#i'd like to fix his right eye (viewer's

[crumbleclub]

baby mike doodle!! this would be shortly after the bite

[klaunee]

Edit 2/12/2024: I wanted to add a disclaimer to my redesigns! I really appreciate all of the likes and comments that these have garnered, but I just want to add that these aren't intended to be "improvements" or "fixes" of the original designs in any way and were done as a character design exercise for my own entertainment. Looking back on them there's a lot I'd like to change about them and I'd never claim to be anything more than an amateur/hobbyist character designer messing around with these character concepts.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alright I wasn't really feeling the other one I just did. I wanted to diverge a bit from it to better fit the other redesigns I did and do my own take on Al, which is why I made this one that's more shamelessly inspired by Cab Calloway.

I based him on Cab Calloway because I want him to have Mr. Calloway's charisma and showmanship to accentuate his role as a radio host. I feel like the canon Alastor is too subdued in terms of expressiveness, and of course this is part of what makes him unnerving, but I wanted to subvert that. This rendition would still be a gentleman, but he's much more animated in terms of his body movements and facial expressions. He's witty and has a great sense of humor. A big man with a big smile and a larger than life personality. Constantly schmoozing and sweet-talking other people. And yet there's just something off about him...

Copying my design notes from the other post and adding a few more.

Premise: A man who was born in a semi-rural part of the United States but moved to the big city at a young age. Became infatuated with the music and entertainment scenes of the city and idolized performers of the Jazz age, Vaudeville actors, and comedians. Decided to become a radio host himself after working at a local station and became renowned for his humor and wit. However, despite loving several parts of the big city, Alastor was disdainful of the rapid industrialization taking place and its effect on the environment he'd grown up in. In an attempt to make his broadcasts, which increasingly gained a more serious and environmentalist bent, reach more viewers, he delved into the occult and made pacts with demons. Unfortunately, his meddling with the occult drove him insane. Fortunately, however, his familiarity with black magic granted him increased powers when he showed up in Hell. Overall, a gentlemanly character with a suppressed madness that seeps out from time to time.

He's very tall. I wanted to make him uncanny looking while still retaining the gentlemanly appearance of the canon version and to do this I tried to give him an elongated silhouette. He's as tall as Angel Dust, if not taller when standing up, but he's constantly bending over either due to poor posture or to ingratiate himself to the shorter masses.

No more sexyman hourglass figure, I made him a bit broader to give him a bigger presence.

Cab's signature pencil moustache. I see a lot of people giving him one and I'm not sure if we share the same inspiration, but it's a cool look!

Overall a more desaturated, sepia palette than the rest of the cast for an old-timey look (I mean Angel Dust is old-timey too but... forget about it). Also to contrast with the red of Charlie's suit.

The black line parts of his antlers are meant to look like the velvet shedding deer undergo as well as power lines, with an eye in the center which resembles the flame between Baphomet's horns. This eye is where his "power" emanates from so to speak, like a radio signal.

Waveform design on his suit.

Design on his shirt meant to resemble a ribcage.

BIG ANTLERS! (less so in this version, more manageable)

Diamond design on the pants to indicate he is a trickster.

A long, deer-like neck and a deer-like yet human-like face to give him an uncanny look.

His right eye is a radio dial and he has a speaker in his mouth to produce that radio quality when he speaks.

I tried to make his suit look like a zoot suit for historical relevance, particularly the broad-shouldered ones worn by such performers as Cab Calloway. I made his pants high-waisted and pegged.

His staff is based on antique carbon microphones with the center modified to look like an inverted pentagram.

He practices black magic.

His entire body is covered in fur save for his face and ears, like a werewolf.

Thanks for reading!

[dashimba]

Bridgerton season 3

All right, I loved the season so far, but that's my take, what could be improved with storyline (there were lots of bad writting choices as well as good one, but I want to outline my thoughts). So, I'll try to sum up, what could be written or added, that could make narration style more elegant and truthful to the viewers. Free to disagree. Sorry for the mistakes in advance. English is not my first language.

Colin's character arc. A lot of the things we got was told through the dialogue or was subtle, but not in between. I had a feeling that they haven't developed him enough to really show his inner conflict. Sometimes he was a side-character in his own show(part 2 did him bad), while the thing he should be the main one, because it shows his dynamic with Penelope/Lady Whistledown and key to understand their dynamic as a couple and his character arc. Other leading male characters had that physiological touch/depth to their character, while Colin somehow didn't. What we needed: flashback to his travels and small plot about loosing himself there or maybe gaining false confidence(could be done with him alone reading the lines of his letters), study of the middle-child complex(scenes with small Colin and Antony, who was the father figure for him, or brother dynamics with parents that could outline his people pleaser arc), more journaling, including the scene we got, but also about his writting challangies, more details about his likes and dislikes as a writer(favourite authors, could be the scene with Benny, because writting and art is quiet close). Maybe, not him tellling of his jealousy, but again creating scene that show views that he feels inferior. All other thing they did alright, I guess.

Penelope's character arc. I guess I kinda like a lot of things, but I didn't like the ending with the message of 'woman couldn't have dreams, but their husbands could'. It doesn't matter for me was 'child; in the ending or not, but they should have given her character career arc plus. It might have been just a hint of her, talking about wrtitting a book or developing her gossip column into somethins more serious, like critique. Not her mentioning JUST editing Colin's book with a happy smile on her face, watching a newborn. That was the worst writting decision, because it proves Portia words. The whole point of Lady Whistledown was hiding under the mask and trying to gain control and power through her her, because Penelope was too afraid to bloom. In fact that power was within her, and although they did the choice of her uncovering face and name in the end, it didn't end well in her arc. It could have done way better, considering the point they made in the begining. I would also love to see more of her experience sexual awakening after episode five as a slow process of gaining that condifence and gaining control in bedroom(that will be my 3 bullet point about them together) by proceeding it through imagining, talking with friends or dreaming. Besides, I'd like to add that tv show would have benefited from scenes, where she's not only writting, but also looking at the mirror, kinda trying to see, what she really is every now and then(we had one of that scene in green dress). Could be in her bedroom before mirror scene, but after carriage one. It would have made sense, how perception of her body changed, and the mirror scene would have hit stronger. Could be done during her struggles of Whistledown reveal too.

Now let's focus on main couple, and what could have gone better, if writers didn't try to fit 10 storylines in 8 series and literally tried to write their leads attentively and thoughtfully. Polin. First and foremost, that talk about how they met (again bad creative decision, story should show, not hit right between your eyes) MUST have been a flashback. I don't take no as an aswer. It was the only part lacking through their development from season one. This one flshback could have fixed lots of things. + I think audience need a bit more warm-up with just the two of them in the first part of the show(more charming lessons, at least one more befoe the kiss, where Colin starts to get confused about his feelings, and it would have worked perfectly with all the other things). + him really going through the process of figuring out that she is Lady Whistledown. I feel like Luke played subtle emotions perfectly, but we didn't get build up of him, slowly noticing things from his POV(there were chances in the show and lines in the dialogues, ink scene, where they could have hinted on Colin's expression, even in the 1 part, that he could have found some of the Pen's action suspicious, but didn't question it or didn't want to believe in it because of the feelings, until finally he would have followed her to the dark streets of the town). Next thing, they should have shown the process of following her to raise the suspense, him hoping that was another person, her being in shadows in her cloackm, and that at the same time this build-up would have made Luck's acting incredible fulfilling and impactive) + after the reveal it's out of his character to leave her alone, and I guess writers lost themselves elsewhere + more dialogues with them not talking about their relationship, but art and craft of writting(again they share many common interests, why didn't they show us that before the fight and after they made up) + more dialogues with them being cute and teasy as in church and after the sex+ prolonging scene, where he reads her letters, but not just showing the letter, but hearing her voice in his ears + longing should have had more scenes and more touching and being hot and cold, not only him sleeping on the couch(this just one creative indea, but it's not enough, but by talking also), going back and forth after the fight, just the night encounter next to modiste and blue gown(in this particular one they didn't embodied the tension, my idea that although Colin wouldn't like the intimacy, when he is angry, but the stare wan't enough, he should have come, touched her and then made himself stop with a line or without it), these scenes were not enough to show their struggle there + longer scene of them making up after the ball and chage of sexual dynamic, because this is important to her character arc and him accepting her. This scene should have been the third long steamy scene, not 20 seconds with the attention to the details and how they do through trust and communicating with each other, it could have been wrtitten beautifully and releasing the tension of conflict between them by swapping roles, and Colin by that finding out he loves it, while Pen finally taking control as she wanted and as her real character is after revealing her indenty + having him coming to his senses before her speech and him holding her hand instead of her mother + the love confession which is not about just drama, but also bout them as friends and their dynamics

I am not sure I need to write the second part, about other nuanciens aspects and acrs, but this what I would have done if I had a chance to be in the writting room with them

[lookupthewordjokeinthedictionary]

I took a break from petting my cat to deliver you this post, so I might as well deliver it as nicely as possible.

Sanders Sides are yet again drawing each other, this time, Virgil drawing everyone else!!

Yes, guys, gals and enby pals, we've reached "dark sides" territory!! It will be even angstier, you guessed correctly.

Firstly, Patton!! I'm reintroducing the bullet points!

Yes, Virgil did draw him playing with puppets

Yes, Virgil did draw Patton manipulating his puppet

Yes, if you look closer, the look in Patton's face isn't that of a happy father but that of an OG manipulator.

(I need to prefix this by saying that I love Patton and his complexity and by no means am I attacking him)

But yes, Virgil has had enough, our poor little anxious baby needs his freedom (and his thunder) back!

Rare Logan moment caught on camera!

Virgil drew him in his onesie because Logan is only comfortable enough to wear it around him and around no one else

He is indeed reading a puzzle book that Virgil (and Roman) came up with

You might wonder, why does Logan have a look of disdain in his eyes while reading this book?

Oh, he doesn't. For once, I'm bad at sketching

For twice, anxiety is anxiety. He was actually quite pleased to receive such gift, but with Logan having unreadable facial expressions and Virgil being Virgil, he took his expression as that of disdain.

I love them, your honour.

Ah, hello there princey.

Don't ever make me draw side profiles, this took 30 mins and it's not even good.

Okay, real talk, Virgil did draw Roman in the middle of the latter saving someone (him)

And Virgil did draw Roman with flowers and his updated princely costume and all that.

However, it's fascinating to point out that our Prince is covered in vines. (no, not because Thomas used to be a viner, no)

But because something, someone, is holding Roman back.

And Virgil chose to portray it with green vines.

Hmmmmmm, nothing to see here folks.

Remus in the house!!

Virgil is absolutely terrified by Remus.

So ofc he drew him with his mace!!

The schrodingers details are really popping off here.

And by that, I mean that it is both a pretty detailed sketch, and a very rushed through one.

Firstly, it's the first full body sketch we see from Virgil since Patton

Which emphasises the fact that he really knows Remus (the past doesn't go away that easily)

Secondly, it's the little ruffles on his sleeves, and high boots, and dirty knees that pull all of this together.

But I can't ignore that it's still rushed through. That Virgil hasn't grown to the point that he can accept Remus, or see him as something more than a scary illness.

Janus and his oddly numbered strings.

Another detail that I'd like to bring to your attention right about now is, how both the dark sides are looking straight (gay) to the viewer (Virgil).

In antithesis to the "light" sides, that are looking at something or someone else.

But Janus' sketch is pretty self explanatory.

Virgil views him as a one of the worst sides who could dictate Thomas' life.

And not only is he part of the conversation now, but Virgil knows from personal experience, that he's keeping all the others at bay.

Lastly, our Virgil!

I will pretend like I'll improve in drawing in the future if you pretend those are wings.

When I told you not to ever let me draw a side profile again i meant it.

Regardless, Virgil is doing his damn best to hold it together as of this moment

So, he's doing what the next side would do in his position: comfort himself with his safe space.

He's sitting down (on something that is somewhat a chair, good for him)

He is listening to music

He is grounding himself (by having his hands on the stool

But even so, his wings remain closed. Virgil can pretend all he wants that those momentary solutions will fix the problem, but it won't go away. He must learn to accept all of Thomas' sides.

[endless-bunny]

Pathfinder Iconics Comparison Part 6: Who's left?

[Part 1: Classes with Different Iconics] [Part 2: Core Classes] [Part 3: The Remaining PF2 Classes] [Part 4: Classes Who Got Demoted] [Part 5: Prestige Classes]

And so we come to the end of our journey. It's been a ride. Out of forty total classes in PF1, only twelve* remain that we have yet to examine. * Only twelve classes, but we actually have 17 Iconic characters left to look at, more on that later

Hybrid Classes

Top: Crowe (Bloodrager, he/him), Kess "The Bull" (Brawler, she/her), Adowyn & Leryn (Hunter, she/her) Bottom: Hakon (Skald, he/him), Zadim (Slayer, he/him), Oloch (Warpriest, he/him)

Half of the remaining classes are Hybrid classes from the Advanced Player's Guide. The Hybrid classes, as I've mentioned before, are meant to blend two "parent" classes, taking features from both but creating a play experience that is distinct from either. Some of these achieved their goals better than others.

A lot of the game design space that was occupied by the hybrid classes can now be filled by PF2's multiclassing system. While in PF1 it was often preferable to pick, say, Bloodrager over a Barbarian/Sorcerer multiclass, in PF2, the Archetype feats make it easier to do so. With just a few feats, a Barbarian can gain spellcasting abilities from the Sorcerer without losing any of their potency as a frontline fighter.

If I were a gambling bun — and let's be real, I spend most of my time playing games with dice — I'd say we won't be seeing the Hunter or Warpriest again as full classes in their own right. It seems like one of Oloch's parents got full custody.

In PF2, the Warpriest is one of two Doctrines that can be taken by the Cleric, sacrificing some magical potency in favour of increased martial prowess. Similarly, the niche formerly occupied by the Hunter is now occupied by certain Ranger abilities.

The Hunter was a Ranger who lost some combat focus in exchange for starting with a pet, like a Druid, rather than having to wait until Lv.4. The PF2 Ranger can start with a pet, making the niche formerly occupied by the Hunter pretty redundant.

As for the others, never say never. Even if they don't show up as classes, Paizo might surprise us with archetypes. And Oloch has already shown up in Hollow Mountain as a member of Seltyiel's adventuring party (along with Damiel and Meligaster) so it's not impossible that they might show up in future comics or books.

I feel like I sort of cheated with Shardra and maybe she should also be included here, since she wasn't used for a character option.

Occult Classes

Erasmus (Medium, he/him); Meligaster (Mesmerist, he/him)

The Kineticist and Psychic appear in PF2, while the Occultist and Spiritualist have successors in the Thaumaturge and Summoner, respectively. That leaves only two of the classes from Occult Adventures without representation in PF2. The Medium and the Mesmerist.

The Medium can channel spirits of the dead to gain their knowledge and skills for a time, manifesting in-game as bonuses to specific types of rolls.

The Mesmerist uses psychic magic to control the minds of others. Meligaster appears in Hollow Mountain as a member of Seltyiel's adventuring party, and shows off his mastery of psychic control.

Erasmus's glowing yellow eyes really sell the "possessed" angle, and the grey hair streaking his temples hints at continual psychic stress. I love his array of unconventional tools: the ouija board and planchette, the crystal ball, and the handful of... Harrow(?) cards, all very neat for divining and communing with the spirit world. He's also incredibly fashionable. It takes a brave man to wear a cravat and a scarf but he pulls it off.

Meligaster's appearance is great, I love his tall hat and the hypnotic, swirling spiral patterns on his clothes. Wayne did a great job of making his stare really intense, which is what the Mesmerist is all about. He really fixes his gaze upon the viewer, making it hard to appreciate the other fine details in his costume.

I'm not betting on these two classes making a return any time soon but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of Meligaster coming back in the story; he's the long-lost brother of Lem, the Iconic Bard. There's a fair bit of bad blood between them so I could see that getting resolved as part of a future storyline.

Alternate (Eastern) Classes

Ninja (Reiko, she/her*), Samurai (Hayato, he/him) * Liz Courts, author of Meet The Iconics: Reiko stated in this messageboard post that Reiko is a female-presenting genderqueer/genderfluid character, but was not speaking in the capacity of a member of Paizo's editorial staff at that time. Reiko's gender identity is thus not canonically confirmed.

These are two Alternate classes from Ultimate Combat. The Ninja is an alternate Rogue, and the Samurai is an alternate Cavalier. Essentially, they take the basic class and swap out a couple of features here and there while keeping the core unchanged. The Samurai gets a mounted archery ability, for example, whereas the Cavalier gets the ability to train horses more easily; and the Rogue is better at finding and disarming traps, but the Ninja becomes adept in the use of poisons.

I think Wayne's signature style of "give them a tonne of stuff to carry around" really does good work for these two. A samurai who's armed to the teeth, or a ninja with the right tool for every occasion are both great. I think Hayato might be wearing a scabbard upside-down, though? If it's a katana, they were typically worn with the edge facing up, though it is also just a question of the personal preference of the wielder.

These two haven't shown up in PF2 yet, but I think it's only a matter of time. Next year, we're going to be getting not one, but two books about the continent of Tian Xia, the Asian-inspired region of Golarion. We'll be getting a World Guide and a Character Guide. We might see Reiko or Hayato over there, as background characters, class options or archetypes. Watch this space I guess

Base Classes

Inquisitor (Imrijka, she/her), Shifter (Zova, she/her)

And now we come to the last two player classes. The Inquisitor was introduced in the Advanced Player's Guide (2011), and the Shifter in Ultimate Wilderness (2017). Imrijka has been around a while and appeared in plenty of art, being featured in comics as recently as 2019. Zova, meanwhile, is much younger (in game terms). The Shifter was the very last class to be introduced. Ultimate Wilderness was the penultimate PF1 sourcebook line before the launch of Second Edition so Zova wasn't around very long before the writers started to focus on PF2 stuff.

The Inquisitor is an agent of their faith, tasked with tracking down threats to the orthodoxy, whether they are external (as in the case of devils and demons) or internal (such as corrupt priests).

The Shifter is... a shapeshifter, they can assume the form of an animal. They're kind of like a Druid, if Wild Shape was the main thing that that class did rather than just being one of many.

Though she's appeared in comics recently, I wonder if the unfortunate implications of Inquisiting are the reason we haven't seen the class in PF2 yet. The class description is:

Grim and determined, the inquisitor roots out enemies of the faith, using trickery and guile when righteousness and purity is not enough. Although inquisitors are dedicated to a deity, they are above many of the normal rules and conventions of the church. They answer to their deity and their own sense of justice alone, and are willing to take extreme measures to meet their goals. Role: Inquisitors tend to move from place to place, chasing down enemies and researching emerging threats. As a result, they often travel with others, if for no other reason than to mask their presence. Inquisitors work with members of their faith whenever possible, but even such allies are not above suspicion.

Advanced Player's Guide (2011), p.38

And... yikes? A small yikes. One singular yike. I like the idea of an Inquisitor-type class, there's a lot of interesting stuff you can do with a character whose only motivation is to root out corruption, like an Inspector Javert kind of thing. There's definitely space for that kind of character in PF2, it's the kind of character lots of players want to play. But in practice I worry that allowing such a character class, especially in organised play, might create unnecessary friction between players. The fact that the class description includes the phrase "extreme measures" was possibly enough to leave a bad taste in some people's mouths. It's a class that I like conceptually but I feel needs to be handled delicately to avoid upset.

It is still early days, though. PF1 was around for ten years and we're only into year 5 of PF2's existence. We might yet see the Inquisitor again.

The Shifter is a class that I think there is room for in PF2. There are already a bunch of feats and ancestry features that allow players to gain specific unarmed attacks by shapeshifting a little bit, so having a class that focusses on that seems like a no-brainer.

That being said, I feel like if they were going to bring the Shifter back, the upcoming Howl of the Wild book would be the perfect place to do it, and we've heard no mention of a Shifter in the preview material for that. Howl of the Wild is going to focus on seven new characters so maybe having Zova as well would be too much. I guess we'll have to see. It's definitely not the last opportunity for a Shifter to appear.

Zova is still kicking about. Here's an illustration from Lost Omens: The Mwangi Expanse where she just seems to be having a nice meal with some friends.

Iconic Villains

Top: Emil (Assassin/Rogue, he/him); Lazzero (Cleric of Asmodeus, he/him) Bottom: Linxia (Fighter/Hellknight she/her); Nyctessa (Necromancer Wizard, she/her); Zelhara (Inquisitor, she/her)

We've seen Urgraz, the Iconic Antipaladin, already, but he's only one of a line-up of iconic villains designed by Wayne Reynolds. None of these is a unique class; instead they were created for the Hell's Vengeance Adventure Path where the players are the baddies, a fun little inversion. I know lots of people love the idea of playing an all-villains game but never get round to it. Having a single Evil character in a party can end up being very disruptive, and I think having an all-Evil party might be difficult for the Game Master to navigate.

These five, plus Urgraz, have also appeared in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game but I can't comment one way or another about that because I've never played it.

---

At time of writing (23/08/23), Paizo has promised us a playtest preview of two "fresh, new" classes at the end of the month. I guess we'll have to wait and see just how fresh the faces are, we might see someone we recognise.

As for the rest, I do wonder if we'll see them again in PF2 material. I know that many of the Iconics are really popular among fans. There exists tonnes of cosplay, fan art, fan fiction and so on using all of these characters. People like having a diverse cast of blorbos that they can draw from, inventing little interactions or scenarios. There's probably a non-zero number of Lem X Ezren shippers out there.

Paizo recently established Pathfinder Infinite, an official distribution platform where fans can create original fiction using the canon characters and setting. I think it'd be interesting to see the relative frequency of the Iconics, who gets used regularly and who not at all. I remember Fanfiction.net used to allow you to see the number of fics written for a given character.

While I was putting this post together, a friend asked if I was planning on putting together similar posts about other non-characters such as archetypes, but unless I limited the scope of such a project somewhat arbitrarily (e.g. only tackling rulebooks and not campaign setting or adventure path stuff) it would quickly grow out of hand. I guess I'll think about it? I never planned when I set out on this quest to become the authority on Pathfinder characters. I also don't know how interesting it would be, since most of those sorts of character show up exactly once, maybe I'd limit myself to only characters who appear two or more times.

But that's another story for another time. That's yer lot for now.

[alicentive]

hi ☺️👋 love chu💕 ❤️ I'm really new to gif making too for my favorite shows so I hoped to ask how you make the backgrounds look so smooth in your gifs?I'd appreciate any advice, it's just for practice. thank you if you answer in advance ❤️💕

Hello hello, and big love right back at ya! 💕😊

How exciting that you’re new to gifmaking – it’s so much fun to get to experiment with that and try all sorts of things. I learned a lot from following tutorials or talking with other gifmakers back when I first started out, and I’m definitely still learning new things now.

I think it’s a combination of factors that makes the background in my gifs so smooth? So I’m going to talk about some of those factors and show you a few things and hopefully that’ll help! I use Photoshop CS6 for gifmaking, but I think the majority of this advice also holds up in other versions haha.

First off, I always try to use video files of the 1080p variety. You can gif with videos that have 720p, too, but 1080p will provide a smoother and clearer image because there are more pixels in 1080p. (There’s also 2160p, which is even higher resolution, but I’ve personally found that unwieldy to screencap and 1080p looks very good already!) This is the technical reason why the gifs look smooth: work with a high resolution video and get better results, that’s just how it is.

Another technical thing is the type of scene you pick to gif. When the scene is very busy with a lot of people and objects coming into focus at once (group shots, shots in heavily decorated rooms, etc), there’s very little in the scene that actually fades into the background focus-wise. With close-ups of a single face, the focus is entirely on the face and the background will fade to some degree. This really has to do with how the show’s made, like how the director and camera people and everyone else chose to portray/film the scenes. As a gifmaker, you can always choose to crop some things out of the scene when you want the focus to be on a specific thing – you’re essentially choosing a new focus for the viewer in that case. But yeah, overall, the way it’s filmed affects everything else about the gif.

Now, onward to the actual Photoshop things…

When I gif, I also sharpen the gif itself. This will make some details pop more and help move the focus to where I want it to be most, which is usually either a face or something important happening in the scene. I do think it might affect how you see the background as well – when everything in the foreground is sharpened, the background will naturally have a bit of blurriness to it. I have a sharpening action I use for every gif, but I believe its settings are as follows.

This is Filter -> Smart Sharpen by the way.

First Smart Sharpen:

And the second Smart Sharpen (yes we do it twice!):

Most importantly, I think the way you choose to brighten and color the gif will affect how the background will look. A show like House of the Dragon unfortunately can be very dark, so the urge to brighten it and fix the filters they put on these scenes is immense. 😂 But it’s also really easy to brighten it too much with that urge to see what’s going on, lol, and that’s when the background’s going to look grainy or pixelated! So it’s always a fine balancing act and a lot of trial and error (seriously, the undo-button is my best friend) when working with scenes like these.

There are a few ways you can brighten a gif. My preferred method is with the Curves layer, but I also use Exposure and Gradient Map as additions to that sometimes. Mostly when a scene is so dark that I have to take care not to render it too pixelated by adjusting the Curves, really. When a gif gets too tricky, I use all three. 😂 Below are some basics of each layer, but it’s really about trying and clicking and trying and clicking and trying and… you get the picture, lol.

Curves

The little eye dropper tools I marked with white – grey – black in the picture below are the most important. Select the white eye dropper and click on the section of the gif that’s closest to white (but not fully white). Then, select the grey eye dropper and click on the gif section that’s either beige or grey or at least in that neutral color zone. Finally, select the black eye dropper tool and click on the darkest part of your gif. You should see immediate results, but it tends to take me a few tries to get the best version! It’s not uncommon for me to zoom in on an image to, like, 600% just to see which pixels I should be clicking. This takes patience, haha!

Exposure

Use it sparingly, cos it’s going to be an asshole about how bright it makes some things. My settings typically are:

Exposure: between 0,13 and 0,22 (this brightens certain areas)

Offset: -0,0009 or -0,0019 (please don't forget to add the - to the numbers, this will deepen the black areas a bit)

Gamma Correction: 1,04 (I’ve found it ‘marries’ the light and dark parts a tad more and makes it look more natural)

Gradient Map

Gradient map my beloveddd. It doesn’t always do the thing, but sometimes it really helps me add a bit of color correction or helps me lighten a certain part of a scene a bit more. Be careful with it, though, as using it too much might make the gif a bit grainy/pixelated (and we don’t want that). There are a few different ways you can use it, but my favorite way is the only good thing TikTok ever taught me (I’m old as dirt, y’all) and that’s this in a nutshell…

Add the layer and click on the gradient itself.

Now, this is going to make the gif look scary as heck but bear with me? Select Noise, uncheck Restrict Colors. Click OK. Don’t cry.

Go to the Opacity of your Gradient Map layer and set it to a percentage between 2% and 5%. Dry your tears.

If it’s not to your taste, go back into the gradient map itself by clicking on it again and selecting the nifty Randomize button you see on the screencap. Click and click and click until you find something that makes the gif sing.

Soooo. Very long story short, all of the above is going to contribute to how a gif looks and to how smooth the background is. I hope some of it is helpful to you! 💕 (And if anything’s unclear, please ask!! I know I get a little wordy and technical about some of the giffing sometimes, haha.)

[twoidiotwriters1]

Copycat: Genesis —(Marvel Fem!Oc)

A/N: We get a break from our usuals to revisit unknown friendships -Danny

Words: 1,800

Phase Six Masterlist

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

Listen to: ‘Habits’ -by Genevieve Stokes

xiv: Copycat Gets A Call

"He has a what?"

"A son," Matt ate a chunk of his burger, "quite big..."

"Wait, but is he Bruce's or Hulk's?"

"Is there a difference?"

"Yeah!" The mutant leaned closer. "Is he human or is he a mutant?"

"I'd argue that he's something else," he shrugged.

"Holy shit..." Cat whistled lowly. "I pity the person that gave birth to a Hulk... hey, did you sleep with Jen in Hulk mode?"

"I'm not answering that."

"I'm just curious!" She laughed. "Were you able to walk afterward? What about the bruises—"

"She was human the whole night," Matt was grinning in spite of himself. "It was a regular hook-up."

"Yeah, sure," she teased him. "So are you guys a thing now?"

"Eh, we... we..." he stuttered. "It's nothing serious."

"It never is," she replied knowingly. "That doesn't mean you don't like her."

Matt shook his head. "I won't talk about this with you."

"Why not?"

"'Cause you're my ex!" He laughed in disbelief.

"Like that was ever a problem," she scoffed. "C'mon, I promise I won't get jealous!"

"Okay, you tell me about Spider-man."

"What?"

"Is he a good hook-up?"

"Well, it depends," she smirked. "Which one are we talking about?"

Matthew snorted. "You're unsalvageable."

Cat sighed. "Maybe I am."

The man fixed his posture, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "That was a bad joke, I'm sorry."

"No, no! I'm just being dumb," she looked away in embarrassment. "It wasn't that awful I just—I'm a little stuck in my ways, it's true. Wanda gave me back some important memories and suddenly I understand why I do the things I do, but I can't stop myself."

Matt nodded, now it was his turn to sigh. "Yeah, I've been there... I still am."

Cat stared at him. "I don't wanna be like this forever."

"I believe you." His hand found hers easily.

Her eyes looked for his out of habit, even though he wasn't going to meet her gaze. "You can hear my heartbeat, right? That's why you're so willing to believe me."

"I don't know what memories Wanda helped you recover, but it was the right call. You needed that part of yourself back."

Cat stared at their hands. "You know I don't regret you even if it ended badly. None of it."

"I know that too," his thumb rubbed the back of her hand, it was a mechanical action, and she doubted he was even aware of it. "To be honest, as far as breakups go, that wasn't so bad."

Cat was too vulnerable around Matthew, he knew things she'd never been brave enough to share with others. She wished he could've at least had the decency to pretend he accepted her apology against his will like Harley always did. She couldn't stand being treated kindly. Cat didn't think she deserved it.

She was a murderous mutant who'd finished most gangs in Hell's Kitchen, the kid that'd escaped a lab in nothing but a hospital robe and hissed at loud noises— but she was also the girl who'd fallen in love with the nerd in her physics class, and liked wearing sundresses in the spring.

She felt like different people sharing a body and she'd seen them grow from behind a window, a silent viewer unable to steer the wheel. Unable to hold onto the things she loved the most. And yet, Kate, Harley, and Kurt would come back in a heartbeat if she asked... and Peter kept his word and stayed in every moment of need. Maybe it was time she allowed herself to be everything instead of just one at a time.

Wanda had said there was always a new path sprouting from every step, and she had the power to decide in which direction to step next. What if she could somehow make a single path out of all the roads?

M.O.U.S.E started flashing, Cat gave a start.

"Who's calling?" She asked out loud.

"Princess Shuri."

"What?" Cat left her chair. "That's convenient..."

"You have the princess of Wakanda in your contacts list?" Matt asked in surprise.

"Yeah, she made my old suit, I told you..." Cat didn't finish her sentence. Matthew didn't remember that conversation because it was linked to a memory of Peter. "We're old friends."

Cat picked her A.I. from the coffee table and answered the call. "Hi! This is so weird, I was actually going to call—"

"I have a job for you," Shuri went straight to business. "And I need you here as soon as possible."

"Oh," Cat smiled. "Sure!"

"I don't think this is a good idea."

"It's a great idea," she said, gathering her stuff hurriedly. "I get a new suit, I help out Shuri so I don't have to pay for it, and then I can go after Kraven."

"What if Kraven finds you before Shuri gives you the suit?"

"I know he's a tough guy but I doubt he can enter Wakanda without being seen, that's just absurd."

"Cat—"

"Trust me on this one, please?" Cat begged him. "This is not a suicidal mission, which is a positive change in my record. I'm helping Shuri find some kid."

Matt's hands were on his hips, just like any time when he was stressed. "What should I tell Spider-man? That you just got up and left like you always do?"

"Tell him I got a way to jumpstart the plan, he'll be ecstatic," she said. "Keep the city safe for me, okay? I'll be back soon."

The man shook his head, unconvinced by the whole situation. "You always have a way to complicate things, I don't feel okay about this."

"Matthew," she turned around and cupped his face. "You're paranoid. I'm a grown woman, I can handle myself just fine— and if I die on accident, well, that's just one less problem you won't have to worry about!" Matt's glare made her stop her teasing. "I'm joking."

"Try to keep me informed, okay?"

"I'll do my best."

"It may not look like much, but it's my life's work in here," said a girl's voice.

"Oh, I believe you," Cat entered the workshop smiling at her surroundings. "It was a place like this that took my best friend right up to Stark Industries..."

Okoye stared at her with a little frown. "Why did you call the heathen?"

"We needed all the help we could get," Shuri said. "Cat counts for at least five people."

The mutant beamed. "Hi again, my lady."

"Hi, Copy," Shuri stepped forward and welcomed her with a hug. "Been a while..."

"I'd ask how you've been, but we both know the answer to that," she gave her a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry about your brother."

"I'm sorry about what happened to you," the girl replied.

Cat got confused by her response. "How do you know?"

Shuri pointed at her throat. "Whatever that was, I'm sure it wasn't fun."

"Oh, we don't have the time to hear about that," Cat looked at the younger girl. "Let's focus on the mission. What are we doing?"

"You're— You're Copycat!" The girl approached her eagerly.

"Yes, for the most part," Cat hummed. "And you are?"

"A lot of trouble."

"Now, Okoye, that's not nice!" Cat taunted her. "What did she do?"

"Created a machine that can detect vibranium miles under the ocean's surface," Shuri said gravely. "The US government's using it, and someone is not happy about it. They've threatened her safety, so we have to take her to our country to fix this."

"Oh," Cat frowned. "Are you sure it was her, though? What are you, fourteen?"

"I'm nineteen!"

"That's the same thing," the mutant joked. "But don't think I'm underestimating you! Spider-man built a fully functional super suit and a bomb when he was seventeen and on the same day!"

"A what?" Shuri frowned.

"Oh, no one knows about that, only me. I was there," she brushed it aside. "Anyway, why am I here?"

"The Princess believes you are enough backup," Okoye said skeptically.

"Backup for what?"

"I told you, someone's after Riri," Shuri replied. "He's very powerful, and he's threatened our country if we don't take her to him."

"But you don't wanna do that," Cat guessed.

"No! Look at her!" Shuri said in worry. "We need your help, we take her to our country in one piece, and maybe we can negotiate a solution with this man."

"Men rarely consent to peaceful conversations," Cat warned her.

"That's the reason we called you," the princess retorted. "You're one of the best Avengers out there."

"I'm not—"

"Oh, she didn't mean it literally," Okoye raised a brow. "We are aware of your status, Copycat."

The young woman hesitated. "Then... why did you call me?"

"Shuri seems to think there is no issue with your lack of ethics," Okoye approached her menacingly. "I, on the other hand, will keep my eye on you."

"Wise decision," Cat turned to Riri. "I guess I'll be your bodyguard for a while kid."

Riri's smile widened. "Hey, if this thing clears out would you consider recruiting me to the young—"

"Absolutely not," Cat responded.

Okoye pointed at the stuff on the work table. "So... the design for the machine is on that laptop?"

"Yeah."

"And you just leave it on a desk in a car garage..."

"I got 2065-byte encryption on that thing," Riri smirked.

"That's impressive," Shuri replied courteously. "Ever locked yourself out?"

"Took me the whole semester to get back in! Had to build a functional quantum computer just to crack my own encryption," she snorted.

"Woah," Cat stared at the girl's work in awe. "You and Keener would get along..."

"Keener? You mean Stark's new golden boy?" Riri raised a brow. "He looks like a—"

"I should warn you that he's one of my best friends," Cat smiled a little.

"A pretty smart guy," the girl was quick to correct.

Cat snorted, beside her Shuri pointed at a board on her left.

"What is it you're building here? Is it Stark tech?"

"I said don't touch anything," Riri scowled.

"Princess," spoke an A.I. voice, "American law enforcement has arrived at your location."

"Shit."

"Who was that?"

"My A.I."

"Get ready, heathen, you'll have some toys to chew," Okoye walked past her.

"Okay, first of all, you're not saying it right, I can tell you're not using caps at the start and I don't like that. It's Heathen." Cat frowned. "Second, all I have is baby Mouse and a pocket knife, so I'm sorry if I don't work to my usual speed."

"What!" Shuri looked at her in shock. "What did you do to your suit!?"

"I was going to tell you about it later cause I actually want you to make me a new one but I don't think now's the time—"

"Cat, how are you going to survive this fight with a pocket knife?!"

"I never said I'm not wearing a suit," she pointed at her black clothes. "This is my gorgon suit. Not my favorite, but something is something, right? Bulletproof, at least."

"They're surrounding us," Okoye announced, staring at the projection in her bracelet.

"I thought you said a merman was after me, that's the feds!" Riri said.

"A what now?" Cat inquired.

Shuri threw out a window a small drone that look a little like Cat's fleas, then the princess turned to look at her. "Help us, and I'll make you all the suits you want."

"You got it, princess."

Next Chapter—>

Taglist.

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[disco-elysium-via-polls]

🎵 Instrument of Surrender

"I too have travelled to higher realms..."

+1 Remote Viewers Division

GASTON MARTIN - "Please, officer! Don't encourage him!" He quickly turns to René. "Do spare us the cocaine fairy tales. The RCM isn't interested in them."

KIM KITSURAGI - "Yes, indeed. We are not here to investigate the drug trade of centuries past."

3. "Let's talk about something else."

RENÉ ARNOUX- "Right." The old man stands tall and proud, looking at you inquisitively.

4. [Composure - Legendary 14] What is it about this old soldier that makes him stand so proud?

-1 Threw the *boule* int the sea.

We have basically no chance of success here.

COMPOSURE [Legendary: Failure] - Still, all you see is an old soldier refusing to replace his uniform with a civilian attire.

-1 Morale

RENÉ ARNOUX- "Anything else I can assist you with, officer?" he asks impatiently. "We still have a game to finish."

5. "Thank you for your time!" [Leave.]

Ok. I'd really like to finish exploring the part of the map we have access to right now. We're gonna head south past Siileng.

Roy's Pawnshop. Fast Cash for Faster Times.

In the dumpster are a pair of Fingerless Gloves.

FINGERLESS GLOVES

+1 Electrochemsitry: Cigarette-stained fingertips

Gasoline-stained fingerless gloves in navy blue. They've been worn threadbare, but, being made of wool, still provide some warmth and comfort.

If we equip these and our Flare-Cut Trousers at the same time, we can pass Medium Electrochemistry checks.

WATER LOCK OUT OF ORDER UNTIL WEDNESDAY 7:15 AM

MAN ON WATER LOCK - "G'day to you, officers!"

A burly man hangs out by the water lock, carving up a generous serving of salami with an old hunter's knife. His eyes are fixed on a man stranded on the other side of the water lock -- and on an enormous billboard that has fallen down into the canal between them.

"First things first -- what are you doing here, man on the water lock?"

"Do you know what caused this wreckage?" (Point at the smashed billboard in the canal.)

[Leave.]

MAN ON WATER LOCK - "My friend Barry the Butcher is stuck on the other side of the water lock. I'm keeping him company -- and eating his salami."

BARRY THE BUTCHER - From the corner of your eye you see a man in a yellow shirt and grey overalls waving at you from across the canal. He seems disappointed about the wreckage on the water lock -- *and* the salami.

MAN ON WATER LOCK - "*Very* good stuff. Anything I can do for you, officer?" The man on the water lock picks the skin off a slice of a salami and takes a sizeable bite.

2. "Do you know what caused this wreckage?" (Point at the smashed billboard in the canal.)

MAN ON WATER LOCK - "I wasn't here to witness it, but those look like tyre tracks on that sign. Weird, huh? Then again, plenty of daredevil drivers in Revachol."

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - The words *daredevil driver* sound ominous to you.

MAN ON WATER LOCK - "Too bad it also takes a year and a day to repair anything 'round here -- especially a water lock. The rest of the coast is closed off till then."

"Do you know what's further down the coast?"

"Can I have some of that salami?" (Point at his food.)

"Right, bye." [Leave.]

MAN ON WATER LOCK - "Well, there's the fishing village. An abandoned fish market. A bizarro church. Not much use to the congregation, though -- there always seems to be something wrong with it." He thinks for a moment.

"Yeah, not really much else. Just bombed-out ruins."

2. "Can I have some of that salami?" (Point at his food.)

MAN ON WATER LOCK - "Sure thing." He cuts off a slice of salami.

MAN ON WATER LOCK - "Want some too, officer?" he turns to the lieutenant.

KIM KITSURAGI - "Why not?" The lieutenant ponders the offer for a moment, then decides to go for it. He takes a slice of salami from the man and chews on it.

3. "Right, bye." [Leave.]

WATER LOCK CONTROL PANEL - A couple of indicator lights are missing from this control panel. Loose wires dangle from the now-vacant holes. In the middle is a lever -- beneath it, a small metal plaque.

VISUAL CALCULUS [Trivial: Success]- This panel usually closes the water lock, turning it into a bridge that lets you cross the canal -- but there's a crashed "Samaran butter" sign in the way. Pulling the lever *probably* won't do anything.

Pull the lever up.

[Leave.]

WATER LOCK CONTROL PANEL - You pull the lever all the way up until the metal clicks against the contact pins. You hear a soft *clunk*, then...

Push it HARDER.

Release the lever.

WATER LOCK CONTROL PANEL - Nothing happens. A cold gust of wind blowing in from the sea interrupts the silence of the situation.

KIM KITSURAGI - "Mm-hmm." The lieutenant hums to himself while staring at your activities.

2. Release the lever.

WATER LOCK CONTROL PANEL - A spring brings the lever back to its original position. You still need to close the water lock to get across the canal -- some other way.

New task: Close the water lock on Wednesday

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Trivial: Success] - Wasn't there a sign over there saying functionality will be restored on Wednesday morning?

2. [Leave.]

Hey, Man on water lock, what do you think about this?

"What's with the lever that does nothing?" (Point at the control panel next to him.)

MAN ON WATER LOCK - "It's supposed to operate the water lock, but as noted... it's all junk right now. Disabled because of the blockage."

"Why is it disabled?"

MAN ON WATER LOCK - "Safety measure. Turns out the panel needs a special key to be re-activated. Wouldn't want anyone moving the water lock with debris still in the channel."

"It'll be restarted on Wednesday morning." He nods his head towards the control panel. "You wanna do the honours when the time comes?"

"Do I ever!" (Nod enthusiastically.)

"We'll see... I'm not all that into manual labour."

MAN ON WATER LOCK - "Great! Just drop in on Wednesday if you want to see the water lock at work. They say the canal crew will be here at 07.15." He cuts a fresh slice from his salami.

TUTORIAL AGENT - The coast part of the map is inaccessible until day 3.

Butter sign down!

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) - A crumpled billboard reading "SAMARAN BUTTER" soaks in the canal. Two ugly lines mar the bright countenance of the blond boy depicted.

What is Samaran Butter?

[Visual Calculus - Medium 11] Attempt to reconstruct what happened here.

Nothing more to see here. [Leave.]

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) - Whatever it is, the boy on the billboard seems very happy about it.

2. [Visual Calculus - Medium 11] Attempt to reconstruct what happened here.]

+1 Ominous daredevil feeling.

VISUAL CALCULUS [Medium: Failure] - Just some tasteless advertising at the bottom of a canal. No use rubbernecking now.

3. Nothing more to see here. [Leave.]

[twilightguardian]

I mean you're saying a lot of words but it doesn't erase a lingering RWBY problem that Raymond brought in:

Fundamentally, the White Fang shouldn't be antagonists and could easily be replaced with a human supremacist group. Keeping the WF around just keeps the same message about how there's fundamentally right and wrong methods of protesting and Adam/The WF at large are using the wrong methods so Blake can course correct.

Ray stuck too close to RWBY canon for V1-3. It's only now with V4 he's started diverging but it still means he has the skeleton of RWBY's problems.

Having a human supremacist group could be a good idea. But then it steers too far into the realm of "this is just America" with the KKK and the writers of RWBY and many fans of RWBY already are too focused on American centrism, a thing that I think is an issue.

Again, there are many routes to go over. No one is inherently the Correct one.

If you don't believe the White Fang or any individual within the White Fang should be antagonists, that is your right to think that as a viewer, just as much as its Raymond's right to think its interesting enough to play with from a writing perspective. We're all different, and we have different preferences and likes and dislikes. But that doesn't make it wrong and that doesn't make it bad inherently. I simply don't agree with you there. I can enjoy both within their respective contexts.

Stepping back and looking at this purely from a writing perspective...

What is more interesting?

A villain group who is villainous for the sake of hatred and being pieces of shit?

Or a villain group who is villainous because they might have a point?

Both of these can be fun, but Fixing is attempting to make RWBY more serious from the outset, so while the former option would be more appropriate to canon V1-3 of RWBY, I think the latter option better suits the more serious Fixing.

It's harder to argue against someone who has a justifiable reason to be upset, but the ultimate point is the theme of how far is too far? At what point does your commitment to a cause go overboard? Some people enjoy themes that challenge them, that reach into these hard-hitting dilemmas and questions. If these things don't interest you, then that's okay, but it's not bad to tackle them.

Plus, taking out the White Fang from the story destroys Blake's character and left with practically nothing. She'd have to be removed from the story, or drastically be rebuilt until she resembles nothing of who she used to be.

In Fixing, only Adam is in the wrong, not the White Fang as a whole. He used his charisma and passion to sway members onto his side, but they are a rogue faction, and we see in Fixing that he was vehemently opposed by both the White Fang and other faunus who were not WF. The White Fang's methods are not Adam's methods. And if someone thinks genocide and murder is justifiable, then I question their morality, as that can easily go into a slippery slope of a perpetual pendulum of violence.

I don't disagree that Raymond has issues because of the early volumes, but I don't think that this is necessarily one of them due to the intended tone. Despite his own reservations to it, I believe he could polish things a bit more if he decided to do an "HD Remix" of the early stuff now that Fixing has more people working on it. He could easily have kept RWBY a light-hearted story as what V1-3 had mostly been, taking out any references to racism and just made the villains dumb bad-guy-of-the-week types to fight alongside the monster-of-the-week grimm. But that's not what Raymond wanted to do.

I'd hope that somewhere out there, there is a light-hearted rewrite of RWBY that keeps to the more casual tone of the first volumes and takes the jank of the WF out, but I do know how grimdark some of them get that wrinkles even my nose.

If you don't think that I have a point with any of this, then I suppose we just simply can't agree, and I'm sorry that we couldn't see eye to eye on the issue. It happens. But I want to thank you for coming to talk to me anyways and having this conversation with me and being cordial.

[devilofthehounds]

God Eater 3 Character Novel | Spinning Bonds: Chapter 3

[image id: A novel cover. Zeke Pennywort from God Eater 3 stands with his back to the viewer, his scarf billowing in the wind. Overlaid within the scarf is an image of a young Zeke with his four brothers, smiling happily. The text, when translated into English, reads “God Eater 3 Character Novel | Chapter 4: Zeke Edition | Spinning Bonds”. /end id]

This is a fan translation. Original text here.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

For a while after that, we spent our days as part of the base.

Using the safe routes that the peddler showed him, Saul made daily expeditions in the trailer to sell valuable goods that Rhys picked out.

Today, he was taking Keith with him to a nearby settlement to set up a market stall.

The rest of us stayed behind at the base, enjoying some peace and quiet for the first time in a while.

"...And that's it. That's how you play poker. With me so far?"

"Yeah... Kinda."

We were sitting on the rooftop. Rhys was teaching me how to play cards.

"So, this is the strongest hand. Four cards of the same number plus a joker, making five cards."

Spade. Heart. Diamond. Club. And the most powerful of all: the joker.

Rhys arranged the five cards, this particular set being aces.

"Huh, so this is the strongest... Five of the same type. Hey, just like us!"

"That's right. The strongest hand symbolizes the strongest bond... I like the sound of that."

Rhys smiled. But then—

"Rhys! Zeke!"

Neal came up from downstairs.

"What's up, Neal? Huh... What's that?"

Perched on Neal's fingertips was a butterfly with the most amazing wings I'd ever seen.

"It came through the window just now! Can I keep it?"

Neal's eyes shined with excitement as he spoke, a rarity for him.

Though it looked like it could fly away at any moment, the butterfly stayed still, looking quite comfortable on Neal's finger.

"Alright, Neal, you can keep it. But don't let it run loose! I don't want to find bugs all over the house!"

"Aw... Why not? They're all so cute."

Neal brought his hand out of his pocket to reveal several spiders, happily crawling about.

"Gah! Why would you put those things in your clothes?! Gross! Get rid of them!"

When I said that, Neal's eyes narrowed.

".........Fine."

The next moment, Neal threw the swarm of spiders at me.

My high-pitched scream echoed throughout the base.

I ran outside, desperately shaking out my clothes to get rid of the spiders, which had somehow gotten on my back. At the same time, Saul and Keith pulled up in the trailer.

"We're back! ...Huh? Zeke, what's wrong? Why are you crying?"

"I'm not crying! Neal, he—he..."

I turned around. Through my tears, I could see Neal on the rooftop, snickering. Next to him, Rhys waved down at us, clearly exasperated.

"Alright, what happened? Are you two fighting again? Be sure to make up with each other later, got it?"

As he climbed out of the passenger's seat, Keith was snickering, too.

"We're home!"

"Hey, Keith, welcome back! Did you find anything interesting?"

"Mm-hm! Check it out!"

Keith held up an old robot toy with three drills on its arm.

"Keith was amazing. He took this broken toy and used some parts that were lying around and got it working again."

Keith flipped a switch, and the robot's drills started spinning.

"Whoa! So cool! Did you really fix it all by yourself?"

"Eheheh..."

"Looks like Keith has a talent for tinkering with machines. ...You know, Dad always used to say, 'If you give your all to master your chosen craft, then that can only increase your odds of survival.' Maybe Keith just proved him right."

"Dad said that...?"

"Yeah; it's what he left behind... But if you really like machines, Keith, you should give it a shot. Who knows; it may come in handy one day."

"Yeah... Yeah! I'll do it! I'll remember those words!"

Today was just full of rare expressions, wasn't it?

It was the first time I'd ever seen Keith so happy.

"Well, anyway, gather round, everyone. I've got a bit of an interesting story to tell."

At Saul's request, the five of us convened.

"I heard this from the people at the settlement we stopped at today. Apparently, there's a Port ship making the rounds in this area... to try and take kids to safety."

A Port. If I remembered right, it was a new type of base that started getting built after the Calamity.

I'd heard it was supposed to be safer than a satellite base, and that God Eaters were deployed to protect the people who lived there.

"I'm thinking of making contact with the ship. If we can strike a deal with a Port, we might be able to get some protection. Even if we can't, we might be able to get supplies delivered to the base. This could be our chance."

My eyes lit up, hearing such news.

But for some reason, Saul looked troubled.

"But... it sounds pretty fishy. From what I've heard, it's only young kids that get taken in. I've even heard word of parents being separated from their own kids."

"Huh...?"

"I don't know the details, but we shouldn't let our guard down. Still, if we can establish a connection with the Port, we'll be able to rest easy for the time being. I don't want to miss this opportunity."

It was a new hope, one I never could've imagined.

Perhaps our journey together was nearing its goal.

"Hey, Saul. The Port's protected by God Eaters, right? Then... why don't we become God Eaters?"

I'd heard that even kids could become God Eaters.

The ultimate warrior that could defeat Aragami. With that kind of power, there'd be nothing to fear.

Plus, if even one of us became a God Eater, we'd have an easier time getting the Port to protect our family.

"I bet I could—"

"No way."

It was rare for Saul to speak so harshly.

"...Look, Zeke. I know you just want to protect our family. And hearing that makes me really happy. But becoming a God Eater is off the table."

"But why?! I'd be super strong, I know it!"

"And after you get strong, then what? You'd spend your days doing nothing but fighting Aragami, never knowing when you might die. ...We're not aiming for a battlefield. We're aiming for safety."

Saul knelt down, looked me in the eye, and gently ruffled my hair.

"We five brothers are one. ...We don't let anyone cross a rickety bridge alone. Alright?"

"...'M sorry."

When it came to taking risks, the five of us had to stick together. I knew that.

But in reality, it was always Saul and Rhys crossing those rickety bridges to protect us.

It was about time I protected my brothers, too.

"I hope you understand. Now, let's get that cargo unloaded! All together now!"

Although Rhys patted me on the head and told me not to worry about anything, it still felt like he was treating me like a little kid, so I couldn't really cheer up.

Midnight, that same day.

As the sky began to turn white, I suddenly woke up and realized Neal wasn't in his bed.

I snuck out so I wouldn't wake anyone. After searching for a while, I found Neal crouched in a corner of the base, hugging his knees.

"Neal! What are you doing outside this late? Wait... Are you... crying?"

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

Seeing Neal quietly shedding tears, I quickly knelt down next to him.

Laying at his feet was the butterfly from earlier.

"Is... Is it dead?"

"I put it in the container properly, but... when I went to check on it, it was already..."

Neal's eyes were red and puffy as he stared at the butterfly's unmoving body.

"You've been crying out here this whole time...?"

I'd thought it was just one little insect.

But to Neal, it had been an irreplaceable friend.

"...I'm sorry, Neal. I said some nasty things about your friends."

I sat down beside him and put my arm around his shoulders.

We stayed like that for a while until Neal calmed down.

"...You know, Zeke? I agree with Saul."

"Huh?"

"I don't want you to become a God Eater... I don't want you to go off on your own."

Neal stared at me, his eyes full of tears.

"I want all of us to stay together forever. Keith feels the same way, I'm sure. So please... Don't even think about doing anything dangerous, okay?"

I really was a terrible big brother.

How could I protect my little brother if I was the one making him feel like this?

I was the worst, not even considering my brothers' feelings.

"...You're right. I didn't think about how it'd make you guys feel."

I held Neal's shoulders tightly.

As I shared my body's warmth with his, cold from crying all night, I made an oath.

"Sorry. I won't say anything stupid like that again. We five brothers are one, right?"

"...Promise?"

"Yeah, I promise! I won't leave anyone behind, and I won't leave anyone alone! So, there's no need to cry!"

Neal wiped his eyes. This time, he gave me a small smile.

I wanted to be able to help my brothers, too. That feeling rang true, but... in the end, maybe my brothers were right. I was being too hasty.

What I should do. What I could do. I was so close.

I had an important mission: to protect the bonds between us brothers.

[niicevibe]

𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐤𝐞 + 𝐘/𝐍 𝐇𝐂𝐬

KITA, BABYYYYYYY

I've been wanting to write for him ever since that episode was animated. Y'know, the one where we all wanted to hug him -- y-yeah, that one.

I love him. Sweetest boy. Oh god, I could hold him all day and make him some lemonade -- Now, there was originally a reason why I'd first decided not to write for Haikyū characters, and it was Shinsuke Kita. He -- he was the reason. I got obsessed over him and the Inarizaki boys and could not help myself. Just look at him. Lil foxy boy.

I've given him my favourite colour for his banners... mm... I love him. I feel like this one doesn't do him enough justice, but college is taking priority again, if you've noticed the dates spreading out. . .

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: none, he's a sweetie!!!!

𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧.

For us as viewers, it's different -- we're so quick to fall in love with the characters on the screen, even the ones who, in their society, wouldn't be given a second glance at. Like they are non-playable characters we'd avoid in a video game.

But handsome, handsome, perfect Shinsuke Kita. So much about him is admired by us, but in his world, perhaps people think he's too quiet, so he goes too unnoticed...

He's such a diligent, hardworking, earnest person that when he's finally alone, he'll take a moment to take in the day, to take a deep breathe to release the tension settled deep into the muscles of his shoulders.

Sometimes, he tires of having to be so hardworking, but it's done so he's able to pursue his goals and dreams. His feelings toward routines and repetition and maintaining good manners are a few of the driving factors behind his madness.

You might not've truly taken much notice of him until later on in your high school experience. Inarizaki's boys volleyball team just named a new captain? Shinsuke Kita? That's my deskmate, you've realized. The quiet boy who sits to your left, who keeps to himself in a polite sort-of-way, who considers offering you help with your schoolwork when he sees you struggling, who engages with his peers only mostly when necessary, and who you've sometimes caught in the corner of your eye glancing your way when your voice raises in one of your conversations.

Now, you're feeling a little guilty that you might not've conversed with him as much as you should have, sitting right next to him, though you wonder that if you do decide to, so suddenly, and after he'd become the talk of the school, he'd think poorly of you.

It's rare that Kita is brought into another's conversation or that any of the others engage with him outside of group work (besides Aran or Ōmimi), so when you're suddenly asking him to have lunch with you so out of the blue, he finds himself clutching his bento to his chest, lips parted and eyes wide.

You congratulating him also takes him off-guard, not that he was on-guard with you. The fact that someone outside his team noticed one of his accomplishments has warmed his heart; he can feel it swirling in his chest, like a gentle summer's breeze.

Though now, you're the opposite, still stuck on your earlier concerns. And so, you apologize to him, and this takes him by surprise, too. Maybe it's because he'd always looked so calm and peaceful when you weren't working together; maybe it's because you might've been a little more outgoing, a little more talkative than him, and you felt that you might've bothered him and his apparent serenity.

But Kita only shakes his head at you, and when a smile appears in place of his fixed gaze, you find your own gaze stuck and fixed on him.

"Whether it's to me or the others, I like listening to you talk."

Definitely not what you expected him to say!!! So you sit there, face warm with fluster, desperately trying to think of a response when his expression shifts into one of concern, and he's immediately asking if you're alright, and then you're nodding, and--

You know how blunt and honest Shinsuke Kita is. Everyone knows this. So, maybe, from now on - if he'll allow you - you owe it to him to stay honest.

Lunch dates have become a routine. Most often, it might just be the two of you unless some of your friends or Aran or Ōmimi would join.

But there eventually came a time that Kita wanted it to just be the two of you. Completely comfortable in your presence, he never feels left out of a conversation; he enjoys that when you two talk, your focus is completely on him, your eyes wide with interest. But he does the exact same, a respectful focus on you no matter what you speak of. And maybe you become so excited that you forget -- you already told him this yesterday. But he doesn't interrupt you to tell you this, even though he knows you've already told him that story, too.

Hearing you speak to him, at him, about him, with that warm tone and those bright eyes, he'd never dare stop you.

You're there for all of his practices, sitting high up in the gallery with your textbook in your lap, your eyes flitting back and forth between the words and Kita, who you catch doing the same whenever he's spared a moment. He's gained another motivation to do well; he'd like to impress you, thinking back to the congratulations you'd given him that began your friendship.

Not Atsumu, Osamu, and Rintarō being nosey about your sudden presence and Kita giving them nothing

You attend each of his games. Either you'd find the chants belonging to Inarizaki plain annoying, or you'd know them off by heart, but you'd still sit away from the noisy group for Kita to be able to easily find you in the sea of black, red and white.

When he'd told you that his third year was his first one playing in actual games, you'd been so surprised and expressed a concerned curiosity that he doesn't immediately understand until you tell him how wonderful he is in his practices.

Shinsuke Kita is a very modest, bashful person. If you compliment him, he'll freeze a bit, and possibly offer a whispered, "thank you".

You recall all the comments people have made about him being robotic and wonder how the hell they could when he carries such an obvious passion for volleyball and his education and even for you. It's subtle, it's calm and it's quiet -- it doesn't need to be a huge show of emotions like what someone like Atsumu puts out. And you love that, despite Kita knowing what they say about him, he'd never bother to try and change himself, to force himself out of his comfort zone.

There's just no way that he could be, but others don't know him enough or well enough to realize that he hears what they say. He does. He's just trying to think of a proper reaction since he's not used to things like this. That's why he'd been so emotional when he'd finally received his own uniform. Rintarō had mentioned this in passing, but you suspected him being suspicious of the two of you and that he'd just wanted to meddle.

Nothing had become anything serious between you and Kita until the end of your final year together. I believe Kita would be incredibly formal, respectful of tradition, and sentimental that he might present the idea to you at the end of your graduation ceremony.

It would be in private, away from prying eyes and open ears. Sidelined and possibly hidden away in his locker would be a small bouquet of flowers with a card tucked inside, that written on the face of it be a simple "congratulations"/"おめでとう" -- the first word you'd said to him in the beginning of the year.

"Just because we're graduating... I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to you."

Neither were you, of course. Maybe it'd been a struggle to put it into words up until now, or maybe you'd wanted to wait until the last minute on purpose -- it frightened Kita that you'd leave this place, leave him and your memories with him behind.

"I wouldn't dream of saying goodbye," you promise him. "Not ever."

The silence grown between you is maddening, but you recognize the look on Kita's face as one he wears when trying to word something right. He isn't a nervous person, but things have to be planned out right and things have to be said right. It's been his belief for a long time.

So, you wait for him. And it's most definitely worth the wait.

"Not ever," he repeats. He takes a deep breath, eyes never leaving yours as he steps toward you. "Then don't say goodbye at all. Be my girlfriend."

And obviously, you'd never expected those words to leave his mouth. Sometimes you forget about how blunt he can be, rarely holding back anything he says, his feelings strong and sentiments always clear and present.

This was the first time he'd done this to you in a while. But it was like you'd already said -- you'd never dream of goodbyes with Shinsuke Kita.

Some days, Kita will worry that he's too boring. He'll likely need words of affirmation; maybe you're more loud and full of laughter around your other friends and not as much with him, but it's not because you think he's boring or anything close to that. You're just so comfortable with him and when he's around, you're your true self, at peace in his presence. Up and down, you promise him this.

Not necessarily a jealous man, however, with anything concerning you, he'll have many secondary thoughts. Kita would be someone who replays possible scenarios in his head, as a contrary to his actual actions he'd chosen to use. He'd have certain things scripted out and ready to respond with, just in case the wrong words exited his mouth. He has great faith in and love for you, so he knows there'd be no chance of unfaithfulness between you two.

When Kita had began his rice farming business, you'd been right at his side. It'd been a surprise, certainly. Several years into things, somedays, it's still a surprise.

You love watching him succeed, watching him enjoy what he does. You love the life you two share; living in one of the most rural parts of Hyōgo, it's so very peaceful, a parallel to the feelings you've always had being around Shinsuke Kita.

A hard day of work? You're quick to make him his favourite meal and some fresh lemonade, though as you do, you find yourself reminiscing on moments, conversations, feelings and thoughts; you're taken back to the conversation had between you, Kita, and Kita's grandmother, ironically on the topic of marriage, when the two of you had actually shown up to announce that you two would be getting married.

It's always going to be the little things for Kita with you. He already adores you to begin with -- when you come out to join him in the fields but always supply him with a warm hug from behind that seems to energize him every time; when you make sure that when it's your turn to do the laundry for you two, you always air dry his long sleeves and pants so he won't get static shocked, since you know how terribly he hates the feeling.

In return, Kita would be the most doting man to walk the earth. Perhaps you help him full time with the rice fields, or maybe you have another job or priority like school and help with his work when you're not working, but he's always concerned that you push yourself too hard either way. He's quick to make you tea or serve you with your favourite treat. He's always checking to make sure you haven't come down with a fever after having been out in the sun or in the snow, and as an excuse, he'd wrap you with your warmest blanket and lay with his arms around you as added warmth.

And as you lay there, soft breathing escaping you, Kita can only think to himself how he'd wished that back then, he'd become captain sooner, since that's how this all began.

© niicevibe | please don’t repost! reblogs appreciated ♥️

[nightswithkookmin]

RE HOW BIGHIT MARKETS BTS

Thanks for the question dear.

Marketing is for a lot of things but in BTS's case, I'd say the primary goal of marketing them is to expose the entire group and or the individual members to an audience, a particular audience at a time, to brand them in a way that makes them appealing to that target market- to put it simply.

During one of the recent run episodes, when Jimin performed his dance from Serendipity- which I must say, God he is breathtakingly beautiful when he dances. Serendipity and the choreo is my weakness. If I see anything better than that- hold on, there's filter too. Ayayaya.

Stream Serendipity and Filter🔪

Oh and did y'all see JM's bit in Film out? Omg! I'm afraid I'd have to fly to South K to kiss his talented ass morning, afternoon, evening.

Who's coming?

Anywho, when Jimin performed Serendipity on Run and suggested that was the dance the staff was performing, the members- cough RM, quickly pointed out how he was plugging, self promoting (to Run's target audience)

Run has a different demographic.

When Suga talked about them not being funny on their Let's BTS show on KBS the Host pointed out how they were actually funny in their Run episodes.

A lot of Army(who are already fans of BTS or each individual member) watch Run but not all who watch Run are Army or even listen to BTS songs. So any performance of an individual's music or choreo would attract such a 'unique' viewer who might go on to become that member's stan or bias etc.

Similarly, when a member embarks on a solo project they are exposed to a new or unique audience. That's where most of the solo stans come from.

For V, his fanbase are not just made up of people who enjoy him as a musician but as an actor as well.

He has a strong fanbase in SK outside of 'Army' because of his exposure to the Korean market beyond BTS and this comprises of his musical collaborations with Korean Artists and film companies such as his OST Sweet Night on the series Itaewon class.

It's the same with Suga and IU, his Agust D mixtapes which draws in audiences that are not necessarily into boybands, RM's Mono whixh attracts strong hiphop fans, Jimin's dance collaborations with Taemin for example and his contemporary dance performance which attracts people in the world of contemporary dance and ballet- point in case the black swan performance at the end of the year, Jin and Hobi's MCing etc.

All these projects exposes them to unique audiences and markets outside of Army or BTS's own fanbase.

And I think the best way to understand how this is important or how this affects BigHit's marketing approach is to look at their recent YouQuiz interviews.

Jimin, Jhope and JK were paired to attract aspiring dancers or persons who want to be dancers and learn from these three dance leaders of BTS- or at least they were paired to appeal to them in my opinion.

Tae and RM were equally paired to appeal to creatives and creative minds and persons who are more into composing and writing lyrics and are full of passion and musical geniuses.

Jin and Suga were paired to appeal to mature audiences.

Ten out of ten when any pair is paired in BTS it is for marketing reasons to appeal to certain fanbase or audiences and are often strategic moves unless of course it's to balance things out to not create the impression they are promoting subunits within the group in furtherance of the BTS kumbaya agenda- Team over units or solos.

So Jikook are not gonna be allowed to sit together all the time even if they want to, neither would JinKook, or Sope.

They shake and reshuffle sometimes.

And like Tae said in his 2018 VLive, the company decides who they collaborate in or what market to promote them in.

Tae was allowed to collaborate with Adora on his Chrismas song but not Jimin- which to me is very homophobic but it goes to show the company has a say in who they work with and most importantly which market they work in.

For JK, he's been working his way within the American marke and building a strong fanbase internationally from his English covers of Justin Bieber, Troye Sivan, to his collaboration with Charlie Puth, and most recently Jason Derulo in Savage love- that's a lot of English speaking fanbase he's attracting and appealing to outside of Army.

Tae's English mixtape would achieve a similar feat and draw in a lot of English speaking fans.

Bts did the same with dynamite and coldplay's Fix you.

So by allowing JK to work with renowned Japanese Artists and film companies, collaborating and composing original sound tracks for them such as his Your eyes tell OST, Film out, etc. he is appealing to and drawing in a Japanese audience.

As Hobi explained in his 2019 January Vlive, their mixtapes, solo projects, collaborations with Artists outside of BTS are all ways for them to expand their fanbase individually and build their portfolio.

And these new fans are mostly going to be solo stans who stan him for his music composing abilities but of course some may fall in love with BTS as well and go on to become Army so it's a win win situation.

WOULDN'T THE OTHERS OBJECT

Yes and no.

As long as the company isn't pushing him as a soloist outside of BTS and creating a separate brand with him outside of BTS's own brand I don't think the boys would object to it.

That was the problem they had/have with Jikook. In my opinion.

The company branding Jikook, distinctifying them from the group as a 'couple' subunit, selling their chemistry to fans and advertisers really doesn't and didn't sit well with the group. AT ALL.

In my opinion of course.

You can't create a brand within a brand.

It goes against Bang PD's own objective of prioritizing the team over all else which is what sold the members in the first place.

I just think in JK's case, since 2020, they are just trying to help him find himself and his bearing and his purpose.

He's been trying to find himself since 2020 and he'd talked about losing his passion and had had his passion hijacked and commercialized by the company.

He used to say he didn't know what he was going to do with himself and his life and career after BTS- having him work on music videos, directing, composing, reading these are all ways that they are doing right by him if you ask me.

They are helping him not trying to push their own agendas- which is not to say they might not change their minds about it in the future.

JK is an artist being managed by the company and they owe a duty to him to make the right business decisions for him with his consent- can't stress on the consent bit enough.

Personally, I'm happy about Japan because they are and are shaping out to be queer friendly and have a bit of progressive laws and conducive environments for queer artists to flourish in- if coming out would ruin their careers that's one less worry.

Which by the way I hate anyone who peddles this 'coming out will ruin their careers' nonsense because I can tell you one hundred percent that that is rooted in homophobia and it's not OK.

Don't tell that to no queer people shut up. You are not helping.

I know some say that out of genuine concerns for the boys but PLEASE DON'T. Don't use fear to keep queer people hidden and out of sight. Don't promote closet safety. Rhetorics like that only perpetuate queer invisibility and homophobia- do I need to spell it out to your liberal homophobic ass?!

Coming out is entirely up to them regardless of the risk you think is involved. If they want to take it. They'll take it. It's their choice to make regardless of whatever consequence.

That there are or should be consequences is a problem in of itself.

I don't want to hear 'if JK comes out he's been stupid and reckless and putting Jimin's career at risk'

'If he loves Jimin he wouldn't come out'

Go ahead kiss it😌

If he wants to stay closested respect it. If he wants to come out RESPECT IT TOO.

Support him either ways goddammit!

Y'all gone get me bothered like that huh.

JK POTENTIALLY WITHOUT JIMIN

They both have different career objectives.

I know Jimin says JK is imitating him but chilee JK is his own person. Lol.

Jimin plays too much.

He has his own aspirations.

In 2014 Jimin posted this Christmas song he did with JK. In 2020 he posted his own Christmas song without Jk.

It's not hard to see where his interests in music lie as a musician.

JK covered We don't talk anymore by himself and later did a collaboration with Jimin on the same song. He's done Fools with RM- see where I'm going with this?

Suga said he was more likely to write pop songs for JK but write dance songs for Jimin.

Jk said in the Be interviews bang PD advised him to consider dance performances when writing songs as he himself is a dancer too and need to incorporate in his compositions.

They are two distinct artists and at some point it would become necessary to brand, promote and encourage their uniqueness in their professional lives. They don't got to be tethered to each other all the time.

Personally, I don't think BigHit would want to push official subunits within BTS- yet and it's inclination towards Jikook have always been because of their marketing appeal rather than to further a career objective for both of them.

This goes back to the pairing objectives I talked about earlier. If they are going to pair Jikook professionally as an official subunit within the group it wouldn't be because they are a couple and ought to be together all the time but because it is smart for them to do so business wise.

If their pairing isn't commercially profitable they won't be paired at all- unless of course Jikook themselves want and request to be paired in that way. Know what I mean?

They each signed separate contracts with the company from day dot. They didn't sign on as a unit.

Whether or not they've decided they are a package deal I cannot say- yet, as their new contract just came into effect.

We would have to observe how they are being handled by the company going forward.

HE'D NEVER DO IT WOULD HE

Come now sis...

It's not like he's leaving Jimin😅

Jimin and Jhope were equally sent to Japan for promotion purposes without JK.

Out of all seven, Namjoon is the most promoted member in the international Market not just because he speaks English but because he is often made the spokes person for the group in interviews, at awards straight up to the UN.

Look how happy they all were and how chatty they were at the KBS Let's BTS interview.

I mean they all talked about it. About how they can't say much on foreign forums and often step into Namjoon's shadows.

RM is the most recognized and dare I say the most liked member out of all seven in the international market outside Army and their music profession.

In Japan they all have a chance to be front and center at interviews etc.

It just so happens that JK as it stands is the one member pushing to build a portfolio within that market.

Let's pray he gets mainstream and build a strong presence within the music industry there because we all know he's gonna drag Jimin up there with him😏

Just pay attention to the songs he's written and the parts Jimin sings in them- he makes Jimin shine on those songs.

They have so much potential my God.

Let's support them individually and as a unit.

I purple you and sorry I had to respond here.

Stay gold. Let's keep supporting and rooting for our guys.

Signed,

GOLDY

[emachinescat]

I've decided to watch MacGyver from the beginning (again), and I'm live tweeting the experience with every tweet tagged with #savemacgyver. I thought it would be fun to share my collected thoughts from the episodes on here as well.

My Thoughts on S1E1, "The Rising"

Good old Lake Como.

"How do I look?" Always amazing, Mac, though here you are so bebby. Gosh, tiny Lucas is tiny.

Ugggh, Nikki. My least favorite story arc in the show. Even with her redemption arc, even her face makes me mad.

I am soooo glad this awkward flirting is only in this episode. Mac and Nikki have never vibed with me.

JACK DALTON

"Who loves ya, baby?" We all do, Jack.

I always wished they would have played more into the original Mac's reason for not carrying a weapon - not just so he doesn't get caught but because he doesn't like them. That was actually one reason I used to be so upset at the reboot when it first came out. I still feel like Mac's character was off for this first episode - a little too cocky, not super developed. But still lovable, and with so much potential!

It's so cool to see how much Lucas has grown into this character over the years, really making it his own while still holding on to its essence.

Lol "serious bad-assery" - Nikki thinks she's so cool. (Spoiler: she's not.)

Lololol Nikki is the Walmart brand of Riley.

Mac in glasses. Adorbs.

Man, I'm already so ready for Matty. Patti is the off brand version of her.

I always love watching Mac rifle through stuff to find his improvisation supplies!

First MacSplaining session! Electromagnets!

"Is this George Clooney's house?" I miss Jack so freaking much.

Mac kind of looks like a penguin with that waiter outfit on and I'm living for it.

The second Mac hack is so Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew.

"Why don't you ever flirt with me like that?" Um, Jack, do you want your partner's girlfriend flirting with you, daddy fixation or not?

There are two kinds of oops, accordng to Jack Dalton: Oops - I just stubbed my toe / Ooooooops - Zombie apocalypse initiated.

Mac's hair is so shaggy.

"START THE DAMN BOAT!" Classic.

"Hold this and get out of my way." Dang, Mac.

The bad guy is the dude from Galavant hahaha. I know this guy has been in so many things, but he will always be Gareth to me. (That's his name, right? Gareth?)

W H U M P

I actually love the consistency of Mac always having that scar even seasons into the series (except for the last time, in the river). Overall great attention to detail!

That is a LOT of blood in the water.

Lol I'm pretty sure Grandpa Harry didn't say that in so many words, Mac.

Poor traumatized bebby. What am I saying? I live for this stuff.

Awww, lil Bozer. So smol. So pure. And now I want waffles.

"Eat your waffles." Three words I will never say no to.

"Give me Wang." -Bozer, 2016

Am I the only one who finds these intimate scenes between Mac and Nikki hella awkward?

QUARANTINE, sounds familiar.

Lol "cyberteam." Once Riley Davis comes along, they will be obsolete.

Jack just wants a hug.

I always hated the clinical white room in the pilot. Can't wait for the War Room.

I love the interactions between Jack and Riley.

Mac and Riley EYE CONTACT.

"You two are on timeout from now on." 😂😂😂

THE MOMENT WHERE HE GRABS HER HANDS

Lol, thanks for telling me that's a paperclip. I was so confused.

"Riley has so much hair!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

I love how Riley takes charge. Her confidence is 🔥🔥🔥

"You know what, never mind, I'd be pissed at you too." 🤣

Jack's so proud of his daughter. 💕

"Is that real?" Bless Jack's heart. He's such an old man.

Patti is a square. Pretty, competent, but boring. I miss Matty.

"My man never jokes about tin foil."

Ooooo Nikki is alive. Poor Mac. His whole world keeps getting turned on its head.

Jack can be scary when he wants to be.

Poor, poor, Mac. When he faces Nikki, he looks like a kicked golden retriever. (Also, NEVER kick a dog.)

I'm just eating up all this angst.

Mr. Wizard lololol

Mac hanging from a plane is soooo iconic.

"Don't get cocky. You're the only other one here." Haha, the SASS on this girl.

"Go ahead, you aready had me killed once." Also, oof. Undercover or not, Nikki is cold. I can't stand her.

Excuse me, Patricia, but I would consider running over your neighbor's dog (or any dog) a damn catastrophe, too.

"Sometimes a purge is necessary to fix what's broken." Codex, anyone?

Love this whole chase/fight sequence so much. The music, action, everything... perfect.

The sweat on Mac's forehead when dangling out of the 🚁 - such a great detail!

"YOU GO KABOOM, I GO KABOOM"

Kind of weird to me that Mac seems to be using so much guesswork with this bomb, especially when we know that he's one of the best specialists out there.

That fight scene in the back of the vehicle is one of my all time favorites. The whump is excellent.

Okay, but when does MacGyver ever do anything the way Jack has in mind?

DIY or die. Still so lame, lol. The parachute is awesome, though.

Oof. That landing looks painful and the whumper in me loves it. Even more, I can't get over how worried Jack is as he rushes to Mac's side. ❤️❤️❤️

That break in his voice when he asks if Mac's okay is just... AYSKTUFYIFUYliIIGUOG

Mac burning Nikki's pics like that old Taylor Swift song.

Bozer calling Jack his bestie is so weird and funny to me.

I am so ready for Bozer to get over Riley. They are so much better as friends.

Lol "Those fries won't cook themselves." The crack of a whip, man.

Jack calling Riley a little rascal and then gently asking Mac if he's doing all right there, pal ... taking care of his kids, and I am DYING.

The Three Amigos... come on, Jack. You can do better than that.

Is it bad that I'm actually a little surprised that Jack knows what a Phoenix is? Just seems like something he wouldn't care to learn, especially since he's a sci fi junkie but I never really hear him talk about fantasy.

Oooooooo Nikki's on the loose. Gotta end with suspense, to hook those viewers and make them want more. Well, I want more of this show, but not because of her.

Well, awesome re-watch of episode 1. Definitely not my favorite by a long shot, but so iconic and with some amazing moments! It just makes me that much more excited to get to see the show and the characters grow!

If anyone wants to join me in my re-watching and tweeting adventure, please do! It's my way to take about an hour a day in my busy, busy life to commit to the #savemacgyver movement. (And to enjoy my favorite show yet again!) If you do tweet as you watch, make sure to tag EVERY tweet with ONLY #savemacgyver so we can keep that hashtag trending! :)

Thanks for letting me share my (numerous) thoughts on this episode. This was really fun, and I hope it's something you all enjoy, too. I'll probably go ahead and post episode 2 tonight since I just watched it. I'd love to know what you all think of the episode in the comments! ❤️

[getitinbusan]

CAM BUNNY TWO - SMUT

Part ONE Here

"Baby I'm so bored." 

You set your book face down to hold it's space, it was the 4th time he'd interrupted you.

"Why aren't you working on your mixtape, you need to get it done Guk." 

His fingers walked up your bare leg and stopped at the hem of your shorts. 

"I need inspiration," he whined while climbing on top of you. 

Tucking his head into your neck he trailed kisses down your collar bone, "and I'm horny."

You giggled while pushing his head, trying to keep him at bay but it only made him try harder. 

"I'd wager a bet that in the last 2 months you've had more sex than in your entire life." 

He smiled devilishly, "It's not my fault you feel so good."

He picked up the new vibrator that had been delivered earlier, "Plus, how am I supposed to focus with all this stuff around." 

"You want me to use it on you? We can show..." you picked up the card, "DaddyDong69 his gift in action." 

Jungkook laughed, "I can't believe men send you these things. Do you think they'd still watch if they knew you had a boyfriend?" 

You playfully bit the tip of the silicone, "Wanna find out?" 

Hoseok quickly walked back to his room from the dance studio. Lately he'd been experiencing an unusual but not necessarily unwelcome side effect of his long practice sessions.

It took  about 10 minutes to hit, his work outs had been increasing his testosterone levels, making his blood pump straight to his cock.

Turning the handle and locking the door behind him, he immediately tugged his pants down. Laptop and moisturizer conveniently at the ready he woke up the screen with the pad of his finger. 

He shouldn't be on here but he couldn't help himself, the CAMBUNNY site had been bookmarked for the last few months and he'd become a regular.

Jungkook didn't have to know, you didn't have to know. As long as he stayed on the screen chat what did it hurt? 

Your light was off, damn, what a waste of an erection.

Scrolling through pictures, he could get off to someone else, but it wouldn't be the same. Suddenly like you knew he was waiting, your availability turned on. 

_______________

"You wanted to play Kookie, so we're going to play."

His eyes looked innocent and naive, two things he definitely wasn't. "Don't worry, I'll protect your secret identity."

You winked and threw the latex suit at him "Go put this on." 

Getting everything set up you flicked your room to open. 

Jungkook stood over you, "Why does everyone use weird names? What's an Angma-J?"

You laughed at him, "Well TOKKI...an Angma is a devilish fiend. A mischievous person who is extremely addicted to some pernicious habit, and in this case, I'm going to guess that it's porn." 

"Hmm," he repeated the word for practice, "pernicious...Is he a regular?"

"Yeah, he's been around a while, seems harmless enough. Want me to ask?" 

He slid the mask over his head, "Let's do it!" 

________________

"Hey baby," you spoke into the camera. "I was wondering if you'd like to watch something new tonight?"

Angma-J: What are you thinking? I'm so hard for you. 

I thought maybe you'd like to watch me get fucked by a real cock."

You pulled Jungkook and his shiny suit into the frame.

"You can pretend it's you in there...you inside me, you making me moan...what do you say?" 

Nothing, silence...you waited. Jungkook clicked mute, "Y/N, he's not going to do it, I'm telling you." 

"He will so you'd better shut up and remember not to use our names." 

________________

Was he really going to do it? Was he so sexually deprived that he'd sit here and watch you and Jungkook fuck while he masturbted?

He hit the keys one at a time…. words began appearing on the screen….

Angma-J: Fuck yes.

_______________

You gave a quick wink to the camera and pulled your shirt off leaving Jungkook dumbfounded.

He had been 100% positive that Angma-J was going to bail and that he'd just get to fuck you while wearing the suit. 

He was frozen, you needed to fix this.

Leaning close to the camera, tits filling the screen you blocked the view of the room. Hitting mute you turned your head to look at him. "Guk, baby, are you scared?" 

"Not scared, I just don't know how to start…"

"I want you to show him I'm yours okay? Show him that real men get to fuck real women and not just their hands."

"Okay."

"Come stand behind me and play with my tits."

Unmuting and backing away from the camera his gloved hands wrapped around your chest and firmly gave your nipples a tug.

His touch turned them hard and he couldn't resist lowering his head to take a long suck. The open zipper mouth of his mask dragged cool and sharp across your flesh in contrast to his hot tongue on your bulleted tips. 

He looked up at you, his eyes weren't sparkly and playful as usual, they were dark and dangerous.

He brought his mouth to yours, teasing, coaxing your tongue to meet his. Grabbing your breast he held up your nipple in the space between you, both your tongues darting over it and each other. 

"Lay back," he commanded.

Moving to pull him back with you he caught both your hands. His one large hand easily secured both your arms above your head.

He smirked while angling the camera between your legs, "Don't you love looking at this pretty cunt?" 

_________________

Hope could barely believe what he was seeing. He was so jealous that Jungkook got to fuck you whenever he wanted. 

He looked down at his weeping cock wishing he could just put it in you. 

Angma -J: put your fingers in her and fuck her with them …. rough.

________________

Jungkook looked at you, it was strange yet exciting to let someone else call the shots.

While he was apprehensive to proceed without your consent, he had also watched you before, and felt he knew your limits.

He held his fingers up to the camera and smiled before he plunged them two deep inside you without warning. 

His hand thrust hard, you were sure you'd be bruised from his knuckles in the morning. 

Still confining your hands, you were at his mercy. Bringing his mouth back to your chest he bit your nipple and tugged it between his teeth. 

"Fuck…" you almost said his name but caught yourself.

He laughed, "Fuck what baby? Does your tiny pussy hurt from my fingers?" He looked back at the camera, "should I give her another?"

________________

Hope shifted in his seat, cock in hand stroking the tip slowly.

He was trying not to be over eager, he wanted this to last. He'd tuned into you a few times but fuck, something about watching Jungkook use you made it 100 times better.

Angma -J: Tell me how she tastes

_______________

The question triggered him, the look he had on his face was predatory. Being allowed to let his perversions come out while in disguise felt so good.

He let go of your hands and dropped to his knees. Spreading your wet lips apart he smiled directly into the camera before taking a big lick. 

"So fucking good, like a tart juicy apple. You know when you take a hug bite and it gets all over your chin..fuck, just like that. 

He worked his mouth around your clit, circling it, sucking it, teasing it until your excitement was dripping. 

Using his tongue he gathered up your milky discharge and held it out for Angma-J to envy.

Making a show of swallowing it Jungkook moaned, "Hot apple pie." 

________________

He almost came right then and there. He had to look away from the screen before he blew his load.

Angma-J: Make her suck you off

_______________

You swear you'd never seen Jungkook this happy about anything.

He stood up over you with a crooked grin, "We both want my cock in your mouth."

Standing up you let your hands travel over the black vinyl suit. It hugged every curve, accentuated every muscle as his hard cock strained against it looking for release. 

You got on your knees and licked the outline of his tip while looking into the camera.

The zipper ran from bottom to top, starting at the base of his cock to just below his belly button. You opened it slowly and only enough to remove his balls.

His delicate flesh laying against the suit made a strong contrast for the camera. He let his head fall to watch while you sucked them into your mouth, one at a time, back and forth. 

"You want more, baby?"

Jungkook nodded as you worked the zipper higher. His full hard length sprang out demanding attention from your mouth. 

You put your hands behind your back so your viewer could see everything.

Just sucking his tip, Jungkook got whiney, not getting the full sensation he was after.

"That's not enough, I know you can take my whole cock." 

You smiled and flicked his tip with your tongue, "make me."

Grabbing a fist full of hair he pulled your head back, "Open wide for Appa." 

He slid his cock into your mouth slowly the first few times letting your throat relax then faster and deeper.

Holding your head stationary he fucked himself into your throat. Gagging around him, drool spilled from your mouth down your tits. Unclasping your hands from behind you, you rubbed the liquid over your breasts.

Lubricating your nipples you scissor pinched them between your fingertips. 

_______________

Angma-J: I want to see her pink pussy get off on the suit. Thigh ride? 

_______________

Jungkook groaned, "But i'm not done." 

"Too bad babe, you've gotta do what the customer wants and the customer wants to watch me get off."

You smiled playfully at the lens and switched to the bed camera.

"I think we can give you a good view from here." 

You patted the bed for Jungkook to lay down and grabbed a bottle of lube from the bedside table.

Holding it high in the air you let a stream fall slowly over his leg, fuck this was going to feel good. 

Straddling his thigh you let your sex slide across him. The slick of the wet vinyl dragging across your clit was almost too much sensation to handle.

Jungkook and J-Hope both stroked themselves in time with your motions as you humped Kookies leg.

Hobi leaned into the screen, your opening was glimmering with wetness and he could see you beginning to clench.

Crying out, Jungkook grabbed your hips and helped you move through your climax. The thick strings of your release clung between you and the suit, a white trail sticking to the material. 

Both men were becoming desperate to cum. 

"How should I finish her?"

______________

Angma-J: "In her ass, I bet she really likes that"

______________

"Do you like that baby? Do you like taking my cock in your ass?"

In show of approval you spread your ass cheeks apart.

Running his fingers over your cunt he gathered the excess slick and pushed it into your anus making you moan. 

He looked at the Camera, always the showman, "Are you ready?" 

He slapped your bottom, and pressed his tip at your entrance. Pushing nice and slow he meweled, "I love fucking this ass." 

Sitting back on his knees he held your hips guiding you to thrust yourself onto him.

He liked it like this, he was always afraid he'd go too deep or too hard but like this, you were in control. You weren't afraid, you loved every stroke, feeling him deep inside you. 

He was breathing heavy...

Hope was clutching his cock ready to explode....

"Tell me I'm being a good girl."

"So fucking good." J hope moaned to the screen.

"Tell me how badly you want to cum into me."

"I want to watch it drip out of you baby," Kookie purred.

As you sank back he grabbed your waist and held you still while ejaculating into you with a grunt.

Pulling his cock out you backed into the camera.

J-Hope finished himself while watching Jungkook's cum ooze out of you and down your leg. 

Turning off the feed you collapsed beside your boyfriend.

Pulling his mask off, you kissed him passionately.

"I missed your face...and your body. Let's get you out of this suit." 

Showered and napped, he headed back to the dorms around dinner time. Most of the guys were already eating in the common kitchen.

Jungkook opened the fridge, there had to be at least 5 pies in there.

He looked at the others, "who the hell ordered all these?"

J-Hope came walking in holding a plate with a fork shoved in his mouth.

"Hobi," Jungkook clued in, "what fucking type of pie is that?"

Hope set the items on the counter before Jungkook could chase him. As he began to flee he yelled out laughing, "I had a sudden craving for Apple." 

[legendarypokemonstudies]

Worldwide TV-broadcast interview brought to you by Mauville television

“Welcome to Co-ordinators galore! Where we interview the best and most interesting coordinaters as of now! Today we have an extremely special guest, so special in fact, that while we don't usually allow pokemon on set, we had to make a special exception just for her! It's the one! The only! Ruianna Arcadia!"

Ruianna walked out onto the set, aura rising in small amounts from her hands, but she seemed quite calm, a small white Riolu, the usually black markings a somewhat darker silvery color, and the yellow ring between the white and that of the usually dark markings. Her fur was a little bit longer, and all but the usual Riolu markings were covered in dark gray almost black in some lighting Liepard spots, aside from her stomach following after her. Tatha was already perched on her shoulder.

Meanwhile Meyu was already on set, appearing in the background, seemingly relaxed as he leaned against the wall, eyes open as he seemed to focus on the tablet in his paws.

The pinkette sat down, picking the Riolu up and setting her in her lap.

"So Ruianna, as every dedicated Coordinating fan knows, about five years ago you simply quit, without a single word, however there were rumors that the reason was a toxic fanbase, tell us all what we're dying to know, why did you quit?"

"I was actually the one who spread those rumors. I figured that maybe if they thought they were the ones who caused my absence in the first place, they'd get better. Roll the damn footage."

A clip rolled, showing a mob of people you could barely see through, all shouting out questions about Rui, including one very hurtful comment in particular, clearly heard above the rest. "Why is Ruianna even friends with someone like you anyways?!"

Rui's Aura flared at that comment, visible even on camera as her calm expression quickly turned to one of rage, and both her Eevee and Meyu glared at the camera.

"But clearly a rumor isn't enough. I'm talking to everyone who mobbed a friend of mine new to the contest scene in Lillycove, you all KNOW what you did, and if you ever do something like that again I will leave the contest scene, permenantly. I love contests. My pokemon love them too, but I refuse to let a toxic fanbase get in the way of my attempts to follow my dreams as a researcher and live my life happily or ruin the fun for my friends and family! This is the only warning you guys get. You all better behave yourselves. Or that contest I participated in will be the last one for me."

"But didn't Caden say that if you permanently quit contests because of your fanbase that he would to?!"

"Yes. We agreed when my fans started getting toxic that if they refused to let us live our lives like normal people save for events, either of us, and drove us to the point of quitting permanently, we'd both quit."

"What was the first breaking point to make you decide to quit the first time?"

"It was *#$@&%¢© horrible, I could barely go outside without being practically stampeded, my Pokemon were scared I'd end up hurt, and that's not even mentioning the paparazzi swarming my entire life. But the real breaking point was when they broke into my family's home where I was staying and tried to steal one of his Pokemon."

"Was it really that bad?"

"Yeah. And getting my education to become a certified legendary researcher? Forget it. But that's in the past, and if I find out that they're going after them again? Not only will I quit, but there's a good chance Meyu will take it personally."

"Mewtwo? The Mewtwo?!"

"Actually, I'm a different Mewtwo, and frankly prefer my nickname. But yes, I will take it personally. Rui's business is my business, and if something is bothering her, it's my job to fix it. No matter what means I may have to use to do so."

"And he's speaking Galarian. Not using Telepathy. Speaking. Full Galarian. I better not lose my job because a god threatened our viewers."

Rui's Aura calmed down, and Meyu went back to the tablet, Tatha adjusting her position on her trainer's shoulder. "Anyway, on a brighter note, I would like to confirm that any rumors that may have been heard about me adopting a kid are in fact true."

"I was just wondering about that, did you really use a Z-move with a Mega on the battlefield? Who were the people you were defending him from? Were they really using shadow Pokemon?"

"I did, but I wouldn't suggest it, I barely managed to pull it off myself, and even then it drained me quite a lot. If someone without a strong enough life force attempted it without knowing what they were doing, using the precise method I did, and had more than enough life force to make a mistake? Well they'd die."

"She's exaggerating on how much it drained her, but that's because she has an inhuman amount of Aura."

"As for who I was fighting, well let's just say they weren't exactly, good people. Who they were doesn't matter, and don't go pestering my kid for answers. I'm going to be even less tolerant of any treatment of him that's close to what happened to my friend. You can talk, interact and ask him a few questions, but if he wants you to back off and you refuse to respect that he doesn't want to answer your questions or talk? Let's just say that I'm not going to beg for your lives if Meyu decides to defend him. And to answer that last question, yes, they did. Two, but I've since purified them. They'll be fine. Wish I could say the opposite for their former trainers however."

"I can fix that."

"Meyu, no. No murder, I'm not encouraging that."

The reporter nervously cleared her throat. "So, who exactly is your adopted son anyway?"

Rui's face lit up at that question, mood changing instantly from the former angry mama Ursaring she'd just been a moment ago.

"His name is Lazar and he's an adorable child and I love him he's just so precious and amazing and he's one of those kids that must be protected always because they're so pure and kind and did I mention how much I care about him?"

"He's probably watching right now."

"Really?!"

"Also totally not going to listen to what you said earlier."

"Do I need to get the spray bottle?!"

"..... No.. also really? On TV? That's gonna be there forever!"

"And looks like that's all the time we have today, thank you for watching and thank you Miss Arcadia for letting us have this opportunity!"

[rominatrix]

i don't know if you want to answer these kind of questions but i'll take my shot. i decided i'd like to go and see martin's play but i have no idea how the seating plan is at the theater and what kind of seat is "good enough". i'm looking at the seats right now and i don't know how's the view from the seats that are available, bc i'm not familiar with this venue. how did you make the decision? were you happy with your seat, did you see the stage properly etc?

Hi Anon! I love to help so I don’t mind these kinds of questions at all =) I understand what you mean, at first I was sort of scared when I booked my seats because i thought it wouldn’t be very good seats but I was SO HAPPY afterwards. I saw the play 3 times: the first time from the balcony. That one was just bad because it was very far away. I could see them but they looked so tiny and sometimes the volume wasn’t that good. But it wasn’t a seat I booked in advance, i just went there 5 minutes before the play began and they had that one haha. Now the other 2 were stalls seats. Rows D and E and they were quite in the middle of the stage. I think it was one of the best decisions. You can see the actors PERFECTLY, with DETAIL. I think Martin looked my way even a couple of times or so I thought ahahha. But like you can see their faces, eyes, everything. I remember the last show i went to after one of the costume changes, a lock of Martin’s hair was sticking up and it was so funny to see until he touched his head and he fixed it hahaha. It was CUTE and you could even see that kind of detail. I know lots of people have closer seats, perhaps row C would be nice too. People in the very front seats I think might not see for instance their shoes or some stuff Martin does with his feet at some point. I think, i am not sure. What I didn’t like is that there isn’t much leg room between the seats but that’s fine, it’s not a long haul flight :P Martin is usually more towards the right side of the stage, like he stands or sits there more than towards the left. When I say right is from the viewers point of view of course. I think I took a photo from inside the theatre but I don’t have it right now (i didnt take pics of the actors though). There’s also this website where you can not only buy tickets but also check reviews from the different seating locations and for each seat. Sometimes even reviews of each seat and photos. It’s very useful and i’m sure you’ll find it so. The green ones are better reviewed than the darker ones. But I suppose it also depends on the kind of stage that’s set up, this one is quite on stage level? i dont know the theatre language but like it’s not “raised”??Hope this helps! Ask away if you have more questions :)))