#and what a better way to get back into big pixel pieces then returning to my roots

[nocturneofrecollection]

🌇 Sea salt ice cream…

[bellygunnr]

Blown Lightbulb

A commission piece for @poisonheadcrabsalesman featuring Thomas Lasky/Sarah Palmer. 

---

The house is cold. It hasn’t changed at all since you’ve last been here, some twenty odd years ago. You hadn’t been a kid then-- just a pilot, home on leave despite not really wanting to be. It had been tense then. It was the same now, even if your mother wasn’t even here, and you were laying bare the contents of your past to the two people you loved the most and considered the most important in your life. You hesitate to look at them, not quite fearful of what they’re thinking but definitely reluctant, like any of this is your fault and something to be ashamed of.

You know no one can really blame you for wanting some modicum of closure, but you’ve always been conscious of starting losing battles. Your mother isn’t even here, for one. A toneless holo-message is all she’s left you, detailing that an emergency at work brought her in and she’ll be back sometime in the evening. Maybe you and your colleagues could meet her at this location, even, and upon further investigation, that location is a startling high-profile restaurant of considerable Martian renown.

So much for flying close to the surface. You’d be in the air for all to see, just for a chance to reconcile with what little remains of your family. But that wasn’t for several hours yet, so you content yourself with poking around the giant empty house and listening to Sarah and Roland banter between each other.

“No offense, but this feels kind of like a museum exhibit,” Sarah says. “It’s not even dusty. I’d prefer it if it was.”

“You’d prefer it? There are stock photos of kids up here-- unless the Lasky family is way bigger than records suggest,” Roland answers.

You look at the picture frames Roland is pointing out. Amid the pictures of your brother Cadmon, there are photos of a foreign family, conspicuously only featuring a father figure. You run your fingers through your hair, nostrils flaring with a barely-restrained sigh.

“We didn’t take many family pictures,” you say, as if that explains anything. “I’m going to check out the upstairs.”

You tug on the back of your head, pulling at the recently shaved strands in a fit of anxiety. You don’t want to go upstairs. You’re afraid of what you’ll find there. Cadmon’s room was practically a shrine twenty years ago. The stairs don’t even creak as you step up them and you’re not sure why you expect them to. They look and feel and sound like wood, but you know them to be special composites that just didn’t degrade.

Your grip lingers on the railing as you take the final step. The door you know that leads to your mother’s room is closed. The keypad lock to it is bright red. You wonder if the keycode has changed at all, but testing it probably isn’t worth the risk. Across from her room is Cadmon’s, but that door is also, as you expected, closed.

And the one you recognize as your own is ajar. You let your hand find Sarah’s, squeezing it so tightly that she squeezes back, thumb rolling over your knuckles in a decidingly tender way.

“You know you don’t have to do this, Tom,” she says gently.

“But I want to,” you say. “I know I don’t need to.”

“Well, that’s something.”

It is. You offer her a braver smile than you feel and let her follow you to your room. There are more picture frames up here, covering the walls in even intervals. You can only ignore them because you know Roland is looking at them. You nudge open the door with your foot and, again, hesitate at the threshold.

Was everything in this house going to be difficult?

You shut your eyes and take in a shuddering breath. You can feel Sarah at your back, her presence radiating warmth. If you wobble, you feel her sturdy body against yours, so you let yourself lean into the partial embrace of her arms. She squeezes your shoulders, just as ice trickles down your spine.

Roland’s presence bleeds into your mind like condensation forming on the outside of a glass. It’s not enough for his thoughts or feelings to be tangible, but it’s so distinctly him that you smile and relax, easing the tension in your balled-up fists and opening your eyes. The room ahead is dark, but all you need to do is step inside for the lights to wake up and--

It’s not exactly the same as you left it, but it’s close. Your eyes roam the room, picking out all the various effects of teenaged you. There are posters on the wall, though some of the pixels have gone dark in their paper-thin construction, and models on the shelves, thick with dust. Your bed is perfectly made, the pillows hidden beneath a dark red blanket. Inevitably, your eyes roam over to a box bolted seamlessly into the wall, just above your nightstand. 

“Ah,” you breathe, staring at the box. “I see.”

“Is that…?” Sarah starts, but trails off, uncertain.

You can feel Roland’s curiosity curling up in the back of your mind. If you strain, you can even see his glittery-gold essence creeping out toward the box, but that gives you a migraine the harder you try.

You open your mouth to try and explain what it is, despite what it is being obvious. It’s a physical control panel for a domestic-grade Dumb AI. His name is still plainly depicted in the form of colorful stickers-- Admiral Hart. He hadn’t been active last time, but he hadn’t been gone either, so at least the sick hope flickering in your belly isn’t fully misplaced.

Still, is it worth trying to activate him?

“Roland,” you say, feeling quite outside yourself. “You can investigate it, if you want. Um, if he’s in there, could you…?”

“Of course, Captain,” Roland says.

Roland’s projection hovers in mid-air, thrown there by the custom commpad he was currently residing in. He smiles brilliantly at you and Sarah before bringing up what must be the digital counterpart of the control panel, his gestures as grandiose as ever, his expression just visible behind the transparent boxes. You hate it, but you distract yourself by leaning into Sarah’s space and kissing the bottom of her chin, staying there until Roland pipes up again.

“He’s in there, Captain. Says here he hasn’t been activated since… 2549. Very long service life, this one.”

Oh, that wasn’t too bad. Still, nearly ten years, completely shut down.

“...I don’t know if I’m ready to see him yet,” you say in one long rush of breath, the realization making you feel ill. “I do miss him, though.”

“There are also several other AI matrices in here,” Roland adds. “Why so many, if I may ask?”

“They were my teachers, when I was doing homeschooling. I’m surprised they’re still here.”

Dumb AI were very limited in their fixed personalities, but you swear they’re more sentient than they let on. One didn’t befriend several all at once and not experience some inexplicable variances, but dwelling on it was starting to make you feel hot behind the eyes. You shake your head, exasperated.

“Sorry, this is-- a lot more than I thought it’d be.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Sarah says lightly. “Want to go back downstairs?”

“Mind if I hang out in your house’s network for a little while?” Roland asks. “I won’t touch anything.”

“Go for it,” you say with a smile.

Roland winks and smiles before gathering up the tendrils of himself, more visible now that he was letting his essence ooze out between commpad, neural interfaces, and nearby network ports. Smart AI were remarkably fluid, or even gaseous, automatically filling in the void spaces around them, not because they wanted to be big as possible-- they were just that big. Still, you rub the back of your neck the same time as Sarah does, acutely conscious of the absence.

“Downstairs, then,” Sarah says. “Think there’s anything in the fridge?”

“I have no idea. Are you hungry?”

“I haven’t eaten since yesterday. To keep the motion sickness down, you know.”

You hum in acknowledgement. Her moving ahead of you prevents you from lingering too long upstairs, anxious as you are to keep up with her long strides. You have no idea where either of you are going to get clothes nice enough to go to a restaurant. Neither of you are dressed for it, let alone packed. Roland had suggested dressing as casually as possible to take the edge off, and well, maybe that was going to backfire. 

“I can feel you thinking too hard,” Sarah says.

She’s in your space the second you leave the stairs. But it’s gentle and unintrusive despite her taking up your whole line of sight. She’s teasing you, even as her brow is bent in concern.

“What am I thinking too hard about?” you ask.

“Hmmm. Something about your mom, like that stupid message she left us. Seriously, talk about a neutral location.” 

You laugh before you can stop yourself. 

“Got it in one,” you say. “I don’t know what she’s thinking.”

“Guess poor mother Lasky is going to have to come home after all,” Sarah says. “Isn’t that sad?”

She bumps your hip with the back of her fist, a playful nudge that, surprisingly, doesn’t send you stumbling. You punch her shoulder in return, silently following her into the next room, where the kitchen is. You watch Sarah go for the fridge and open it, head disappearing inside to scope out the contents. She retreats a moment later to throw something green and limp into your arms.

You catch it more out of surprise than anything, but you feel nauseous just holding it.

“What the hell is this?”

“Nutritional smoothie paste!” Sarah says, like she’s struck gold. “Used to eat this shit when I was a baby Spartan. They put it in Mjolnir on long-haul ops.”

“And that’s…. Is it good?” You ask, instantly skeptical.

“Hell, no. But I’m too polite to eat the meal plan stuff she has in there. So, drink up.”

Well, you couldn’t fault her there. You set the plastic tube of paste down on the faux-granite countertop, deciding that you’d rather let Sarah just drink both of them. You can’t stifle a smile as she immediately scoops it up, tearing open both of them at once and drinking them down in a truly disgusting fashion. But she doesn’t spill a drop, so... 

“I see you’ve gotten better at that,” you say.

“Roland made me promise not to make a mess if I’m going to be carrying the commpad,” she admits, looking exasperated for all of a split-second. “So.”

She tosses the spent bags onto the countertop, despite the trash can being directly underhand. You shrug that off in favor of grabbing her by the collar of her tank top and pulling her down, kissing her flat on the mouth. Her answering hum is felt in your bones and you both relax into each other, your anxious tension sapped by her solid core. She curls an arm around your waist and holds you in place, like she’s been waiting to do that.

“Relax a little,” she murmurs. “We can worry about her when she gets here.”

Not you, we. You feel a little weak in the knees at the distinction and let yourself hang onto her arms, certain that you’re looking at her with a dopey smile.

“But we probably shouldn’t do this in the kitchen,” she adds.

Before you can pull away, Sarah effortlessly hauls you into her arms, supporting you by grabbing a fistful of your ass and waiting until you wrap your arms around her neck. She squeezes your rear a couple times before moving, gait so smooth that you don’t even feel it when she turns on her heel to dump you on the couch with a flourish. 

You sink into the couch cushions, but wrap your arms around hers so that you don’t disappear completely. Her face is so close to yours that you count each individual scar and freckles, including the faint lines of surgical augmentations that only show up in the right light. You snake your hand up to the back of her neck, mindful not to grab ahold of the enlarged neural implant.

“Anyone ever told you you’re handsome, Tom?” Sarah murmurs.

“Mmm, I can think of a few…”

Her laughter is felt on your skin as warm puffs. She kisses you, her lips rough with bitten and half-healed skin that you nip at, chasing them when she tries to pull away. The plasticine fabric squeaks as she carefully, carefully lowers her weight over yours and straddles you, her thighs big enough to keep you in place. 

“Let me know if I’m hurting you.”

“I will,” you promise.

You want to say that you know she won’t, but she always looks so earnest when she asks that this time, you don’t. Because she has before-- there’s a biological differential between the two of you that you never stop thinking about. You work your hand further up to pull her hair out of its ponytail, working your fingers into the coarse locks and kissing her more intently, eyes fluttering shut. I love you, you want to say. I trust you, which is just as hard.

Her hands roam across your shirt and pluck open several buttons so that she can follow the edge of your collarbone and the slope of your shoulders. Her warm, slightly sweaty palms are a sharp contrast to the cool air, and the shock of physical contact has goosebumps lifting on your arms. You lick at her lips and fist some of her hair, mumbling indistinctly as you pull her down closer.

There’s no smart quip or knowing look to make light of your neediness. She finally lets her weight drop onto your lap completely and the kiss moves on, her teeth and lips tracking across the edge of your jaw to just underneath your ear. Instead of letting your hands hover, you start to follow the hard curves of her body, groping at the bunching muscles and admiring the power coiled there. 

Then she snaps into rigid attention, face turned toward the front door, her lips drawn back in a snarl. You vaguely notice that she has a chipped tooth before you hear the door opening and Sarah is still poised over you and she’s kissing you again, hard, and you kind of moan into it--

“Well, then,” an all-too-familiar voice says. “Thomas, care to… introduce me?”

Finally, Sarah climbs off of you, but not before buttoning your shirt and kissing your forehead. Your brain already hurts from the mental whiplash of the situation.

“Um, mother,” you start. “This is Sarah Palmer. My partner.”

Your mother is shorter than you remember. Her hair, once a brownish-black, is in faded tones and grey at the roots. A scar that wasn’t there twenty years ago lurks just by her eye and she looks exhausted. Stress and worry lines make canyons of her face, ones that twist your heart to look at.

“A pleasure to meet you,” Sarah says stiffly.

She does not look amused. She doesn’t look much of anything except terribly stern and suspicious of the scene before her. You almost can’t blame her. Almost.

“You know, I was hoping you’d be here when we got here,” you say. “But it seems you’re still working.”

“Of course. Duty still calls, you know.”

You watch her as she shrugs off her jacket and hangs it up on the coat rack in the anteroom. Both nothing and everything has changed about her and it makes something in your throat tighten.

“Oh, I know that more than anybody,” you breathe. “Yeah.”

“I do appreciate you coming home, Tom,” Audrey says, not looking at you. “It means a lot. I thought I’d have to see you when the Infinity opened her doors to the public. That is still happening-- right?”

“Sure, it’s happening,” Sarah says. “Look, Tom, do you want me to…?”

You shake your head.

“Yes, but I won’t be back on Mars until then. Working nonstop has its benefits-- like a lot of vacation time.”

“That sounds like a dream, to be able to use it,” Audrey replies calmly. “I need to know if we’re having dinner tonight.”

You and Sarah share a look.

“I was thinking we could share a bottle of wine and shoot the shit instead,” Sarah says. “Or some scotch, if you have it.”

At that, Audrey looks amused.

“I never took you for a scotch man, Tom,” Audrey chuckles.

You don’t say anything as she leaves the room, no doubt seeking out the desired glasses and alcohol. The sun is going down outside, plunging the room in a deep red. This was going better than expected. You want to break open the window and run. You want to do anything but sit back down and draw out the table and sit in a semi-circle and “shoot the shit.” But you’re already sitting down and the bottle is open and you haven’t ate anything-- neither has Sarah, even, but with her augmentations drinking on an empty stomach is probably beneficial and--

“Good news, everybody! I took the liberty of ordering us some, what do you humans call it? Party food? You know, for all the drinking we’re about to do. You’re welcome!”

You choke on your own spit and your mother nearly drops the glass she’s pouring. Sarah, for her part, is taking the bottle and stealing a sip directly, if only to conceal a smug smile.

Roland is hovering inches above the faux-wooden table, drawn up to his full height with chest puffed out and expression gleeful. He flicks one hand out in a casual salute toward Audrey before trotting aside and sitting down, legs crossed.

“Cheers,” he says.

“Hi, Roland,” Sarah greets.

You had completely forgotten about Roland. Oops.

“Thomas, I do hate to ask,” Audrey says, peering down at Roland with a pinched expression, “but why is there an AI?”

“Oh, you know,” you say vaguely, waving a hand. “It’s classified.”

“I’m Captain Lasky’s boss,” Roland says, grinning. “So I’m allowed to be here, you see.”

“Are you my boss, Roland?” Sarah asks.

“No, ma’am.”

Audrey’s eyebrows shoot up. She takes a sip from her glass, shifting in her seat uncomfortably.

“Well, I’m Audrey Lasky,” she says finally. “Pleasure to meet you.”

The rest of the night goes painfully.

[innuendostudios]

Thoughts on... some funny games

[no spoilers to speak of]

Thoughts on Lair of the Clockwork God

The wisdom of the gaming cognoscenti insists that comedy is hard to do in video games. Having grown up with Monkey Island and Zork, I've never found this convincing. But one true thing is this: it's hard to write about comedic games. The ineffability of humor is hard enough to describe in less-interactive media; I can't even explain to my partner why Gretchen saying "I met January Jones once!" on You're the Worst busted me up, and they were sitting right next to me when she said it. Throw in the "you had to be there" nature of the player's active participation and I lose myself in a cornfield. The thing I found hilarious might come a beat to early for you, or not at all, or not be funny in text like it is in gameplay.

Why did I like Lair of the Clockwork God? It made me laugh.

The premise and particulars are a lot of "that could go either way." Ben and Dan - stars of Ben There, Dan That and Time Gentleman, Please! - have returned. Ben is still an adventure game star, but Dan has adopted platforming mechanics in an attempt to get with the times. So playing the game involves switching back and forth between a character who can leap across canyons but can't pick up items or talk to people, and one who can combine inventory but can't climb over a 3-pixel rock.

Does that sound potentially funny? Potentially grating? Yes to both!

The plot centers around our heroes trying to save the world from several simultaneous apocalypses and having to teach human emotions to a supercomputer in order to do so. (Don't ask.) These means, rather like Ben There, Dan That, traipsing through a number of fantasy worlds (read: computer simulations) until the correct emotion is provoked. This requires cross-genre cooperation: finding ways to get Ben to areas only Dan can access, getting Dan new power ups by combining objects in Ben's inventory (an act Dan insists on calling "crafting").

The best bits are at these intersections, when Dan's platforming is the puzzliest and Ben's puzzles take advantage of Dan's skills. Periodically the game gives you a Dan-centric platforming gauntlet the controls are NOT precise nor pleasant enough for, or a Ben-only moon logic puzzle that leaves you googling the walkthrough.

But I liked it! A lot. The genre-hopping seems to have invigorated the developers, Ben Ward and Dan Marshall. I discussed my favorite joke in Ben There, Dan That (in what is probably the least popular video I've ever made that wasn't asking for money), but was also dismayed that the game was never that clever again. But this one is, several times over! Progression here involves cheating your way to a better respawn zone, goofing around in game menus, exploiting "glitches," exiting out and loading up entirely other games. There is a lot of poking and prodding at what a game of this nature can or should be.

But, honestly? The only real selling point is... it was funny. The humor is as anarchic and metatextual as in previous titles, but it feels good-natured in a way BT,DT didn't. And there are, here and there, little bits of meat on its bones - the characters wondering if, as a couple thirtysomething white guys, the world hasn't left them behind, no longer comfortable with the juvenile humor of their youth but not really understanding the youth of today, but having not yet fully escaped the mentalities they used to hold. (There's an unspoken humor to Dan's idea of "modern" gameplay being 2D platforming mechanics, especially at a time when adventure games are significantly more popular than on his last outing; this is a good joke whether or not it's intentional.)

Also: this game contains the most poignant urinating-on-a-grave puzzle in gaming history, and you may quote me on that.

Having finished it months ago, I can't even remember what all the gags were that tickled me at the time. Comedy fades from memory faster than drama or frustration. Mostly I just remember having a good time.

Thoughts on The Darkside Detective

Here's a hook: sometime after the mayhem ends in Ghostbusters, The Exorcist, Evil Dead 2, or some other paranormal blockbuster that you watched over and over in the 90's until the VHS wore out, some overworked detective has to come into your town and piece together what the hell happened.

This is his story.

It's a good gag, and the devs wring every drop from it. Existing in a world where these things are commonplace and you have to fit them into some notion of "police procedure" is just funny. Like, it's one thing to have a running gag where you keep observing the moon in outdoor scenes, commenting, with increasing hostility, that its behavior is suspicious (it has been present at multiple crime scenes); it's a slightly different thing when, given the things you've encountered, the moon being the Big Bad is actually somewhat possible.

The game is divided into six main cases and three bonus DLC missions (which come included in the base game now, and the third of which is the proper ending/setup for the sequel). You are the cop tasked to deal with The Other Side - and, when The Other Side bleeds into our own world, its cops have to deal with you. You have a sidekick with a mental maturity of about 6, which I guess makes you the straight man. (You have to grade on a curve to find a straight man in this game.) And you solve tasks like rounding up escaped gremlins or finding an AWOL lake monster all juxtaposed with mundane problems like inter-office squabbles and having not bought your Christmas presents early enough. It's (pleasantly) lo-res and sparsely isolated, so the dialogue and premise do most of the work, but they are ably up to the task.

The gameplay... not so much. I'm an adventure game lifer, so I can put up with a lot of nonsense. It's mostly straightforward inventory puzzles and occasional minigames. Most of the puzzles are fine enough. As the cases progress, things get more involved, and the DLCs especially involve some awful moon logic. And the minigames are not above using that same jumping peg puzzle you've solved in a dozen other games already. So gameplay ranges from serviceable to irritating, but it mostly exists to string together funny lines and silly images. (Christmas mall elves being secretly in service to Krampus - that's the kind of thing we're talking about here.) You won't feel much guilt for opening up a walkthrough; the puzzles aren't why you're here.

The sequel has just been released, and both games are cheap, so check them out if you feel like smiling.

Thoughts on The Procession to Calvary

It's rare for a game to be hilarious to look at.

The Procession to Calvary takes its name from the Bruegel painting. It also takes all it's graphics from Renaissance oil paintings, and the designer delights in making famously rendered heroes and religious icons steal, stab, fart, and swear.

A strong Terry-Gilliam-with-After-Effects vibe is what we're describing.

You play as a lady knight from a war that's just ended, which sucks for you because, in this age of peace, you're no longer authorized to kill. And killing's, like, you're whole thing. But the one person your new, pacifist king wouldn't stop you from killing is the warlord you just deposed, who fled to the South. So you embark on a nonsensical journey to seek out the one human on Earth you are authorized to kill, because killing is just The. Best. Ever.

Of the three games we're discussing, this is the most overtly cheeky, and, at times, the most scatological. I could've done with a bit less scatology, if I'm being honest, but the cheekiness is very winning. As with Lair of the Clockwork God, a lot of jokes could go either way - a field of people being tortured and a woman on a blanket selling commemorative torture merch could be painfully try-hard. But something about the victims being seemingly everyone ever crucified or broken on the wheel in a famous painting, and having them writhe on their crosses in a way that is both gruesome and goofy, and having a cacophonous soundtrack of their screams and moans that you will now imagine every time you look at one of those elegantly elegiac paintings from now on... it works. That the music score is being played by an extremely jaunty piper who dances behind you just out of sword's reach as you traverse the field pushes it over the top.

Oh, and the puzzles, while never hair-pullingly obtuse, will leave you stumped at times. Push past that to get the proper ending, but, if you're sick of trying, you can, at any point, just start stabbing your way through problems. Which, again: it takes a very deft touch to make "protagonist resorts to violence" actually funny rather than lazy and obvious. And maybe, in another game, the perfect timing of every animation, the clever quips, the careful contrast of cathedrals and high-society music halls with gleeful sword-swinging wouldn't be enough. But something about it being frickin' Renaissance paintings carries it the last mile.

This is probably the basest game of the three, but it's also the one that made me giggle the most. Having a BFA that required several art history classes may have something to do with it. But check this thing out.

[silverhandsass]

Can You Feel The Sun (Pt.3)

Buckle up, buttercup! <3

— SPOILER ALERT - this is post-game stuff, read at your own risk —

Read on Ao3

— — — — —

"No. Absolutely not."

Val pushed past the flaps and left the tent after her, taking quick steps to walk around Dakota. "Please, just hear me out."

"No," she barked, folding her arms and frowning. "Last time I helped you, my entire tent nearly burned to a crisp. Do you know how long it took me to rebuild what I lost?"

"You used Arasaka and lost Voodoo tech, stuff that I helped you find," V reminded, trying hard to maintain eye contact with the woman—difficult, considering she kept looking away.

"As payment for destroying my first rig. We're even, I owe you nothing," Dakota reminded.

Val stepped forward, almost aiming to reach for her but opting to gesture instead—better emphasis that way. "It's just a quick peek. Quick poke through the Blackwall and I'll be out before you know it."

"You say that like it's so simple," she scoffed.

There was little left that Valerie could try—that she could promise in order to convince the woman. Perhaps she should have been removing the risk altogether. Val took a deep breath and looked Dakota in the eyes. "If anything happens, if anything comes through or tries to burn your rig again, I... just jack me out."

Her head whipped forward as Dakota stared V in shock, probably wondering if she'd heard her right. "But you'll be stuck there. You might not come back, you'll die out here."

"I know."

With a furious shake of her head, Dakota hissed. "Do you know what Panam will do if she hears you talking like this? Or anyone, for that matter?"

If Dakota did not agree to it, Val had no other option. This wasn't going entirely as she had planned, even though she did expect a bit of resistance—a bit of pushback. Soliciting Rogue's aid had been a bust, Judy was not presently in Night City—might not ever return—and Panam... Bless her, but she wouldn't be able to help her. Dakota was her only option. "I don't know what else to do," she admitted, feeling her voice quiver in time with her lower lip.

"Why do you need to go there?" she demanded.

"I... Everyone that was in Mikoshi is beyond the Blackwall. All the saved engrams..."

"Silverhand," Dakota added, and V simply nodded. There was a heavy pause between them as Dakota pinched the bridge of her nose. She took a deep breath, mumbled something so quietly that V could not comprehend it, and then began speaking. "You get out the moment I tell you—"

Val's eyes widened.

"If you don't... I'm—" Dakota grunted as V wrapped her arms around her tightly, "—leaving your ass in there."

"Fuck, Dakota, I..." Val felt her throat burn with gratitude and relief. "Thank you—"

"Don't thank me," Dakota sighed, like she had told her once before. "Just... get yourself back in one piece or I will kill you myself. Before Panam kills me."

"I'll owe you big for this," V told her.

"Damn right you will."

—

The wind was fucking soothing around that time of day. The sun just on the verge of setting, the heat of it subsiding and allowing for the cool evening breeze to come say hello; it was the sweet spot during the day that V could step outside the car and breathe. Especially when she was partly drenched in blood, sweat and dirt from a day full of fulfilling gigs.

Preferably, it would be somewhere far away from the fumes of the city.

Whenever she'd be in the middle of a job, the coast seemed to be the easiest place to reach. If not the coast, then the canals would have to do—though they did nothing to give her that fresh air she desired. There were days that V had finished her jobs entirely, having enough time to herself that she could sneak a walk along the piers.

On one such day, she found herself sharing that peaceful moment of hers with the surprise guest in her mind. Sure, Val had expected some commentary from him about how cheesy it was, how she was wasting time and how she needed to track down ways to get into Mikoshi, burn down Arasaka, bla bla bla.

But... There was no such talk.

Where Val had sat down, her feet hanging off the pier and toward the water, she watched as the static of the engram slowly faded to show a more coherent image of Johnny—sitting beside her.

"Y'know, I'll probably get why you're doing this in a few hours, when the shit-stained breeze and the salt finally kick into my sensors," he sighed. "But at least the view's not that bad."

It was probably one of the rarer times that had earned a true and genuine smile from V. "Yeah, it's hard to get away from that smell around here, especially with you around all the time."

He flipped her off; she laughed.

Then, she lit a cigarette and took a deep, long drag. "If we're not getting any fresh air, at least we get this," she gestured to the smoke, watching as Johnny lit his own little pixelated cig. When Johnny said nothing, V looked over to him. "You ever have a place like this of your own? Somewhere to go when shit gets a little... too loud?"

He turned from her, looking out to the open water, and V expected that to be that. However, he took off his aviators and pursed his lips, nodding a little. "Yeah. It's actually closer to this side of the city."

"Really?" Val raised a brow. "Well... tell me where it is, we'll pay it a visit."

Johnny looked at her, some look in his eye that she could not quite place. He opened his mouth to speak, then sighed. The aviators went back on, and so did that playful smirk of his. "Maybe some other time."

Right. Coming from anyone else that she knew, that usually meant: never.

Surprising her for the third time that day, he leaned in close and whispered, "It's not a place I go to feel better. This spot's much better for that than mine."

Val shot him a look and found nothing that told her he was being disingenuous. Having hardly had any moments like this, she felt herself wanting to cherish it a little; savor it.

"Then... maybe we can come here again before all this is over," V offered before taking a puff.

"Yeah. Yeah, maybe."

And that usually meant: yes.

—

Well, she certainly did not miss the ice, that's for sure. The moment she gripped onto the tub, two things happened. First, she gasped sharply at the sensation of the cold metal and air biting into her warmth. Her legs dipped into the water and her muscles seized momentarily before shaking uncontrollably. Secondly, her mind was sent right back to Mikoshi just over a year ago, to a familiar arm that pushed her beneath the rim and forward to start her life anew. To him.

I'm coming, you bastard. Please be there. Please. 

"You ready? This is going to be rough, you won't have anyone in there with you," Dakota explained.

"It's okay, I-I've done this bef—" she gulped down a shudder, "before."

"That's what worries me," Dakota sighed, glancing back at V once.

Val tried to focus her mind on the coming trip, thinking about what she would say, what she would do. If she found him, was there even a way to bring him back? The chip was still slotted in her head. It was at a standstill, dormant and appeased until further notice—maybe it still had space to carry both of them at once, should she be able to take him with her.

Or would that simply take away from everything they had sacrificed?

Her optics lit up as the rig's interface loaded in. She watched the progress build as she felt her entire body slowly grow numb—both from the cold and the process of being chipped in. Sounds and voices around her began to grow into a blur, images turning distorted and grainy.

The flaps of the tent burst wide open as someone walked in, her attention focused on V. "What the fuck are you doing?!" she yelled—it was Panam. She made a stop by Dakota's deck, then knelt beside the tub. There was little else that V could comprehend, only that Panam was talking to her. Or yelling at her. There was really no way to tell the difference.

She'd understand, though. Hopefully she'd understand.

Val couldn't think about that now, as she felt herself sinking deeper and deeper into a deep, dark pit. The world around her faded away into nothingness, being replaced by a facsimile of her strongest memories built entirely out of streams of data. That blue tinge and the splash of red were things she had hoped to never see again in her lifetime, but such was the way of it all.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and allowed herself to give into the process that Dakota ran her through, letting her guide V to the wall. She dug in deep, searching for the memories left behind like forgotten baggage, the images of a life gone by that did not belong to her—but that felt like her own in some strange way. The early 21st century. Alt. Johnny. She focused on those memories, hoping it would help her find the right way as it once did, hoping that Dakota would pick up on it on her end. It would take time, but V had to hope that this would work—and more importantly, that somebody would be there to greet her on the other side.

—

The haze of consciousness was something Johnny did not miss. All the anesthetics they had been pumping into his system was certainly not doing him any favors when it came to trying to take in his surroundings. He could feel himself waking just before his next dose was applied, putting him down again. It felt as though he was allowed  single gasp of air before being pushed right back down into deep waters.

In some ways, this was worse than Mikoshi.

Find the Merc. Find the Merc. Find the Merc.

He wasn't sure exactly how long it had been since he was completely awake, but the more he felt himself reach the brink of complete coherence, the more he began to realize the voices around him grew careless.

Bide his time. That's all he needed to do. Use these little moments to figure a way out of this. There was no way he would ever take Bryce's offer, but Johnny had changed his mind. If he truly was back in a body, there was no way in hell he would let them use it to their advantage.

Find the Merc.

All he needed was a bit more time.

—

The wall was a little more menacing than she remembered. Perhaps it was because she was entirely alone in the Net. She had Dakota's protective eyes and ears above, watching from the outside, but within the streams of pixels and data, she was well and truly alone—and her blades could do nothing to protect her here.

Even within the construct, she could feel her insides churning and her guts aching in nervousness. She wondered what she would find, and found herself stopping inches before the wall, unable to keep moving.

But time was a luxury she did not have.

Whether or not she was truly prepared, V had to give it a shot. She had to try anything to silence the aching madness within her chest. Reaching out to touch the red wave was the first step.

It was unclear just when exactly she had switched over, but the intimidating clouds of red and darkness around her signified a horrifying truth. She was now beyond the Blackwall once again. Entirely alone, once again. There was no sign of anything nearby—thank fuck—but there was no other way to get what she needed than to go against her survival instincts right now.

Valerie took a deep breath.

"Johnny!" She cried out, her voice echoing into nothingness.

And that vast emptiness stared right back.

"Johnny!" She cried again, "Talk to me!"

No response.

Her blood—simulation or not—ran completely cold, and a pit grew in her stomach. "J-Johnny?" V called, a little softer this time, maybe a little broken. Her arms wrapped around herself as she looked around, waiting for a small glimmer, a small change in the landscape.

She waited, and waited, and waited.

Nothing came.

Maybe he was actually, well and truly gone. She had to come here, she reminded herself. She knew this would be a possibility. V had allowed herself a small inkling of hope, a kernel of light that she allowed to influence her decisions. It had been over a year and she deserved closure. She wanted to know that she had done the right thing.

More than that, perhaps she had hoped to hear his voice again, even if it wasn't entirely him anymore. And yet... She waited for a minute; two; three, and nothing came.

Only silence.

Then, she swallowed the lump in her throat and knew there was one final thing to be done before she could leave. One last thing she could try. She mustered up the courage within her and hoped that it would be the right thing to do, taking a deep breath and tilting her chin high. "Alt!" She called out into the air.

"You should not be here," the voice boomed, loud and sudden as a large red mass formulated into a familiar form in front of V.

"Alt?" V glanced up.

"V," she replied. "You've managed to survive the effects of the biochip so far."

"I have," no thanks to you, she almost added, but that wasn't fair. Alt did give her a head start—even if it was mainly due to Johnny's presence. It was as she had once said to V, they would not be talking if it wasn't for him. "I'm here for Johnny."

"You came all this way, on your own with no way out, you risked your life and the stability of the biochip, just to come here," Alt stated, her form shifting a bit closer and seemingly larger. "You also risked being followed, or tracked, or even hunted; risked bringing the ever-present dangers of the outside world within—to me. I had told you once that there were many dangers lurking beyond the Blackwall, but you do not listen."

"Alt..." V muttered, a sense of dread building within her.

"You risk yourself anyway. You and Johnny made a sacrifice, and yet you cast it aside so easily. You are too late."

Too late...

"Alt, where the fuck is he?" V asked adamantly.

"He is not here," Alt revealed in monotone.

"What."

"Johnny is not here," she repeated more clearly.

"He's... He's gone? He's merged with you, then?" V asked, feeling her heart pounding hard within her chest.

"No. You do not understand. Johnny did not cross the Blackwall with me, as he should have. He remained in Mikoshi long after you left, despite my best efforts to convince him to leave."

"This can't..." V took a breath, and another, trying hard to maintain her composure as the panic set in.

"Johnny is not here."

No, no, no.

"He was never here."

[letshaikyuu]

💟𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬 - 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 - 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐈𝐈

💟 𝐚/𝐧: the second part <3

💟 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: fluff because I need some fluff <3 AND KOGANEGAWA IS HERE, SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY ;3

💟 𝐧𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ; 💟 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞  ;  💟 𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 - 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐨𝐨𝐧... 

«───── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ─────»

💟 𝐤𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐲𝐚𝐦𝐚 𝐭𝐨𝐛𝐢𝐨

He doesn’t know how to love, he’s new to this. There are no volleyballs or courts anywhere near him and no team to tell him if he’s playing his cards right or not. He felt all by himself when he first admitted he had feelings for you. Of course, he went up to his senpai he trusts the most right now - aka Sugawara - and asked him for some advice. The look of shock and pure excitement on Suga’s face made him think that they were all more excited about this than him

The plan was simple. Kageyama always tripped on his words when he was around you and nervous, so it was decided that he told you the old-fashioned way. A written confession, on a note, taped onto a milk carton. Why a milk carton, you might ask? Kageyama had planned on meeting you during a break and what better way to act casual than to have an everyday item in his hands!

When you approach him, Kageyama can feel his knees shake, hands sweat as they threaten to squeeze the life out of the milk carton. “Hey, Kageyama!” You’d say cheerfully and look at the two cartons in his hand, “Is one for me?” He nods, face already heating up at your curious gaze. You take the milk happily and start drinking it, unaware that there was a message on the other side

“Hm?” Voicing out, you can hardly understand Kageyama when he says to look closely at the carton itself. Confused, you turn it around and on it, with kanji written as nicely as possible - but still sloppy - “I really like you. Date?” Who could possibly turn down someone as cute as Kageyama?

You giggled at his cute, shy confession before moving closer to him and giving him a quick peck on the cheek. His blush intensified, a hand moving to touch the same spot you’ve kissed. “A date it is, Tobio!”

«───── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ─────»

💟 𝐬𝐮𝐠𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐤𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐡𝐢

He acts like your typical “boy in love”. He, quite literally, has heart eyes all the time and in his mind, it’s all you and everything about you. Sugawara is smitten. But, you’re still not his, so he has to act fast and cross that last obstacle before the finish line - confessing his undying love. He’s nervous, he can’t lie, but he’s quite sure of his feelings for you and your feelings for him, so he’s not panicking as some might

It takes days for him to think of a good-quality confession. Ultimately, he decides to do it in a very Sugawara way and do the thing he loves doing the most - baking. A few days prior, he’d try out numerous recipes and share the dessert with the team and you, on purpose, so that he could pinpoint which recipe stuck with you the most

After deciding on a recipe, he goes out to buy a cute box to pack the sweet delights in, a ribbon to tie it all up, and a note, his finely written cursive writing down a simple ‘I love you! Please go out with me <3′. Sugawara seemed ready, but inside, he was nervous. What if you rejected him? What will he do?

It was the next day, Sugawara taking extra care of the box and removing it from the prying eyes of the Karasuno volleyball team. It was lunchtime when he approached you, box hidden behind his back. “Y/N! I have something for you,” he tells you as he reveals the box,” I hope you’ll like it!” He flashes you his boyish grin, knowing you could probably read the lettering on the note

Looking at the cursive letters, you’d look up at him, at his wide grin and smiling eyes, before looking back at the note. ‘I love you.’ You’d return his smile with a big one of your own. “I love you too Koushi!”

«───── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ─────»

💟 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐮 𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐮

Shirabu would have a bunch of problems with admitting to himself that he has romantic feelings for someone else and that he has to confess in order to know how to deal with them. He doesn’t want to be rejected, heck, no one does, but he wouldn’t be able to deal with the question ‘Do they like me back” constantly nagging him. So, he’d decide to confess his feelings for you

If it were only Shirabu involved, he’d act like a tough guy and tell you straight up that he has feelings for you, but when you’re in a team like Shiratorizawa, there’s no way something like this would happen. You have to be more romantic, Shirabu! They told him to and turned down his previous plans of confessing. Now, what’s he supposed to do?

And, to make it all worse - or better, he doesn’t really know - the team sent a message from his phone to you: “Meet me at the park Saturday, I have something important to tell you.” He prayed you wouldn’t answer positively, but the pixeled ‘yes’ made him feel nervous all over again

Even though he wanted to do something more romantic, he’d stick to his own choice; the only romantic effect added - a red rose he’d buy on the way to the park. Most likely cursing the amount of silver glitter falling from the rose and onto him, he’d fail to hear you giggling at his antics. Looking up and seeing you there, he’d freeze, no words coming out

“Shirabu?” “I LIKE YOU.” All of a sudden, he’d blurt it out while shoving the rose into your chest, his body in a deep bow as to avoid you seeing his flustered ace. So smooth Shirabu, so smooth. He’d misinterpret your giggling as a rejection, but: “I like you too, Shirabu.” Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea at all.

«───── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ─────»

💟 𝐤𝐨𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐰𝐚 𝐤𝐚𝐧𝐣𝐢

No lie, the whole world would know that Koganegawa has a crush. The boy gets so excited; the nervous jitters in his stomach, his fast heartbeat, his sweaty hands making him more excited than nervous. He’s in love! And, of course, the whole team of Dateko knew about that and who better to ask for advice than his own team!

They’d try to get him off cloud nine, his ideas too exaggerated, extravagant, and expensive for a high school student. Something simple, but meaningful they said. Okay, something simple and meaningful. The next day, coming back from the craft store, Koganegawa brings back a bag full of that huge ass piece of paper for signs, fluorescent markers, glitter, and more.

It would be out of the blue. He’d barge onto the school grounds one day, in his arms the huge piece of paper with glitter falling off of it by every walked meter. Everyone would be looking at him, but he only has eyes for one thing, you. The team is face-palming at the sidelines, watching as their youngest marched up to you with the widest grin ever

“Y/N!” His voice loud as he opens the paper, and your eyes would squint at the splash of color in front of you. It had everything on it. From ‘I REALLY REALLY LIKE! WILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME? PLEASE!’ to colorful glitter half-assedly glued onto it and barfing on you and the ground as the paper flew open. Koganegawa couldn’t care less about doing this in public, in front of the school. What truly mattered, was your answer.

“Soooo?” You’d smile, head shaking at the childish act of your crush. “Yes, Koganegawa, I’ll go out with you.” His eyebrows would disappear into his hair as he throws the paper high above his head and pulls you into a tight hug. He doesn’t care about the people screaming in the distance

He should’ve because the same piece of paper smacked you both on the head, but, love, am I right?

[fatoujallovv]

so here’s my disclaimer: I hardly know what I'm doing. This is my glued together homemade giffing method that I’ve created over months of just random experimentation and bits and pieces from all kinds of tutorials. there are probably better or more correct ways to do a lot of these things! this also isn’t a completely universal tutorial, some of the specifics are geared towards giffing skam, specifically skam france. 

I gif in photoshop cc 2020 on a macbook. Some things like keyboard shortcuts and little things about the photoshop interface will probably vary if you are on a pc/ other version of photoshop! 

this is very long and very unprofessional, but I hope there is something in here that someone will find helpful!

we’ll be going from this:

to this:

up to date as of October 25, 2020

downloading clips

selecting what part you’re going to gif

cropping

my action for resizing, converting to a smart object, and sharpening

coloring

exporting and setting the delay

tldr tips

1. downloading clips

4k video downloader (which you can get for mac or pc here) is great for things posted to youtube, especially from skam france because all the clips are on their youtube with no weird geoblocks or anything! it’s really easy, you just have to open the clip in youtube, copy the link, and go into the program and hit paste link. I like to put on smart mode first and set the destination folder so all my clips go into the place I want. 

There is a 30 video per day download limit, so if you’re thinking you really want to gif lots of stuff from the show, and want a big chunk or a full season it’s definitely worth hunting for a mega or google drive with full episodes to download because it’s just less hassle! I might come back to this post later and compile a list of all of those, but for now if you type “[remake] no subs google drive” or “[remake] no subs mega” into a google search, you’ll probably find something! the all of skam website has no subs for several remakes, but not all!

If you don’t have enough space on your computer to be keeping full seasons, I know there are methods to get screencaps without having to download (generally for giffing movies and regular tv I think this is a common method), but I’ve never done it so I’ll redirect you to this tutorial that explains it! you should probably just go there for the whole thing tbh it’s much more coherent than this, but I digress. 

2. selecting the piece of the video you want to gif

now that you’ve got your episode or clip you’ll want to just open it in photoshop! if you go the screen capping route the way to do that is a bit wonky, so you can keep following the tutorial I linked above and join back in here at coloring if you like!

if the timeline at the bottom doesn’t pop up automatically you can go to window > timeline and turn it on! now you can use the scrubber bar thing to find the moment you want to gif! 

The advantage of this over screen capping is you can scrub with more precision. the arrows circled in blue below let you jump only one frame, where in screen capping I'm pretty sure you can only go by ten second or one minute intervals. 

I usually drag the scrubber as close as I can to the start of the shot/moment I want to use, fiddle with the arrows circled in blue below to jump forward or back one frame at a time until I'm at the first frame I want. I move the left grey handle to the scrubber and then I hit the play button and let the whole shot/moment play. Pause and repeat the shuffling with the arrows until you’ve landed on the last frame you want to use and move the other grey handle. 

the moment you want to use should be between your handles (it’ll look like what I have circled in red), and if you hit play, you should see the thing you want to gif playing on loop above the timeline. the speed will probably be weird, but we’ll deal with that at the end. 

now I recommend doing command or control + s to save your gif as a psd (photoshop document). this is a working, editable file which means if photoshop crashes you can open your file right back up and keep working as long as you’re hitting command or control + s at regular intervals as you work. later we’ll go through exporting in gif format that can actually be uploaded to tumblr.

3. cropping

next I crop out any logos or black space at the top and bottom. Just click on the crop tool on the lefthand side of the screen, drag the edges and hit enter when you’re done. you can of course crop out more than just that, but regardless of what you crop out, now is the time to do it. 

you can set an aspect ratio for your crop at the top of the screen if you’d like to be positive that all the gifs in your set will be the same:

4. my trusty action: resizing, converting to a smart object, and sharpening with one click

Now is when I use an action I made that does all the resizing, converts to a smart object, and sharpens. I’ll take you through the steps so you can conceptually get what’s going on, but I highly recommend using the actions window to record your process as you follow along so you have this action as well. It easily shaves at least 5-10 minutes off of the whole process, and these steps will be the same every time. 

here’s how you make an action: go to window > action and open the action panel. click the plus symbol to start recording a new action:

in the window that pops up, give it a name and hit record:

now just continue with the steps below, and it will save them!

first you flatten frames to clips (I think it says flatten to layers on older versions of photoshop). this is in the menu at the top right corner of your timeline:

next you convert to frame animation by clicking on the symbol in the bottom left, circled in red:

if there is more than one thing in the frame animation, delete the extra one. you don’t need to keep the last one but it won’t let you remove it until there are other frames in there. also go into your layers and delete video group 1 and its contents. don’t ask me why these steps are necessary, I don’t really know, but I’ve noticed it sometimes gets wonky if you don’t do this:

now you want to make frames from layers and delete that first frame that was there before:

then we return to the timeline: 

use command + option + a (control + alt + a for pc I'm pretty sure) to select all layers and then right click within your layers window and select convert to smart object. It’s important to convert to smart object after you go back to the timeline, or the gif won’t move:

next I resize. gifs for tumblr should be 540 pixels wide. for recording your action you should just go into image > image size and only change the width to 540 in case you ever have gifs cropped to different aspect ratios. don’t touch the height, let constrain proportions figure it out!

now, here’s what our base gif looks like, no sharpening, no coloring:

now to sharpen. go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen. this is up to personal preference, but my go to settings are:

this is what we have after sharpening:

now is when you can stop recording your action. 

just press the stop button in the action window:

this action is pretty much universal and after I select the moment the gif will be and crop however I want, I use it on every gif I make!  so although this initial setup is tedious, now you’ll never have to do these steps again, and the process is magically much quicker.

5. it’s time to jump into coloring!

I typically start with exposure and sometimes some brightness/contrast. with really dark gifs like this, you kind of have to make it worse before you make it better. I did this:

now the gif looks like this:

we have some static and some ugly bits, and this is where selective color comes in to fix it! boost blacks like this:

and now your gif looks like this:

the skin tone is looking a little sickly and weird, so I go into the yellows and reds in my selective color layer to fix it! I also messed with the greens here because I didn't want color in the background (that part is totally optional and just up to your preference):

now we have this:

to really take the color 100% out of the background, I did one more separate selective color layer for cyan (again, I just felt like it but this is optional!):

and now the finished gif:

there’s lots of fun extra things you can add like text and tints and overlays and all that I won’t get into, but feel free to reach out for help on those types of things! 

this gif was certainly not the most complicated to color. some ridonkulously dark clips (*cough cough* vendredi 20h27 *cough cough*) take tons and tons more effort than this and a lot of the time you’ll want to use color balance layers and vibrance layers and all of that to mess with your coloring. 

with all of this coloring business, I really just learned by doing. I don’t know all the technical purposes of each type of adjustment layer, and I tend to stay away from curves just because I find them confusing and annoying. The bottom line is that you should always experiment and find out whatever coloring works for you and run with it! I’m sure every gif maker you talk to does things at least a little differently! 

I highly recommend taking the time to go through all the types of adjustment layers and just move the sliders around to see what they do! That’s honestly one of the best ways to learn and decide what you like!

6. now to export and adjust the delay!

the keyboard shortcut for exporting on mac is command + option + shift + s, control + alt + shift + s for pc, otherwise you can go to file > export > save for web

my settings are here:

the settings only need to be configured once! otherwise just hit save and follow the pop ups to choose where to save and what name you want to give your gif. Since you saved as a psd way back, that will be the name it’s automatically given, but call it whatever you want!

then I adjust my delay by opening the gif I just exported (not the psd, the .gif file) and using one of my delay actions. I’ve made an action for each delay between 0.05 (real time) and 0.08 (really slow mo for certain super short shots, typically for more ~artsy~ sets). 

all my action does is select all frames:

adjust the delay (which will differ based on whether you want them slowed down and by how much): 

for reference, this is a 0.05 delay:

and this is a 0.08 delay

now you just export the same way you did before! 

remember if you’re recording this as an action, you don’t want to touch the file name, just say yes when it asks if you want to replace the file. if you always save your gifs to the same place, your action will now enable you to override any gif with the incorrect delay with the correct one with one click!

7. tldr: the main tips

for downloading 4k video downloader works well for non geoblocked youtube videos, the all of skam website is another place you can look to download with no subs, here’s the screen capping method if you don’t want to download

The main way I combat dark lighting is to bump exposure to the right, gamma correction to the left, and then enhance black in a selective color layer. The amount of these three adjustments will vary gif to gif. I know lots of people use curves, but I find them really confusing for some reason, so this is my method! As my graphics teacher likes to say: there are always at least 3 different ways to reach the same result!

there’s a little bit of additional coloring on this one, but here’s another before and after example so you can get an idea of how those steps get you a better lit result without making the lighter parts super over exposed:

besides those three steps, you have free rein to use the other selective color channels, as well as color balance, vibrance, hue/saturation, etc. to restore color that was lost or to change the colors altogether! mess around with it and have fun experimenting!

7a. bonus coloring tip: 

sometimes you can make use of selective color to completely alter an isolated color in your gif. You can get very adventurous with this, but here's a simple example of changing blue tones to teal (I got away with these gifs being longer because they were in rows of two in the set I posted them in. I'm too lazy to trim frames so I can put them here at 540 px without going over the 10mb limit so just ignore the quality ok):

7b. actions, actions, actions! 

if you find yourself doing a certain thing over and over, always record it as an action. the amount of time they will save you is honestly really impressive. 

You can duplicate actions, so, for example, if you have different sharpening preferences for different shows or scenes, you can duplicate your gif process action and go into the steps, double click smart sharpen, and alter it however you want! 

This could also be good to do for the different widths for tumblr if you ever do sets with rows of two or three! Duplicate actions is also how I made my actions that set delay at 0.05, 0.06, 0.07, and 0.08!

when in doubt, always make an action! it’s worth minimizing the tedious bits of the process as much as possible so you can focus on the fun part of seeing your awesome gifs come to life! any little task you find yourself doing often, make an action!

and for now that’s all I have. if any of this made no sense, if you want to suggest a correction or addition I could make, if you’re ever curious how I did something on any gifs I post, or if you have any other sort of questions, feel free to send me an ask or a dm! if I can’t answer your questions I’ll be happy to try to direct you to someone who can or a tutorial to help! again, I'm no expert, not even close, but I hope at least one person will find one thing in this mess that helps. 

[threads-of-trust]

Ivory slipped through the doorway and closed it tightly, careful not to make a sound. He needed to make haste. Of course, he planned for things to go wrong, always needing to stay one step ahead. But, he wanted to retrieve one more thing before making his escape. Or, better said, someone.

Immediately he was greeted by the sound of soft sobbing. Turning his head towards the noise, he could plainly see the source. Putri sat upwards, the helmet prison that kept her in the simulation thrown to the side, while she covered her face with her hands. Ivory’s face softened at the sight, approaching quietly and placing a hand on her shoulder. “Winifred. Are you-?” He began.

Putri was quick to react, jumping and shoving his hand off of her. She looked up with a beat red face, eyes shining with tears, yet the anger behind them was visible. “Don’t touch me.” She warned, voice wavering with emotion.

“I-“ Ivory bit his lip, sighing. “You know I never wanted to hurt you. Your simulation wasn’t programmed to kill you, unlike the others. I wouldn’t put you in harms way.” He promised, crouching down to her eye level in an attempt to be seen as equal.

“I.. I don’t care..” Putri shook her head, choking on her tears. “We... this... this didn’t need to happen. N-None of it. Why? Why did you take it this far? You’re mad...”

“Perhaps. But, you’re no better.” Ivory commented, nonchalantly with a sense of certainty in his eyes.

Putri looked him in the eyes with disgust at that remark, releasing a shaky breath. “... I want my friend back. I-I miss how you were when we were young, Vee.” Ivory felt his heart skip when she used that old childish nickname. “I don’t w-want this anymore..”

“... I know. I know you don’t.” Ivory agreed, reaching out to her once again, his time taking one of her hands in his own. “Everything can be as it once was, Winifred. This madness can all be put to rest, I promise it! We can rebuild this land from the bottom up once again. Create a legacy to be proud of, as we were always meant to. All I need is..” He squeezed her noticeably smaller hand in his palm, looking to meet her gaze pleadingly. “Come with me?”

“With you...?”

“Yes. We can forget about these people, let them flee, let them go. They won’t matter. All that matters is you. Only you.” He nodded, completely sure of himself, searching her eyes for an answer. “Please..?”

Putri stared back for a long moment, unsure of how to respond. Her features relaxed however, and Ivory recognized this as a good sign. The dancer’s hand moved up to wrap around his shoulders, pulling him forward into a hug.

This startled him terribly. How long had to been since they hugged? Gods, since they were children? He felt idiotic, on his knees and stalling from such a simple display of affection. He finally returned the hug, resting his chin on her shoulder with a sigh, closing his eyes to bask in the moment. This was all he wanted. How could this have gone any better? Putri was here and her arms around his neck protected him from the cold, and if he had it his way, he’d never let go. Never again.

Wait... the cold. Ivory felt the breeze on the back of his neck as Putri began to pull away, revealing a devilish smile painted on her face. In her hand, laced with pieces of his long green hair, was her bronze dagger. She...

He hurriedly felt the back of his neck, finding no long hair to brush his fingers through any longer. Looking down in horror, he saw exactly what he feared. His hair, the very symbol of his power in Eventus, lying on the floor like common garbage, tossed aside without a care. He choked on air, looking back to his childhood friend who was laughing hysterically, eyes swirling with madness. “I’ll never love you. Not now. Not ever. You’re nothing anymore, Ivory. Nothing.” She hissed with enough venom to physically bite him.

“... Y-You...” Ivory croaked pathetically, shoulders shaking with the loss of control. She fooled him, used his weakness for her as a weapon, made him look like a fool. His hair was gone. His nobility was shattered. The betrayal finally sank in to his mind. And with that, came the explosion. “You.. little wench-!!” He screeched.

Putri’s laughter was interrupted by being slammed down by the throat to the table that held her captive during the simulation. She gasped, kicking her feet and scratching at his hand desperately for air. “I’m nothing!? Please! You’re below dirt, Putrid. You always have been. You always will be. You dare shame me like this-!? After everything I’ve done for you!? I threw my life away for you and your disgusting obsession with that beast of a woman! You’re through! I’m done pleading for your willingness!” He leaned down closer to the dancer, an equally as insane grin that matched hers from before. “You’re not getting away from me again. Ever.”

The door flew open at that very moment, a flash of yellow sprinted up to Ivory and promptly kicked Ivory viciously in the legs. “Get your hands off of her, you overgrown piece of seaweed!!” Hiyoko screeched, punching Ivory once he keeled over from the pain. Ivory reeled from this, his grip on Putri releasing, hissing and grabbing his assailant by the collar of her bright kimono. “Touch me again, you wretch, I dare you-!” He yelled back, raising his free hand with the shining silver talon, ready to strike.

“Hiyoko! I told you not to run off! Where-!” Ivory looked up to the sound of the familiar voice, greeted by the sight of Hajime stopping dead in his tracks in the doorway. The pair glared at one another with enough tension to snap a pen in half. “Oh, please..” Ivory threw Hiyoko to the side with a thud, leaving both the short dancers in pain and trying to regain their breath. “Damsels can’t save other damsels, dear. Why don’t you-”

A flash of light. A crash of thunder. In an instant, someone else had shown up beside Hajime. Ivory would feel a sharp burning pain in his right shoulder, and a glance would reveal an entry and exit wound. He’d been shot.

To Hajime’s right stood the man forced to run the game, a friend of the first and only killer. With cold, red eyes, Spy was aiming a now smoking pistol at Ivory, this time trained near center mass. “Away from them. Now.”

Ivory hissed even louder when shot in the shoulder. He fell backwards and scrambled away quickly, one hand holding his shoulder while the other helped to pull himself away as quickly as possible. Spy’s threat was clear enough, even if he tried, Ivory would likely not reach Putri or Hiyoko without a massive amount of pain. “Ahah.. ha…” He chuckled in a clear panic. “You.. you think.. You think I’m finished with you all? No.. no, not even close-! You’re not taking her from me again, not you or anyone!”

Hajime flinched at the gunshot sound, backing away out of instinct, but the scene before him was almost too good to pass up, at least gloating. “You’ve got a big mouth for someone bleeding out.”

“Shut up! Quiet! All of you!” Ivory screeched like a madman, clutching his shoulder harder and harder to stop the blood flow. Baring his teeth like any angry animal, he leapt to verbally assault Hajime, but was cut off but rubble filling his view and a loud crashing noise.

From the room right next door, the wall caved in with Aditi and Pixel falling through in the midst of their battle for dominance. The two had their fingers locked together, appendages and metal claws trying to overpower the other, when Aditi looked up and locked eyes with Spy and Hajime in the doorway. “Move!” She called out, before promptly picking Pixel up and slamming her against the wall. The sound of metal crushing and a robotic scream of pain echoed in the room. Ivory looked up in a panic at the scene, before looking towards his only escape route, a balcony. Aditi stood right in front of the doorway, holding Pixel in place and blocking Spy’s clear shot.

With a smirk tossed in their direction, Ivory stood up and ran off towards the opening, shifting over the railing with his legs. Still clutching his shoulder, Ivory smiled back at the group, barely catching Putri’s eyes as she finally raised her head to glare at him. “.. I’ll be back for you, Putrid. Don’t fret.” He promised, before sliding off the railing and landing on the balcony below, making a run for it.

Putri sucked in a painful breath, gritting her teeth and feeling the choking mark around her throat. “.. Damnit…”

[paladin-lynx]

SquipJere Week 2020, Day 1: Retro

@squipjerebmc’s SquipJere Week 2020 Day 1: Retro

Ships Involved: The SQUIP x Jeremy Heere (Technical Difficulties/Squipemy/Squeremy/JereSquip/SquipJere)

Setting: Canonverse, set in the time interval between “Loser Geek Whatever” and “Halloween”.

Trigger/Content Warnings: Non-graphic mentions of masturbation; electric shocks

Author’s Notes: Happy SquipJere Week! I meant to get these done like a month ago so I could pre-plan and not rush, but my writing motivation has been kinda low lately. But I’m still gonna try my best to get a piece out for each day! Some of these might be loosely connected – I haven’t decided yet. But I hope you enjoy!

Sometimes, teenage boys needed an escape from the crazy, loud world around them.

Jeremiah Heere had always had three main methods of just forgetting about his problems for a little while: jerking off, talking to Michael, or playing video games.

But considering with the introduction of a supercomputer into his brain the first two options weren’t actually options anymore, he had to settle for the third.

It wasn’t like Jeremy had any shortage of games to play, and it wasn’t like he couldn’t play them without a Player Two – although normally he was the Player Two. But there was definitely something bittersweet about not being able to call up his long-time friend and lose themselves together in the mindless images on the TV screen.

But it was for the best, Jeremy reminded himself. When he reunited with Michael, he’d be better. He’d be cooler. And he could potentially help his friend move up from just being the weirdo loser headphones kid at school. But for now, he needed to break the chains in order to upgrade.

So for now, to try and stave off the nerves that often decided to just rise up out of nowhere – honestly, why was the human brain so stupid sometimes? Jeremy could see why his SQUIP often got frustrated with him – he flopped back onto his bed and booted up his trusty old Game Boy Color. He was still surprised it had survived this long, but unlike other things in his life, Jeremy was actually quite careful when it came to tending to his video games and their respective consoles. Maybe he’d only started being so careful after an unfortunate accident involving a slushie and Michael’s Dreamcast, but even so – now he was careful.

He quickly forgot that anything outside of his game existed, eyes glued to the screen as he tapped away at the controls. All was peaceful for a good while before he felt a familiar buzz at the back of his head and a certain Keanu Reeves lookalike appeared standing over him, frowning thoughtfully.

“Out of all of your video game systems, you chose to play that one?”

Jeremy’s gaze swiveled over to the SQUIP. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s so…” The SQUIP hummed, and Jeremy could all but feel it searching for the right word to use. “…retro.”

“…Is that a bad thing?”

The SQUIP tutted at him. “Technology evolves so quickly nowadays. You may be looked down upon if you don’t keep up with it, or if you are still attached to the older, menial versions of things.”

Jeremy’s brow furrowed. “…Is that part of why Mic—” He caught himself. He wasn’t supposed to bring a certain someone up. “…uh, why people think I’m so weird?”

“A small part.” The SQUIP offered him a sympathetic smile, although Jeremy was pretty sure the look in the SQUIP’s eyes was more amused than anything else. “You do get quite a few of your odder interests from Michael. It’s another reason why we needed to get you away from him. We’re modernizing everything about you, from your fashion sense to your hobbies.”

Jeremy sat up more on the bed, setting the Game Boy aside for the time being. As argumentative as he could sometimes be with his SQUIP, he was nothing if not eager to learn and improve. It was why he asked so many questions. “But even Rich plays video games, and he’s considered cool.”

“Ah.” The SQUIP raised a finger. “But he plays recent games. I don’t believe Rich will use a system if it is more than a few years old, and he invests his money to buy new consoles as soon as they come out. Of course, he prefers ‘more mature’ systems like the Xbox, but that’s personal preference. You having an affinity for Nintendo is harmless, but it would be better for you to pick, say, the Switch over…” He waved over at the Game Boy with a slight grimace. “…that.”

Jeremy frowned, peeking down at his innocent Game Boy before looking up at the SQUIP again. “But…does it matter if I’m only playing the older stuff by myself? It isn’t like anyone will know.”

The SQUIP shook its head. “Everything you do, whether alone or with company, will somehow reflect back on you. Besides, if you have a girl in here one day, what would she think? What if Brooke ends up coming over?”

“I don’t think Brooke would care…”

The SQUIP sighed, pinching the bridge of its nose. “You’re awfully intent on this, dear. These ‘retro’ pastimes of yours are still a consequence of your proximity to Michael. If you’re truly cutting him out, then you have to give up these things, too.”

Jeremy’s cheeks warmed indignantly. “I like them for myself, not just because of him!”

The SQUIP huffed, turning its gaze unto the Game Boy, looking down at it as if it were a bug it was getting ready to squish under its sleek digitized boots. “I don’t see the appeal in such outdated hardware.”

Jeremy picked up the Game Boy and held it against his chest like he was trying to protect it from the SQUIP’s scrutiny. “Clearly you understand some appeal to older things, considering that when I first got you, you looked like Keanu from Bill & Ted.”

The SQUIP narrowed its eyes. “Only my face. The rest of me was more advanced. I tailored my aesthetics so that I’d look like someone you’d pay attention to. Someone you’d find intriguing.” It smirked slightly. “Dare I say, attractive.”

Jeremy’s face warmed again and he sputtered for a moment. “M-my point is that just because I like vintage stuff in the comfort of my own home doesn’t mean I can’t be cool!”

“I’ll say again, I can’t comprehend your attachment to such old technology. The games from those consoles absolutely pale in comparison to anything made now.”

Jeremy shrugged. “It isn’t necessarily about them being good. It’s the nostalgia of it. AotD has been out for years but w—I never get tired of it.”

The SQUIP hummed, once again looking at the Game Boy now pressed against Jeremy’s chest. “What is it that you’re even playing?” Jeremy opened his mouth to answer, but the SQUIP rolled its eyes before he could even say anything. “Hamtaro, Jeremy? Really?”

“Oh, shove off! I told you, it’s for the nostalgia!” Jeremy defended. He realized he’d raised his voice and braced himself for a shock, but all he got was a tingle of static rushing down his spine, making him shiver and blush again. He lay back down, electing to ignore his SQUIP and return to his game of, yes, Hamtaro.

He could still see the SQUIP’s tall frame out of the corner of his eye, watching, tilting its head to the side in that almost endearing way that meant it was analyzing something. But when it didn’t do anything else, Jeremy just focused on the screen before him, clicking at the controls once more.

“Up up down down left right A.”

Jeremy yipped softly as pain flared in the back of his head and he moved one hand to immediately clutch at the tender spot. He looked over to the SQUIP with wide eyes, about to demand what the hell it was doing, only to blink when he realized it was no longer standing there.

“What the fuck?” he mumbled, brow creasing before he slowly turned back to his Game Boy. However, as he pressed one of the buttons, the screen fizzled and the handheld became dangerously hot in his hands, making him gasp and drop it onto the covers beneath him. “Oh God, what did you do?”

Finally, though, the screen returned, except instead of the white-and-orange sprite for Hamtaro, instead the screen was taken over by a different pixelated hamster. This one was jet black save for the white on its muzzle, paws, tail, and tips of its ears, and its eyes were a striking, very familiar bright blue. Jeremy blinked, slowly picking up the Game Boy again and staring at the screen as the black hamster blinked a few times and looked around itself in confusion before it suddenly appeared very disgruntled.

“This is not what I intended to happen,” a text box appeared as the hamster peered up at Jeremy with those big blue eyes. Jeremy’s own widened.

“SQUIP?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Wh—How did you—” Jeremy stumbled over his own words, staring at the sprite. “You’re a Ham-Ham.”

The hamster scowled at him – or at least, Jeremy assumed it was a scowl. It only had so many bits to work with to get its point across. “I suppose I am. I can still shock you, so speak carefully, love.”

Jeremy couldn’t help cracking a tiny smile, shaking his head and leaning back as he continued to watch the SQUIP’s new form. “What the hell were you trying to do?”

The SQUIP gave a shrug, front paws raising in emphasis. “I was trying to better understand your interest in the Game Boy Color. As well as in this game. I suppose I h—”

The text cut out there and Jeremy could all but feel the SQUIP sighing as it waited for Jeremy to finish reading before it deleted the text and continued: “I suppose I had a miscalculation about what would happen when I synced with it.”

Jeremy laughed. “I think this old-school tech is trying to spite you for insulting it.” He grinned. “You look kinda cute like that. And if you’re still in my head, can’t you, y’know, just talk to me there instead of through text boxes?”

The hamster blinked, and it was obvious the SQUIP had been so busy processing the change that it hadn’t considered that as an option, but before Jeremy could poke more fun, he felt another fizzle at the back of his head. The Game Boy’s screen had another freak-out before the game returned to normal with Hamtaro once again in his proper place within the game. Soon enough, the SQUIP reappeared beside the bed, brushing off its clothes as if it had just walked through a hall of cobwebs.

“Have a fun trip?” Jeremy teased, not even minding the warning static on his back.

The SQUIP rolled its eyes, crossing its arms. “I suppose the console is…endearingly antiquated.”

“Yeah, see? That’s the whole point of having vintage stuff!” Jeremy smiled and returned to his game, already missing the black-and-white sprite that had previously been there, as much as he adored the irreplaceable Hamtaro. “Could you change your form to look like a hamster? You really did look cute.”

The SQUIP sighed, coming over to sit on the edge of the bed and watch Jeremy play with almost timid curiosity. “…Perhaps I’ll consider it, if you behave.”

[lonestarbabe]

Running Towards the Tide

(A03)

T.K. has to decide if he wants to wake up and keep living or let go of life altogether after he has been shot.

Or Four Times T.K. Wanted to Die (+1 he didn’t) 

One

The first time T.K. felt the darkness was when he was five years old. He’d been laying in bed, staring at the shadows on his ceiling. His imagination ran wild with all the thoughts of what lurked in his room that looked pixelated in the darkness. He shivered under his blankets, dreading closing his eyes while also dreading keeping them open. He didn’t know what horrors surrounded him, and it was unclear whether it was better to see the threats or remain unaware.

He craved to run away with his imagination to a distant land where it was never dark. He’d stare at his nightlight until he went to sleep just to have a little light shooting through his eyelids, but when he woke up, even with the sun peering in through his window, the shadows were still very much alive. There was a gray film on everything, and T.K. couldn’t figure out why or how to fix it, and he didn’t know enough about the phenomenon to explain it to his parents. They’d probably just think he was imagining the grayness just like they thought he was imagining the monsters he saw in the shadows.

The darkness had come out of the blue in its black glory. Nothing bad brought it on. It wasn’t as if T.K. was that different from other five-year-olds. The darkness was just something that had attached itself to T.K. for whatever reason. Some kids had imaginary friends. T.K. had the darkness. Sometimes, it would go away for a little while, off to visit some other poor soul, but it always returned just as cloying as ever. It pretended to want what was best for T.K., but the darkness didn’t protect him. It put him in the worst kind of danger, the kind that came from within. It made him feel terrified and alone. It made him want to be better so badly that he wound up feeling worse.

The darkness was loyal. Hiding with him when his parents would bicker in soft voices that had the breathiness of a whisper and the loudness of a yell. They only fought when he went to bed, but T.K. was a big boy. He knew what they were doing. Could hear them saying things they would apologize for in the morning. The dark brought the worst out of them.

Loneliness filled his small chest as he heard his parents fight. He figured their issues somehow had to be about him, and that was the loneliest feeling in the world. It was hard being so young and already trying to process such adult things. He needed someone to be there for him through such a hard time. He’d wanted a dog, but the darkness had to suffice as his most loyal confidante because his parents had, after some midnight fights, decided that a dog in the city was a bad idea.

When 9/11 happened, a few years later, the darkness came again stronger than ever, but he didn’t think much of it because it came down upon the whole city, seeping out into the rest of the United States like mucky water overflowing from a toilet. Fear and despair loomed from the planes overhead, the skyscrapers, the street signs, and the roads, all the way down to the subway tracks running steadfastly under the city. One horrific event changed the whole country, creating undeniable grief that would spread throughout the world in various iterations. No one was spared from the impacts. Life became more frantic, which was hard when T.K. already struggled to keep up.

The terror of that day stuck with T.K. He thanked God that his dad had brought home, but then, he realized that his dad was alive but not the same man he had been. Now, Owen was friends with the darkness too, and it was confusing for a kid to understand the darkness in his dad when he couldn’t even understand it in himself. It was startling how the chaos of 9/11 fell into the terrifying silence of post 9-11 life.

He remembered the days when it had all calmed down. There was still a lot going on in the world, of course, but domestically, life had come to a standstill. The funerals were done. The terrorist attacks were still talked about nonstop on the news, but in T.K.’s house, that was not the case. The televisions stayed off. His parents didn’t talk. They didn’t even fight. His mother told him not to make a fuss for his father when she left to put in extra hours at work.

T.K. would curl up in bed, and he’d have nightmares about his dad dying and being burned and broken. His dad was the sole survivor from his team, which was even more harrowing to T.K. because that meant surviving was the anomaly. It felt like his dad had cheated death and that death would surely come for him with a vengeance. T.K. was terrified to let Owen from his sight. Sometimes, at night, when his parents were already asleep, he’d sneak into bed between them, which he hadn’t done since he was four.

His mom would scold him, telling him that he was too old to be in their bed because she didn’t want him to witness Owen’s own nightmares. But T.K. hated being so distant from them, even if he was only a wall away, and it wasn’t fair that he had to sleep alone in his twin sized bed. T.K. told himself that he had to be brave, just like his father. He wanted to be a firefighter someday, a hero, so he practiced bravery at night. He promised himself that someday practicing would pay off and he could grow up to save people and help them be brave.

At night, T.K. would cry, muffling his sobs in his pillow because dad didn’t need the noise. T.K. had to be extra good. His daddy was sad, and T.K. feared that if he misbehaved, his dad would have trouble getting better. His dad needed to get better, and it seemed that until his dad stopped being sad, T.K. couldn’t be either because as T.K. stayed in the sad silence of his apartment, a fuzziness filled his stomach.

He felt like a shaken soda with no way to relieve the pressure, and eventually, he’d burst, throwing a tantrum and begging for someone to ease the perpetual grayness. His dad would pull him into a hug, and his mom would tell Owen not to coddle him because she didn’t want him to grow up being a brat. He’d feel guilty for taking too much of his dad’s attention and for stressing his mom out even more when she had the responsibility of keeping the whole household afloat while his dad got better.

He’d hate himself for being so terrible. He’d imagine his dad getting sicker under the stress of having such an awful son. His mom would beg him to try harder when she tucked him in at night, looking uncharacteristically frazzled like she’d been through World War III, but T.K. didn’t know how to try harder when he had so many feelings he couldn’t control, so he shut them off when he could. He pretended he couldn’t feel anything and went through life like a robot, and the less of himself he showed, the more the tension seemed to lift from his mother’s shoulders and his dad started getting better. As an adult, T.K. could realize that the changes were a product of therapy and time, but as a kid, the magic solution to his family’s woes seemed to rely on T.K.’s good behavior.

But feelings couldn’t be erased. Like garbage, they could be carted to the landfill, but they’d still sit there in an overwhelming pile of rot. They’d mix in a dizzying mass that would make joy indistinguishable from anger. So, the feelings were there. They had to be somewhere, but he’d compacted them so much that they’d melded together, and to fully embrace any one of those feelings, he’d have to painstakingly tear the pieces apart and address all the junk that was too hard to fathom in his young mind. So, he kept pushing it all away. To the landfill it all went.

Even as his dad got better, life was still messy. He’d slip up and do something bad, and more problems would occur. His dad was in a better place. He was back to work, making T.K. fear for the worst every time his dad left. When Owen was home, T.K. clung to him like a shadow on a sunny day until Owen had to leave T.K. again, and as a displayed shadow, T.K. became only darkness. Still, when things were good, they were perfect. Owen was back to playing with T.K. and being the best dad in the world. T.K.’s mom smiled more and would pull him into long hugs, kiss his head, and ask him about what he did at school. She’d tell him he was such a good boy. But then he wasn’t, and his parents fought more, still in those trying-to-whisper shouts, and the pressure to be good kicked in all over again because if he stopped, the darkness would engulf his family.

He hated walking through life, acting as a prop to his parents’ crumbling marriage. He knew his parents would have helped him if they knew something was wrong, but he couldn’t tell them that anything was wrong because good kids could handle bad things all on their own, and T.K. didn’t want to admit that he wasn’t a good kid, especially because it would be just another burden for his family when they’d been through enough. So, he shut up, but when he’d go to bed, he’d whisper swear words under the covers just to hear himself speak. He’d fill the silence with the nastiness he had to repress.

The awfulness could be less awful if he let the darkness help him control it. He could run away from all the bad feelings even when he was diving headfirst into an inferno. Running was tiring, though, and he just wanted a rest.

He’d let the darkness lay in bed beside him as the silence of night haunted him. The darkness filled him with a restless dread. It’d tell him that it would be easier not to exist, and he’d believe it. He wasn’t going to do anything to hurt himself. Good boys didn’t do that, but he prayed that he’d die in his sleep, get kidnapped, or just be wiped from existence completely. He wanted something to take him out of his misery. Death was scary, but the quiet was scarier. He imagined himself standing in New York traffic and feelings the cars and swerve around him. People would shout and honk. His ears would be filled with stimuli, and T.K. found the thought to be delightful. Anything was better than being the good boy who never shouted or made a fuss and was constantly running in a hamster ball full of turds.

Two

At sixteen, he started drinking because honestly, he didn’t see the point in being, or trying to be, the perfect kid anymore because clearly, he was just a troublemaker and would only bring the people he loved pain no matter what he did. Being good had brought him no happiness and it was time to try the opposite.

He wanted to drink, get high, get F’s, and kiss boys. It started with parties in penthouses with friends from school, which was fun and all, but T.K. needed something more. High school parties with some booze and weed just didn’t seem bad enough. Everyone did it, but T.K. didn’t want to be like everyone. So, he started hanging around gay bars with a fake ID that people probably didn’t buy but mostly didn’t question. He was shy at first, sipping his drink and chatting with people who came up to him. Occasionally, he’d end up making out in a back alley, but then, he’d cut off the kissing and head home, scared of the next step. The more he kissed, the less scary sex became, but sex would always be scary, he figured, until he tried it. Honestly, he just wanted to do it so he could stop thinking about how he might mess it up, so one night, he went to a sketchy bar and searched for someone to pop his cherry.

The first time was something he could never forget. It was with a twenty-two-year-old who he’d met at a bar that he was too young to be in. T.K. had lied and said he was twenty-one, and he sipped on a vodka tonic thankful that the bartender had barely looked at his ID. He’d try to look as old as he could, trading his uniform, a prestigious emblem stitched on the chest, for dark jeans and a button-down shirt with little leaves on it,  a perfect fusion of “I just threw this on because I’m naturally cool,” and “I actually put in effort in so you know I mean business.”

Alan had come up to him, complimenting him on how young he looked with a wink, and said, “I like my men to look like boys.” T.K. fought the chills that had gathered that wanted to run a marathon up his spine. He didn’t have time to be scared. He only wanted someone to fuck him so it would be done with. He wasn’t looking for love. T.K. loved love, but on that night, he was looking to be used by this older, experienced guy who didn’t seem to care if T.K. was as old as he said he was.

They went back to Alan’s apartment, where Alan’s roommate was waiting. Alan asked if it was okay if Adrian joined in, and T.K. said yes because he figured it be weird for a gay boy to say no to sex with two hot men even though he’d imagined his first time being something more intimate.

He had the urge to run away crying to his dad like a little kid. He wanted to go home and play Trouble in the safety of his dad’s dinky apartment that he’d gotten after the divorce. But he didn’t want to look like a baby, so he went ahead with the threesome, thinking that this way he could shake the good boy out forever.

Alan had dragged him into the bedroom, ripping his shirt open as buttons popped off, and T.K. panicked, wondering how the hell he was going to go home wearing that. “Don’t worry,” you can borrow one of mine,” Alan had promised. Adrian had joined in, kissing his neck and rubbing a hand across his torso.

He couldn’t keep up with all the body parts that touched him, or the things Alan and Adrian did to him because he was sixteen and had no idea what he was doing, which was why he’d found the most mature guy who seemed interested and latched onto him. He’d gotten two for the price of one. He should be happy, but the darkness was pushing on his chest and he didn’t know how to make it go away. Backing out certainly wouldn’t make him feel better. He’d just feel like a loser virgin. So, he let the two men do what they wanted and tried to keep his breathing steady and his eyes open.

It felt good during sex. Sort of. His body had reacted, at least, but after, T.K. felt dirty. He wanted to curl up in a ball and never leave his bed again. He went home wearing a shirt that was two sizes too big for him and smelling like a man he wanted to forget. He wanted to burn the shirt, emblazoned with NYU, but he kept it in his closet. He still has it a decade later, and it’s more his size now, not that he can stand to put it on. He doesn’t know why he keeps it, but it feels important. Like an anti-safety-blanket. Something to remind him to be careful with his heart.

He cried on and off for three days afterward, and he couldn’t hide his feelings from his father this time, no matter how much he didn’t want to have to talk. Owen sat down by T.K. on his bed, rubbing calming circles on his back and brushing a hand through his hair. “Hey, want to tell me what’s wrong?”

And no, getting fucked by two strangers wasn’t something T.K. wanted to tell anyone, especially not the person who he most wanted to make proud, so he settled for the less offensive version of the truth, “Dad, I’m gay.”

The way Owen pulled T.K. into his arms and said, “It’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that,” made T.K. want to die a little less. “Actually, it’s more than okay. It’s you, my beautiful, strong kid,” made T.K. feel like he’d never be good enough for the great things in his life. Good boy or bad boy, the darkness would linger.

Three

At twenty, T.K. figured out how to make the darkness brighter after breaking his leg. A couple Oxy and the pitch blackness would become bright, fluorescent light, fake and far from the sunlight his pale skin craved.

He also fell in love with a guy named Ambrose, addictive and nearly as blinding as the oxy. Ambrose was the kind of guy who could convince Jesus to worship the devil. He’d compliment T.K., and brush his hands through his hair, just like T.K.’s dad had always done when he was sick. T.K. always loved that, and Ambrose knew it. He used it as a weapon, but T.K. was glad to have the affection.

They’d get into a fight, Ambrose accusing T.K. of cheating when he came home laughing and smiling after dinner with a friend. Or even his dad. He’d demean T.K. for half an hour until T.K. cried and begged for forgiveness. Ambrose would say, “You should have thought of that when you chose another man over me,” and he’d give T.K. the silent treatment for hours because Ambrose knew the silence made T.K. go crazy.

Finally, T.K. would explode. He’d yell at a silent Ambrose, trading tears for pleading. Ambrose would never answer. He’d merely continue making dinner, and he’s set two places at the small table in the living room. He’d make the table extra romantic with candles and cloth napkins, but when T.K. went to sit down, Ambrose would say, “This could have been for you if you weren’t such a whore,” and he’d take the extra plate away and serve himself the decadent meal while T.K. would have to watch Ambrose eat as he nibbled on whatever he could find in the cupboards.

T.K. would go to bed, thinking to himself that he had to get away, but then, at just the right time, Ambrose’s voice would fill T.K.’s ears. “Baby, I’m sorry,” he would say, “I just worry that you can’t help but sleep around. It might be who you are, and I can’t take thinking about you with other people. Can’t you see what you do to me?”

Sometimes, T.K. would try to protest, “That’s not how I am.” Mostly, he would stay silent, not as a weapon but because he didn’t know what else to say.

Ambrose would laugh like it was a silly thing to say. “When you lost your virginity, you had a threesome,” as if a threesome somehow made him unqualified to be faithful in a relationship. T.K. wished he’d never told Ambrose about that. He didn’t mention that the threesome had been traumatizing and shitty because he was sixteen and didn’t know how to say no or that he still had the  NYU shirt in his closet. “But you never have threesomes with me.”

“I’m sorry,” T.K. would always say at the end of their fights, somehow feeling like he was the one who had screwed things up… yet again. He ruined things. That’s just how he was.

T.K. dreaded spending too much time with Ambrose, but he stayed for the highs. The romantic dinners, the champagne, the Oxy that Ambrose would slip T.K. as a treat for being especially obedient. He spent less time with his dad when he was with Ambrose. Ambrose hated T.K.’s dad, thought that he was too controlling while Owen thought the same thing about Ambrose, urging T.K. to end the relationship. “It’s abusive,” Owen would say, but T.K. didn’t think so. He figured he deserved all the cruel words. It wasn’t like Ambrose hit him. Though, physical violence probably wouldn’t deter T.K. much when it came to Ambrose either.

Fortunately, but heartbreakingly at the time, the relationship came to a sudden halt when Ambrose got sick of T.K. “moping all the time.” Ambrose broke up with him when T.K. was twenty-three, and he wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or sink into a deeper depression, so he did both, using meaningless sex to get him through while celebrating that Ambrose was no longer a part of his life. The more his partners used him, the better. He still refused multiple partners at once, though, because that would be a level of self-destruction that even T.K. couldn’t handle.

He could spend time with his dad without feeling guilty, and sleep with whoever he wanted. It was great. As great as life could be when everything still felt like a train wreck and your heart was still shattered for a stupid person who didn’t deserve to have so much power over you.

After Ambrose, T.K. used oxy more because rough sex wasn’t enough to cut the pain rushing through him or the numbness that he used to drown the pain. He’d wake up having lost hours of his time or in a stranger’s bed, and he was perfectly fine with that. He started withdrawing from his family again, who didn’t stop caring just because T.K. shut them out. He worked during the day and at night, he’d get high.

His dad cornered him one day, telling him he needed to seek treatment, but T.K. didn’t listen. He didn’t want to get help. He wanted to die and stop feeling all the bad things while still feeling good things. Oxy let him do that for a little while. It eased the aching in his body, and he wondered how he didn’t know of it before he broke his leg. He had been living in the darkness for so long, and he was still living in the darkness, but now, he had a lamp to simulate brightness.

It wasn’t until an overdose that T.K. couldn’t avoid his dad’s pleas for treatment any longer, so T.K. got better, and he stopped using, but the darkness wasn’t dead because T.K. was very much alive. T.K. found new ways to control his feelings. More meaningless sex, men who would hurt him, his job as a firefighter. He wasn’t handling his life healthily, but he was handling it as best as he could. Without Oxy.

Then, eventually, he met Alex, who seemed to care about T.K., and who refused to have sex with him until the third date.  Alex was meaningful, and it felt like a welcome change. He thought Alex would burst through the haze and make him feel something again. Things didn’t turn out as he wanted, obviously.

Alan, Adrian, Ambrose, Alex. He always did have a thing for the A names, who always turned out to be people who treated him the ways he wanted but didn’t deserve. Alarming, Abysmal, Abusive, Acerbic. He tried not to think about the most dangerous A name: Addicted.

Four

He still doesn’t know if the overdose was a planned suicide attempt. It wasn’t something he’d thought that much about, really. It had been an impulse more than anything, but there’s a part of him that figured it would be better to die. Even in death, he didn’t want anyone to know about the darkness that had lived inside him for so long because it was so shameful, but he was starting to fear that death was the only way to get rid of the darkness for good, so taking a bunch pills seemed like a good idea. He’d just seem like an addict who went a little too crazy. He’d leave it up to fate what happened to him.

So, while he doesn’t know if he planned on trying to kill himself, in effect, he wanted to. He wouldn’t have taken so many pills if he just wanted to get high. Accidental overdoses do happen, but T.K. knew he couldn’t handle that many. He knew it, but he did it anyway, praying to the God he didn’t believe in that this would be the end. He should’ve known that prayers don’t work when there’s no one there to receive them.

It wasn’t even about Alex. Obviously, being cheated on and a failed proposal weren’t fun, but somewhere deep down, he knew that he and Alex would never work. Alex was just a body to fill the hole in T.K.’s life. T.K. had loved him, but he’d worked to love him, and he’d fought for that love long past its expiration. Then, when Alex was gone, it was overwhelming. The dam was leaky, and now there was nothing left to plug it. Alex had been a band-aid, one T.K. had gotten used to relying on, and as everything fell apart all at once, T.K. was overwhelmed with all the things he’d never dealt with. He’d found some oxy, and decided to take a break while hoping that maybe, he could quit altogether.

The scariest part is that he went from the sharp panic of wanting— needing— to die to waking up and feeling fine. Well, not fine, but not like he’d jump off the first ledge he could find. The darkness had temporarily backed off, and the shame of a failed suicide-ish attempt kept him from wanting to take any more risks right away.

The after-effects of an overdose sucked, but while he was still in the hospital, he felt an unusual calm, and then, just as the anxiety had begun to infiltrate his body again, the move to Texas had kept him too busy to sit much with the feelings he was avoiding, so while he wasn’t okay, he could pretend that he was. Pretend that he was better. Pretend that he was putting his all into therapy. Pretend that he was the good son he long ago realized he could never be.

After his attempt, he felt better even if he knew the dark thoughts would still come in and out of him like patients through the hospital’s revolving door. The thing about suicidal thoughts is that they never last forever. They rush in like high tide, but then, they recede. They go away for a bit, but they come back and angry and vicious, and they erode you. They wear you down until you can’t stand to wait the thoughts out and have the overwhelming compulsion just to get rid of them for good. High tide becomes safety, and the thoughts of living become more intrusive than the thoughts of dying.  

By the time T.K. woke up, the waves had already settled. He still wanted to die, but it had become a distant desire that he could ignore for a little while until it came back when the darkness caught up with him again. Maybe someday T.K. wouldn’t always have to be running, but he was good at running. Times when he was forced to stop were the problem because when you were stuck in place and unwilling to move was when the tide could carry you away.

+1

He’s unconscious. He knows that. He can feel bodies looming over him, urging him to wake up. They’re sad. He can hear that in their hushed voices, but the darkness is there too. It’s telling him that this could be the end. He could keep his eyes closed and never have to deal with life again, and this way, it wouldn’t even have to be his fault. It could merely be a tragedy, and he could die as a hero instead of a coward who just wants the easy way out.

Though, T.K. knows he’s never been a coward. He’s wanted to die many times, but it takes bravery to live with that or even die with that awful, all consuming feeling. It takes courage to get out of bed when it feels like a whole house has been built on your chest overnight on top of the foundation of bad decisions that were built the night before. It takes strength to resist the urge for the calmness of death when the chaos of life is so draining. For every time he tried or thought of killing himself, there is the low of still being alive and sick, and getting through that low is a miracle. The hard part isn’t being knocked down, or even getting back up; it’s being pulled to your feet by a force outside of yourself and having to stand on your own when your legs just want to buckle and your eyelids feel too heavy to open. It’s looking at the light around you when the darkness is so easy and doesn’t sting.

It would be so easy to stop fighting. The temptation is there, and he can feel the darkness pressing down on his eyelids like iron blocks. Everything is simpler with his eyes closed, especially when he doesn’t know the hardships that wait for him in the land of the conscious. He doesn’t know if he’s going to be permanently damaged when he wakes up. He knows no matter what, it’ll be emotionally hard to deal with nearly dying… again. Life has never been easy, and it never will be. He still thinks there’s a chance that death might be happier, but he can’t give up now.

Even if he wants to give up for himself, he can’t stand the thought of how the people who love him will react, especially his dad. He hates to think that he might miss out on falling in love or laughing with his friends. Wanting to die isn’t selfish, but to T.K. it has always made him feel that way. It’s filled him with guilt and made him feel like the worst person alive. It’s convinced him that the selfish thing is staying alive because whether they know it or not, the people who love him would have an easier time if he were dead, but he doesn’t want to think that anymore.

He wants to live. In this moment, he wants to see what can happen if he gives life a chance. Tomorrow, he might be back to wanting to be dead, but that’s okay because today, he’s willing to give life another shot.

He pushes at his eyelids. They twitch but they don’t open, of course, they don’t because living takes a lot more than will. It takes some semblance of harmony from every force imaginable.

T.K.’s out of breath from his attempt, but for all his faults, he’s always been good at endurance. As a kid, when he wasn’t quite as athletic as the other kids, he always pushed himself to be the fastest at the mile. By the second lap around the track, his throat would be dry and coppery, but he’d only push himself harder, fighting through the pain to prove to himself that he could beat all the other kids. He’d collapse to the ground, huffing and puffing but proud at his time. He’d get through it by reminding himself that he had just three more laps, just two more, just one more, just half a lap more, just a few feet more. He’d take it in small increments, so the agony seemed less laborious. He could do that now too. He’d take the distance victory of getting better and focus on the small victory of opening his eyes.

He pushed his eyes again, a little bit more than the last time, and it was still just a twitch, but a burst of white light flickered through the tiny crack, and the sound of his dad’s voice didn’t sound so much like it was submerged in water.

He kept pushing at his eyelids and finally after two dozen tries, his eyes peeled open tentatively, and he saw the blurry but familiar faces of his dad and almost boyfriend in the blinding light of the hospital. He snaps his eyes closed again, unable to handle the stark light, but he’s in control of them now. He opens them again, and the light is less painful. Another blink. Again, they open, and he can’t help testing to make sure they still work. He hears people around him, and there’s a flurry of stress and excitement, but he doesn’t make too much of it. He’s alive, and he’s going to find a way to handle whatever life throws at him.

[darlingxdarkling]

I can’t believe my first Medium article is a pop culture piece criticizing Sindel’s depiction in MK11 Aftermath, but you know what? It’s totally worth it.

Full text under the cut in case the article is inaccessible because of Medium’s paywall. I want my pieces to be as accessible to the public as possible.

Warning: Heavy spoilers for Mortal Kombat 11 and its expansion, Aftermath.

Ever since its first release in 1992, the Mortal Kombat franchise is known for its extreme, action-packed violence and gore that led to the creation of the ESRB. It’s also know for its controversial depictions of scantily-clad women; however, did this not deter female gamers from becoming fans of the franchise, myself included. Admittedly I am one of the fans of Mortal Kombat who was late to the party, partly due to my age and inaccessibility of gaming platforms, only discovering Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 in 2010 while playing with my older cousins, who were mostly boys.

Eyes fixated on the pixelated, motion-captured sprites on the screen in wonder, I remember being a fan of characters such as Raiden, Nightwolf, and Sindel. Especially Sindel, whom I grew to adore because of her regal, gothic appearance. Due to the stereotype that gaming is a masculine interest prevalent during those times, I felt alienated at times, having no other female playmate aside from my younger sister. However, seeing female characters such as Sindel gave me characters to identify with in my formative years.

A decade later, I still am a fan of the franchise, and of those characters. With the years that passed, there had been significant changes in the video game industry, and the clamor for better depictions of women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and other minorities. Mortal Kombat is one of the franchises that changed with the times, even introducing their first confirmed gay character Kung Jin in Mortal Kombat X, and depicting classic character Mileena and 3D era character Tanya as lovers in the same game, confirming that Mileena is indeed canonically bisexual.

Mortal Kombat X’s female character designs were diverse and realistic too; there were some female characters whose designs didn’t show too much skin, like Sonya Blade’s main costume, befitting her role and demeanor as a tough-as-nails general, and there were female characters like Mileena who had more skin in her costumes, justified by her character’s desire to compensate for her monstrous Tarkatan genes. It’s not perfect, but overall, Mortal Kombat X is a breath of fresh air to the franchise. As a bisexual, an Asian, and a woman, I felt seen. I felt good, because minorities like me are respectfully represented.

As for its sequel, Mortal Kombat 11, there are some noteworthy depictions of real-life social issues in the game, such as colonization, which is explored with Nightwolf’s revamped lore. In the rewrite, Nightwolf is depicted as someone who used to be angry that his people, a fictional Native American tribe called the Matoka, resigned themselves to colonizers in his youth, but was blessed by his tribe’s deity, the Great Spirit, with power to help his tribe move forward after he defended the Matoka’s honor against Kano. The subject of race is also explored with Jax’s ending, where he uses the power he obtains from the hourglass to create a world where Black people were never enslaved, which garnered manufactured outrage despite the lack of any real controversy. Another example is Fujin’s ending, where he uses his power to experience the lives of mortals of different races, realms, genders, and faiths, putting emphasis on the value of integrating with the masses in order to understand and serve them better.

However, there are some aspects of the game that left a bad taste in my mouth. No, that would be an understatement. It left me furiously disappointed.

John Vogel is the lead writer for the franchise since John Tobias’ departure, writing the bulk of the story until he left around after Mortal Kombat X. Dominic Cianciolo becomes co-writer, alongside Shawn Kittelsen. Cianciolo is credited as the Story Director for Mortal Kombat 11, and thus responsible for the bulk of the plot.

After being unplayable in MKX, Sindel returns to the MK11 roster in a Kombat Pack, expansions featuring characters who aren’t present in the main story or are guest fighters from another franchise, such as Nightwolf and the Joker from the DC Universe. At the announcement of their return, I was ecstatic. The way Nightwolf’s character is handled and the added lore left me positive and hopeful for Sindel’s return.

But then, the retcon happened.

Originally, Sindel is the deceased mother of Kitana whose husband was killed by Shao Kahn. She then sacrificed herself through a suicide pact in order to protect the realms, and was brought back to life as an evil queen by Shao Kahn milennia later, but then escapes his hold. Here, she is made to be evil all along, responsible for her husband’s death and willingly coming with Shao Kahn to rule alongside him. Sindel becomes a character from her society’s ruling class who is obsessed with preserving her privileged position. Some fans claim that this new depiction is “empowering”, but is it really progressive?

Today, the terms “empowerment” and “women’s empowerment” are becoming buzzwords used by advertisers and big industry writers in an attempt to sell their product to a growing number of women who takes part in geek culture or play video games, and a society with values that are getting more and more progressive. Some people call this phenomena “woke capitalism”, where a corporation adopts progressive political causes. The gaming industry is not exempt from that; people pay for games, downloadable content, and microtransactions after all.

More often than not, when male writers write “strong” female characters, they tend to focus solely on enhancing traditionally masculine values, such as fighting ability, ignoring what other values female characters have that make them strong, or they tend to be horribly, horribly tone-deaf, which I will explain in detail later. These representations of “women’s empowerment” should force us to reexamine the media we consume, and discern whether these are genuine depictions of social issues or woke capitalism disguised as such.

In the first place, why are so many writers obsessed with “empowering” female characters, instead of writing them as characters capable of fighting for their emancipation?

Empowerment is passive; it’s something granted by those who hold power, not earned nor fought for. In the rewritten Sindel’s case, she is empowered by Shao Kahn when he took her as his wife and gave her the privileges he enjoys. Sindel’s empowerment is selfish; her rise to power did not empower, emancipate, nor liberate her daughter Kitana, nor Jade, nor Mileena, nor the women of Outworld. On the contrary, it made life worse and oppressive for all of Outworld’s denizens, including its women, who now have to serve not one, but two privilege-drunk monarchs who rule with an iron fist. If that’s the values the writers want to impart on their audience, I have serious doubts on the sincerity of their “wokeness”.

The release of Aftermath takes things up to eleven, where Sindel betrays her own daughter to be with Shao Kahn, who, originally, enslaves her and forces her into marriage, which holds so much unfortunate implications for those in abusive relationships. It doesn’t help that Cianciolo liked a tweet from a fan that said the original Sindel, an abuse survivor, was never an empowered female character and a was bad mother for killing herself and leaving her child behind, bringing even more unfortunate implications not just for women in abusive relationships, but also for people who struggle with suicide. Somehow, Cianciolo and the fans that agree with him ignore these implications altogether and believes that the new haughty, tyrannical Sindel is an example of a strong female character. This isn’t the first time male writers tried their hand at feminist writing and ended up with tone-deaf plot decisions.

Cianciolo took a nuanced and well-written character and turned her into Shao Kahn 2.0. What happened is essentially the creative butchering of Sindel’s character; she went from being a survivor to an oppressor. Shao Kahn already fills the role of a cruel tyrant who refuses to relinquish his privilege for the good of the masses, and rewriting Sindel to become his distaff counterpart is not necessary at all. This treatment of her character isn’t feminist or progressive at all; it’s poorly-disguised misogyny. It’s implying that a woman can only be powerful if she submits to her husband so that he may grant her a taste of privilege reserved for powerful men, an antiquated sentiment best left to the feudal ages. Granted, the fictional realm of Outworld is ruled by a monarchy, but Sindel’s previous characterization is proof that writers can refuse or avoid using that trope.

Emancipation, on the other hand, is an active role; according to Ruane and Todd, it is “a process by which the participants in a system which determines, distorts and limits their potentialities come together actively to transform it, and in the process transform themselves.” This concept can be applied more appropriately to pre-retcon Sindel.

Going back to my days as a highly impressionable teenager, though I grew interested in her for her benevolent demeanor despite her intimidating appearance, Sindel’s roles as a survivor and a leader are what cemented my love for the character. Shao Kahn murdered her husband, usurped the throne, conquered her kingdom, and coerced her to be his wife. Later, she sacrificed herself for the greater good of a realm, and after being resurrected as an evil brainwashed puppet, she finally broke free from her abuser. With her newfound agency, she became a queen of Outworld who recognized her privilege and used it to stand with its masses against tyrants, and she also becomes a doting mother to Kitana, demonstrating great love for her family. When finally removed from her abuser’s influence, Sindel chose to be free, she chose to lead her people benevolently, and she chose to be with her true family. This Sindel broke free from the traditional Outworld power structure that Shao Kahn perpetrated for thousands of years, no longer a bride to be forcefully taken, nor a pawn to be manipulated by its emperor.

If you can look past the scanty costume design standard for video games of that era, the original Sindel could be a female character ahead of her time. Original Sindel not only can kick ass, she also has agency, willpower, and a heart; a strong female character with good writing. For those reasons, Cianciolo’s Sindel is #NotMySindel.

[honeybammie]

the world › bang chan

↳ in which chan is back after being away for months, and he doesn’t smell like home anymore ↳ little bit angsty, mostly fluffy 

Chan is home, returning for the first time in months. He doesn’t smell like himself anymore. No longer do the scents of singed candle wicks like lavender and oak cling to his skin. Instead, the entire world fills my nostrils: spices I have never tasted and flowers I have never heard of. He smells like the rain in Thailand, and I have no idea what that even means. At the very least, he looks like himself—a few months older, maybe, and tired, but the latter has always been true. 

The afternoon is warm, mid-seventies, and I’m shaking. Shaking because touching him sends jolts of electricity through my legs. Shaking because I smell the same and look the same and am for the most part well-rested. Shaking because I’m not the world.

But Chan doesn’t seem to realize.

“Hi,” he says, kissing my forehead and cheeks and every inch of my bare face until he settles on my lips. “I’m home.”

I hadn’t stopped fidgeting in days, but hearing him say home stills my nerves for a brief moment of peace. “You are,” I say, cupping his face in my hands to confirm. He’s not a compilation of pixels through a low-quality video chat or a high-quality fan photo. He’s warm and real and here. 

“Are you cold?” he asks, leaning into my touch. I wonder if the electricity flows in him, too. It has to. “You’re shaking.”

I shake my head. No, I was afraid you’d come home from the world and realize I’m only a fraction of it— a fraction that starts with a decimal and is followed by a million zeros. 

But he tells me, on a nightly basis, that he loves me, that he can’t wait to see me again. I grasp for him over video chat on the nights he has a spare moment to call, hoping my atoms will disperse and reform on the other side of the computer. My attempts have yet to meet success. 

“Just excited,” I tell him instead. He lifts his hands to wrap his fingers around mine, squeezing gently to remind me not to venture too deep into my own thoughts. 

“Want to tell me how your week has been?” he asks. Usually he takes a few minutes to ask what I’ve been up to, but wrapping up promotions has taken up so much time that he’s barely been able to message me other than to tell me goodnight. 

To be honest, I don’t remember any of the past four days now that he’s here. I had lunch with a coworker. French food, I think, or maybe Greek. I got an email about an event downtown and wanted him to join me, but what or when the event was escapes me. “It was just another week. It became the best week a couple minutes ago.” I blush, and in a quieter voice I add. “I’d rather you tell me about the world.”

“Okay, then let’s sit. Mind taking this?” Chan hands the bag on his shoulder over to me and lifts the two suitcases behind him, carrying them into the living room. He told me a couple times that he’s been working out a lot, but I only notice the progress now in the way his muscles shift under the black tee he’s wearing. 

Oh, I think, swallowing hard, but the thought that follows is one of thousands of screaming fans ogling over the same body that I do. I’m still getting used to sharing him. 

“Come here, silly.” He brings me back by patting the space on the couch next to him, and I join. He takes back the bag that I carried and sets it in the unoccupied cushion, pulling back the zipper to reveal contents I don’t recognize. 

“What’s all this?” I ask, craning my neck over him. 

“I’m gonna show you! No peeking!” he fusses, and I smile a little at his childlike enthusiasm. He’s brought back pieces of the world, treasures to share with me. 

One by one, he pulls materialized memories out of the bag, explaining each gift like they are stars he brought from the sky, and to me, they’re damn close. There’s a bracelet in my favorite color that he found at a bazaar in the Philippines, and a vial of sand from a beach in Thailand with a couple shells trapped inside. Candy from Japan he says I’ll love, a few books on foreign philosophies that he knows I’ll devour as soon as he leaves again. Even a tacky “I Heart New York” shirt thrown in the mix, because he thought it was funny, and I think it’s funny, too. 

“Oh, one more thing,” he gushes, reaching into a side zipper as he tells me to close my eyes. I listen, squeezing them shut until cool metal hits my hand. “Okay, you can open them now.”

There’s a silver key resting in my palm, attached to a delicate chain. “Let me guess. Because I have the key to your heart?” I tease, expecting him to pull out another necklace with a locket. 

“Not quite,” he says, showing me his hand, in which rests an identical key. He flips it over to show me the spot where my initials are engraved, and I turn over my own. Sure enough: CB. “Because together, we can unlock any door, or do anything, or be whoever we want.”

“That’s just as cheesy,” I say, deadpan. 

“It’s romantic!” he pouts. “I had them custom-made in Paris. They didn’t appreciate that I only gave them two days, but it worked out.” 

“Paris?” I echo, and I love the gift that much more. He had been to a couple countries in Europe, but not France. How would he ever have found the time? 

“You’ve always wanted to go, and one day, we’ll go together, but for now I decided to bring a piece back to you,” he says. I think my heart falls out of my chest because it needs to find a place with more room to love him. “Do you mind if I—?” He takes the necklace, unclasps it, and hooks it around my neck. I return the favor, and for a moment we sit and stare at the other half. At our other half. 

“Une clé,” I say. My years of French classes don’t fail me, and he smiles. 

“That has a nice sound to it,” he muses, hooking his finger under my chain and gently pulling me forward until my lips brush his. “Une clé.” My accent is better, but his effort is admirable. I spend the afternoon teaching him French words.

Night is normal again, with Chan in his spot in bed next to mine. The way it should be. The way it rarely is. His long day of travel puts him to sleep first, but I remain, unable to help myself as I get a headstart on one of the books he brought home. I glance at him now and again, too, trying to get used to the changes. His presence. His physique. His key, still hanging around his neck. One of his arms is tucked under the pillow, and the other reaches for me, rested on my stomach so he knows I’m there. I’m not the only one who has to remind myself, apparently. 

“Baby,” he murmurs long after I assumed him asleep, fingers twitching to life.

“Yes?” I answer, marking my page and closing the book. I set it on the nightstand, sliding down under the covers until my nose is only inches from his. He smells less worldly after a long shower, but still doesn’t smell like home.

“You were worried earlier,” he says. “The shaking. Your eyes. I could tell. What was wrong?”

I was afraid. I was afraid. I was afraid. I think of the world in him and the stagnancy in myself. “There’s the world, and there’s me. There are a thousand cities waiting for you and a million people, and there’s me. There are infinite things, and there’s me. Do you understand?”

His eyes flutter shut in a moment of tired processing, and then he shakes his head. “Not at all.”

I take a deep breath and sigh. “I’m afraid that while you’re out seeing the entire world, you’ll forget about me, because the world is so big and I’m so small and eventually the cities and the sights and the people will swallow me whole.”

He’s wide awake now, eyes darting to every curve and edge of my face. “You’re not the world,” he says. So he does realize. “But you are bigger—bigger than every city, or every sight, or every person put together. I’d sooner forget myself than you.”  

“I get jealous. Sometimes,��� I admit, quieter, because I hate to say it. “Because the world gets to see you so much, and I get to see you so little, and I have to share you with a million people who fawn over you and your talent and your body and...everything. Is that terrible? Am I terrible?”

“You’re jealous that other people want to sleep with me?” he smirks. I whack his arm and try to roll over, but he laughs and brings me right back. It’s not hard to do. “I appreciate you everyday for letting me live my dream. You know that, right?”

I nod. Because I do. And Chan would never look at another person with an ounce of the adoration he showed me, but every once in a while jealousy grinned my way. “I know, yes.”

“And maybe there are a million others you have to share me with, but none of them I’d share this with.” He touches the key hanging at my chest. “They’re custom, remember? No two others like them anywhere, and no one deserves to wear it except you.” 

“Just me and you,” I say, and he nods. As much as the world around us has changed, Chan is the same boy I fell in love with. To most, time and distance are a ticking equation for ruin, but they’re nothing but words to him.

“And one day you’ll be able to see it all with me. I’ll bring you everywhere I’ll go, and we’ll never be apart longer than a week.” 

The promise sounds so far away, especially considering he’ll leave again in a few weeks, but I believe him. “And until then I have the key. And everything else you brought.”

“Exactly. And my love, always,” he says, kissing my forehead. “What’s French for ‘you have the key to my heart’?”

“You said that’s not what they were for.”

“They can have a dual meaning, and I’m curious.” He shrugs, but I know he just wants to hear me say something else in French.

“Tu as la clé de ma cœur.”

He repeats after me, his pronunciation much less graceful, and he giggles at the sound of himself halfway through, but the sentiment is the same. 

“Et tu as la mienne,” I answer. I don’t need to translate for him to know.

me?? actually writing something?? and posting it?? after three months?? i’m gonna try to be more active i promisE but college is R O U GH 

[carolhnd2bphoto]

ILLUMINATE

Research

                                     Noise is a term used to describe distortion in photographs, more often than not it looks like grain in film photographs, noise can also look like splotches of discolouration which if bad enough can ruin photographs (www.adorama.com).  There are several reasons why noise occurs,

1.     High ISO – the higher the ISO the more grain in images, this tends to occur in low light situations.

2.     Sensor size – cameras with small sensors can produce a great deal of noise, therefore if shooting at ISO of 800, sharpness and detail of a photograph can be compromised (www.adorama.com).  Using a camera with a big sensor reduces grain/noise.

3.     Pixel density – a sensor with 14 megapixels will produce more noise than an equal sized sensor with 10 megapixels, the reason being is to allow for more pixels, the pixel size has to shrink and as such each pixel will allow less light (www.adorama.com).

4.     Long exposure time – very long exposures introduce static which can cause digital noise.

5.     Shadows – if shooting during the day with a high ISO, the grain may not be noticeable until you look at the shadow areas.  Grain will be more noticeable in darker areas.

Five methods of reducing noise pre – edit.

1.     Use low ISO settings – to avoid using a high ISO, open the aperture to its widest setting, if shooting in low light conditions, use a tripod and a flash.  If there is still difficulty in achieving the correct exposure increase the ISO, however it is recommended not to go higher than 400, this depends on the technical capability of the camera

2.     Shoot RAW – by shooting in RAW format you can get the best out of the images.  When using JPEG, images will already have compression to them and as such there will already be a degree of noise already, known as JPEG artifacts (www.digital-photography-school.com). When shooting in JPEG format and with a high ISO noise will be even worse.  The good thing about shooting RAW is when it comes to post production, there will be different ways in which to remove noise.

3.     Exposure – expose photographs correctly, if images are under exposed, the shadow areas may become very dark and when pulling out the detail in post processing grain/noise will be visible (www.lightstalking.com). To overcome this use the histogram in the camera, this will you can get an evenly lit scene with shadow and highlight detail (www.lightstalking.com).

4.     Long exposure – be careful not to use long exposure as the sensor can heat up and the pixels will give incorrect colours and exposure. If the camera is set up for a long exposure, the senor will heat up resulting in grain in the image, as the pixels are a result of heat, they are known as ‘hot pixels’ (www.improvephootography.com).   Not all cameras are capable of very long exposures.

5.     In camera noise reduction – in many cameras there is a function called High ISO Noise Reduction.  This can be used when shooting at high ISO or during long exposures.  HINR works by the camera analyzing image and searches for any pixels that are incorrectly rendered, the High ISO Noise Reduction function will fix the pixels that are not properly rendered, this takes the length of time as the long exposure, for instance a long exposure of 30 seconds, the function will take 30 seconds to fix the pixels (www.digital-photography-school.com).

Five Methods of Reducing Noise Post – Edit

Before discussing ways of reducing noise post – edit, it is worth noting that there are two types of noise

Luminance – pixels display a different brightness than would be expected compared to those surrounding it, it is quite similar to grain seen in film photography (www.lightstalking.com).

Chroma – is where individual pixels shift colour compared to those surround it (www.lightstalking.com).

There are two main types of software that can help illuminate noise post production,

Lightroom – to reduce noise, this is found under Develop module, it is split into 2 sections each have 3 sliders.  The first section is for luminance, the second for chroma noise.  The sliders in the luminance section are luminance, detail and contrast.  When using the luminance slider press the alt key this will make the image black and white making the noise to be clearly seen (www.lightstalking.com). To achieve noise reduction requires balancing the 3 sliders effectively. By moving the luminance slider to the right, the noise (grain) will begin to disappear, however this may take away the sharpness of the image.  After move the luminance slider until the noise has gone then move the detail slider to bring back the detail, as with the luminance slider, move to the right until grain returns then slighty move back.  The contrast slider can be used if the image has lost some contrast.  With the chroma noise, the same is applied to that of the luminance.  In chroma, move the colour slider to the right until the noise disappears, if the sharpness has reduced move the detail slider, after which for any fine adjustments move the smoothness slider to the right also. Noise reduction is found in the detail section of the develop module.

Photoshop CC – duplicate the background layer (image), right click on it and select Duplicate Layer. Click on Filters, then Convert for Smart Filters, this will give the option of going back to change the amount of noise reduction applied. Go into Filter again then click Camera Raw Filter this will then open the image in Adobe Camera Raw, this looks similar to Lightroom. Click on the Detail tab and what will appear are the noise reduction sliders similar to those found in Lightroom.  To help achieve better detail, zoom in on the image by 100%.  Sliders are moved in the same way as in Lightroom.  When satisfied, click ok button when ready to return to Photoshop.  Within Photoshop there  is also the Blend If tool/panel. To access this open up 2 images that are the same and add a layer (clean photo is to be the top layer www.lightstalking.com),  on this layer double click and a Layer Style Panel will appear. In the bottom part of the panel there is a What If section, this has a drop down menu and two sliders; this Layer and Underlying Layer. This is quite different to that of Lightroom in that the sliders are moved to the left, when noise appears in the dark parts of the image this is when you stop and move the slider slightly to the right.

Although I have discussed Photoshop (more so camera raw filter) and Lightroom, there are also Adobe Bridge on its own (which I have discussed) and Photoshop Elements.

Photoshop Elements – here there is a Noise Filter. When the image is opened in Photoshop Elements duplicate the background layer (as with CC), then click on Filter, Noise, then Reduce Noise.  The sliders are differently named, Strength which controls Luminance, Preserve Noise and Reduce Colour Noise.  The sliders are adjusted in the same way as Lightroom to help eliminate noise in a photograph.

Another piece of photography software known as GIMP uses selective Gaussian blur (SGB) filter to reduce noise/grain.

GIMP – the big difference between this method and that of Photoshop is that there is no preview and as such can only view or easier to work on selected crop areas of an image. After the selected area has been cropped, click on filters tab, then Blur then (SGB).  In the information provided by (www.gimp.org) is to experiment with a mix of settings, blur radius and maximum delta. As with Photoshop and Lightroom the higher the setting the better, for instance, moving the Luminance slider to 50 and above (default setting will be at 25) will see a reduction in noise, similar to that when using (SGB) when the numbers are high; 10 for both blur radius and maximum delta, a reduction in Noise can be seen.

[radiant-flutterbun]

Pixel and the Shapeshifter Part 2

Previously

The next portal took Pixel to a bright land full of pine trees and wind that brought the taste of salt water with it. Just a short walk away was a huge stone tower.

Pixel attempted to take a step forward but immediately fell. Something didn’t feel right. They looked down at themself and screamed. Their body had transformed into a bird-like dragon.

Inkdrop snorted and transformed into a bat-like dragon “Oh! You’re a skydancer! Those dragons are pretty neat.”

“Uh, you didn’t say anything about my body transforming when I got here.”

“Oh didn’t I?” Inkdrop tilted her head “Sorry it must've slipped my mind! Anyway you’re a dragon now congrats! It may take some getting used to, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out! Everyone else did!”

“Great. Cool,” Pixel struggled to their feet “Would be really cool if I didn’t have to relearn how to walk. And how the fuck am I supposed to hold anything?” Pixel nudged their phone that had fallen to the ground with their nose.

“Oh you can walk around on your hindlegs and grab it with your front. It’s easy for a skydancer to do that!” She shapeshifted into a skydancer to demonstrate and picked up the phone.

Pixel stood on three legs and took it from her “Thanks.” The phone disappeared “Ok cool. Good to know that I can still summon my weapon at will here, and also make it disappear when I don’t need it.”

Inkdrop allowed Pixel to adjust to their new dragon form before leading them to the clan’s entrance. The doors were much bigger than Pixel had thought once they were up close.

A panel on the door flipped open and Pixel was greeted with a huge grey eye peering through.

“Inkdrop. You brought a guest?” A booming voice asked.

“Yes Obsidian, and don’t worry I vetted them. They’re not dangerous!”

“Very well. You may enter.” The doors opened and behind them was a huge black dragon with blue gemstones coating his scales.

As Pixel stepped inside they were at awe with how big the place was. Dragons or all shapes and sizes were walking about, they barely paid Pixel any attention.

“So, where’s Sagacious?” Pixel asked Inkdrop.

“Oh her? She hasn’t moved from the history section of the library since she got here,” The shapeshifter snorted “Why do you want to see her, anyway?”

“I have something I need to settle with her.”

“Ok but please don’t mess anything up. I promised Nike not to bring anyone in who will mess things up!”

“Me? Mess things up? Never! Now where's Saga?”

***

Sagacious was enthralled by the history and creatures of the dragon planet. On her world she already knew everything. But here she knew nothing, and that simply would not do.

So she found a nice spot in the clan’s library (which was the majority of the tower), and curled up with a pile of history books. For months she read book after book and only took brief breaks. The clan’s main librarians Lakra and Masika adored her. It had been awhile since the library had seen some use by the newcomers.

Now for the first time since her arrival, Sagacious’s reading was interrupted. 

A metallic skydancer with dreadlocks approached her, their teeth showing as they snarled.

“HEY BITCH!”

Sagacious snapped her book shut “Excuse me?”

“You fucking heard me!” The skydancer pulled out a smartphone. Wait no a knife. An electric knife and pointed it at Saga “I’m Pixel Pronoia and you killed my friends! Now I’m here to return the favor!”

Sagacious sighed “Oh it’s you,” She stared at their knife, unamused “Did you really think that’d be threatening?” She was an imperial. They were merely a little skydancer.

“Hey I can cause permanent damage to you here! One stab and you’re scarred for life!”

Sagacious placed a claw on Pixel’s arm and forced them to lowered the knife to the ground.

“And I can squish you like a bug.”

The commotion attracted the attention of two other imperials, Lakra and Masika.

“Saga, is something the matter?” Masika asked.

“Is that skydancer bothering you?” Lakra added.

“Yes, they interrupted my reading to threaten me.”

Lakra gasped “How dare they!”

“I’m getting Nike,” Masika said “This is unacceptable.”

Pixel growled and thrashed, but Saga had their arm pinned good.

“Fuck you! Fuck you so much! I fucking hate you! You’re a fucking murderer!”

“No matter how many times you say ‘fuck’, the situation will not change,” Saga said with a smirk “You really just should have stayed home.”

A bright blue and green Plague mirror arrived “Sagacious, what is going on?” She asked.

“Nike, this skydancer just threatened me with a knife.”

The mirror, Nike approached Pixel and sniffed them “You’re the one Inkdrop just let in. What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“She’s a murderer!” Pixel screamed “She killed my friends and then locked me up in my own home!”

Nike’s antenna flicked toward Sagacious “Is this true?”

“Of course not.” Sagacious answered.

“YOU LYING BITCH!” Pixel’s voice cracked.

Lakra scoffed “Sagacious is one of the sweetest, kindest, dragons I’ve ever met. All she’s done is read since she got here. I cannot believe some nobody dragon would enter our clan just to threaten her and accuse her of such horrible things!”

“Hmm,” Nike circled Pixel “I’d really rather this not become another ‘Naperone Situation’. Obsidian! Could you come over here?”

At her command the guardian that allowed Pixel to enter arrived.

“Move this skydancer to the prison. They threatened a clan member.”

“Yes. Of course Nike,” Obsidian plucked Pixel up by their chest and scruffed them like a cat. Sagacious let go of their arm, and they dropped the knife. A cracked smartphone now lay beside Sagacious’s feet.

Pixel struggled and screamed as Obsidian carried them up to the very top of the tower, where he then threw them into a dark, damp cell.

“Wait! But I wasn’t lying! She really is a murderer! And give me back my fucking phone!”

Obsidian didn’t say a word as he left Pixel in the dark.

“Sucks when no one believes you, doesn’t it?” A voice echoed in the dark.

Across from Pixel’s cell was a black and white skydancer with bright yellow eyes.

“And who the fuck are you?”

“I am the true God of Death, Match Solstice. And I know who you are, Pixel Pronoia.” 

“Oh gross, a Solstice.”

Match snarled, showing his bloodstained fangs.

“So what the fuck are you in here for, vampire boy?”

Matched frowned “Eh. It actually sounds pretty bad now that I think about it.”

Pixel lifted an eyebrow “Oh well now you gotta tell me. I’m invested.”

“... I killed my brother.”

“Holy fuck. The winged one? Spirits you’re a bigger asshole than I thought.”

“Hey. hey before you paint me as the bad guy you got to understand that he was a weak god that was never meant to exist. He was a failure to the Solstice name and-”

“Fucking hell. I hope whatever brain rot you’re suffering from isn’t contagious.”

“You’re an annoying little bastard aren't you?”

“Yeah well at least i’m not ugly.”

“Wow i’m so hurt by your creative insult.”

“You’re right I can do better than that,” Pixel grinned “I wonder what your parents would think if they saw you right now. Would they be disappointed? Angry? It must be pretty embarrassing to be the son of two of the most powerful gods and to end up in another world, in prison, sick and alone. I bet they won’t ever want to call you a Solstice if they knew how weak you were right now. If they knew you were mortal right now.”

Match growled, but mid growl he began to cough. As he coughed blood splattered all over the ground. Crimson red instead of the indigo blood that normally flowed through the Selcouth gods’ veins. 

“Oh did I hit a nerve?” Pixel’s grin was wicked and their pupils narrowed “You’re exactly what you think your brother was. Is that why you killed him? Did he remind you too much of yourself?”

“Shut,” Match’s voice was only a whisper but it cut accross the silent air of the prison like a knife “Your fucking mouth.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe that was a bit much. Hey I know! Why don’t we be friends instead? I think you’re a piece of shit but hey a shitty friend is better than no friends!”

“I’m not going to be your fucking friend you freak.”

“Well too late cause i’ve already decided you’re my friend! In fact I’ll promote you to my BEST friend because I ain’t got no one else! Because my last batch of friends were fucking MURDERED. But hey! It’s fine! I can move on!”

“Sounds like you’ve got some problems, and I don’t want anything to do with them.”

“Yeah well, you’ve got problems too! You killed your fucking brother! You’re an entitled piece of shit! This’ll be a great friendship! Just two pieces of shit trapped in dark lonely cells cause no one else in the entire world gives a shit about either of them!”

“You can stop talking anytime now.”

“Do you think if either of us died here anyone would notice? Are we just going to be trapped here forever until one of us starts rotting away?”

“Dragons come up here multiple times a day. I think they’ll notice if one of us died.”

“Yeah but like would they care? I wonder what they’d do to our worthless corpses? Neither of us would get a funeral that’s for sure!” Pixel clawed and kicked at the walls of their cell, tears falling from their eyes “This sucks! This fucking sucks! I hate this! Trapped in one shitty place to the next! I fucking… hate this…” 

Pixel slumped to the floor, silent for once.

“Done with your little temper tantrum?” Match growled. 

“For now,” Pixel sighed and took a deep breath. They just needed some rest and then they’d figure a way out. So they shut their eyes and drifted off.

[rpgmgames]

February’s Featured Game: Returning Nightmares

DEVELOPER(S): Saturn ENGINE: RPGMaker 2003 GENRE: YNFG, Exploration, Adventure WARNINGS: Blood, Gore, Swearing, Suicide SUMMARY: Returning Nightmares is an exploration adventure-horror game being developed in RPG Maker 2003, inspired by Yume Nikki and it's multiple fan-made homages (but with dialogue & easier to navigate maps). You play as Akira, a young man locked up in his own bedroom, exploring his dreams to remember the events that lead him to where he is now. But some things are better left alone…

Play the demo here!

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! Hi, I'm Saturn and I like videya game. I've been into Yume Nikki since about... 2010? And RPG Maker in general since 2011. I've been cateloguing resources and reblogging RPG Maker projects on Pinkuboa for 6 & 1/2 years now (7 in June) and I run Dream Diary Jam, a game jam for making Yume Nikki Fangames. I also love pixel art, writing, and cooking, but the last one I can't make into a game (yet).

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially? *Saturn: I was originally trying to make like a little intro to Yume Nikki project that people could peak into and copy for Dream Diary Jam & future use. However, it ended up taking a life of it's own as something I could goof off in and enjoy without thinking about it. The eventing I did for it could be better optimized, so I wouldn't use it as an example anymore (but don't mind at all if people look & learn from it!). It's basically about me thinking back on my edgy years and my years of looking at other's OCs and celebrating how goofy and fun the stories could be. A lot of the game is me asking "What would someone who watched a lot of anime and listened to MCR do?" There's an appeal to cool edgy stuff I think we forget about when we look back on our edgelord years. Sure, you may not have been the best writer and some of the stuff is over the top, but it was enjoyable to make and some of the characters still appeal to you for basic emotional reasons (good design, relatable story, fun power trip, you just like their hair, etc.) I hope the game is enjoyable to people whether or not they laugh at it or honestly have a good time with it. Both ways are valid - enjoyment is enjoyment!

How long did you work on your project? *Saturn: Oh gosh...I believe I started at the very end of 2017, like a week before the new year. Then I worked on it for like 2 months, took a break, then picked it up and went hard in September 2018 again.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Saturn: You bet buddy: -Yume Nikki -.flow -Ignite -The Looking Glass -Fleshchild -Yume Nisshi -Akuma (Yume Nikki Fangame) -Answered Prayers -Ultra Violet -Cheesy internet OCs I read as a kid -Cheesy modern horror movies -Cheesy Creepypastas ...and probably other stuff but I can't think of it right now.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Saturn: Sometimes I make a world without thinking about it all the way through and I don't know what to do it with or what to fill it with. That's why you can find a map of an Ouija board in the map files with some events and such that you can't access elsewhere. It's driving me mad still. >:T

Did any aspects of your project change over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Saturn: It went from a side project to my current project, a project I wanted to use to help others but ended up teaching myself. I know better ways of eventing now and have an idea of how to make maps and tiles better and faster.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Saturn: I prefer working alone on this game. Had it been something that I started with someone else, I'd like it with them. I do crowdsource ideas though: I'll ask discord randomly, "Hey, what should I put next in Returning Nightmares" or "Hey, what else should I put in this world?" Big shout out to Dream Diary Development & Pixel Horror for their help!!

What was the best part of developing the game? *Saturn: Seeing the worlds come together. Once a world has music in it and all the bits and pieces properly moving and intractable, it's immensely satisfying. I'd say finishing an event and having it work properly is second. Eventing is fun!

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Saturn: I find myself playing with the engine and seeing what I can do with it myself.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Saturn: I don't relate to anyone in particular because they're all kinda hollow. However, I like the hidden wizard the best since he was a D&D character I never got to use, so I have a whole backstory and personality for him!

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Saturn: I wish I planned better & fixed a few bugs for the first release. At least there's nothing game breaking: you can't get a few menus if you don't have enough money, but that's it.

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Saturn: Leave as is. This one is mostly to get me comfortable with the idea of releasing a larger game. Akira doesn't have any great stories in him, he's just him. Most of the games I got ideas for are one off since I like one off stuff. Makes everything feel complete.

With your current project, what do you look most forward to upon/after release? *Saturn: I look for people's reactions to it. There's, there's a particular place in the game that's in the shape of a 10 year old webcomic meme that I had people @ me in chats and ask if it was a reference to, while I giggled like a fool. Games like most media can be an interaction between player & creator, and that's one of the fun parts of it all.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Saturn: God I don't know if I'll break the game or make it boring in any particular way. That's my top concern.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Saturn: Learning how to make a game is like learning how to read or how to do math: you won't be able to read To Kill a Mockingbird right away, nor will you be doing advanced algebra. It took a lot of time for you to be able to do either. Give yourself a break when you learn how to make a game as well: you won't learn how to make a big one in a month! Feel free to screw up. Someone says "Don't do that, it'll be too big"? Do it anyway: you'll either fail and learn a lesson, or you'll succeed and then look back and say, "Oh crap, I could of done that better now that I learned everything new." Either way, you got more practice to make another game, but better. "But I screwed up...." - see paragraph 1 on this question for the answer to that. Cut yourself some slack and remember you're doing this because you want to enjoy making a game! I found the best way I learned is by looking into other games (thanks Bleet & Jojogape for being cool with people looking at their games). I suggest finding the best way you learn as well, whether it's written tutorials, asking people, looking at other people's games, video tutorials, or just messing with the engine yourself. Lastly, I found the best way to take pressure off myself when making a game (as someone who loves perfection) was to make a few goofy joke games first. If they were bad, that was fine: they were supposed to be funny bad! It's like releasing steam by making MS Paint drawings, it makes you laugh and feel less nervous.

Question from last month's featured dev @leirin: What's something you really hope to see an RPG Maker game achieve in the future? * *Saturn: I want to see more games do something with the picture system in RPG Maker 2003. Like, I've seen games play with the new picture system, but not release and it's really burning my britches because it's such a great cosmetic game changer hnnnngh. Otherwise, I'm not sure. RPG Maker is a limited engine specialized for RPGs. I like watching fellow developers Cachi, Hogwash-dev, Rindre, and a few other people see how far they can push the system, but I don't have a particular "I want to see this" from something. I kinda like RPG Maker for it's limits, but I also like seeing what I wasn't expecting from it!

We mods would like to thank Saturn for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Returning Nightmares if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum

[sweetcatmintea]

Sacrifices

It’s flash fiction Friday again(ish)! (Timezones are hard for Australians) I’ve been thinking a lot about space since hanging out with @snobbysnekboi at the NASA museum exhibit so let’s try a space story! This is part one of a bigger story that should hopefully be uploaded later tonight. I’ll link it when it’s done (it’s supposed to get horror-y so, don’t read the second part if you’re not into that)

As always, a big thanks to @cawolters for organising Flash Fiction Friday and to @pen-for-sword for hosting this week!

Prompt: Living Sacrifice 

Words: 770

Part two: Here

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          The Blue Danube Waltz crackled over the stereo as Toby ambled into the eating quarters. There was no need for the grain to the audio – technology had come much further than that – but the constructed imperfections made it all the more human. A little less empty. His appearance was met with playful groans from fellow station members. They never appreciated his situational jokes. Not even giving them time to wear out their novelty when they’d first left the Earth’s orbit. Or, at least, that’s what they claimed. Toby saw the hidden smiles when they rolled their eyes at his Alien movie poster, quoting the famous line ‘In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream’. One piece of his vast collection. Thousands of kilometres from Earth and full access to media, who wouldn’t take the opportunity to make as many references as possible? Jules gave him a Look which he deflected with a lazy shrug, a grin, and a ‘mornin’’. They should have scheduled their own music before him if they wanted to listen to something else. Making use of the time his spaghettios took rehydrating, Toby arched his back, listening for the satisfying Pop! of his spine. Holly joined him, rifling through the various packets for the ever-precious coffee powder.

          “We’re nearly out.” She murmured, carefully spooning the coffee into her cup, mindful to keep enough for a better-than-terrible cup tomorrow as well. “Remind me to ask Hasley to print more later. That machine hates me, I swear…”

          Toby hummed in acknowledgement. “Where is Hasley anyway? Isn’t her sleep cycle pretty much the same as ours?”

          “It was, but she’s working with Miguel on something now. I think they’re on Russian time until it’s done.” Holly looked to Jules for confirmation.

          “Yeah. They’re working with scientists from the Magadan time zone. For the most part, we’re not going to be spending many hours with them for a while.”

          “Hmmm. I guess it’s a good thing to get a lil… space from each other every once in a while.” Toby laughed at his own joke. Shameless. In one fell swoop, he was alone with just the hisses and hums of the station to keep him company. A ding and breakfast was ready.

          The food was okay. It was always okay. All of it was half-decent at best. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great either. It was lacking, a microwave meal after home cooking. Toby was probably the only one who didn’t really mind. He’d liked tinned foods and packet meals since as long as he could remember. Miguel struggled through the first few months. Good food was good life. It was a part of his culture and his being. Now, they were all used to the mild disappointment at each first bite. It was just a sacrifice that had to be made. A counterbalance both for furthering the reaches of knowledge and to experience the majesty of a place that makes playthings of the universal laws the Earth holds so dear.

          Space travel, he had learned, came from sacrifice. It was the scaffolding of the achievement. From the animals that tested equipment where rescue was never part of the plan, to the lives of men forfeit to miscalculations, to the long stretches of isolation that a screen alone could never really quell. He was incredibly lucky to be able to make video calls, talking to his earth-bound friends and family in real time, he knew that well. But, as comforting as their voices may be, pixels could never replace the warm comfort of soft skin. Birthdays and anniversaries celebrated for an hour before the call timed out. Before work had to be continued. Before life got in the way. This was the longest mission yet. The furthest distance travelled. The truth they tried to hide in the back of their minds was that, even if they return home one day, their loved ones would not all be there to greet them. Sometimes, after a long chat with her parents, Holly would tuck herself away and cry. Their youth faded a little more each time she spoke to them.

          Toby mulled over his unusually heavy thoughts as he ate, staring out of the clear, thick panel window. He made constellations of the connect the dot stars. Creating stories they might have been given if they had danced across inhabited lands. It was different, but it was exciting. Everything around him, it was all untouched, unseen, unexplored. Flashes of pinks and greens swirled into nebulas in the distance. The road to space was paved with sacrifice but, honestly, he couldn’t deny the pay-off.

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Stay tuned for part two!

@cawolters, @pen-for-sword, @inkovert, @snobbysnekboi, @kainablue, and @i-rove-rock-n-roll

[carolynpetit]

198X and Being Players in a Dangerous Time

NOTE: This piece describes 198X in detail. I encourage you to play the game yourself. It’s currently available on Steam and PS4, costs $10, and takes about 90 minutes to play.

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There’s a song I love by the Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn called “Lovers in a Dangerous Time.” To me, the song is about how the things we might take for granted as a normal part of our lives most of the time can feel frivolous or wasteful in times of great crisis, yet it’s also in those difficult times that we may need those things the most. I mean, how can you go on a romantic getaway when immigrants are being held in nightmarish conditions in concentration camps here in the United States? But on the other hand, isn’t it in these times that we most need to be reminded of our own humanity, the humanity of others, and why a better world is worth fighting for?

When you're lovers in a dangerous time Sometimes you're made to feel as if your love's a crime  Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight  Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight

Personally, I often find that many video games, movies, television shows and other types of art that I normally enjoy begin to feel hollow and indulgent when I can’t escape the awareness that moral atrocities are being committed by my own government. However, it’s also true that such times are precisely when art that cuts through the crap and makes me feel something deep and genuine is more vital and necessary than ever. 

Twin Peaks: The Return was essential to me during the first year under Trump, not for being the most “woke” thing on TV (it wasn’t) but for being such a strange and uncompromising show that watching it felt like being blasted with a high-pressure water cannon that washed away the cynicism I’d cloaked myself in as a way of enduring the horrors of the week. On one episode, David Lynch’s own character, FBI agent Gordon Cole, tells chief of staff Denise Bryson, a transgender woman, that he told the agency men who didn’t accept her to “fix their hearts or die,” and there was the show itself, each week, working its own magic to fix my heart, to keep me human in dehumanizing times. 

For me, the new video game 198X enters this same category; it’s one of those rare and urgent works that does what we most need art to do when we most need art to do it. In 198X’s launch trailer, we see footage of games from an assortment of genres as the protagonist, Kid, says, “This is not just a beat ‘em up. This is not just a shoot ‘em up. This is not just a racing game. This is not just a ninja game. This is not just an RPG.” This trailer got me fired up for the game because I felt as if I knew exactly what Kid meant. When I was a kid myself, back in the years of 198X, games were much more to me than what they may have appeared to be on the surface. In my desperation to escape from anguish both internal and external--the pain of gender dysphoria, a home racked by alcoholism and instability--I could turn even a simple, tedious game like Capcom’s run-and-gun Commando, one of the few NES cartridges we owned, into a valiant struggle to triumph over the forces that threatened to swallow me whole. 

Like me, Kid is an expert at finding deeper meaning in the space between themselves and the game. And it only makes sense, since like me, Kid has a need for escape, and a need for meaning. 198X avoids the use of any gendered pronouns for Kid--the only voice we hear throughout the game is Kid’s own, as they narrate their own story--but I believe Kid might be trans or genderqueer. At least, in the absence of the game asserting otherwise, this is my headcanon. I have to admit, seeing a character like Kid in a game still feels like coming across an oasis in a desert. Such representation is so rare, and so precious to me, that it feels life-giving. Brilliantly delivered by Maya Tuttle, Kid’s narration offers us tremendous insight into who they are, even as they remain a fiercely guarded individual. During one of the game’s many gorgeous pixel art interludes, Kid reminisces about how they used to frequent a nearby video store with their father. “But then, we didn’t go there anymore,” Kid says, hinting at some undefined strife that has driven their family apart. “It was no big deal,” Kid says, revealing just what a huge deal it was.

198X’s narrative offers little in the way of specifics, and to me, this only makes it stronger. It asks us to identify with Kid as a player, to feel the games the way that they do and to understand how those games might take on a meaning that reaches beyond the basement arcade that becomes Kid’s refuge. When you start 198X, you’re immediately thrown into Kid’s experience as a player. The first thing you see is an intro sequence and title screen for Beating Heart, a beat ‘em up released in the year 198X. You hear the sound of a quarter sliding into the machine, and then it begins, you’re playing, controlling a brawler in a red hoodie--Kid’s signature color--clobbering an assortment of punks who are out to stop you for reasons that are never explained. They don’t need to be. Kid feels antagonized by the world. Fighting just to survive. That’s why the act of defeating the people who stand in Kid’s way is meaningful. 

198X is a game about how games can mean more to us. If it didn’t let the games that Kid plays within it make their own kind of meaning, unfettered by story specifics, it would undercut its own effectiveness. Unlike so many pixel art games that play as homages to the past and simply want to replicate and capitalize on our memories, 198X is interested in commenting on them, in exploring just what our experiences with the games of the past may have meant to us. Stories in games back then were routinely disposable but that doesn’t mean that the games didn’t mean anything. They did. Through their imagery and music and the way they made us feel, they took on all kinds of meaning, offering places where those of us who felt like losers could be heroes, where those of us who never felt like we fit in here in the real world could belong, could be wanted, could be needed.

Thankfully, 198X prioritizes emotional truth over historical accuracy, allowing the games that you play as Kid to do things that real arcade games of the 1980s never did. After playing Beating Heart for several minutes, making your way out of a subway station and onto a city street, something surprising happens: the camera pans up and away from our hoodied hero to take in an unreachable skyline in the distance. Beating Heart fades out, and it’s only then that we first see Kid, alone in their room in their suburban home, a city in the distance representing all the freedom and possibility that Kid dreams of, but it may as well be a million miles away, for all the good it does them. 

Unable to achieve that kind of escape, Kid finds a different kind at the local arcade, telling us, “In front of these machines stood some of the coolest uncool people I had ever seen. They were the freaks, the geeks, the misfits, the outcasts, the real rebels, part of something the outside world could not understand, or even knew existed.” Is that the kind of narration some people might find cheesy? You’re damn right it is, and thank goodness for it. I have no patience right now for irony. Give me something earnest, sincere and openhearted. Kid may be emotionally guarded but 198X wears its heart on its sleeve and I am here for it. 

My favorite moment in 198X comes a bit later, after Kid reveals their crush on a girl at their high school. “Oh, man, that girl was born a rebel, free to go wherever she wanted to,” Kid says as we see their crush peel out of the high school parking lot in a black sports car, leaving Kid quite literally in the dust. “Free in a way I could still only dream of,” Kid says, and instantly we’re presented with the title screen of 198X’s driving game, The Runaway, which begins with a black sports car speeding off into the distance, leaving Kid’s car, your car, a red sports car in the foreground, pursuing the driver of the black car and the freedom that she represents. 

The Runaway’s most direct reference point is probably Sega’s 1986 racer OutRun (one of the best games of all time, as I talk about in this video), but OutRun offers an escape. In The Runaway, Kid can’t quite get away from reality. You make your way from a barren desert to the outskirts of a city, and Kid begins to speak, completely blurring the already thin lines between their real life and their experiences with the games at the arcade. “Nothing could beat the rush of the highway,” Kid says. “The speeding cars reminding me that there was a way out, a road to somewhere, the city on the horizon. I’d drive all night to get to that place,” Kid says with their characteristic guarded longing, and just then, a soaring, yearning guitar screams above the ambient synth soundscape, sending chills down my spine. So often in the games of the 1980s, music was where emotional complexity could flourish, even when the narrative was just a flimsy excuse for you to run through deathtrap-laden levels and blast killer robots, and 198X’s score is consistently up to the task of capturing the heightened emotion of the period’s best video game music, but what it does here is special, even by those lofty standards.

It’s a piercing, perfectly calibrated moment, but it’s not the last of The Runaway’s surprises. You make it to a bridge, speeding past highway signs that indicate you’re getting closer and closer to the city as Kid talks about how the games at the arcade have changed their life. “Down here, I was free. I was in control. No one told me where to go or what to do. The only bad part about it was having to come back up to the real world.” Just then, you run out of time. Your car slows to a stop. All the other cars speed on, bound for the city, but for you, it remains out of reach. And isn’t that just how it feels sometimes, like there are freedoms that others enjoy, that elude you, no matter what? It is for me, anyway.

The final game you play as Kid in 198X is called Kill Screen. A rudimentary first-person sci-fi RPG of sorts, it has no analog in the actual arcade games of the 1980s, so far as I’m aware, but that doesn’t matter. 198X is an emotional journey, not a historical one. In Kill Screen, you must slay three dragons, all the while taunted by an artificial intelligence known as Motherboard, clearly a stand-in for Kid’s own mother, or at least for the ways in which Kid has come to see their mother as a symbol for all the ways in which they’re trapped. It’s here in Kill Screen that 198X takes its only real missteps. Among Motherboard’s taunts are some statements that feel too plain and standard to evoke the intensity of Kid’s struggle. Sure, when a parent fails to connect with you as a person, even comments like “DO YOUR HOMEWORK” and “DON’T STAY UP” can be painful reminders of the yawning distance between you and them, but in the context of 198X’s economical storytelling, these generic phrases fall flat. Other phrases hit harder, though. When Motherboard’s cold robotic voice intones the words “YOU ARE ERROR,” a Zelda II reference that also pointedly encapsulates how I often felt in the world and how I imagine Kid does as well, I laughed, but it stung a little, too. As I triumphed over the challenges of the dungeon, Motherboard resorted to merely repeating “HELP HELP HELP,” and I felt that Kid’s mom was almost certainly hurting in her own way, unsure of how to connect with her child, the two of them talking past each other, neither sure how to close the gap.

What does Kid’s defeat of Motherboard actually mean? Where does Kid go from here? I don’t know, and I’m glad the game doesn’t try to spell it out. All I know is that there are still possibilities in Kid’s life, just as there are still possibilities in mine, and that games can mean something valuable and real, even when the world feels like it’s falling apart. 

I don’t expect 198X to work on everybody the way it worked on me. After all, it’s a game about how deeply personal our experiences with games can be, how games can take on larger meanings in the context of what’s happening in our own lives. We take our life experiences into the games with us--Kid’s ambiguous gender identity, for instance, is hugely meaningful to me, in ways it may not be to others--and we take the meaning we find in the space between ourselves and the games we play back into our lives. 198X doesn’t just understand that; it captures what it is to find the kind of meaning you so desperately need in a game right when when you so desperately need it, and god, do I need it now. This is one of the best games of the year.

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Thank you for reading. Please consider supporting me on ko-fi. I could really use the help right now.