL like he doesn’t believe in “catching ‘em all” so to speak because he’d be someone who would believe in winning battles with the pokémon you truly bonded with; in other words, he’d probably only catch new pokémon if he feels a certain connection with them

but because of that, he doesn’t have much info on other pokémon besides his own, and it bites him in the ass when he has to try to figure out ways to take down opposing teams

reluctantly would team up with Kuroko after finding out many of the competitions require double battling but he doesn’t have a single strategy for it, and then Kuroko would pop out of nowhere and offered a hand to be his double battle partner until he learned how to double-battle on his own

spoiler alert, they totally start becoming travel companions in exploring the world together

of course Kagami would have battle strategies, but he isn’t like Akashi where he would actively look for the appropriate strong pokémon for his strategies; he makes strategies to accommodate his existing team

Kiyoshi Teppei

HE HAS A LUCARIO, NOT ONLY THAT A MEGA LUCARIO; they both seek for justice and they’re extremely loyal, and they both are able to read their opponents very easily 

HE ISN’T CALLED THE “IRON HEART” FOR NOTHING, I CAN SEE HIM WITH A SHINY METAGROSS JUST BEING AN OFFENSIVE TANK YET BEING ABLE TO SWEEP, JUST LIKE AN ACE WOULD

he would live a double life: a shopkeeper of his grandparents’ pokémon item/antique store by day, pokémon ranger and patroller by night

he would keep his local area safe (ง'̀-'́)ง

yes, I only see him as a steel-type trainer

he’d be so precious with his pokémon and meticulous in his care for them: he’d probably shine his Metagross everyday or brush out his Lucario’s fur, just because !!

and his pokémon would be fiercely protective of Teppei in return, mostly because they noticed he has bad knees and they don’t want him to strain them any further(;´༎ຶٹ༎ຶ`)

Hanamiya Makoto

no debate, he’d have a shiny Hydreigon… dude that pokémon is an absolute nightmare to level up and evolve, let alone tame, but back when it debuted in Pokémon B/W, it was the most OP pokémon out there // shiny variant of it because it has a similar color scheme to the Kirisaki Daiichi basketball team, and he’d probably have a shiny version just to flaunt it off and piss people off

Salazzle with a hidden ability Corruption, where it allows it to poison any pokémon regardless of type or ability; again, it’s to piss the trainers off in battle

and finally, a Dracovish; a person like him would totally have this inherently fucked up pokémon just for the sole purpose to disturb the hell out of his opponent trainers, but make no mistake: it’s an underdog sweeper 

look, he’s an admin of some sinister villain team and he has his other Kirisaki Daiichi starter players as his personalized grunts (they’re like a specific sect of the villain team; e.g. Shadow Triad or the Seven Sages of Team Plasma)

you might wonder, why don’t I give him a “spider” pokémon, since the webs are the analogy used to compare to his strategies in basketball? too many villains have Ariados in their teams and Galvantula is a friendly, fuzzy tarantula soooo it wouldn’t fit Hanamiya at all

I don’t think he would have any deep motive to be villainous other than to just enjoy people getting fucked over by his own deeds and actions; sometimes, it isn’t so deep

“it’s your boy, Guzma Hanamiya” if you get this reference I love you

End Note: “Mega” forms and “G-MAX” forms are not separate pokémon, but rather, temporary power-ups during battles; they are just shown to show the differences in appearances compared to their original forms when they transform.

[bbwoulfc]

ML NY Special Review

Finally finished my review on the ML NY Special and it’s going to be a long review, I won’t lie.  I will be breaking this down in two sections.  First section will be focused through the perspective as a professional (animation industry) and the second section through the perspective as a viewer and ML fan.

I won’t deny, I will be criticizing a few things and really give large opinionated thoughts; I’m sure it will piss people off, but I’m gonna be honest and I don’t give a damn.  I’ve been here since the beginning and I’m gonna go all out.  It wouldn’t be the first time I pissed people off.

Again, keep in mind these are my views/opinions as a professional and as a viewer/fan.  If you can’t handle some of the strong opinions that will come from this review, then keep moving on.  Don’t waste your time if you can’t handle certain characters or subjects being discussed in a different light.

If you wish to continue, then click the “keep reading” option.

As an animator, this is one of my favorite things to do with animated shows or movies.  I absolutely love breaking things down and giving opinions on the whys, whats, and hows.  Never do I aim to prove my opinions right.  My goal is to simply make you think and consider.  And if you don’t agree then that’s completely fine.  That’s how it works.

Now, the NY Special has definitely exceeded the quality than what I expected.  I absolutely love SAMG as a company.  I think this is by far one of the best that SAMG has produced for Miraculous as a whole.  Even better than the origin episodes. The lighting is probably the best I’ve seen in a 3D animated tv series, by far. It was stunning and gorgeous and worked well with the given mood that was set throughout the hour of the special.  I would say there are two scenes in particular that I felt were the best lit scenes. 

The first scene is definitely near the beginning when the class landed in NY and where traveling in the bus.  They stopped either at the hotel or museum and the shot was the buses in front of the large building where you have the other city buildings around it.  That shot was gorgeous; the orange hues falling on top of the buildings and gaining that purple and blue shadows was great.  It’s honestly one of my favorite complementary color schemes to use when lighting most scenes in animation.  It helps achieve a nice balance when setting mood but also to get a nice glance at the shapes of the models in the scene.  Perfection.

As for the second scene, I would have to say it was the moment Adrien left and Marinette was biking to chase after him and she fell.  That moment the scene focused on Marinette on the ground and in the rain spoke many volumes.  The color tone of the scene was perfect and captured the common traits used in many shows and films to further drive the sense of sadness and overall emotional effect; using the traditional trait of rain made the scene work and stand out during the struggles that Marinette was dealing with. 

The rain in general was outstanding on it’s own.  Liquids in animation are tough, not an easy thing to do. The way the rain was animated was probably the best rain I’ve seen in most 3D animated tv series.  I will even say it beats the rain from the origin episodes which is amazing because it shows the growth alone that SAMG has come from since the first season of the series.  

They create stunning quality work and by far are the best of the best from all the companies that ZAG uses or had used for the show.  I won’t lie, I still can’t fathom how Jeremy/ZAG could let such a company go but Jeremy isn’t the greatest with the money, so it’s not a shocker.  It definitely shows that man doesn’t know how to properly run a company and treat a show.  I honestly blame him for pretty much the entire outcome of the series and that’s my god honest opinionated truth as a professional. 

The pacing of the special I felt was good, though I do think it would have been nice to have had an extra 30 minutes to help flow areas a bit better or more, but I can understand the time constraints, especially after hearing about how Thomas stated that the special was going to be two hours originally. And I will be honest, I wouldn’t have minded that.  I think it would have been fantastic to have had a longer span episode special, but I understand a lot of the struggles that no doubt the team had endured.

Overall, some issues, but 10 out of 10 on animation and quality output.

Now the second section; viewing through the eyes as a viewer and fan.

As a fan of ML, I will not beat around the bush, I truly believe this special was disappointing plot wise.  And I don’t blame Thomas and his team for the issue.  As stated previously, my anger and frustration is more on Jeremy/ZAG for everything that has come from ML as a show and especially the result of the NY special.

My biggest issue with the special was the focal point: Adrinette.

How many damn times must I hear, “they’re meant for each other” or “aren’t they perfect together” and so forth.  I get it. You can adore Adrientte but I don’t need it shoved down my throat every five minutes.  I don’t give an ounce of care that Adrien and Marinette are endgame and that they’re “soulmates”.  The romance between those two means absolutely nothing to me.  It was cute and fun in the beginning when the series first started, but I’m tired of it.  I don’t care about the love square.  I don’t care about the “soulmate” trope when in reality anyone can be someone’s soulmate with the right care.  That was no doubt the biggest issue for me in the entire special.  

In my opinion, it would have been perfect if it wasn’t Adrinette centric.  This was the best moment to show Marinette is improving herself but it had to become fan service because god forbid it felt like they needed to please the Adrinette shippers that their ship is still valid. If we’re judging this based off the season 3 finale, I won’t lie, this special fit better as a season 2 finale or mid season 3 than the end of season 3.

I’m seriously more disappointed that the special wasn’t more on Marinette and herself as a character.  They were in New York, another strong hub for fashion.  This was a perfect opportunity to explore more of her interests as a fashion designer and maybe meeting some new people.  Who knows, maybe even Jagged Stone as an international rock star. But overall it was a lost opportunity to expand more on her for the sake of shipping.  

I think it would have also been cool to see her and Chat Noir maybe learn some methods/training from the US heroes and get a glimpse into a world of heroism that is different in cultures and circumstances.  Which honestly made sense to me how US heroes didn’t care about identity because Ladybug and Chat Noir have magical based items that are no doubt more powerful and outside sources that I’m sure would be willing to destroy to obtain it.

Another problem I had was how I felt we were robbed without having Kagami and Luka go to New York. Or if anything, more with Luka than Kagami. I love Kagami with all my being, but I doubt her mother would let her go to New York.  But imagine Luka being there. We could have had a flipping jam session between Luka and Jess.  I felt we were cheated, it would have been amazing to see two incredible guitarists jam it out and two people who have a passion for music find a friend in each other. I would have given anything to have had that moment.

Though in general I would have enjoyed anything else if it just wasn’t Adrinette centric.  I’m positive everyone in the fandom is on the same page that they’re “soulmates” but there’s more that can be done than a damn ship that has followers that attack and annoy anyone who doesn’t ship them.  Because, god forbid, Adrien and Marinette apparently aren’t allowed to be happy with others. I swear, half the fandom (hardcore adrinette shippers) treat Adrien more as an object than the ML characters themselves. 

Nothing against the ship, but it’s just not for me and that’s okay.  I simply can’t relate to Adrien as a romantic choice of a character.  When Luka came into existence, I was in awe. I found a character I could relate too because I was as close to similarity than any other character in a show before.  And that’s something I’ve noticed with this fandom, hating characters because to them they’re nothing but boring.  

Fans need to understand that one will not understand everything in a show, especially characters.  Just because you hate a character and find them boring doesn’t mean they’re terribly written.  You as a viewer simply can’t relate to them and that’s completely fine.  There will always be some who can relate and understand while others don’t, but that shouldn’t be a reason to argue against people who love a certain character.

And I’m being serious, I enjoyed the 30 seconds of Kagami and Luka with their love interests more than the hour of Adrinette.  It’s just overall sad.  There is so much potential that could have been the special focus wise but felt it was there to show why Adrinette is “superior” when it’s really not.  They’re only one of many ships that are equally good.  It comes down to how it’s portrayed and done.

However, since I know we’re stuck with Adrinette no matter what, I’m going to end this review with this as a food for thought but again, this is a simple opinion.

There was one thing that stood out and caught myself and some of my friends in a ML server attention.  In the NY special there were strong moments that revolved around bikes.  So, out of curiosity, I searched for symbolism meanings about bikes during the server’s conversation and it might hint to what might happen or what might come in the future of the show.   

The bike symbolizes the moving circle of life. 

Seeing a bicycle is a hint that you will reach somewhere. This could either be your motivation or your future plan. Cycling refers to the different moods that a person feels. Bicycles are also related to the ups and downs of life. For instance, riding a bicycle gives you both smooth edges and rough pebbles on your journey. The smooth edges are related to the happy times of your life and the rough pebbles denote the challenges of life. 

So, if we want to use this to break down ML, this in a way, represents Lukanette and Adrinette.  Luka are the smooth edges in Marinette’s journey.  He’s the one that calms her, helps her think things through, focuses on what Marinette wants to do rather tell her what she should do.  Never once does he tell her to do this or do that, but simply asks her what it is she wants. Luka, is pretty much her guide. The happy times as Marinette where she appears happiest without the burdens and overwhelming stress of her other life.  Whereas Adrien is the rough pebbles in her journey, the challenges to properly talk with the one she views as a love interest or simply to build that perfect friendship/relationship.  Yes, they’re friends, but they’re not as strong as friends like Marinette and Alya or Adrien and Nino. Adrien is a challenge in her life and always will be until she learns to let go and mature.   

The other moment that stood out with the bike was the moment Marinette was pressured to chase after Adrien to get him to stay.  She chases after him on a bike but falls off in the end. 

Falling off the Bicycle: This indicates that you are losing your self-confidence. 

Spend time with your loved ones and take suggestions from the experienced people. Join a course on building your personality and motivation. Do things that interest you the most and this will surely help to bring back your confidence level. This indicates a frenzied lifestyle and the need to slow down. 

This here makes me believe that Luka is the “experienced people” in Marinette’s life.  Other than Kagami, Luka is the only mature one in Marinette’s life in her friend group.  He’s one of the biggest motivators in Marinette’s life as of recent.  Putting her interests at heart that have helped her build her confidence.  We know Marinette has a frenzied lifestyle with everything that she has on her shoulders as well as her passions.  And Luka is one of the very few, if not, only one in her friend group that can calm Marinette and help her slow down and simply relax.

I know Adrinette is endgame, but I won’t deny when I say if there was anything that ML could do, is that they make Adrigami and Lukanette endgame.  So many shows always pair the two main characters, always.  If there is any message that I would have loved to see come from a show like ML, it would simply be “Your first love/crush will not always be the one and that’s okay. That your first crush/love could be the greatest friendship you ever have. And the second chances in your life are just as valuable as the first and may be even better for you.”  

Fans might hate Kagami and Luka, but as far as I’m concerned from everything I’ve watched since the beginning, the only reason you’re getting your Adrinette in the end is all because of Luka.  If it weren’t for him majority of the time, y’all wouldn’t have half of your love square moments.  So, Luka is the true MVP in my book.  Because unlike many of the others, he doesn’t put pressure on Marinette and that’s what Marinette doesn’t need right now, more pressure.  

Adrien and Marinette might be endgame, but those two need people outside of their classmates because everyone is too tunnel vision.  Luka and Kagami are the only ones that will help Adrien and Marinette mature, cause those two will not be able to do it themselves.  So, if you want your Adrinette, you’re gonna have to suffer through Lukanette and Adrigami.

[wackology]

Dumb HBCU/WR movie ramblings

Ok so I've been thinking a bit about the HBCU and a potential Wacky Races movie in development a bit and I got a lot of shit to say about this so buckle your seatbelts and hold on to your hats as you witness my incoherent ramblings and fanon headcanons.

So it pretty much agreed upon that any next installment of the HBCU is gonna take a while to come out considering how WB has put the HBCU in standstill for their dr seuss cinematic universe and liveaction-animation hyprid movies. Hell even the director of Scoob said that. The possibility of us getting another cinematic HB film in the next 5 years are close to none but if we were to get a movie it would probably be wacky races themed. Why? Cuz the Scoob film left off with Dick escaping prison with the wacky races on his mind (or in this case, his prison cell) and it would make sense for WB to continue the HBCU (which they probs don't plan to) with a character we are pretty familiar with and the only likable character in Scoob. Which begs the question, where would the plot go narrative wise?

Dick probably won't be the main character of the story but I can practically guarantee it will be Penelope Pitstop. I mean they already got concept art and i think they have models too that were unused and the people on scoob said they didn't add her to the film because they planned for her to be part of something bigger. Basically, I bet my left arm that the protag will be penny because apart from dick and muttley, she was the most memorable character of the show. We must also consider how they would tie up other hanna barbera characters and properties into a WR film thats part of an HBCU installment.

So basically, with this in mind I have created a few theoretical plots/premises that might happen in a WR movie

1. A Hooded Claw driven girl power film

Claw is an og and classic antagonist for penny, and if they really wanted to make a film centered on her the hooded claw is the perfect character to play the bad guy. I feel like the plot would go a bit like this: In order to kill penny and get her inheritance, Claw sponsored/set up the wacky races to kill penelope under the guise that good ol uncle sylvester was supporting Penny's girl power dreams to be a racer. Basically, he acts all supportive and shit for her to chase her dreams and enter this new race but under the mask actually set the whole thing up as an elaborate plan to kill her.

He lets the most deranged, insane and wacky people enter the race, from a gangster mob, to literal monsters to a pilot racer and a military tank duo with guns and canons thinking that Penny's survival chances in this race will be close to none, especially with it being a sausage fest and him not believing  in girl power. He even hires a professional mercenary with an evil dog to help kill penny in the WR (yes, dick, and yes he was sucessful at killing the pigeon in the scoobverse so he is actually considered quite the exceptional and competent villian in universe).

The rest of the film would be her racing and doing good despite all the odds and ends at her winning the grand finale, much to the frustration of Claw.Basically a film of empowerment for young girls to enjoy. This plot would probably be the most faithful to the original WR and most likely be a prequel to Scoob since the movie implies that Dick was doing all the skull shit after the wacky races sooo yeah.

There could also be a peter/penny subplot, perhaps not as romantic interests but as platonic friends or just some flirty exchanges between them, as well as a dick subplot with him not liking to race much at first and doing it for just the money but coming to love it as the film progresses. This plot would also probably be the least HBCU type film since it is mostly WR based and by nature would already have a ton of characters but they might try to replace some of the less memorable characters with other HB characters that are a bit more memorable than the boring racers but not as well known to have their own films (could see the country bears replace luke and blubber bear as well as any other character replace the lumberjack guy).

2. The Great Race inspired film

So we kinda get the idea in scoob that dick hasn't been in the Wacky races for a while after muttley disappeared and all the skull business happened but as we all know, dick was the character who made the races actually interesting. So the execs couldnt just have the wacky races without dick so what did they do ? They got a doppleganger of course, that being this boyyyy

Basically, the Wacky Races executives used Dick's way less famous twin brother  the Dread Baron and his dog friend Mumbly to fill in for the two once they realized Dick wasn't going to come back after prison. They were wrong of course but dick doesnt know he's been replaced and escapes thinking he was going to join the races again but when he does find out it bruises his ego a lot.

This idea technically serves better as a subplot and could be woven into the hooded claw story above if we just changed a few elements( make it happen after scoob instead of before, perhaps DB and Mumbly were hired by claw to kill penny and dick has to begrudgingly help penny and peter to get his place back in wacky races). After plot stuff happens it ends with dick being in the WR again and DB finding employment elsewhere in the Laffalympics which can easily tie into the established HBCU since it has the yogi gang, mystery gang, captain caveman and the teen angels gang and blue falcon and dynomutt.

Does this theoretical plot draw a lot from my personal desire to see DB just once. Yes. But do i care. No

3. The super HBCU plot(probs the most likely)

So the end credits basically tell us that after the scoob movie that the mystery gang and other HB characters joined the falcon force and are fighting baddies and crap.

Dick has escaped so they will probably start looking for him and in order to do so they get tangled up in the wacky races. Dick isnt the main antagonist tho( he's either trying to sabotage the other wacky racers because he is salty af or begrudgingly has to help out the heros or main antagonist) but the falcon/scooby gang discover a huge conspiracy happening within the wacky races that goes something like this: this race was set up kind of like a scavenger hunt across the world or the US to find mcguffins that are actually really powerful and crap when assembled, which is what the villain was trying to do because evil reasons. Basically wacky raceland done funnier or just Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Steel Ball Run.

In this premise not only would the og wacky racers and scoob cast be in it but i bet there would also be a bunch of cameos and references to other HB characters and they might even join in on the action and be racers too. I have no real clue on who the main baddie would be but I think it would be a johnny quest bad guy or something:( in the end credits they are teaming up with Quest industries after all).

I feel like the entire vibe of a premise like this would be very mad max like but without all the apocalypse stuff and just pure unrefined insanity. I kinda based these ideas off some of the unused concept art in scoob and I'm pretty sure the gang and the falcon force would team up with penny cuz they were planning to do so in the og concept art.

I have a few other ideas in my head but those arent fully developed but I might post them one day lol. But yeah, thanks for listening to my dumb shit lol

[steve0discusses]

The Full Metal Alchemist Live Action Movie Part 8: Watch This Episode Covered in Butts be the Only One Not Flagged by Tumblr

Gonna be risky business and not only upload all of these caps the way I screenshot them--which has just SO MANY poorly CGI’d butts but also gonna do it on the Tumblr Drafts folder, which I have been assured works now.

I’m so worried about so many things, but considering all the fears I have about like...everything else in the world right now...I guess I’ll take a risk on tumblr.

Edit: I cannot believe that I had 8ish episodes of Kaiba’s tall dueling tower get flagged but not this movie. I just....wow I cannot.

So anyway, last we left off, General Hakuro stepped in and was like “Hi guys, you like my wily plans that no one in their right mind would have ever guessed???”

Yo remember this part of the anime? Where the bodies drop from the ceiling and it’s a hunk out of the final arc--it’s here. In this movie. This movie that can’t possibly afford to do that. Lets get some CGI animated bodies in here ASAP.

(see some texture regrets under the cut)

It’s like a Monet, as the Mean Girls say, because far away and shrinked to 500 pixels this looks kinda neat. They sort of look more like those slime ball that grow in the back of your throat rather than human bodies, but they still look pretty gross hanging up there.

But then.....we zoom in. Remember again that this was full screen on my computer, and at one point was on a freakin movie screen. This level of 3d...was on a movie theater screen.

The mind boggles. The mind boggles!

Like as you know, I am an artist, and I’ve dabbled in...basically everything in my pursuit to make a dollar...and I have taken about 2 years of classes in 3D art with Maya and all those. I’m not thaaat great at it--I’m much more an illustrator/painter--but I feel like I have that reference point. Can I just say--the model is...fine...you can do a lot with layers of bump maps so you don’t need a truly detailed model (not like they did that, because they didn’t do that, but I can figure that maybe they had an intention to do that and forgot?)

But, there’s no connection of the wires to bodies. They just kinda float? The bodies are also all the same shiny-ness? To the point that it looks like a copy paste? (I don’t think it is, the wires are slightly different on a few of them) There’s just not much in the way of a texture map or a bump map. It just...there’s also something missing from the skin.

Skin is actually kind of rough to render, so when I did it back in the day, I followed like a checklist to make sure I had all the layers and steps to make someone look...clammy. Some things are kinda translucent, they reflect light a different way...especially white skin like this wouldn’t be just...white like putty. Dunno if you ever saw a white person, but we got so many veins...there was so much potential to make something really gross and fleshy.

Instead we got silly putty. It’s fine. I’m fine.

So General Hakuro decides to just...kill everyone right now.

This makes no sense to me.

That means that the whole thing of Lust killing Hughes was completely unrelated to General Hakuro. All Hakuro needed was Shou Tucker, who has been in prison for...I assume months since Ed shipped him off. And Shou was only released today? Just now? Just now when Hughes was shot?

So this all just happened at the same time by accident?

I mean the General sent us to the wrong lab initially, so he didn’t actually want us to be here, and now that we are here, he’s going to set off an entire army as a reaction to three people walking in and going “oops”?

So, lets get a look at our army.

Oh it was so disappointing, this reveal. Not just the eyeball that has a bounce light coming from below the top lip there (how did that even happen???) but also when it opened it’s mouth, it had a flat animation of skin breaking--it wasn’t actually rendered 3d skin, it was like a jpg wrapped around it or something (or at least that was the illusion I got. That is fine for a video game or a TV show, but this is a movie. This is shot so that it can be displayed in a size bigger than your own house.

What happened to the animation team on this one? Not saying I can do better, cuz no, I can’t, that 3d chapter in my life was a while back, but I’m just one guy. This was an entire animation studio and they just...didn’t render 3d face ripping (which is their entire job, to work in 3d) and then they kinda just turned on the stock physics dynamics and dropped em instead of animating them.

The way they fell was like fish from a bucket--the same amount of speed, too. they all ragdolled like a 3D shooter, their rigs just hanging on for dear life (and yes, you could see the deforming happen on the joints of these models.) I’m fine with having a computer program render something out with a physics engine...but there is a balance.

You do have to still go in there and finangle it back because...real life is hella stupid. Real physics? So stupid. It was hilarious how nonthreatening it was, too because they’re like...the size of shrimps in that zoom out image. The scale is just so wild!

It was like one bored guy in a sound booth and they multiplied his voice three times. Golden. Absolutely golden.

So these guys stride over, all of them with the same amount of speed (leading me to think it was probably a recorded walk cycle they all share with slight alterations between all of em) and they kinda just...pile on eachother in a weird way.

I will give them this: I was happy to see something that wasn’t physics or procedural. They mo-capped and animated that part for sure. It had the touch of an artist’s hand. It was also a very funny way for Hakuro to die because this guy was on screen for like 5 minutes, and maybe 7 minutes of this whole movie.

Youknow...I think it really says a lot about your nude 3d models if they’re not disturbingly human enough to trigger the tumblr filter, youknow?

Anyway, Envy looks on.

And then Gluttony saves the city.

Meanwhile, they decide to bust out the fire effects and Mustang becomes the most useful person in this entire movie. Like honestly this movie was poorly named, because it should have just been “Mustang saves the FullMetal Alchemist’s Entire Ass.”

The next part seems like I forgot a cap, or maybe missed something. I swear to you, I did not.

First off, Al becomes fullmetal and makes this happen without an alchemy circle. The show doesn’t really care to talk about that though, it’s just a thing he can do now, and you’d only notice it if you were writing a Tumblr post about it.

I swear to you, Winry is just inside of Al and there is no explanation.

There is no explanation for this.

She was on the couch...why is she not on the couch? What?

And then when you think they might have a moment, Ed’s like.

Damn.

For reals what the hell was that entire scene except for a way for Ed to get his arm stitched back on in like 2 minutes?

Outside, Envy and Lust are just strolling around the back-alley of this red brick building we have seen used for this entire movie.

And like...it’s so funny to me because they weren’t trying to run or hide. It makes complete sense why they got shot. This is what happens when you just...walk away when the whole military guard wants to kill you.

Now lets go see how Hawkeye is faring.

Luckily, all of the ambling bodies have decided to walk slowly through this one weird grass section between extremely long buildings.

And Hawkeye tells everyone “You have to shoot their heads off” and I want you to look at that scene and tell me how many of those bodies still have heads.

Oh, all of them. Don’t worry about it.

Kinda hard to see, but Ed shows up to give Mustang a hand, which was fully unnecessary but we’ll get to that in a bit.

This movie is such a gem.

Ed goes big brain and realizes that Envy is still burned up, and thus is about to pass on.

And whatever, I’ll take it. It’s not like the movie has told us that they are made out of 1000000 lives, for all we know, in the movie universe, they really are only 4 lives. Like half a cat. Maybe Father only killed half a cat instead of an entire city.

Yugi Muto would be so freakin proud of Envy for how often this guy gets hit square in the chest with fire balls. It’s basically every scene where Envy and Mustang share screen time.

And don’t worry, I don’t think Envy died? But they sure made it look like he did, which I’m sure everyone everywhere was really happy to see, since Envy’s death was one of the climaxes of the whole series. Like people used to make these lists of “top 10 saddest anime deaths” and how many people had Envy on there? Like everyone? People freakin love Envy and they did him so much dirty in this movie.

Again I have no explanation for Winry.

So Mustang is like, Ed, you make sure Winry doesn’t biff it in that corner, and I’ll do my actual job over here on this side. And yo, he did.

And so then that’s it, Lust is dead, and now we have a Sorcerer’s stone.

Man it looks delicious, right?

I’d eat the hell out of that.

Anyway, we only have one more update and we’re done with this movie!

I know!

I know! They only have 10-15 minutes to resolve pretty much everything, and that’s assuming that the credits don’t take up a heap of that. Hell, I might only have 3 caps next episode if that’s all credits. I honestly don’t remember.

Anyway, hope y’all take it easy this February, here is a link for people who just got here to read these FMA recaps in Chrono order.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/fma/chrono

[47pictures]

“All-Star”

Link to original r/nosleep post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/mv9j9a/for_my_blog_i_toured_a_movie_studio_to_find_the/

________________________________________________________________

I finally made it to Hollywood… at least, I suppose that’s what I’d say if I were trying to make it big. That wasn’t exactly the case, though. On the contrary, my old hometown friend was the one who I’d say ‘made it big,' and she was the only reason I managed to get there. No way in hell I could just stroll through these Hollywood gates without some sort of reputation associated with my name.

I’m currently pursuing a degree in journalism, and right now I’ve got a pretty successful status as a blogger, and hopefully podcaster in the near future. My topics typically cover things involving entertainment, specifically movies, television, some celebrity gossip here-and-there, the ins and outs of the film and occasionally music industry, nerd topics about comic books or comic book movies, and I could go on. Essentially, all the things you’d expect from an entertainment blogger.

I don’t have a secret or special tip for how I grew a mass following. It just sort of happened. I did it since I was in high school - sophomore year, to be exact, and it started mainly as a hobby. Most people are surprised to hear that I was such a good writer and articulate for my age when they look back on the articles I’d put up during that time, speaking on topics such as the ‘downfall of blockbuster films,’ and the ‘toxicity of media's body standards on the youth.’ Truthfully, I didn’t know all of what I was saying half the time. Writing was sort of just my natural gift that I honed to where I could essentially bullshit anything well enough to make a great story. However, being ethical always remained my moral code.

The topic I was covering now involved my own personal ‘investigation’ of a famous movie studio known as Gemini Films. They’ve put out several flicks now that have garnered what most would consider moderate success (they're no Warner Bros. or Paramount, that's for sure). They deal mostly in the thriller/horror genre, sort of like Blumhouse. I’m a bit more in the sci-fi, comedy realm when it comes to my tastes, but really, I’m a bit of a pussy when it comes to scary stuff.

So why am I 'investigating' them? Well, as it turns out, it's their amazing use of special effects. Yep, that’s it. Special effects, that thing we fell for as children we called ‘movie magic,' and growing up learned that some of it were all the crafty work of well-put CGI. Though that’s usually the case, this time, something about Gemini Films seemed different. They’ve always been praised for their ‘hyperrealistic’ visual effects and pulling off stunts that would otherwise seem impossible. I was watching one of their action/horror films titled Last Thorn, and in a particular scene, a character’s on-screen death is, well, very lightly put, gruesome. I’ve seen my share of on-screen gore and played plenty of Mortal Kombat growing up, but I gotta say, I found the scene hard to watch. To clarify, it involved a character literally exploding before the camera, and from the way it was shot and the lack of cuts and edits typically required to create the illusion of a scene, it seemed quite real. A little too real…

They’ve done other things aside from their special effects department that some people on internet discussion forums found a bit too impressive. Take the actors, for instance. In their dramatic scenes, especially the horror flicks, I’m almost always convinced that the actors are actually going to die on screen. I’m surprised all of them haven’t been given Oscars yet, ‘cause goddamn, you’d think the director was holding them at gunpoint. We all saw just how amazing the acting was in films like Hereditary and The Babadook were, but I gotta say, after watching these films, they make those two look like child’s play (no pun intended to the Chucky series). I was so impressed with the actors that I had to look them up and see what other work they’d done, but from what I did find, their resumes didn’t seem that much greater than the work they’d done for GF. It was almost as if that was the peak of their careers unless they decided to further their contracts to star in any more of their movies. Anything else they did pale in comparison that showcased their acting chops.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Jamie Douglas.

It had somewhat of household name potential, I thought. She was the next rising star. She’d just won a Golden Globe for her leading role in a TV series I’m sure no one had high hopes for in the beginning, and her name was now attached to an Academy Award-winning film for Best Original Screenplay, all at the age of 22. Her acting was stellar, always had been even growing up back in high school when we did theater together. I was never for the acting side of things; I always preferred the technical realm and behind-the-scenes work. She, however, had the ‘it’ factor. I never once doubted that she’d be famous. It was destined for her.

The taxi driver dropped me off in front of a luxurious one-story home in the Beverly Hills neighborhood, surrounded by other similar houses with a property value larger than what I’d probably make in my lifetime if I was being honest. From the outside, her home reminded me of that gilded, golden age of Hollywood back in the 60s, with a slanted roof and art deco-styled exaggerated features. It was nice and simple. But that’s how Jamie was. Nice and simple.

I could see her peeking through the curtains of her window before she came running out the door to meet me in the front yard. That big beautiful smile and those joyous eyes came rushing at me with open arms.

“Christian!” she screamed my name with excitement, as she gave me a big, suffocating hug.

I hugged her back with my free arm, as my other one was still carrying my trolley bag and she had that one pinned in her grip.

“I’m so glad you made it,” she exclaimed.

“Yeah, I made it to Hollywood, right?” I dryly humored.

Jamie giggled as she began to pull back from her hug and put both her hands on my shoulders.

“Yes we did,” she said with a big smile, flashing her perfectly straight, white teeth. “We sure did.”

She led me inside the house and gave me a tour. Compared to the outside, the inside was the complete opposite in regards to the decorative era. Whereas the exterior was ‘groovy’, the inside was a bit more with the times. Wide-open spaces, tan or beige-colored furniture and walls, a wide sliding door for the backyard where you can see the pool. Jamie recently moved into the house, so I figured there wouldn’t be a lot of things to fill it up with just yet.

“Someone said Bette Davis used to live in this house, which I knew was bullshit, otherwise the value on this home woulda been way outta my league,” Jamie commented.

I chuckled. “Oh, I think you’re well on your way, trust me,” I reassured.

I was going to be staying with her for a week while I did my journaling/blogging. We did tons of catching up. She gave me all the inside scoop of what goes on in Hollywood - or ‘Hollyweird’ as I liked to call it - and even some of her other famous neighbors you might recognize living double lives on the down-low. She said she’d been to a couple of big mansion parties as well, where you’ll see all sorts of celebs from different categories of entertainment. Actors, athletes, musicians, models, influencers, you name it. But Jamie insists that she doesn’t attend those very often, if hardly at all. She prefers to be a homebody when she’s not seeking work through her agent, and her extraversion mostly comes to play when it involves networking.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The rest of the night we stayed up watching TV and YouTube videos. One that fascinated both of us was a video explaining how scientists managed to find a way to make a perfectly cooked steak from a cow, but without actually harming or slaughtering it. Instead, they extracted a small sample of the cow’s cells and took it to a lab where the cells would essentially grow into muscle for it to be cooked later.

“I’d consider that over going vegan,” Jamie said.

But I grimaced at the thought. “I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem right,” I remarked.

"What, are you vegan?"

"No, not that. Just the thought of cloning animals, ya know?"

“I mean, it’s not like they’re killing the cow or anything. They said it’s perfectly unharmed.”

“I know, but still…”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The next morning was day one for me. Jamie had the right connections to get me an on-set tour of the studio lots associated with Gemini Films. I was greeted and led by the third assistant director (or AD as they’re commonly referred to).

“Hi, I’m Tiffany, nice to meet you,” she said, with a rather forced smile and handshake.

She carried a clipboard in her other arm, as well as a hand-held radio clipped to the pocket of her jeans, and I saw that she also had an earpiece nestled in her right ear. I could tell she was about her business and probably didn’t have time to be overly nice or talk too much.

I got a sneak peek of their most current production under the production title *"*Cold Silence", which required me to sign an NDA beforehand, of course. That wasn't actually their final name for the movie, but it's a common thing for them to do when shooting a film when either they haven't decided on a name yet or to keep the nature of the project a secret. It sort of took me back to my theater tech days with all the set designs and props lying around, except these were much more detailed and intricate thanks to their higher budget than what my high school had at the time. Here, there was limitless potential. Tiffany also introduced me to the other ADs, PAs, boom operators, cameramen, make-up artists, and then last but certainly not least, the director.

“Jeffrey?” Tiffany called to the man sitting in the director’s chair. The man turned to face her and then me. “This is Christian Watkins. He’s the man we’re giving a behind-the-scenes scoop for his… blog?” She looked to me for confirmation, to which I nodded. “Yeah, for his blog.”

The man in the big chair stood up with a cool smile and classy charm and extended his hand for me to shake.

“Christian, nice to meet you,” the man spoke in a tenor pitch. “Jeffrey Bachmann,” he introduced himself.

I didn’t take too much time last night trying to read up on his bio, but from what I could tell at first glance I knew that he was about in his mid to late fifties, as his hair was greying and skin was starting to wrinkle, and I could see that he had a surprisingly calm and laid-back demeanor. Surprising to me, at least. I always thought directing was a high-paced, chaotic mess that never ceased to present a myriad of complications onset that’d make any man want to pull their hair out. But Jeffrey seemed calm, collected, and very personable.

“Hi, thank you for having me,” I replied. “Seriously, this is like a really cool opportunity for me and my blog.”

“Hey man, it’s my pleasure,” Jeffrey said. “I heard you got a big following behind your name. Props to you. I respect the work ethic, especially giving your readers what they really want to see, ya know?”

I shrugged modestly. “Well thank you, but this time was mostly in my own interest to seek out this idea for my current blog,” I said.

“Ah, an interest in GF, huh?” Jeffrey replied. “Well, what would you like to know? We’ve got nothing but time today. In fact, we’re just getting ready to shoot the mangle scene for today and then we’ll wrap it up before we review the dailies.”

“Mangle scene?”

“Oh yeah, if you’ve got a weak stomach or aren’t into gore you don’t have to watch.”

At least he gave me discretion. “Hmm, I think I’ll tough this one out,” I said. “For the blog.”

Jeffrey gave me a sincere but slightly unsettling grin. “That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.”

He was a nice guy so far, but you know how you just meet certain people that for whatever reason, out of their control, their aura seems off? Maybe it was my preconceived notion and warranted cynicism I had of people working in Hollywood. Just a bunch of sharks in a pool with hungry eyes for desperate young talents eager to take a dive in the spotlight. But as I’d imagine with any field, there had to be a decent share of lambs among the many wolves.

Suddenly, one of the makeup artists scampered over to us, their attention directly at Jeffrey.

“Hey,” they said to him with a noticeably fake inflection.

“Hey, what's up?” Jeffrey returned.

“Savannah? She’s losing it back there. Said she wants to talk to you and only you.”

Jeffrey nodded. “Don’t worry, I got it,” he said, as he patted his hand on the MUAs shoulder. He then gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry, Christian, duty calls, but hey, Tiffany?” he looked to the stern AD. “Make sure he gets a front-row view for the martini shot.”

“Yes sir,” Tiffany replied.

Jeffrey and the MUA stepped off to handle whatever business needed handling regarding one of the actresses backstage in the dressing room.

“Martini shot?” I asked.

“Last shot for the day,” Tiffany explained. “For me, that’s a term I like to take literally.”

She seemed so serious all this time that I found the joke almost funny.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

There was now quiet on the set. Shooting was about to start shortly. At this point in the movie, the main character has a stand-off that turns into a big fight scene with the main bad guy at a warehouse factory building. At first, there’s a gunfight, then eventually they both run out of ammo and it comes down to a fistfight before finally having a standstill on top of a rail just over a giant industrial shredder.

Right now, the actor playing the bad guy, Will, is hanging on for his life over the rail above the shredder, while Thomas, the main good guy, is standing over him victoriously. My question was, is the shredder real? ‘Cause it sure as hell looks like it. It wasn’t turned on yet, but just from a glance it seemed legit enough that if I dropped something as sturdy as a microwave in there, it’d come out jelly on the other end.

For the blog, I told myself. For the blog…

Suddenly, my suspicions were confirmed once Jeffrey called to have the shredder turned on. The machine roared to life, the inverting sharp metal gears rotating past each other being a black hole eating everything that passes through it with no escape. Holy shit. It was actually fucking real.

Jeffrey gave the nod to the 1st AD, and the AD returned the same.

“Action!” the AD called.

Based on what Jeffrey showed me from the script, Thomas is supposed to stomp on Will’s hand that’s gripping onto the edge of the rail, causing him to fall to his death into the shredder. The camera was now rolling, yet, I didn’t see Thomas do the deed. Was he pausing for dramatic effect? Was he acting for the camera? I wasn’t quite sure why he was hesitating.

I peaked over to notice that Jeffrey, the once calm and collected man I met backstage earlier, was now beginning to seem noticeably impatient and about to snap at any moment. There was now that dark edge I noticed about him from before but couldn’t quite put a finger on that I could see now coming to light.

Hesitation filled Thomas’ veins, about to raise his foot, then not, dragging on the scene longer than intended. From this distance, I tried to see Will’s own expression, and I regret ever doing so. Surely he was acting, but I’ll be damned, it was too good. Whatever fear he portrayed transmuted itself into me now. It was the kind of fear that I didn’t think could be replicated on command. Jeffrey stood up from his seat, but just before he could say anything or call ‘cut’, Thomas stomped his foot down on Will’s hand, and we all watched as his fingers slip from the railing. Will sent out a bloodcurdling scream as he plummeted to his ‘death’. What followed will haunt me forever.

Do you know what it sounds like to have a person’s body mangled to death? Have you bitten into the bone of any sort of meat? Heard and felt the crunch? Or maybe even the crunch of celery? I myself have never broken a single bone in my body, but imagining what it might sound like other than what I’d heard in movies or video games all seemed elementary now. At first, I had to look away, but what forced me out of my seat to leave was Will’s horrifying screams. He’d fallen feet first into the shredder, so his lower body had to suffer first before reaching his upper body and finally silencing him at the head.

I ran to find the nearest trashcan and hurled. I guess I really didn’t have the stomach for gore, at least, not to this degree. Will’s screams kept looping in my head. It was a new primal sound that evoked a dread within me that I wish I never discovered. The sound of torment. One thing was for sure, Will was one fucking hell of an actor - if this was acting. But the shredder…

It seemed so real. And there was no greenscreen besides the ones to be used for the background later in post-production. I saw him fall right into the damn thing. With my own eyes. In living color. There were no edits, no crazy tricks, no lighting effects. There couldn’t be. It just wasn’t possible.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I was sitting down trying to recuperate, as everyone else around me was wrapping up set for the day. Tiffany came over and handed me a bottle of water.

“Thanks,” I said, taking it.

“You feelin’ better?” she asked.

“Hmm,” I answered with a scoff, raising both my eyebrows and taking a sip from the bottle.

“I’m surprised you stuck around if you had such a weak stomach. I mean, he at least warned you.”

“I usually don’t. But that?” I shook my head. “How do you guys do it? It looked so real.”

“I’m just pulling your leg. I almost vomited too my first time. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

If it was a shame to flinch at something so vile, I don’t wanna know what goes on in Jeffrey’s mind to even come up with such a scene. Speaking of which, I still didn’t get a one-on-one interview with him as I’d hoped. All I had was the end result of his ‘movie magic’, but not how he did it. At this point, I'm not sure I really wanna know.

I went to go get my belongings, which were left in one of the dressing rooms, and was stopped by the sound sniffling from the one a couple doors ahead of mine. I looked on the door to read whose room it belonged to. It read: SAVANNAH YOUNG. She was one of the lead actresses in the movie, or rather I should say the only actress in the whole film. With the makeup artist and Jeffrey thing that happened earlier, it was evident to me that something sour had gone on behind the scenes I didn’t know about.

The door was cracked open and I couldn’t see her face entirely from my view, but I knew she was sobbing. She looked to be sitting in front of her mirror. I was about to just ignore it and go on about my business.

I lightly knocked on the door. “You okay in there?” I asked.

She stopped and I could hear her get up and approach the door. She pulled it back just enough to where I could see her whole face. She was beautiful, just like Jamie, even if she had been crying.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Savannah said. “Thank you.”

There was a brief awkward moment of silence between us. Clearly, she wasn’t fine, but I didn’t wish to pry any further than that.

“Are you one of the new PAs?” she asked. I arched a brow. “Production assistant?” she clarified.

“Oh, no, I’m just a visitor,” I assured. “Writing for my blog. I was supposed to be writing about behind-the-scenes things and how it all works around here, but I bitched out from the ‘mangling scene’.”

Savannah gave a short nod. “I see,” she said. “Well… I don’t blame you.”

I wasn’t sure if it was the way she said it or just from the state that I was in, but her words gave me chills.

“I should get going,” I told her. “Nice meeting you.”

“Likewise,” she replied, and then shut the door.

I got my stuff from the dressing room and got ready to head out. I wonder what could’ve made Savannah so down to where the director had to get involved and set her straight. Jeffrey seemed pleasant to work with at first glance, but who knows, maybe he had a mean streak to him after all, especially the way he looked during the shooting of the scene. God, I just wanted to forget about it. I can’t unhear the sounds. The bones crunching, the blood splattering, and the screaming. The fucking screaming…

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As I was leaving the studio lot, I noticed the cleaning crew of two men dump a large amount of black bags in the dumpster. From the way they swung the bags over into the bin, the shit didn’t seem light. The bags were in several different sizes, some small, some big, some disproportionate. I stood there and watched as the two men finished disposing of the junk and walked away to go about their other duties.

Regular, common sense me would’ve just picked up the phone, called Jamie to let her know I’m ready to get picked up, and go about my day. But the nosy blogger me kept itching…

I made sure the coast was clear and made my way over to the bin. I can’t believe I was actually dumpster diving, and for what? What did I really expect to find? In my head, I knew the answer, but was avoiding it, either out of how ridiculous it may sound or, God forbid, I was right.

The trash wasn’t stacked high enough from the bottom for me to simply reach, so I had to literally get in there myself. I climbed over on the other end, raised the lid, and jumped down on the piles of plastic bags, holding the lid up with my arm and my breath so I didn’t get a huge whiff of the smell. Though, if I did need to puke again, I supposed this would be the place to do it.

I immediately noticed the bags the men threw away, but in order for me to check what was inside, I’d have to crouch down and let the lid close on me. Fine. That’s what the flashlight on my phone was for. Surrounded in darkness and garbage now, I turned the flash on, illuminating the four dirty walls around me and I pulled back one of the bags. I felt around to try and see what sort of contents might be inside. Mush. It felt all mushy with chunks of solid and a little bit of liquid.

This was stupid, I thought. I realized how stupid I probably looked right then and there, sitting in a bin full of filth looking for clues like some sort of private detective. My followers have no idea how far I’d go, but this was ridiculous. Oh well, I’m too deep in it now, no pun intended.

I held my phone in my mouth as I used my hands to rip open the plastic. My heart began pounding as I slowly pried the bag open. Once I got a peek inside, shame and embarrassment came over me.

Food.

I should’ve just called Jamie to come get me. Had I really become that desperate? I threw the bag over and out of my way. Then I noticed the bag underneath had trickles of fluid. Curious, I shined the light down on it. They were red trickles. Considering how I’d just overreacted only to find a bag full of thrown out lunch, I wasn’t about to get all up in arms about finding red drops behind a Hollywood studio lot. I didn’t know the full recipe for fake blood, but if I recall correctly, Alfred Hitchcock used chocolate when they filmed the shower scene from Psycho.

I tried to follow the small trail and see if it led to another bag. I slowly pointed the light further up and it led me to the bag just behind the one I tossed to the side. Looks like it had a small bust that caused it to leak. When I pulled this one over, a very noticeable smell filled my nostrils and erased any other scent of the trash that surrounded me. It was a metallic, rusty sort of odor, like copper from a penny. However, that smell also belonged to something else…

I ripped open the bag, and with the shine of my light beaming down, I was welcomed to a bright crimson sight of mashed blood and guts. It had to be fake, I thought. It had to… but the way I recoiled from the putrid metallic fresh scent of carnage, my primal instincts told me that wasn’t the case. I innately knew that it was real. I was staring at Will’s mangled body.

Frozen from fear, I sat there for who-knows-how-long. What the fuck was I supposed to do? I’d call the cops first, of course, but they would need evidence, and even then they’d probably dismiss me after I told them I dove into the dumpster of a movie set where fake blood is a common prop. I’d tell Jamie the same, but she’d look at me crazy, too.

I unlocked my phone and started snapping pictures. As much as I could. I even opened some other bags and did the same. I tried to snap every bit of remains that was left of Will and saved them into my phone. It felt like a sick test to see how long I could hold my breath so I wouldn’t gag, and I think I broke a new record that day.

I snapped probably about 47 pictures on my phone before I finally shot up and threw open the bin. The wave of fresh air hit me like a truck, and enjoyed it for only a brief second before turning to see Jeffrey, Tiffany, and the other AD standing by his side. My soul left my body right then and there.

“Christian?” Jeffrey said, sounding concerned.

Fucking say something, I told myself. I did my best not to stutter and look stupid.

“Hey, Jeff,” I said, raising the inflection of my voice, probably sounding dumb.

“Going for a swim there?” Jeffrey joked.

I fake laughed, then put on my best acting skills. “I cannot for the life of me find my ring.”

“Your ring?”

“Yeah, my mom’s ring?”

Then, with the slick subtle motion, I hid my hands to where they couldn’t see them behind the walls of the bin, and with careful coordination used my fingers on my right hand to pull the ring I already had on and flicked it down onto the trash below. I shuffled my feet over the bags I stood on to make noise so they wouldn’t hear the ring drop. Please God, don’t let the ring hit the hard bottom floor or one of the rusty walls, I thought. To my relief, it didn’t.

“Oh man, I’m sorry, Christian, I haven’t seen it,” Jeffrey said, as he looked at the other two as they also shook their heads. “But we can definitely look around again and let you know if we find anything.”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” I said, trying not to make my voice tremble with anxiety.

“Now, c’mon, let’s get you outta there,” Jeffrey said, waving his hand over.

I nodded and shot a quick timid smile. I climbed out of the bin and faced the three before me, wiping myself down.

“Hands a little messy there,” Jeffrey said.

Anxiety raced through me again, but adrenaline had my back to make sure I didn’t fuck up by saying anything dumb.

“Oh, the fake blood?” I chortled. “Yeah, you guys lots of that shit in there. Smells like a chocolate factory.”

Jeffrey fell for it, and laughed. Good. But he could just as easily be playing me right now.

“Given how you ran off earlier back there I’m surprised you can stand to look at it, better yet, touch it,” he remarked.

“I’m sorry about that,” I stammered but stayed on track. “It’s just… I now see for myself, no one does it like GF.”

“Haha, you don’t have to flatter me to get back my respect. Don’t sweat it. I totally understand.”

Is that so? I thought.

“You could use that martini shot right about now, huh?” Tiffany joked.

Definitely not with her any time soon. Or any of them, for that matter.

“Well we’re just heading out for the day, you got a ride?” said Jeffrey.

“Yeah, I should probably call Jamie now and let her know I’m done,” I replied.

“It’s no problem, man, I can give you a lift. I can drop you off wherever you need me to.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Seriously, I insist-”

“Jamie and I got a spa appointment to catch in a bit. Otherwise I appreciate the offer.”

Jeffrey had a brief look in his eyes, a glint of what I could only compare to a wolf’s gaze hiding behind that sheep’s clothing he carried himself around as, and then smiled and nodded.

“Okay, Christian,” he said. “Once again, nice to meet you and I hoped you enjoyed the tour, and hopefully make some good content for your blog.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Thank you so much again. Seriously, I can’t thank you enough.”

“It’s nothing, Chris,” Jeffrey said, throwing me off a bit. “Can I call you, Chris?’

I shrugged. “Sure. I mean, I called you Jeff by accident,” I said.

“It’s fine. Chris and Jeff it is.”

I needed to get away from here. Now and as fast as possible. But I still needed to do one more thing.

“Any chance I can wash these off inside?” I said, raising my bloodied hands.

“Oh of course,” Jeff said.

“I can lead him back,” Tiffany said, ready to go with, but Jeffrey stopped her.

“Ah, he knows his way in, right?” Jeff looked to me for reassurance.

“Yeah,” I answered confidently.

“Good, well hopefully I’ll see you around, Chris, and you enjoy the rest of your day.”

“Thank you, Jeff. And you all do the same.”

As I walked past them and towards the studio lot, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was being set up. Why hadn’t he let Tiffany escort me back inside? I’d think that would be customary for them to do for visitors entering and exiting the building. But I felt that they were watching me from behind, and with every step, I grew more and more anxious.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I’d made it inside and the lot was now nearly empty and quieter. I didn’t see a single person in sight, and only a few lights remained on, making it mostly dark. I hurried the fuck up and did what I came to do, as I didn’t wanna be here any longer and didn’t feel safe.

Down the hall where the dressing rooms were, I rushed over to Savannah’s door, and saw that it was closed. I tried opening it only to see it was locked. Looking down, there was no light shining through the cracks either, meaning there was no one inside. She wasn’t there. Shit.

I washed my hands in the bathroom, scrubbing the dried blood off as thoroughly as possible, getting under nails and all, cringing at the thought of it being Will’s. Suddenly, I heard a noise from outside the hall leading to the bathroom. Petrified, my heart sank into my chest, and I froze. I shut the water off, and carefully approached the door. I listened for any other sounds as I placed my ear closer. After a few moments, I heard the noise again, but then realized that it seemed to be coming from one of the dressing rooms just outside in the hall.

Since I carry a notebook around most of the time for jotting down notes, I certainly always carry a pen. What most people don’t know is that I carry a military tactical pen for a variety of uses, and in times like these, it can be used as a subtle but effective weapon. I switched the tip from an ink ball to a small slick blade.

I opened the bathroom door and crept through the hall over to the dressing room door that made the noise, holding the pen underneath the breast pocket of my sweater. On the outside of the door, it read, “WILL BANKS.”

Confused, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Common sense me once again kept barking in my brain telling me to GTFO, but I had to be sure. I gave three shy knocks and waited. There was definitely someone in there because whatever noise I thought I heard from behind came to an utter halt. I could hear faint whispers of someone’s voice, and then another. There was more than one. My hand trembled as it tightly gripped the pen underneath with sweat as I heard whoever it was on the other end of the door approach.

It swung open, and there stood Will Banks, the man whose blood was just on my hands moments ago, alive and well, in the flesh. It couldn’t be, I thought to myself.

“Can I help you?” he said.

I just stood there, baffled, without answering. Behind him, I saw Savannah, who instantly recognized me and came over.

“Hi,” she said. “I thought everyone left.” She looked to Will. “He was visiting the set today for his vlog, or I’m sorry, blog.”

Will nodded, understanding now. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t get to meet you. Will Banks,” he said, pointing at his name on the door. “As you can see.” Savannah chuckled, and Will extended his hand for me to shake.

“Christian, or Chris,” I said, releasing the pen from inside my sweater and reaching my own hand out to take his. "Whichever you please."

He had a firm shake, and it felt uncanny considering what I’d just witnessed. I was touching him, feeling his skin and bone underneath, the warmth of his body temperature through the flesh. He was real. He was alive and breathing. That couldn’t be faked. That couldn’t be a visual effect. This was real. After we let go, suddenly my hand went cold. Everything about this seemed off and downright strange.

“Did you stick around for the shoot?” Will asked.

“I did, as a matter of fact.”

“Well, what’d you think?”

I wanted to say so many things right then and there, he had no idea.

“Um... y’all are some damn good actors,” I said.

Will laughed a bit, accepting my sham form of flattery, but Savannah, not so much. She gave one of those forced gestures as to not make it feel awkward, though, I noticed it right away.

“How do you do it?” I asked.

“I would give you some artistic bullshit answer like ‘study your craft’ or ‘years of training,' things like that, but honestly… it just kinda clicks, ya know?”

I fake chuckled. “No, I don’t. It looked kinda real from my end. Too real, I might add. Care to go into detail how you guys pulled it off?”

“Well, uh-”

Savannah interrupted. “Wait, you know what Jeffrey would say,” she whispered to him.

“I know, but it’s for his blog,” Will argued.

“But still.”

“I mean, Jeffrey’s not here, right?” I chimed in.

They both looked at me, then at each other. There seemed to be some sort of nonverbal understanding between them, and Will looked back at me.

“All right, for the sake of your blog, I’ll give you what I can to the best of my wording, that sound good?” Will proposed.

I took the pen back out from inside, switching it to the ink ball with a short click, and whipped out my small notebook. “Hit me,” I said.

“Get ready for this one. Basically, we’ve been using a new thing in the biz lately sort of like mocap but it’s not exactly. It’s also kinda like hologram sort of tech?”

“Really?” I said, eyes widened with interest as I wrote words down.

“Yep. That’s how we did it. What you saw, was as real as the hologram thingamajig allowed you to.”

“Hmm.”

“The shredder, too.”

“What?”

“The shredder. That was a hologram also.”

“Really? Okay…”

I finished writing on my notepad then turned it so that Will could read it.

BITE ME, I wrote with a big circle around it.

He laughed. Savannah did, too, but, again, in a strange nervous and restrained demeanor.

“That’s a nice story,” I said. “So if you’re ready to quit bullshitting with me, and tell the truth, I’m ready,” I spoke in a playful yet no-nonsense tone. “How’d you do it?”

“You’re good, man,” Will said with a smile, pointing his finger at me. “Like a true journalist.”

Any other day I’d be pleased to hear that, but I was serious. I needed to know, so much that I’d forgotten how long I’d actually been here. I told myself I was gonna leave as soon as I could, but now, for some reason after talking with Will and seeing how personable and genuine he came off, he put me a bit at ease. Maybe I was blowing this out of proportion. But then the screams echoed in my head again, and the smell...

“You’re not gonna tell me, are you?” I said.

“Look, I wish I could, honestly, but if I did, Jeffrey may not be too happy with either of us,” Will responded sincerely. That much was true, I could tell.

“All right, I think I tortured you enough,” I said, then immediately regretted my choice of words.

“No worries, man. Nice meetin’ ya. Good luck with the blog.”

“Thanks.”

I looked at Savannah one last time, and she looked back with a serious and almost scary gaze as though she needed to tell me something very bad. That’s who I came back for anyways. But that opportunity was a lost cause now, as I left with nothing and still no understanding of how Gemini Films did their visual effects? And I lost my mother’s ring. Fuck, I didn’t have time to go get it right now. I didn’t wanna risk being seen again. Hopefully, Jeffrey keeps his word and they somehow manage to give it back. That being said, I'd be fine with not having to see him ever again.

Whose blood was that? Whose body was that in the dumpster? Was it real? Was it actually just that well made to where the average person could be fooled into thinking it was actual flesh? Who’d go through the trouble of all that?

The screams of losing your life inch by inch, the sounds that would haunt me forever. And the smell of what was inside that bag. That instinctual gut feeling… how was it not real?

[snakeboistan]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHIOTA NAGISA

Thank you, Nagisa, for showing me that being kind and gentle doesn’t mean that you’re weak and also that the parts about you that you hate can be turned into your greatest weapon. You have been a role model for me for the past four years and I strive to be as wise and caring as you. Keep doing what you’re doing, you adorable little assassin, we’re all so very proud of you. 😍😊

Yes, I know that Nagisa’s birthday is during Summer break but shhhhh

(25 unread messages) 

Akabane Karma: Hey there Nagi :) HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLUEBERRY! I can’t believe you are officially older than me. But don’t get your hopes up, just because you’re my elder, doesn’t mean that I will start listening to you. Just to show you how awesome I am, I decided to stay up late so that I can text you exactly at 00:00. But for real, I hope you have an awesome day and I promise to beat up anyone that ruins it for you ;) Nagisa, you are honestly the most amazing person I’ve ever met and you’re seriously like such a sweet and kind and honest and good person and I have no idea how someone as nice and forgiving as you ended up befriending someone as crazy and violent as me. You’re the only person who's never been scared of me and even though you hate violence you still stood by me and never tried to change me and you liked me for me. No one’s ever liked me without expecting me to change and I’ve never felt as comfortable being myself with someone as I have with you. Can’t wait to see you at school today - I got you a present. No I won’t tell you what it is and yes, you’ll definitely love it. See you soon.

Sugino Tomohito: Happy Birthday Nagisa! Hope that you have fun today! I just want to tell you that you are the best best friend that I could ever ask for and I am truly grateful for everything that you have done for me. When I first got kicked down to 3-E and was forced to leave the baseball club, I thought that it was all over but you came along and was the first person to actually sit down and listen to me and you offered to practice baseball with me and honestly, that really made my day. Dude, you are like this amazing blue ball of kindness and like seriously you are brilliant but you don’t nearly give yourself enough credit. I don’t know where you get your low self esteem from or what it is that makes you think that you are worth so little but I promise to remind you that you are cared for every single day until your next birthday and for the rest of your life. Okay, that probably sounded super weird but it’s early and my brain is like 60% baseball memes at this point. At first I hated losing my baseball friends and getting sent to this abandoned building on top of a death mountain but meeting you has made me realise that our crazy assassination classroom™ is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. From the day I’ve met you, you’ve been nothing but loyal and caring. You are the person I can talk and rant to and you’ll never judge me and you always know how to make you smile. And honestly, you are worth 1000 baseball teams. Don’t let your mother get you down. See you in class! Oh, BTW, my little brother says Hi.

Kayano Kaede: HIIIIII NAGISA! HOPE YOU HAVE A HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART! I got you a gift and I hope you like it and no it’s not pudding but you will be getting some cake from that cafe we visited over the weekend. It’s not easy being the new girl and ever since I’ve joined the class, you’ve been nothing but an awesome best friend and you have always been by my side since the day we decided to have matching hairstyles (which might I say looks so much better on you than it does on me - UNFAIR!) I hope the rest of the year is filled with pudding and happiness and sweets and smiles and everything else you love 

Nakamura Rio: Happy birthday to our resident blueberry cinnamon roll! Have a wonderful day ‘Gisa. I’m sure you will when you see what I have in store for you ;). You are seriously the most mature, innocent, pure little bean I have ever met - and definitely the most fun person to play pranks on! Dont worry, as the birthday boy, you shall spend 24 hours completely prank free. Yes, yes I know, I’m the best classmate ever. Dont need to tell me something I already know, sweetie. See you later, my fellow English lover!

Maehara Hiroto: Yo, dude, Happy Birthday! Hope you have fun and enjoy what we’ve got in store for you (no hints!). Like seriously you are legit the most awesome person ever cause you’re so sweet and innocent and can turn into this super awesome secret badass whenever you want to. Youre like the class therapist/medic/person we can always rely on and you never complain when we drive you crazy (cause I know that we do). I’m super proud of you man. Never change Nagisa. See you at school. (BTW - We still up for karaoke next week?)

Isogai Yuuma: Happy birthday Nagisa! Hope you have a wonderful day! I can’t wait to see you in class later. When my siblings found out that it was your birthday, they insisted that they make you a card.You are an irreplaceable member of our class and I’m so happy that you are part of it. Seriously, if it wasn’t for you and your ability to calm people down and talk people out of doing whatever crazy idea they came up with, I’m pretty sure I would’ve lost my mind. You’re always smiling and always participate in class without complaining and you always see the best in everyone. Keep on doing what you do Nagisa, the world could use more people like you. ( Oh and come to the cafe later, I got an iced bun on the house for you)

Fuwa Yuzuki: AAAAAHHHHH HAPPY BIRTHDAY NAGISA! CONGRATULATIONS ON SUCCESSFULLY SURVIVING THIS LONG ON EARTH! OOHH IM SUPER EXCITED FOR YOU TO SEE WHAT I’VE GOT YOU! Thank you for always going along with and listening to my crazy anime/manga rants even when you have no idea whats going on. It’s so much fun hanging out with you cause youre chill and youre always up for anything and apart from Takabayshi you’re the person in the class that get my references the most. Youre an amazing main protagonist and you deserve all of the screentime and lines you get - heck even your own spin-off show. For someone who loves heroes so much, youre doing an amazing job of being one yourself. Youre the best Watson a Sherlock like me could ever ask for and a really good friend for this manga obsessed Otaku! Love you and see you later!

Kataoka Megu: Happy Birthday Nagisa. I hope that you enjoy the rest of the day. As someone whose job is to watch over our … interesting class, having you around makes everyone else bearable. I’m sure that if you aren’t here to keep the peace I would’ve murdered Okajima months ago. You have always been really respectful and kind and I appreciate having someone as hard-working and loyal as you in my class. I always enjoy having our talks about equal rights and you have always been like a little brother to me (honestly, I prefer you over my actual older brother). See you later and please continue to stay the way you are.

Okano Hinata: Hey there Nagisa. Happy Birthday! How’s it going, little dude! Hope you enjoy yourself and have lots of fun today. Thank you for being one of the only boys that I can actually stand. You are such an amazing person to have in the class and you’re amazing at being someone that we can all come to when we’re upset. Plus you let us brush your amazing godly hair (seriously I’m jealous at how nice it is). If any main campus kids try to ruin this special day - come to me and I’ll sort them right out :)

Kurahashi Hinano: HAPPY BIRTHDAY NAGISA! I HOPE YOU HAVE LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF FUN TODAY AND EVERY SINGLE DAY OF YOUR LIFE! CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU SO THAT I CAN GIVE YOU YOUR PRESENT IN PERSON AND THE BIGGEST BIRTHDAY HUG EVER! YOU ARE AN AMAZING PERSON AND I (AND EVERYONE ELSE) LOVE YOU SOO MUCH OKAY I HAVE TO GO NOW BUT BYEEEE 

Kimura Masayoshi: Hey Nagisa! Happy Birthday! Can’t wait to see you at school! 

Mimura Kouki: Happy Birthday Nagisa :) wish you the best :)

Yada Touka: Happy Birthday Nagisa! I hope you have a fun-filled day! You are a really sweet and nice person and I enjoy hanging around with you - especially when you join us girls on our girl trips to the mall. You’re like a little brother to me and I always feel comfortable when I’m with you. Love you and hope you have a nice day <3

Takabayashi Koutarou: Happy Birthday Nagisa. I hope that you enjoy yourself.

Hayami Rinka: Happy Birthday Nagisa

Okajima Taiga: Happy Birthday Nagisa. You are such an incredible person to have in the class. And thank you for always saving me from the girls when they get mad at me. Hope you have fun. I was going to give you some really cool magazines but when the girls figured it out they slapped me and said that they’d tie me up in the middle of the mountain and leave me there if I did so I’m just gonna give you something else that I made (with Sugaya’s help). I’ll show you it at school - I hope you like it.

Kanzaki Yukiko: Happy Birthday Nagisa. I hope you have a nice day and thank you for being such a good and reliable friend. See you at school.

Yoshida Taisei: Happy Birthday Nagisa! I’m so sorry for the grenade incident earlier and I am so happy Koro-Sensei saved you. Also like you are one tough guy, you know that right? Cause what happened with Takaoka, man you couldve beaten any of us up with your eyes closed any time. Stay awesome dude. See you at the mountain

Hara Sumire: Happy Birthday Nagisa. I’ve made some sushi just for you. I hope you like it. As your official unofficial mother, I hope you have fun today and I can’t wait to see you later. 

Sugaya Sosuke: Happy Birthday Nagisa. Thank you for being around and seeing the good in all of us even when we don’t see it ourselves. You always know how to inspire us and you are going to be an awesome grown up when you’re older. You always appreciate everyone and you know exactly how to pick us up when we’re down. I hope you like your present (you’ll get it later)

Okuda Manami: Happy Birthday Nagisa! I hope you have a wonderful day today. I just want to say thank you for being my friend and always encouraging me and helping me. You always know how to cheer me up and include me. See you at school.

Chiba Ryuunosuke: Happy Birthday Nagisa

Hazama Kirara: Happy Birthday fellow literature lover. I really enjoy talking about gothic literature with you - your analysis of themes and context is always very insightful and interesting and I enjoy spending time with you. If you ever need to escape, you can always come to me. PS - my offer to curse your mother is still up.

Muramatsu Takuya: Happy Birthday Nagisa. Hope you have fun. I made you some ramen (don’t worry its not my dad’s recipe so you’ll be good)

Terasaka Ryouma: Sup Shiota, Happy Birthday. I just want to say that I’m really sorry for being an a**hole and treating you like a jerk - especially forcing you to wear that grenade at the beginning of the year. You’re really good at assassination and you’ve got some serious moves. I dont really know what to say but you can always hang out with my gang whenever you want.

[kittymaverick]

Mystery Case Files 21: The Harbinger commentary and review, part 2.

outSpoiler free review first: Holy SHIT GRANDMA studios, talk about knocking the ball out of the park. Not only was that a solid good MCF game to start off with, you’ve now set up the expectation for the next game so high, I’m honestly a little afraid for you. Like... do you know how high the bar is now that you’ve hinted about the content of the next game? Right, coming back to Harbinger for a second. Barring one tiny little slip up which I think was just something that got lost in translation (English is like that), the lore of MCF managed to stay intact, which needs to be applauded. At one point, I almost questioned if there might be almost too many references, especially with that happens to the references in the game itself. (Yes, I, the MCF nerd and fanatic, actually had that thought). I still flip-flop a bit on whether this was a good execution, or a good but shaky execution. For one thing, the way it’s executed... wow, that’s some heavy stuff emotionally. Which is why I’m questioning if that’s “good”, because I suppose there was a line of emotional heaviness I didn’t expect we’ll cross in MCF, but GRANDMA took it there. And so far... part of me is guiltily okay with it, but wow... The studio’s art style does suggest that a detraction from from MCF’s usual Elizabethan English Horror Story with a side of Soul Steampunk and Celtic Druidism would not necessarily be a bad thing. That GRANDMA chose otherwise though, and stuck with a very, very MCF story (albeit more limited to the Celtic legends part), takes guts. What I do wish we’ll get, after the next game, is a story line that’s a GRANDMA original, sort of like Eipex’s the Black Veil, because I think the studio has potential in creating something that’s more them without pulling away too much from MCF. Anyway, that’s the spoiler free review part. Back to my spoiler filled commentary!

Aisling: I know I act suspicious, but I’m just a psychic! MD: I know I’m just a detective, but people keep dying around me, so hey, we’ve got that in common. Aisling: James gave me this cube by the way-- huh? *Emblem of MD appears* ...I’m sorry, that ancient celtic emblem... has a bloody hat. It has a bloody hat. I’m DYING.

Realized I jumped back too far to do this retroactive commentary. Oops.

MD: Okay, well, maybe he isn’t dead yet. We could probably dig him out-- *Nigel turns to bone* MD: ...Never mind. He’s beyond saving. Someone get the coroner!

Six thousand mirrors in the room, and not one shows your face. MD: A technique I have perfected over the two decades of my career. Didn’t save you from getting married to a homicidal madman though. MD: ...I don’t think he picked me because of my looks to begin with.

...Hey MD, I know paper work wasn’t exactly involved and all, but did you actually divorce Charles, or did you just betray him? MD: *DEATH GLARE* You know what, pretend I never asked. MD: You’d better.

MD: Let’s see what skeletons Nigel has in his closet. You know, the last time you found skeletons in a closet, quite literally... MD: Shut up, I was trying not to think about that! (This happened in Key to Ravenhearst. The Skeleton was Charles and Victor.)

Okay, so James was a MCF fanboy, Marge you met on one of your American trips, Nigel was a Fate Carney, John worked on a restored Ravenhearst. I don’t want to say her Majesty might have under exaggerated the number of keywords there were going on here... MD: Oh no, she definitely made it out to be less important than it seemed. She also definitely sent me in because the report she’s going to get out of this is going to be spectacular. The idea that HRM might be the ultimate MCF fan in-universe tickles me with delight. MD: And fills me with utter dread.

Nigel’s shadow puppet theatre: I got fired from the carnival! Boo! MD: Nigel, getting fired from Fate’s Carnival probably saved your ass. Temporarily, until whatever is going on here got you. MD: .................... What? Oh... MD: Yeah. Oh geez I’m looking forward to the case after this now! 8D MD: Why is it that the more I’m tortured, the more gleeful you are?

*Telephone rings* MD: Hello? Marge: HELP ME SOMETHING IS HERE AAAAHHH Well shit. MD: Yeah, she’s done for. Let’s go see the body.

*Gibs collects collectibles before going to body* *I die laughing because that’s my priority too*

MD: Oh no Marge I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you in time... ...Yeah right, says the person who doesn’t want to get their hand on the black stuff. MD: Look, my sorrow doesn’t in anyway override my desire for hygiene, okay? Reminds me of that one time I called some detectives from the last century dandies for refusing to stick their hand into a barrel of rainwater...

MD can I point out how you’re making detailed sketches of MARGE’S BODY in your journal? MD: Look it’s this or pyromania, okay? Don’t judge me. Also, I’m starting to think people that meet you on your cases shouldn’t bother locking their diaries. You always manage to crack them open.

Marge: Oh James is such a darling, I should get him to marry my daughter, then I’ll be such a happy mother-in-law. .............................. MD: ...................... Well, um, I guess Marge was a cougar on the inside, maybe? MD: Yeah, let’s phrase it like that (Restrain desire to make crude NSFW jokes...)

Marge: DAMN THAT GIRL FOR STEALING MY BOY. Marge, seriously, there’s officer Davis. I’m sure he’s just as nice! MD: And not on anyone’s death list. For now. MD: Don’t say that...

Davis: Well, I guess that’s one more evidence against Aisling. HOLD IT! MD: This note here shows clearly that Marge intended to frame Aisling for an attack on her! And the diary entries clearly document how much she hates the suspect. Therefore, the evidence shouldn’t be permissible-- Davis: Yeah, but Marge is dead, and there really isn’t anyone else in town left. *Record scratch* MD: ....It could be... you? Davis: Harhar, look here’s the evidence, go talk to Aisling. MD: Urgh, fine. It’s okay, MD, I was rooting for you there at least!

Aisling: Death, death is all around us! *Flees* MD: Okay, Aisling, that’s really not helping and only making you more suspicious! But since you’re away, I’m going to rifle through your trailer. Um, now who’s suspicious???

Hm, you know, this place would have been great for a holiday spot. MD: I don’t know, given my records with holidays... ...True, you’ll probably end up doing exactly what you are doing now. MD: That said, I think I’ll take a slice of apple pie since no one’s looking. Does the agency pay for your food on your cases? MD: They’d better because I’m giving the recipes to Her Majesty if they don’t...

Aisling: I came here to save John but he’s locked upstairs, please help! MD: Um, if you had let me come with you... maybe some time could have been saved? Aisling: But what if I get killed first then? MD:........ She’s got a point. MD: Dammit, fine...

Hm, so John’s ancestor worked on the original Ravenhearst... We’ll probably need to open up the original game to see if that was the guy that fell from the construction site. (My guess is it’s not, because that carpenter was originally meant to be Rose Summerset’s husband, so it should have been Summerset. Plus Rose’s kids were the twins and Victor.)

Oh damn, a model of Ravenhearst-- MD: Hm, it’s missing a weather vane. ........... MD: Look, just because I burn the place down several times, doesn’t mean I don’t care what it looks like, okay? Can you point out the window that you escaped out of by any chance? 8D MD: *sighs* This one...

Aisling: John, NOOOOOO. MD: Right, gotta cut him down quick! He might still be alive. *Proceed to spend over minutes solving puzzles* MD: I swear, this happened very fast in actuality... Never as fast as the plot demanded though...

*Puts weather vane on model* *Model turns into a raven* MD: ???????????????? Okay, I need to take points off for THAT ridiculous transformation and animation. XD

Aisling: I can’t take this anymore! MD: I know this is hard, Aisling-- Aisling: Here’s the next slab, btw. ....This mood whiplash... I’m dying.

Um, so apparently the banshee wasn’t trying to destroy the world, but was trying to restore herself, which... you disrupted. MD: Look, Allison and her friends needed rescuing okay? I couldn’t just sit idling by. ...If that was disrupted, then how DID Aisling turn human then??? MD: .....Let’s save that mystery for another time because I feel a headache incoming... (Fix edit: It seems to imply that the ritual was only disrupted, not failed, so Aisling did get her skin back, though now she doesn’t remember being a banshee...)

Aisling: I’m a banshee? That’s... That’s impossible. MD: Well, I’ve been through a lot to say most impossible things are actually probable in reality, though if you somehow don’t remember me shoving you back into the cave, um, then I’m grateful. Once you do, please don’t kill me. BTW, your turn on the cube of mystery!

Aisling: Well, if I’m a banshee, I guess I should go back to Dire Grove. We can catch the next ferry. MD: You know that’s a really long trip right? It might take us the better half of a day-- Or a single puzzle’s worth of time. MD: ...Where was THAT kind of fast travel all these years??? I do like how it’s implied that you guys had a huge detour with picking people up and dropping them off though.

Ais: Okay, we’re here in Dire Grove-- AH! MD: Wow, even nature is saying NO to you. Ooooooor it could be a certain immortal druid-- MD: Please don’t. It’s fine! We have a banshee. MD: All she does is predict death! Oh yeah, forgot about that...

*Aisling gets “kidnapped” by green energy* Gibs: That can’t be healthy. MD: That’s honestly pretty normal at this point for us. At least she didn’t get dropped down a tube.

Um, what’s with the Chinese incense in a Druid’s domain? X’D (I’m going to pretend they traded that...)

(I honestly don’t have a lot of stuff to comment on in the section in Dire Grove, because there isn’t much to snark about. Which, I guess, comes to show that 99% of silliness comes from MD dealing with PEOPLE, alive, dead, revived, or otherwise not really a human.)

*Aisling goes back to banshee form* MD: First, no hard feelings about last time, right? Aisling: *stares* MD: Please, thank you, and I’m sorry??? Aisling: You did help me out, so I guess it’s fine. MD: *sigh of relief* BTW, four people technically did DIE though in the process. Aisling: Um, that wasn’t me, if you recall your lore correctly. MD: True enough, but STILL. Just pointing it out. You want her to scream in your ear? She’s still got time for that.

Aisling: BTW, this energy is still floating about. And I think I know why. Will you accept this energy and use it to save the world? MD: Oh hold ON a minute. You want ME to do WHAT? Aisling: Save the world. You heard what I said. MD: Okay, listen. I started this detective job mostly because I thought it was cool... (MD’s going to be at this for a while. Are you going to listen, Aisling? A: To be honest, I’ll probably stop around the part where MD apologized for shoving me back into the cave... By the way, want to hear my part of the story on how I turned back into a banshee? Sure!) *****************************************************************

HOW AISLING BECAME A BANSHEE, AGAIN. Aisling: To make a long story short, there was a lot of puzzles Puzzles which you had to personally solve, without MD’s help? Aisling: It really makes you appreciate how hard MD has had it for the last 21 years...

Did... did you just KILL four people to restore your spirit? Aisling: I just helped their soul cross over! I swear! Aisling, you’re being really SUS right now and I’ve practice how to spot a liar lately! Aisling: I only predict deaths! And then find the souls and tell them where to go. I swear that’s my task. EVERYONE VOTE AISLING AISLING IS THE IMPOSTER

Is one of your abilities literally “summon joyride”???? Aisling: it’s a carriage A carriage can be an awesome joyride if you use it irresponsibly Aisling: How does MD tolerate you? They don’t, they’ve just had worse company and I’m a lesser evil. 8D

Aisling (actually Gibs): *suffers through the last giant super puzzle* ...Yeah, REALLY makes you appreciate what MD goes through. Aisling: Is it always this bad??? Sometimes. I’ve seen worse.

Gibs: THAT CARRIAGE IS BADASS. See, I told you it was a joyride. Aisling: You know, I think I’ll float back to the MD. No joyrides. Awwwwwwwwwwww... Okay, now let’s rewind back to when MD started their rant. **************************************************

Aisling: BTW, this energy is still floating about. And I think I know why. Will you accept this energy and use it to save the world? MD: Oh hold ON a minute. You want ME to do WHAT? Aisling: Save the world. You heard what I said. MD: Okay, listen. I started this detective job mostly because I thought it was cool, and it was for the first couple of cases where all I had to deal with was bust the criminal organization STAIN and recover the Hope diamond for the Queen. But then that’s where all my trouble started because she sent me to this creepy manor which turned out to be a prison to not one, not two, but FOUR ghosts. What’s even worse is the first time I went, I thought I only had to rescue Emma. I was wrong, and for the longest time, I thought Fate Carnival folks were dying from my mistake. Turns out later it was completely personal. This was everything that happened before I met YOU. (Again, really sorry about kicking you back into the cave and getting you stuck in the situation you were in in the last who knows how many years...) Afterwards, I went to the Louisiana which got me on the bad side of a certain ghost pirate, who turned out to be the grandfather of the guy killing the carney folks from his mother’s side. Which was why he was killing them by the way. She sold him to Fate’s Carnival. Anyway, after figuring out that I’ve dun goofed, I went back to Ravenhearst manor, which turned out there was a WHOLE OTHER SECTION I didn’t discover last time, which was somehow a very personalized and twisted marriage proposal that I didn’t notice until too late. I burned THAT down for good measure before taking a break in some place near a lake. But then that guy’s FATHER took up issue with what I did, which I didn’t even started, to be honest. He tried to kill me for whatever grudge it was that he had. I had to stab his horocrux with my badge to get him to stop that time. But then it turns out that father ALSO has some offspring here in Dire Grove, and I had to come back to prevent THAT from going down in flames as well. Thankfully, I think they remained sane. I can’t say the same for the twins, who turned out to be the evil guy’s kids. They most definitely went insane, and REMADE Ravenhearst, which I had to burn down for THE THIRD TIME. All that plus the jump I took landed me in an asylum, which turned out to be the one where both the evil bald guy and his dad was imprisoned once upon a time. Of course, the guy’s father tried to kill me, AGAIN. Took care of that, and also removed the shard that was driving me bonkers. It only gets worse from here though. I got chased around by an woman with a clock for her heart who I had to defenestrate out a clock tower. She didn’t stab me, but then the guy who probably ENGINEERED MY ENTIRE LIFE did, because apparently he wanted to use my soul’s virtue to anchor death to the mortal world or something. I got an immortality feather out of that, I guess, so it wasn’t too bad, but I basically DIED. And then afterwards there was that undead guy who was really hung up about his biker jacket. Next was the evil guy’s ancient youngest son nearly destroying the world (4th wall break: THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT) trying to revive him which thankfully DIDN’T HAPPEN BECAUSE OH GODS I WOULD HAVE DIED FOR REAL ON THE SPOT IF IT DID, FEATHER OR NOT. Then a creepy woman in a mirror had to be locked back into the mirror dimension. And that’s when my agency had a fucking SECURITY BREACH which turned out to have been in the making for YEARS. And then the pirate guy came back and nearly enslaved me. I had to blow up his ship and exorcise him from this world. And AFTER all of that, I was finally sent to Blackmoor, where I met YOU, and also saw a bunch of people marginally related to me die from a cause we still don’t have any answers for. *DEEP INHALE*

Aisling: Okay, so your point is.... MD: My POINT is.... out of ALL the sane and wholesome people in the world who don’t have ANY BAGGAGE whatsoever, why do I, the Master Detective, have to be the one to save the world here-- Charles: Hello. MD: *SCREEEEEEECH*

CHARLES IT’S BEEN FOREVER-- wait, you’re not here to serve the divorce papers are you? Charles: Of course not. I’m asking MD to come back home with me. MD: WHAT?! Charles: Where else would I welcome you back to? *Evil cackle* ......... 8D8D8D8D8D8D8D8D Aisling: ........... :| :| :| :| :| :| :| :| :| MD: .................D:< D:< D:< D:< D:< D:< D:< MD: Aisling, hand that energy over, I’ve a WORLD TO BURN.

I have to point this out... the last time we saw Charles IN THE FLESH in game, was Escape from Ravenhearst, which was NINE YEARS AGO, likely TEN by the time Crossfade comes out. Happy Tenth Anniversary of your wedding, Master Detective? 8D

MD: AS IF.

[softcoregamer]

DRAGON QUEST XI S: ECHOES OF AN ELUSIVE AGE - DEFINITIVE EDITION

I've never played a Dragon Quest game before, so all I had to go on with this game was the pretty looking graphics and charming character art by the Dragonball guy, which- combined with having a hankering for a JRPG, a genre I haven't played since probably the Digital Devil Saga games (minus an abandoned most-of-the-way-done playthrough of SMT3 and a partial of one of the Megadimension Neptunias) was enough to sell me on it. I'm having a tough time determining if it was worth it.

(spoilers)

The story starts off very weak. Your glowing hand marks you as the chosen one, you have to collect glowing orbs to defeat the dark lord. It's like the story of a generic videogame you'd see in the background of a movie. They do throw in a little novelty to keep you on your toes- you present yourself to the king and he throws you in the dungeon, you go back to your hometown and travel back in time for some reason- but I really never warmed to the setting. It's just a collection of cliches and cute gimmicks, like the town of people who speak in haikus, the town of people who speak in rhyming couplets (you're stuck with these people for the bulk of the exposition at the start of act 2, which is a nightmare) and the town of- ugh- Italians. There's no sense of these places being places. It's just a nice pleasant fairytale kingdom of the kind that's normally mentioned in Snow White or whatever as the place the handsome prince comes from, except here you spend dozens of hours trudging through it looking for glowing tree roots and orbs. The big problem in Gallopolis is that the sultan's son isn't brave enough for god's sake. Acts 2 and 3 pick things up, and there's some neat reveals- I like that the lil red star you've been seeing in the sky right from the start was the stain of the original hero's failure to slay the villain, literally hanging over the entire setting all this time. Also the annoying act 1 scene where you get handed the name of the villain and an orb quest in an exposition dump is retroactively improved by the fact that the exposition isn't quite correct. Act 3 reintroducing time travel and actually being thoughtful about it was welcome as well, but sadly that has the effect of making you redo story points you already did since, logically, you're back in time to where you haven't done them yet. Sometimes this comes across as getting a do-over to get a more positive outcome for something that previously ended more tragically, in keeping with the way time travel is explained in-universe as essentially reloading an earlier save (and, as revealed in the end, continuing in a separate save slot). The 8th party member's act 3 quest is a standout here. In reading discussion of the game I've seen people insist on referring to this character as 8, presumably to preserve the plot twist of his existence, so I guess I'll do it too. But more often than not, act 3 quests consist of just doing the same stuff as act 2 again, in a somewhat more curt manner. This sticks in the craw after so much of act 2 already consisted of just doing the same stuff as act 1 again. The party members aren't much better, for the most part. The first three people you meet all say "ah, you're the Luminary, I was sent to help you" and there isn't much to them beyond that for a long time. Sylvando has a lot of personality, which is probably partly why he's become the game's big meme character, but it gets grating and he is insanely trite. The Dark Lord takes over the world and purges the unclean, and Sylvando's overriding concern is that he wants people to laugh and smile more. It's like he takes advantage of the fact that I need him for his boat to get my goat by acting like a fucking teletubby. Things pick way up when you meet Rab, and the 8th party member is genuinely really good. Even the early-game party members end up having their moments (Erik's backstory was pretty fun) but the game really doesn't put its best foot forward with these characters. Not that it needs to; for the first few I was just glad to be getting some help in combat. The combat is excellent in this game, when it gets going. I played with the "draconian quest" tougher enemies mode on, and I turned it off right at the act 2 end boss. The difficulty curve flowed really well this way, with act 3 enemies not feeling noticeably less tough than "draconian" act 2 enemies. The abilities and spells you get are carefully balanced so that it's very difficult to put together a perfect 4-person party, you're always missing something. This means the fact that you can change your line-up midfight isn't just a nice quality of life feature, it's a potentially vital mechanic. They tread a fine line where sometimes needing to swap people out during the battle doesn't mean the characters themselves feel useless; everyone is capable of some extremely tough stuff. And on the other end of the scale, enemy damage is heavy enough that buffing your attack and using big-damage abilities vs healing or defending can be a properly difficult choice; a heavy hit or a big heal at the right time can turn the tide of an entire battle, as can your big hitter suddenly getting put to sleep or your healer getting knocked out. Again, this is all with the caveat that I had "draconian quest" on for the first 2/3 of the game, from what I've heard combat without it is insanely easy. My big gripe with the combat is that there's very little in the way of tooltips. What's this enemy's magic resistance? Does my Sap have a better chance of landing if I up my Magical Might, or does that just increase spell damage? Does Oomphle affect Quadraslash? If I increase my agility will it go up by enough that I can take my turn ahead of these enemies? Does agility even do that? Does using abilities and spells mean I go later in the turn order vs generic attacks and defending? You just have to guess at all this; the wiki has some info on enemy stats but I don't know where they're getting it from other than datamining. There's an entire bestiary with almost no useful information which is functionally just a model viewer for all 700+ enemies. The only way to know anything is to experiment, which I guess at least adds some purpose to combat when you've filled out the bestiary for an area but still have to grid encounters- which will be required at some point, because fighting is the only way you get xp and money. There is also too much RNG. Critical hits being rare and certain attacks having a chance to cause Confusion or whatever is fine (although I'd prefer for attacks which are labelled as having a chance to inflict status effects to actually inflict the status effect way more often than they do) but why the fuck does the resurrection spell have a 50% success rate? Under what possible circumstances would I be using that spell other than needing my dead teammate back right now? Same for all the abilities on the skill tree that say "doesn't connect very often, but when it does it can cause a critical hit" OK that "CAN" is telling me that this ability which doesn't often connect won't even necessarily crit if it does. Why would I choose this ability? To handicap myself? How is this going to help me defeat the Timewyrm? All that said, when the combat is good it's really good, and whenever I lose a fight I'm thinking "I can win that next time if I do XYZ". The 2D battles are much less fun because the pace is much slower and there are no cute animations to liven it up, but it's always satisfying when the "flash" of an enemy taking damage becomes the "flash" of them disappearing, and you know you have slayed yet another blob. Non-combat gameplay is a mixed bag. The early-game fun of running around looking for new enemies to fight and fill out the bestiary wears off hard once act 2 begins and everything is either a reskin or a glowing-eyes "vicious" version of something you've already fought, and many maps are fairly sparse with just the odd treasure chest and locked door to liven up your path to the next area. That said, there are also several areas and dungeons which make a minigame out of traversing them; the Eerie Eyrie and the Battleground were standouts for me. Especially the remixed version of Eerie Eyrie you go to later on, where you get a flying mount to ride around. Crafting is surprisingly involved, with a whole minigame around it and hundreds of recipes to find all over the place. In most cases you can just use money in lieu of ingredients, which means minimal farming is required to get a lot out of the system, and the recipes with ingredients that can't be bought feel special instead of bullshit. In terms of items and recipes there really is a deluge of content- there are recipe books all over the place, with new ones available even in the last couple of maps that open up in the entire game, and there's an undeniable cookie-clicker rush you get from getting better at crafting and taking something you could barely get to +1 all the way to +3. I play games like this as a magpie, accumulating items with nice pictures and effects that make me do a 😲 face, and DQ11 certainly delivers. This even extends to character advancement, with Hidden Goodies incentivizing picking skills you might not want otherwise, and entire new skill trees opening up as quest rewards.

Overall, DQ11 is a good combat system with loot and progression systems that are well-executed enough to feel rewarding after 100 hours, all wrapped up in a style and tone that is not up my alley at all. A good litmus test for how much you'd like the game is probably: watch this scene and if you think it's the most epic thing you've ever seen then Dragon Quest 11 is for you.