#this one isn’t that good i’m just too lazy to save more screenshots to my camera roll

[tellthatbrokebitch]

byler edition v??? these little dudes have tissue issues

[thedoubteriswise]

okay so. I am a smart adult with many important responsibilities. I have good taste and care about things that matter. for this reason, I’ve been trying to identify where in cql canon wangxian manage to fuck.

because they definitely do; I like a good post-canon getting together fic as much as the next guy, but it’s just not realistic.

allow them. it’s already been so long.

(just like this goddamn post turned out to be, let’s do a cut)

right. so initially it looks like you could place this right after the time skip in episode 33, because it shows us that wwx is with lwj in cloud recesses. we know that he spent the night in the jingshi because he wakes up there the next morning before he goes for a nostalgic tour of his old school.

and also visits the cold spring, where lwj is mostly naked. nice.

but wait! wwx is surprised by the scars on his back and chest. that seems like something he would have known about if they’d already been naked together the night before, so I’m going to say they did not fuck immediately upon wwx’s return to cloud recesses. okay, fine, they’re taking things slow, that’s cool.

maybe they could work it into the next night, then. oh wait, lqr is injured and... staying in the jingshi? for reasons?

I don’t know why. he must have his own house in cloud recesses, and it’s probably at least as comfortable as lwj’s, but here he is. he lives to stop his nephew from getting laid, I guess.

the next day they do some Q&A with the kids and determine that they need to head to qinghe to figure out what’s going on with this sword thing. great! we love a romantic road trip, plenty of alone time. but they also have to do their jobs, and then jin ling needs to get rescued from a wall of dirt, and jc is unfortunately there being himself, and then they have to grill nhs about his tomb full of angry sabers, etc. etc.

with all that going on, their next obvious chance is at the inn immediately after interviewing nhs. this evening has already included:

wwx gazing lovingly at lwj from afar

lwj carrying wwx on his back

lwj pawing at wwx’s robes trying to deal with his cursed leg

lwj helping wwx up the stairs, serving him wine, fixing his flute, and generally being at his beck and call

a very sexy and homoerotic duet

and now they’re alone and drooling over each other as usual. this seems like a plausible spot, right?

it does! but no. after they go back to the nie basement o’ swords and hear the backstory on nmj’s death, we see them walking in yueyang and lwj asks wwx how the curse mark on his leg is doing. wwx says it’s almost healed, which may or may not be a lie, but his inner monologue says:

he’s more concerned about the wound on his arm from the sacrificing curse, which lwj doesn’t know about, because wwx won’t tell him and they still haven’t been naked together.

also, this silly teenage shit doesn’t make much sense unless they’re still dancing around each other.

you guys love the sound of opportunities as they go flying past, don’t you?

right after this, lwj gets drunk. I’m aware that Stuff Happens in the novel scene that inspired this bit, and they do incorporate some of that into the show by having lwj commit petty larceny and admit that he “likes rabbits” as part of the softest and most loving conversation in human history oh my god

but lwj goes to sleep right on time, and the next morning, wwx is laughing and reassuring him that nothing happened.

after this, it’s time to go on a fucked up field trip with the kids in yi city, so they don’t really have any time alone for a few episodes until they’ve finished that and everyone is back at yet another inn. I wonder if they learned something about wasted chances and poor communication from this miserable songxiao story?

maybe! look, they’re being cute and domestic. there are currently no material barriers preventing them from having sex, nor will there be any specific evidence later on proving that they didn’t.

but they’re still firmly in mystery-solving mode and the juniors and lxc are floating around. the vibe isn’t quite there. if I were to pick the most solid reason why I think they’re saving room for jesus at this point, it would be the tension that happens when wwx again asks how lwj recognized him. lwj asks why his memory is so bad, and wwx replies that he wishes he had a bad memory. even though they’re comfortable and happy being together, there’s still some fundamental distance remaining. there’s no sense of romantic resolution. that was actually a point against all their previous opportunities as well; they’re all very sweet, but none of these feel like the place in a story where the romantic leads Officially Get Together.

okay, off to koi tower! shit is getting extremely real. everyone’s busy insinuating that they recognize wwx, but no one is saying it explicitly. wwx isn’t supposed to be here. the guy he’s pretending to be also isn’t supposed to be here. he and his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s brother are trying to figure out if his boyfriend’s brother’s boyfriend is a murderer. no one is comfortable and the political intrigue leaves no time for fucking in front of anyone’s salad.

I guess there’s plenty of time to make dozens of armed guards and like half the people they know wait while they have a romantic moment, though.

could they be more in love? And that sure feels like a romantic resolution that might be followed by narratively-earned sex.

ah. no, unfortunately wwx gets stabbed again. this certainly sucks, but it does have the helpful consequence of making lwj take him back to cloud recesses, where they are mostly alone and as safe as they can be in the circumstances. now there’s even more tenderness and also some plot-justified touching and skin exposure. plus, lwj just made a very public declaration of love.

too bad wwx has probably been unconscious since he started coughing up blood in the forest near lanling. he’s also still visibly in pain. fresh abdominal wounds tend to kill the mood.

but hey, the injuries on this show are only as serious as they need to be to move the plot forward and facilitate gentle h/c scenes, so by evening he’s looking perfectly healthy and walking around under his own steam like nothing’s wrong. I guess that problem can be ignored moving forward.

lxc then offers the the most devastating highlights of lwj’s backstory, like, all at once. it’s nice that he includes a flute solo to give wwx a second to process this mountain of terrible information. what the fuck.

there he is! the most devoted man in the whole world! turns out they can actually be more in love after all.

and then the following scene... look, I’m lazy and I don’t know how to make gifs, but screenshots cannot properly convey how good it is. you all know. the hesitant way wwx approaches, the slow and gentle piano version of wangxian, the two of them watching the snow together, it’s. ugh.

remember how I was talking about how the last scene with no material barriers was an unlikely candidate because of the lack of romantic resolution?

well, here’s wwx still being cagey at the beginning of this conversation.

and here they are in the middle of this conversation, having some epiphanies about the course of wwx’s life - I love this shot for a lot of reasons, but I extra love it because it shows wwx out in the snow, with lwj as the safety and warmth waiting behind him, god this show goes hard, holy shit

they both recall their vow to live with a clean conscience and internally say some very corny things about each other because they are both So Much, and then,

ah, what the hell. he can say it out loud after all. romantic resolution accomplished.

and then the camera slowly pulls away as wuji plays.

a slow zoom out? swelling music? listen, I am a connoisseur, I know a tasteful fade-to-black indicating a sex scene that won’t happen on camera when I see one. at last, we have a winner!

now you may think this post is finally over, but I actually have one more piece of evidence for you - the next scene shows the two of them the morning after, meditating behind a screen in the hanshi while lxc is waiting for jgy to show up.

before wwx got de-cored, he was a pretty powerful cultivator, right? the chances that he’s just bad at meditating or that he can’t stay focused on this task seem slim to me. so why does he keep falling asleep?

well. he had kind of a late night.

[lunaekalenda]

aot boys with a s/o that’s an idol ? =)

no rush !!

yess! i hope you like it💖!!

❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁

❁ some shingeki boys!

❁ eren, jean, armin, reiner, porco, connie, levi.

❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁

eren:

- he's like a kinda lazy stan.

- i mean, he does listen to your music, but he's always late for the releases.

- it is just because he's kinda forgetful, no because he doesn’t want to listen to your music, because he obviously wants.

- “honey sorry, I fell asleep again, but i’m listening to it right now!”

- he’ll stream your mvs while he’s doing work things or works out or plays.

- he send you a video of your dog and him listening to your single to desire you a happy tour!

- he’ll love to go on tour with you, but his work doesn’t let him.

- “i’ll take care of the house and the doggy, and i’ll see all your concerts online. take care, hm?”

- even when he calls you everyday while you’re on tour, some nights he needs to call you for another reasons.

- he’ll make a little romantic dinner and a sweet surprise for the day you return from your tour.

- “missed you so much, honey.”

jean:

- will support 100/100, always looking foward your next single or the date of your next album release.

- graduated in missing you while you go training or on tour.

- he likes to see your music videos with you at home, wrapping your body with a blanket.

- "you're gorgeous, you look so good in that concept..."

- he’ll put your music when he drives and sing to it.

- he’ll ask you to teach him your dances, so you’ll spend time together doing a dance workout.

- he gets the movements but sometimes he just looks how well you dance instead ot dancing himself.

- “jean!”

- he’ll laugh and start the coreography again, this time following your mirrored version.

- asks you to sing for him a bit, always enjoying how well your voice sounds with no arrangements on.

- you sound so sweet he falls in love with you even more, if that’s possible.

armin:

- he's a shy boy, but his eyes shine every time he hear your voice on the radio or watches your mvs on a café.

- he'll send you pics of the tv where your music is playing

- "love, love, look!"

- he has a full book shelf with your cds, even deluxe and special versions.

- his favorites are the christmas releases, always so slow and romantic songs.

- also liked that one that sounded like a zumba class sound.

- "i think you're the only one who liked it, min."

- he has been confused with a fanboy a couple times because of the phone case you made for him, a cute pic of you two after a concert.

- fans ask him where he got the golden ticket, and he blushes.

- he doesn't want people to bother him or you, so he'll goes with "i bought it with my saved money."

- you always laugh when he tells you those stories, but well, he's also a fan, isn't him?

reiner:

- fanbase who?

- he has all your schedules on his phone calendar just in case he forgets.

- he has been to a lot of your concerts, he didn’t care to drive to the place you play.

- he knows your manager doesn’t let him go with you or use golden tickets for free, but you gave him some of them a couple times.

- “sweetie that’s...”

- “shh, just take it, yeah?”

- his cousin likes to make stream parties with her friends, all are big fans of you.

- he’s so proud of you, so so proud.

- he’ll remind it to you every night, when your eyes are about to close. you’re so tired.

- he’ll hug your waist and kiss your shoulder, a little reminder that he’s there.

- once your fans thought he was your bodyguard because he picked you up from the building in his car, opening the door for you.

porco:

- "are you seeing that pretty face with such an amazing voice? it’s my partner"

- he'll be so full of pride, he wants to tell everyone he's with you.

- and well, actually he does.

- doesn’t like to download pictures of you from twitter because he can take his own pictures.

- but he’ll never share them, because for him, that pics are the way of reminding that there is a side of you that only him knows, one far from the idol image.

- and because maybe some of them aren’t conceived for public eyes.

- also, he knows that being an idol makes pressure on you, always judged by society, so he’ll hug you every time you feel down because of that.

- “you’re amazing, baby. don’t let anyone make you feel bad, hm?”

- he’ll hold you even if you cry for hours, the beautiful makeup your stylist made for you totally ruined.

- he’ll pass his fingers through your hair, silently comforting you. 

- he’s the one that defends you on twitter fanwars.

connie:

- meme base.

- “conn are you using my latest fansing screenshots as whatsapp stickers?”

- “i’m using them as memes in general and stickers in specific.”

- he’ll send you a sticker of yourself at the end of every chat just because he finds it funny.

- he points the most little thing on your mvs that can make you laugh.

- he enjoys your music a lot, it's totally his style so it's cool for him to basically put all your spotify albums on repeat.

- also listens to the times you were host on a radio.

- "It's kinda weird because the person that says "good morning" with cute voice on the radio is the same one that yells me "connie stop fucking moving for a second is 7 am in the morning." and that's the real duality."

- he always complains that fans don't know you have a bossy side (even knowing he loves it on the inside)

- since he doesn't use more social media than instagram, sometimes he gets news about you kinda late.

- his mom send your family group chat a pic of you and asked how the hell you're still with him. in a joking way, obvioulsy.

levi:

- will listen to your songs and talk about the lyrics with you.

- "i really liked when you said that" he'll point. "it was really deep and meaningful."

- you got training for dancing, singing, rapping and acting, but no on how to tell your boyfriend that sentence was written thinking about him.

- “... yep”

- you ask him to read your new lyrics or to listen to your new demo.

- “sounds pretty, are you the one playing the piano too?”

- he really likes how your voice sounds, and his favorite songs are the more sentimental ones, the ones where you're basically singing for him.

- you're still waiting for him to notice.

- he sees all your interviews and meetings, he loves how natural you are and how you keep having your own ideas, without being manipulated.

- "you're such a strong one, hm?"

- you want him to listen to those songs one day and feel all the love you wanted to transmit on those lines.

[chicoriii]

Season 4, Episode 17 - Larme Ultime (Rocketear)

So this is a DjiWifi episode from which comes a screenshot I've seen over a month ago (I think). It's good they got it, before season 4 started I really wanted it to happen and to see a kiss between Nino and Alya in it (but that didn't happen and I don't get why, only the main pairing is allowed to kiss in this show or what?), but now I could not be excited about it anymore, because I'm sick of Alya and I'm not able to hide it. Yes, I'm biased, but I'm just a normal viewer and I have right to dislike her favouritism.

My the biggest thought after watching this is that it looks like since Optigami, Alya is not only a deuteragonist, like I said in my post about Sentibubbler, she's actually more like a co-protagonist now. That was an extremely Alya-centric episode (even more than Lie was was about Adrien, as it was mostly Ladybug who saved the world like almost always, also because Chat sacrificed himself again), while in Optigami and this one she has screentime comparable to Marinette. I'm still trying to avoid spoilers (so please, don't tell what's going to happen in the next episodes, I don't want to know), but I'm sure that either 15 or 16 is also highly about her, because we've seen the new Rena's suit in this episode and it looked like it wasn't the first episode with it. But really, I won't be surprised if Alya has lots of screentime in both episodes and all others to the end of the show as well. I don't think Adrien is ever going to get as much special treatment like Alya. :/ The creators have never been as nice to him.

Didn't the writes have enough ideas for another story arcs? And thanks to it they were able to save money, because then creators could just reuse old models of villains more than before. Have anyone noticed that S4 has even fewer number of completely new characters than previous seasons? The scientist seen at the start of the episode has detailed model, so she had to be akumatised in any of the previous unreleased episodes (or one of the next ones). And why she looks a lot like Alya, is she her relative? If yes, you know what that means? Another excuse to make an episode full of the fox wielder, because, you know, it’s not like she already got enough occasions to shine in S4. 

Speaking of Rena Rouge's new suit. What a waste, it would be great for a potential chameleon Miraculous, so it seems it won't be ever created for canon. So bad, I think it's one of the coolest animal, so a Miraculous based on it would be awesome. It could one from an African Miracle Box which should appear, since they are planning making an African special. The suit is good and all, but I still feel disappointed that it's not the superpower of a chameleon Miraculous. :(

Why is Nino acting over the top out of nowhere? I like film noir atmosphere, fedoras and especially jazz music full of saxophones (my favourite music genre and instrument), but it looks totally ridiculous when he's like that. I thought it's Marinette's speciality, and he beat her in that category. I'm not trying to say it's a a bad thing, it just feels weird seeing Nino like that. And since I love jazz, I would like to listen to that film noir-esque music more once I got 5.1 audio, since it was hardly heard in the episode. It didn't sound much interesting, but it's too early to judge it seriously.

Too bad they had written the main conflict in the episode using one of the biggest romantic cliche - misunderstanding in which one character see and\or hear something, but not the whole thing, so said character interprets it wrong. Motifs like that are rather annoying, so it's good something similar haven't happened in the Love Square's arc (yet at least). Though I have a big issue with how they write it this season and I'm going to make a post about it (is anyone interested?).

The akuma is one the ugliest and has one of the most laziest power ever. Really? He shoots using tear bullets and does nothing more? I know many people hate Bubbler's design, but no matter how silly it looks, it was much more creative than this.

And of course the whole thing with Alya remembering the whole conversation with Chat Noir was extremely far-fetched. The could think about something more believable, but I'm not surprised it happened, since I think this season is generally more lazy written than previous ones.

On the other hand, I'm surprised that Marinette is actually aware that Shadow Moth should not know that Alya is still Rena Rouge. It seems that the whole episode 15 (or 16) is about they trying to figure out what to do with that problem.  I won't be surprised if Alya would do it all by herself like it happened with protecting charms in Mr Pigeon 72, because it's completely normal that a random person who has never met Fu is better at decrypting the grimoire than someone who has been trained to be a guardian to some extend :/ Still I think they should not be sure that camouflage mode would solve the problem completely. From what I understand the new suit doesn’t make her completely invisible to others. Rena could be seen by anyone who takes a photo of her and then post in on the internet (it won't be believable that she's the only one crazy about superheroes in Paris). But at least they tried to do something and Marinette sees the danger to some extend. It’s something new.

It's not like Alya is careful, she's completely reckless (and they think she's a good reporter material? Don't make me laugh) and she still thinks more about her own fun in being the superheroine than safety of herself or the world. But of course, it's not gonna happen, because plot armor is very strong in this show. I really had a feeling that she acted like a little child in the first minutes of the episode. She's unable to see that her situation is not a joke. She should be all happy that Marinette still lets her to keep the fox Miraculous. She really lacks humility and I see it clearly since Optigami at least. Besides, Marinette ignores another red flags, that Alya is taking pictures of herself in the new suit no one is supposed to see and thinking about posting them on Ladyblog (was Bunnix right that Alya is able to reveal Miraculous secrets on her blog because of her overenthusiasm and lack of ability of seeing consequences of her actions?).

By the way, now I think, if Alya can't keep in secret that she's still Rena Rouge from Nino (which happens because it's needed for the plot), so how could she be all fine with keeping in secret other facts like that Ladybug gave her the fox permanently and she knows her identity (which isn't happening because the plot doesn't require it)? She still has to lie on Nino because of these secrets.

They are making Marinette a big hypocrite this season. Since she revealed herself to Alya, it's been shown that secret identities rule was bullshit from the start, but Marinette is still saying that heroes can't reveal their identities to anyone. What? What has she done before like not revealing herself to someone, so how she dares keep saying about how crucial is keeping secrets from everyone? Sorry writers, I can't take that rule seriously anymore since Alya knows and no one should. Because Marinette told Alya, she could tell it to other persons she trust as well. What's the difference between her best friend and the rest of the people in the world? Is Alya the only person she trusts? In fact, revealing herself to Sabine, for example, would be much better choice. She's actually wise and mature unlike Alya and her secrets would be much more safe with her mother.

I've seen Chat Blanc again on TV recently and I remembered one thing Ladybug told to Bunnix there: "The best-kept secrets are the ones you never share." (Google Translate says that the line is exactly the same in the French original). Some episodes later, she isn't thinking twice if she should tell all the guardian secrets to Alya. Okay, she revealed her identity because of being too emotional in that exact moment, but then when she calmed down, she should be able to think if telling all the Miraculous secrets is a good idea. The other hypocritical thing is telling Chloé "you can't be Queen Bee anymore, because Hawk Moth knows your identity" but still calling the other heroes whose identities have been exposed.

So I can't even blame Alya for telling Nino the truth if the guardian herself is not following her own rules. Not to mention, Marinette doesn't address wrong things Alya is doing at all, so no wonder she feels she could do anything, she won't get punished, no matter what. After all, it's not the first moment in which she does something her best friend forbid her.

And we can say the show has been confirmed that Nino is even worse at keeping secrets, especially in crisis situations, so why people wanted to see Adrien revealing himself to Nino? It's obvious that he would tell Adrien's secret to Alya and maybe some other people as well.

I thought that since S3 finale Adrien is supposed to know identities of every backup hero from seasons 2 and 3 and I was ready to be salty about that as well. But yes, actually after purification of Miracle Queen's akuma, brainwashed heroes didn't detransform. They were forgotten completely and we don't even know what happened with them exactly. I suppose Ladybug took their Miraculous when Chat Noir wasn't there anymore.

Adrien has every right to be angry at Ladybug, she treats him so badly, since Alya knows her own secrets and she doesn't even have the guts to admit that. But I'm going to say about my the biggest issue in the Chat Noir and Ladybug's situation in another post, I hope I would write before the next episode airs.

[simtanico]

Hi! I don't know if this is an annoying/difficult question, sorry if it is, but do you have any advice at all for modelling sims based off real people? Your sims are SO crazy good. When I try to make them they end up looking... eh... Vaguely like the person? But there's a huge gap between that and some kind of 'spark' some simmers seem to manage to capture.

Hello! Definitely not annoying. Difficult, as in how difficult it is to answer? Maybe. I'm gonna go off on a couple of tangents. But I'm gonna try my best to explain the process. Which isn't really much of one sorry.

There's a handful of tutorials and tips out there regarding reference photos and like... proportions and all that so I won't cover that.

I use that as a general guide of course, but mostly I just save some photos of the person at various angles and focus on one feature or two at a time. Literally going back and forth between reference photo and my game. I think if you try to get everything at the same time, it really makes it easy to get frustrated with whatever your sim looks like at the moment. Making sims in general is a combination of a LOT of things depending on your style.

I can point out ALL the flaws with my sims based on real people. In my experience, it’s about getting the defining features of a person close enough to the real thing so that it resembles them. I don't think you need a complete copy to get the point across, however i do think some people and features are harder to emulate than others. I've been working on some sims for YEARS, and they still don't work out lol

and take a look at this progression on my sim based on Z4ne H0ltz starting back in 2015!

that first screenshot:

Personally, I get a little lost if I work on a sim too much all at once. I find some time away makes me less tired and frustrated. Just pace yourself :)

Also if you need any help, shoot me a message here or on discord. I promise I don't judge or anything.. it's sims who cares lol

TO START...

I suggest starting with the head and its shape. Starting off with a game-generated sim, the first slider I get to is head width. It's usually too dang wide for my tastes. And then adjusting the general position of the the features. You can always change things later, so you don't have to know exactly what you're going to do, but as I've mentioned before, sculpting sims up in CAS is just practice with sliders! Also in the long run, you may want to use Pu+Chi House's Smooth Face Normals slider! I attempt to explain and show what it does here. I've uploaded the slider here: https://simfileshare.net/download/984204/

This is gonna be a doozy sorry in advance if the read more doesn't work

SLIDERS SLIDERS SLIDERS

Big sliders like Pu+Chi House’s face shape sliders dramatically change the face shape, and it could save you a lot of time! I highly suggest using these to get rid of the weird large jaw sims can get.

Play with different sliders and how they interact with one another! Example: jaw width and Cheek Fullness affect the same area. if you need a wide jaw and don’t want cheek distortion, you can use cheek fullness, lower the jaw width slider and then edit the cheekbones from there

 Knowing what sliders move what and how it can work to your advantage is key! I cover this in my reply post about noses.

For visual reference:

I start out with my nose but I want the nostrils to sit further on the outside

so i go in and use the nose width slider and raise it to widen the lower nose:

Then lower the nostril scale slider

Comparison:

as you can see, i kind of achieved what I wanted, but also widened the nose tip too! Welp, that takes another slider I have, Tip Width. And I'll adjust that accordingly! It's really just a matter of what you're going for and what you're going to have to compensate for as a result!

That said, our community has made some awesome sliders that open up so many possibilities and even eliminate the need to do that multi-slider tango. I wouldn't even know where to begin (wish I wanted to make videos because I could talk for an hour about sliders)

For example @pitheinfinite made sliders that can make sims look better and more realistic, I'm jealous at what they've achieved!

They have their Inner Corner to Nose slider that moves an area of the sim's face hat make eyebags and the shadows and lines appear farther out from the inner eye. It saves you from having to use cheek sliders to mimic the effect and thus ruining the face shape you have going

It's truly an INDISPENSABLE slider. One of many!

Since I make sliders, I usually just make some to specifically fix whatever issue I'm having. Granted they're made with general function in mind, which makes my cheater-y way of making things happen more useful in the future. I have about 50 experimental unfinished sliders in my game and can tell you that all my current sims use them for some reason or other. So I'm not working with nothing, I guess?

EYE SPY 👁

The best way to really get nice accurate looking sims is the eyes.

Pay attention to the slant of the eye, the shape and position of the upper and lower eyelids. you can use the game’s Eyelid Height slider, and AWT’s Eyelid width and height sliders (and many more)

and especially where the iris (green) sits relative to the eyelid. getting that shape and eyeball positioned correctly really makes a HUGE difference

I do suggest Bloom’s Eye slider (left and right) that rotate the eyes left and right. That along with their Lazy eye sliders can give your sims a less symmetric face and position the eyes to be FAR more accurate and realistic than the default.

I also recommend their vertical sliders (Eye lift or drop) to help with eye positioning.

I can't stress the importance of the right contacts or eyes for your sims. Of course it all depends on how you make your sims's eyes and all that. Take the last sim i posted about. It took forever and a half to find the right contacts that didn't need severe or intense editing to capture the same vibe the person he's based on. The problem is pretty persistent for me, and I am just speaking for myself when I say this is necessary. Iris size, shading, recolorability, detail, catch lights, and pupil position are things to consider for your play style and preferences.

In addition to seeing what eyes will do the trick, I do edit the catch lights in the screenshots to give the eyes a different emotion or look. (I use defaults that get rid of the game-generated catch lights, and supernatural eye glow.) It's nice when that's all it is and I don't have to go in and photoshop things in and out to make them look human lmao

Perfect, schmerfect

And just know that as long as you have the same vibe or look going on it doesn't need to be perfect! Things will evolve over time, and you can change and perfect things as you go along, but close is better than trying to achieve an exact replica. We are working with the limitations of sliders and the optimized meshes they work on! So yeah there might be jagged bits or the profile might not exactly match and some things might not be accurate, but that's okay! Considering what sims look like at their default, you should be proud! I use the same mf eyebrows on all my sims basically and I tell myself they're just placeholders (yeah, right), but I manage to make them work with what I have!

Sliders, Makeup, and Skins, oh my!

a good base skin is critical, but not the end of the world if you pick the wrong one. They determine kind of definition and types of features highlighted on a sim 100000% and you might lose a feature you like or dislike when you change them! Feel free to switch up between skins you have to find the best fit.

Makeup can be a game-changer though!!! Any details you can add and help make your sim look the most like the person you're basing them off can go MILES.

In some cases, I've actually gotten really interesting results trying to get my sculpt as close as possible to real life references so the makeup makes a difference but don't define the features by themselves. Still, though, I utilize makeup up a LOT. [remember that if you use Nraas, you can layer makeup. Right-clicking makeup will also remove it if it's applied :)]

Here's the last sim i posted about when removing makeup:

no nosemasks really replicates the face-claim's nose (too shiny at the lower part) but it'll do 🤷‍♀️

Freckles, eyebags, highlighters, face shadows, pores, nosemasks, etc are all great!!

The way you move your sliders WILL effect how these look, so don't rely on makeup that adds super-specific detail or goes over an area you know is a jumbled mess because of sliders!

I do have a mess of recommendations and wcifs for skins and makeup. replies tag | wcif tag

[also I love compiling wcif cc lists for my sims it's great]

Finally, I appreciate your comment about my sims, mainly because I know they're not ever really exact copies or as close as I want to be to their real life counterparts, so thanks!! I've seen fellow simmers get really good results without messing as much as I do and I love when people can make really good maxis match likenesses because it's just so damn cool! It's truly a talent. I'm not one of those lucky few, but I like to try my way at it anyway. After what feels like some good progress I'll post a pic here. Even after doing this forever I don't feel like I'm an expert or can get good results in a shorter amount of time, but it's just fun to see the progression (or regression) of how my sims look.

[nikatyler]

Adventures in TS2

Well, I did it, I opened TS2 again, for the first time in a while. I just can’t get into this game. At the same time, I see how amazing it is and from what I’ve seen online, I can totally understand why people still play it after all this time. It’s just...I feel like I’m getting into it way too late and there’s so much to learn and for some reason it’s just difficult for me (and, honestly, part of me is just too lazy to figure it all out). Well, I decided to try again, and hopefully I will be opening this game again soon.

I made a brand new sim that is not tied to any other sim in the R-BCU (Rose-Breeze Cinematic Universe; yes I’m calling it that, kinda as a joke but also kinda unironically). Meet Maddie Alvarez but beware, I’m not good at making sims in this game, or taking screenshots in this game. Still, I think she’s kinda cute. Not as cute as my TS3 and TS4 sims though, but maybe we’ll get there eventually.

That’s not her dog, unfortunately, but he was a very good boy and we became friends.

Then, people came! It goes without saying but I’m a sims 2 noob lol, so I was very surprised to see Tyler there. Then I realized it’s the same save file as the one I was playing a few months ago. Also, Tyler’s TS2 version is not very accurate. It’s not a bad sim but they don’t have the same vibe as the TS3/TS4 Tyler to me haha.

More under the cut because this will actually probably be long haha.

Tyler ate our cereal >:(( Friendship ended with Tyler >:((((

Kidding, friendship renewed with Tyler. They bonded over alien jokes, which...makes sense. Good old days. If you know, you know. If you don’t...well. Long long time ago, Tyler’s brother got abducted by aliens, things happened, and Tyler would never shut up about it. The mommy joke. Gone but not forgotten. But I’m glad Caleb is more than that nowadays. Anyway, that’s off topic, let’s get back to Maddie.

She’s...breaking shit. This was the next morning, I think.

I love that she actually walks to the car and opens the door. I’m surprised this isn’t in TS3. And well...it’s a little detail but I guess now I can see why people want cars in TS4. (As for me, I still don’t care about them, but if they added them I wouldn’t be mad at all.)

This got me thinking, wait a second, where’s my old camera?? And is it still working? Genuinely have no clue.

Also, I love how TS2, being an old game, is...well, old, and it shows when you look at the electronics and everything. 😅 Reminds me of my childhood and how so many things have changed since then. And I’ll stop here before I get sappy and overly nostalgic.

Anyway, Maddie met someone...a sim I literally made in five minutes and it shows lol. Meet Emery Woods.

Oh no.

Oh wait, oh wow...it’s almost as if they were made for each other, isn’t it? 👁👄👁

The next morning, Emery came for a visit, and this is how Maddie greeted him. And then I closed the game because I wanted to go do something else. And then I didn’t do that. Because something distracted me. Then I somehow ended up taking a shower. That’s a good thing but I don’t think I was planning on doing that yet lol. But yeah, it was a good thing, it’s after midnight sooo...and we’re getting off topic again 😅 So yeah, hopefully this isn’t the last time we’ve seen Maddie and Emery, and I’m off to do the thing I actually wanted to do after closing the game!

[bunsblr]

Tu... torial? Pt. 5.

Final part of my tutorial! This is a little all over the place, because that’s how I am in this stage of editing. Also I didn’t proofread this...

Open this in dashboard for best view of the screenshots.

Disclaimer: I have no formal training for any kind of graphics stuff, I work in an office as a receptionist - I serve coffee for a living. I am absolutely self taught and while I consider myself pretty comfortable with photoshop, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t about a gazillion of other things that can be done that I have no idea about. There are people far superior than me in the Sims community. This is just how I do it, with techniques I have picked up through the years. Some things I go over in these will be pretty basic, some things a little more unorthodox. Disclaimer 2: My edits take time. This is what I do to relax, one edit takes several hours for me. Sometimes days :))) Disclaimer 3: My photoshop is in Swedish, which is my first language. I tried my best to find the English translations for every step that I do.

Tools used: The Sims 4, Adobe Photoshop 2020, One by Wacom Pen Tablet (very basic and unfancy).

It´s hair time baby! I very much enjoy drawing hair on sims. I make a new empty layer on top of my base Sim layer.

This is where having a drawing tablet makes a huge difference. We need the brush to be sensitive to pressure to get the effect of hair strands. I chose a hard brush, small small size (how small depends on the picture size of course, but I usually land somewhere 6-9 px)

I pick up a color from the hair, I usually starts with a medium light color.

I start by drawing strands around any tips of the hair so they don't look quite so solid. I do this part with both short and long hairs. Hot lazy tip: straight unlayered hairs is the absolute easiest. This is a layered hair so I start with the bottom and work my way up. I pick up different colors from the hair as I go along, to add dept.

Continuing up in the hair and add strands to the pointy bits.

When I feel like the pointy bits have been softened I select one of my hair brushes. I use these ones by Para Vine.

I start painting "around" the hair with one of the lighter colors picked up from the hair, changing the direction of the brush every once in a while for a more natural result.

After this the hair is looking a little fuzzy, so I'm going to go back with my small harder brush to fill these parts out.

I don't add a lot of them, just small bits here and there for filling.

This is a little overkill but... now we have some of that "squary" thing going on in the hair as well that are still showing through our painted layer. Now we could paint over these, but painting can actually be overdone and I wan't to keep the hair recognizeable because the creator put a lot of work into it! So I go into liquify and smooth over any wonky lines still showing, just slightly.

A comparison of before and after hair. Still recognizeable, but softer.

This is our result so far. We've come a long way, but we're not done.

At this point (or actually sometimes sooner) I add an adjustment Curves layer, this will not end up in the finished image, this is just to give me an idea of what the image might look like with more contrast (which we will add later). I keep this at the very top of the layer panel and turn this on and off as I go. Very important to have it turned off if we are going to eyedrop a color and use that to paint, since it would pick up the wrong hue if we have it turned on.

Now I still want the front of my sim to be a little darker to fit my lighting, but I don't want to go over with any more shadow. So I duplicate my Sim layer, and go to Layer -> Adjustments -> Curves. This will only change the active layer, as opposed to creating an adjustment layer down in the Layer panel that will change all layers below it. I drag the curve down a bit to make my new Sim layer darker.

I add a layer mask to my new Sim layer, and bucket fill it with black color so the new layer gets hidden.

I chose an absolutely HUGE soft brush, with medium opacity, and starts painting white on the areas where I want the new darker layer to be showing. And blend by going back with black where the line is to harsh.

Time to add some highlights. I create a new empty layer between my two Sim layers, and add a clipping mask by holding Alt and hovering on the line between the new layer and my bottom sim layer, until the little square with the arrow symbol comes up and then click. This will make whatever I do on my new highlight layer, only show up on the areas where the layer underneath is filled.

 Time to paint. I disable the curve adjustment layer for this. I choose a bright color, in this case a light pink because I didn't want a contrasting color for this picture. I go with a big soft brush around the edges where I want my highlight to hit. In this case, the arm, the hand, the arch of the back and the calf. I didn't add anything to the face in this picture because I didn't like the way it looked, but usually a little highlight to one of the cheeks is just *chef's kiss*

And somewhere around here I got really stuck and really struggled to follow with this tutorial. I felt the picture was lacking something and I tried several different things. I added light rays, tried creating different light sources, there was a moon at some point. But I ended up with just a simple additional gradient shadow down in the right corner (on a new layer down in the Background layer group). Life changing…

And then I didn't like the pink highlight on the skin (sigh, this is how I work, but it’s not recommended to be this indecisive) so I removed that and added a more beige-yellowee highlight instead. And forgot to take a picture after the highlight was added....

And now I go into nitpicking mode. I add a new empty layer on top of my Sim layer, I add it under the highlight layer so it automatically takes on the clipping mask of the Sim layer, I name it Clean-up Crew and go in to refine anything slightly wonky. Picking up colors with the eyedrop tool and going over flaws with a tiny brush.

When I fixed this little light area on the back of her head I left the Clean-up Crew layer and went to my Hair layer instead, because I still have that separate and it's above all the other layers.

I thought my sim was a little too far down in the picture so I moved her up by selecting my whole Sim layer group and the layer on which I have her ground shadow, chosing the move tool and pushing them up. This will move all the layers in the Sim layer group as well as the ground shadow layer equally.

I'm telling y'all, nitpicking mode could go on forever. Added more strands to the bangs.

Noticed a little pointy part on the calf, so I wen't into Liquify on the base Sim layer and smoothed that out. Since the highlight layer has a Clipping Mask corresponding to the Sim layer, the highlight stayed in place.

I duplicate my Sim layer group once more, and merge the layers within this group. So now the Hair, Highlight and Clean-up Crew is all merged onto the Sim layer. I hide the previous Sim groups.

With my new Sim layer selected, I go to Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation. I want to make my Sim a little less bright so it will match the background a bit better.

I drag down the Saturation and Brightness slider a bit until I like what I see. After this I save my whole image as a PNG-file because from now on I want to edit the whole picture but still want to keep this psd-file as it is for anxiety purposes. Important: I disable my curves layer before saving this as a picture, I don’t want that brought with me into the next steps because I will be adding new curves there.

I open my new saved PNG-file. I go to Filter -> Convert for Smart filters. This will allow us to go back and change any filters we add to this layer. I go to Filter -> Camera Raw Filter and for some reason this window opens up humongus. I start by dragging down the temperature. How much depends on the picture, usually more if it's nighttime.

I pull up the Whites a bit for a cleaner look.

Now I add a Curve Adjustment Layer. Now you can add Contrast in the Camera Raw Filter as well, but I prefer the curve layer because I like to control the different levels. This way I can make my darkest parts a little brighter, giving just a little washed out flair to it all.

I select my background layer again and go to Filter -> Noise -> Add Noise and choose a level that I think looks good. This just brings the picture together a bit more. Also vintage vibes :)))

I add my frame (because it´s my aestethic and I think it looks cool on tumblr) by resizing my workspace and adding a filled white layer underneath the background layer.

I resize my picture (Image -> Image Size) because we don't need it to be huge.

And they I just fine tune the Filters and Curves until the end of time :’)))

And that is that my friends! That’s the end of the tutorial! I hope you could follow somewheat and that someone found it useful. Thank you for reading and never be afraid of contacting me if you have any questions :) I’m very friendly.

[ultimatetrashgoblin]

My thoughts on Immortal Heart Society

DISCLAIMER: These are my OPINIONS. I do not claim any of this as fact, you are allowed to disagree with me. (Spoilers for Cassius and Alanna season 1)

First impressions for this series could have been better. There are plenty of problems with this series so far that I will address, but for now, let’s focus on the positives.

The writing is beautiful. As an avid reader and writer, one of my biggest pet peeves is lazy and unimaginative writing. IHS had some incredibly written lines, and I was immediately hooked even if I hated the love interests.

(I don’t have many screenshots but here are a few I did take)

The plot is interesting. While the pacing is a bit off at times, I found the concept of a corrupt secret society intriguing, and the mysteries surrounding the father was enough to get me invested.

The Inner Circle is (mostly) likable. I’m a sucker for found family, and my favorite series on this app (EAA, QoT, GIL, etc.) will usually have plenty of group banter, and the Inner Circle is no exception. One of my favorite scenes in Alanna’s route was in Richard’s office when everyone realized Alanna and FMC were exes.

Kiran. No further explanation. Lovestruck let me date her please.

For the most part, IHS seems like a promising series. But of course, when you have plenty of amazing side characters who would make wonderful LIs, you decide to premiere your series with the arrogant asshole and the compulsive liar.

Cassius Tarkhan

I should probably begin by saying I’m usually not a fan of the “rude, snarky, arrogant” LIs and read Cassius’s route solely because I was excited for the new series. So please take what you’re about to read with a grain of salt, since I am probably extremely biased against him.

This is a direct quote from me reading Cassius’s first few episodes: “I want to punch this man in his stupid fucking face.” I said this out loud, which should give you an indication of what’s to come.

As far as first meetings go, Cassius was probably one of the worst. At first it was all “fun banter oh look at the chemistry” until he sees the invitation and becomes the most insufferable pricks I have ever seen. (I’m sorry, but was that supposed to be romantic?! If I were in FMC’s position, I would be terrified!)

Most of the season went by with Cassius being infuriating and not telling FMC anything, and me questioning if I was actually supposed to like the guy I was supposed to be romancing. The villain dude (I don’t care enough about him to try to remember his name) was boring and creepy. I also had a strong desire to punch him in the face, but I’ll settle for him turning to stone.

It wasn’t until the season finale that I actually started to like Cassius. He started to open up more to FMC, he showed vulnerability, and was generally more tolerable. Hopefully we’ll be able to see more of this Cassius in later seasons, because I believe that it might save his route and maybe I won’t want to punch him in the face as badly.

As for the ending, I’ve read the final episode multiple times and I’m still not exactly sure what happened in that final scene. Cassius tells FMC that he won’t let her meet with the Society on her own and then... is he about to kiss her? This is a genuine question I’m asking I honestly couldn’t tell. It seemed like he was going to but it was very unclear to me.

If I was going to rate this season as a whole, I’d give it a 3 out of 10. Hope to see better next season, because he does have the potential to be better, but that wasn’t shown until the end of the season.

Alanna McKenna

At first, I liked Alanna’s route. I was excited about have an LI who was an ex, she was attractive (except for that weird smirk expression what was that???), she was funny, and I’ve already talked about how much I love the writing.

Then the lying started. I’ve had the misfortune of dealing with my family, many of which are narcissistic pathological liars, so I consider myself pretty decent at figuring out patterns in their behavior. And Alanna fits them to a T.

Please note that I am in no way educated on this topic and do not have the authority to state anything as fact. I am making observations based on personal experience dealing with people like this, and I encourage you to view Alanna’s behavior for yourself and come up with your own conclusions.

My first red flag was the emotional manipulation. Near the beginning, this was in the form of flattery. If FMC started asking questions, Alanna would flirt with her, which would cause FMC to either become flustered or flirt back, both outcomes momentarily distracting her from the original topic.

To FMC’s credit, she does notice when Alanna starts deflecting (she mentions recognizing certain behaviors from when they were together), but she backs down. As someone who hates confrontation, I can understand FMC’s reasoning for this. I find trying to communicate certain issues with these people exhausting. It tends to feel like speaking to a broken record, and can become emotionally draining. However, this is the exact outcome that these people want. They hate being called out on their lies, and when pushed further (in my experience), they tend to result to guilt tripping.

The flirting I could ignore. When I first read it, I thought that was just her personality (which is partially true). But then FMC stood her ground more, and Alanna fell apart. She started crying, talking about how much pressure she was under, making up excuses (a prime example of this was her saying that she thought ghosting FMC would make it easier, which I’ll touch on later), and causing FMC to doubt her (valid) reasons for being angry with Alanna.

I feel like it’s also necessary to talk about Alanna interacting with the other society members. FMC was noticeably uncomfortable with how genuine Alanna seemed to be, and I understand the feeling of betrayal of thinking you know a person, only to see them act like a complete stranger at the drop of a hat. The mental turmoil of wondering which version of this person is the real them, and whether your entire relationship was all a lie.

That part was way longer than I expected, so let’s talk about the “villain”. I’m glad that Arabella isn’t the big bad even if she tried to kill FMC, because she seems like such a genuine person and I’m tired of season WOC be villainized in visual novels (I’m not naming names but you know what apps I’m talking about Choices). I hope that FMC and Alanna will be able to help her and her sister, and that Arabella will get a redemption arc in the future and maybe a route.

The cliffhanger was actually sort of unexpected. FMC finally called Alanna out on her bs (GOOD👏FOR👏HER👏) and tried to leave the Society. Lowkey kind of scared to see how they follow this up in season 2, because it seems like they’re ready to murder FMC.

If we ignore the LIs themselves, I did prefer Alanna’s route to Cassius’s. I feel like we got to see more of the other characters, and I thought the pacing was better. But I don’t like either of them. As I’ve said Cassius seems like he’s improving, but Alanna? Nope. I’m staying for the plot and Arabella, but I’m more than willing to drop her route if this pattern continues (especially if I decide it’s too triggering for me, my mental health is more important).

Rating: 2/10

Final thoughts

As I stated previously, while IHS’s initial premiere wasn’t the best, I believe this series has the potential to be good. My main issues are with the pacing, and above all, the LIs (which isn’t good for a visual novel story centered around romancing the LIs).

Overall rating: 3/10

This is my first time doing something like this so any feedback would be very appreciated. Feel free to offer any criticisms, and let me know if I should make a series out of this! (This did take me a while so if I decide to continue doing this it might not be posted until a day or two later)

[crow-in-a-teapot]

tower of nero spoilers

i have just finished the tower of nero. and before i go searching for other people’s thoughts and art and more of the characters i love so much, i want to write down some of my own thoughts because i know as soon as i delve into that ‘ton spoilers’ hashtag there are going to be complaints and criticisms and so much that i don’t want to hear, or essays that’ll make me upset, or things that’ll change my perception on the book (because on this website people really love to hate the trials of apollo).

i want to start with: i loved it. it didn’t feel earth-shattering or huge and momentous like some of my favourite riordanverse books (house of hades, the blood of olympus, the last olympian and maybe some of the magnus chase books take those pedestals for me) but it was satisfying. and i think it was satisfying because it in no way felt like an ending. whether because eventually rick will write that will-and-nico-go-through-tartarus-and-save-bob novella, or because we (or at least i) will continue writing and imagining and creating for this world i don’t know. he didn’t wrap up the story in a perfect little bow like ‘nineteen years later’, he simply put it on pause. gave us a glimpse of where every character was at at the end.

the only thing that makes me so angry and upset is that i did manage to get some spoilers for moments that i know would have been so good to experience for the first time if i hadn’t been spoiled for them. the moment where rachel mentions penguins in a mansion near her house, nico getting mental health advice from mr d, the fact that will and nico were going to be in the book for so much of the story, but the big thing was literally spoiled for me two days ago, it was the reason i sat down to read it as fast as possible because i was terrified of getting more spoiled and not being able to experience the moments for myself, was that piper had a girlfriend. i know that reading that for the first time would have been so cool and surprising, and the fact that when it came up for a moment in the last couple pages all i felt was disappointment because it was spoiled for me and because it was now tinged with whatever that person was saying about her having a girlfriend.

but i still had some warm fuzzy moments, the two parts where apollo thinks he’s going to die but nico comes up behind him - so good. impeccable. 

Leader Guy spat. ‘Now, I kill you.’

He raised his sword... and froze. His face turned pale. His skin began to shrivel. His beard fell out whisker by whisker like dead pine needles. Finally, his skin crumbled away, along with his clothes and flesh, until Leader Guy was nothing but a bleached-white skeleton, holding a sword in his bony hands. 

Standing behind him, his hand on the skeleton’s shoulder, was Nico di Angelo.

and

Nero raised his hand, ready to give the kill command, when behind me a mighty BOOM! shook the chamber. Half our enemies were thrown off their feet. Cracks sprouted in the windowsand the marble columns. Ceiling tiles broke, raining dust like split bags of flour. 

I turned to see the impenetrable blast doors lying twisted and broken, a strangely emaciated red bull standing in the breach. Behind it stood Nico di Angelo.

gods. poetic brilliance. i can’t believe i’m still a nico di angelo stannie in the year 2021. in five years i have not changed (ever since the tv show announcement last summer i have managed to morph into myself from 2017)

from here i’m not sure where to go next i kind of want to go through everything, except it’ll be more difficult than my tyrant’s tomb reaction because i wasn’t reading on a kindle and thus can’t just do funny little reactions to screenshots of quotes, so i’ll just skim through the book page by page and see what i can comment on (i’m not planning on doing analysis today, no thank you, just enjoying the end of my childhood and trying to squeeze as much out of it as possible)

i have an emotional attachment to mr. snake from the very first chapter, and am very upset that he’ll never get off on his baltimore stop and get to see his wife, lu had no reason to shoot and kill him like that.

that brings me to lu, i liked her, it was interesting to see how rick kind of brought in not only the overarching theme of abuse, but also people who let the abuse happen, i have more i could say on this i’m too lazy to right now, and i promised no analysis - or the fact that Lu had conspired to make the show non-lethal to spare Meg’s feelings rather than - oh, I don’t know - refusing to do Nero’s dirty work in the first place and getting Meg out of that house of horrors. 

And are you any better? taunted a small voice in my brain. How many times have you stood up to Zeus?

Okay, small voice. Fair point. Tyrants are not easy to opppose or walk away from, especially when you depend on them for everything.

the parallels to meg and lester heading to percy’s apartment, and then to camp half blood to the hidden oracle was so cool to read, every callback to the hidden oracle just there to remind us readers exactly how far apollo has come and how he’s changed; the entire chapter with sally, paul and estelle just felt sickly sweet, it just didn’t seem real how wholesome and good that family is, like i get why apollo broke down and just sobbed in that shower.

also rick really saying acab again in toa, i thought he was done after that elf cop chapter in magnus chase (the magnus chase series is a masterpiece) but apparently not, with A ‘good cop’ is still a cop... still a part of the mind game.

the grey sisters, i forgot about them completely but this threw me back into was it the sea of monsters when annabeth summoned them? i’m not sure, it could have been the lightning thief either, they really remind me of the disney hercules movie. the whole ganymede paragraph was gold, i love gods being canonically confirmed lgbt in the riordanverse. i also love the whole eye-tossing part - 

‘He will crush our eye,’ Anger cried, ‘if we don’t recite our verses!’

‘I will not!’

‘We will all die!’ Wasp said. ‘He is crazy!’

‘I AM NOT!’

‘Fine, you win!’ Tempest howled.

also, the explanation for why dionysus chooses to look the way he does was perfect, because it was something i often wondered about and wasn’t expecting to get an explanation for, and i imagine the whole mythological dionysus to look like.. well like a more feminine apollo i guess, beautiful in a gender non-comforming way.

Other Olympians could never comprehend why Dionysus chose this form when he could look like anything he wanted. In ancient times, he’d been famous for his youthful beauty that defied gender.

... 

In retaliation, Dionysus had decided to look and act as ungodly as possible. He was like a child refusing to tuck in his shirt, comb his hair or brush his teeth, just to show his parents how little he cared.

every scene with nico at camp just BREAKS ME, i would throw in screenshots of every damn quote but unfortunately, as said above, cannot and would rather not type every one; we’ll start with, obviously apollo confirming to him that jason is dead. 

He didn’t look angry exactly. He looked as if he’d been hit in the gut not just once but so many times over the course of so many years that he was beginning to lose perspective on what it meant to be in pain. He swayed on his feet. He blinked. Then he flinched, jerking his hands away from Meg’s as if he’d just remembered his own touch was poison.

ugh then will talking about how nico’s doing, confirming that he’s suffering with ptsd, mr d giving him advice, helping him sort though what voices in his head are real and which ones aren’t, then the paragraph that just recounts every horrific thing poor nico has been through, how will has to reassure him that he’s okay and ‘with friends’ when he wakes up after shadow travel

will’s kindness to apollo, buying him clothes, and apollo finding seymour the leopard’s head in his bed, put there by mr d aaaa AAAA A A A A A THE ORDINARY, EVERYDAY CAMP HALF BLOOD THINGS..

i could go on for years and years about how much i appreciate rachel having a big role in this book, and the visit to her apartment, everything, her art, the fact that she got what she wanted, she’s going to PARIS to study ART, she isn’t forced to be someone she’s not by her dad, and gets to be a big part of a demigod mission and not stand on the sidelines for once.

i love that her landscapes are still visions, that she still paints the quests demigods go on - the burning maze, jason’s funeral pyre, caligula’s ships; and how nico ~appreciates art~

‘And, hey, di Angelo -’ she pushed him playfully away from the canvas he’d been ogling - ‘don’t brush against the art! I don’t care about the paintings, but if you get any colour on you, you’ll ruin that whole black-and-white aesthetic you’ve got going.’

i. love. rachel.

WILL GLOWS!! THE HEADCANONS FROM LIKE FIVE YEARS AGO THAT YOU’D SEE FLOATING AROUND ABOUT HIM MANIPULATING LIGHT!! CONFIRMED!! CANON!! AMAZING

I AM  OBSESSED WITH THE TROGS, I LOVE THEM, THEY ARE GREAT, not gonna lie, i was expecting something more dramatic and spooky with how worried will was and how dionysus was going.. visiting the cavern-runners isn’t ♫ good for your mental health  ♫ but the little hat frog gremlins were a good addition. i like them very much and their funky little soup shenanigans. quoting the ghost king himself: trogs good. nice hats. (IM SORRY I KEEP MENTIONING HIM BUT I JUST) also how apollo starts wishing for breadsticks a s ajoke and theY STRAIGHT UP HAVE BREADSTICKS? HUH? WHERE DID THEY GET THE BREADSTICKS FROM??

yeah, i’m also still very much upset by every mention of jason grace, it’s funny how ever since his death in the burning maze i have grown to love him more and more and that’s not fun for me, for that boy to become one of my main comfort character’s and have his death and sacrifice and nobility mentioned every few chapters. i’m pretty sure i cried when he appeared to talk in apollo’s dreams, and this time the tears weren’t from the effort of keeping my eyes open and working for hours straight reading this book (i remember staying up until 2am to finish the sequel to beautiful, broken things, it was very much worth it)

‘All right, Jason. We miss you, though.’

ALSO. THE FACT THAT THIS KID. THIS CHILD. HAD TO THINK ‘BUT IF A HERO ISN’T READY TO LOSE EVERYTHING FOR A GREATER CAUSE, IS THAT PERSON REALLY A HERO?’ A KID ISN’T SUPPOSED TO THINK ABOUT THAT AND BE READY TO SACRIFICE THEMSELVES FOR THE GREATER GOOD,, i,, ugh,, he’s supposed to be finishing school and designing temples not being the perfect hero and soldier,, spain without the s,,

as @couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name said: ‘thinking about how ghost! Jason didn’t seem to understand why Apollo was so upset about his death because he’s been raised to believe a hero’s sacrifice is noble and his life doesn’t matter in the grand scheme and also if he doesn’t understand why the person who watched him get horrifically killed is so torn up over his death he probably doesn’t even realize his other friends are grieving him..’

IM SO UPSET THE ARROW OF DODONA IS DEAD D: IT WAS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE CHARACTERS ALL THE FUNNIEST MOMENTS WERE BECAUSE OF THAT ARROW AND IT'S DEATH WAS SO SAD WTH LIKE WE FIND OUT HOW USELESS THE ARROW FELT AND HOW THE GROVE OF DODONA ALL THOUGHT IT WOULD BE CRAP AND WOULD FAIL APOLLO AND THEN ONCE WE FEEL BAD FOR IT, IT DIES??

the entire python battle was pretty grim, there is a part of me that's like because this is the last book series i would have loved say the magnus chase and kane chronicles gang in a giant battle with everyone like the battle of manhattan but even more dramatic, but even so, i did appreciate that python battle and the whole almost-falling-into-the-depths-of-tartarus thing.

him talking to artemis was cool, but JESUS: 'I turned and strode out of my room, trying to recall how the god Apollo walked.' like that HURTS. it was such a huge culture shock for apollo to go throught this huge character arc and be so human and understand the pain of others, to be around gods again who are so.. apathetic. also, zeus. 'Interesting how he put that: I had done him proud. I had been useful in making him look good. My heart did not melt. I did not feel that this was a warm-and-fuzzy reconciliation with my father. Let's be honest: some fathers don't deserve that. Some aren't capable of it.'

OKAY OKAY SO THE END?? CHIRON TALKING TO A CAT (BAST) AND A SEVERED HEAD (MIMIR) ABOUT SHARED PROBLEMS WITHIN THE PANTHEONS!! WILL AND NICO RECEIVING A PROPHECY FROM RACHEL TO GO TO TARTARUS AND SAVE BOB!! THE HUNTERS OF ARTEMIS, INCLUDING THALIA AND REYNA BEING BEST FRIENDS (qpr.. qpr..) HUNTING THE TEUMESSIAN FOX!! PERCY, ANNABETH AND GROVER, THE ORIGINAL TRIO, GOING ON A CHAOTIC ROAD TRIP TOGETHER!! - SO MANY STAND-ALONE SET -UPS PFSJSJSJ

okay quick word on the reunions at the end: funny little elephant visitation program with livia and hannibal. love that for them. calypso and leo's relationship seems rocky and complicated, but that's to be expected, i think even if they do get properly back together again it might not last long, because it does pretty much feel like a teenage relationship where the two aren't very compatible, but we'll see. hazel and frank are so funny with their gold plated necklaces. lavinia - tap-dance icon. almost cried at the mention of jason's temple-extension plan again. percy not being sure about what he wants to do in college is accurate and i like that that's left to be up-for-interpretation (rick does THE MOST for the fanfic writers pfsjsj). i am OBSESSED with aeithales, like i hate deserts so the burning maze setting is not my favourite but GOD that HOUSE, the vibes are off-the-charts. i'd love a house made of living trees that's also a greenhouse filled with dryads. meg gets a unicorn. that is so great.

i kind of wish the book hadn't ended with 'Call on me. I will be there for you.' because every time I imagine the friends theme song and i don't think that's the vibe he was going for, BUT i do love him talking to meg, that was genuinely emotional - 'You'll come back?' she asked. 'Always,' I promised. 'The sun always comes back.' ; i really wish it had ended with that, but i guess apollo does tend to break fourth walls and talk to the readers, like a lot of the protagonists of riordanverse books.

[fandom-sheep]

Fundy Dream SMP Chaos 01 APR 21

Delayed Liveblogging Part 1/1

I’m late cause I was on Wills stream.

He was laughing and complaining about not being able to burn things.

He’s happy he made a thing.

Oh no. Why is he tnting the castle and arsoning?

Why is Fundy causing problems on purpose?

Fundy honey please don’t break the holy land.

Oh it’s supposedly a fake server.

I need to read chat more to learn what is happening.

I guess I trust chat with fake smp?

OH WAIT! It’s April first!

I expected Fundy to prank us but I’m honestly too stupid for my own good sometimes.

Alright install hacks. Let’s go.

Chat has been burned before today.

Just casually looking at the reach mods.

The reason I don’t trust this is be a fake server is because he was on the real server earlier.

Fundy honestly might just be trying problems on purpose and it wouldn’t surprise me.

Sneaking under the half door! Oh wait never mind.

Oh no. Not memory dream stuff. Please your chat will cry.

Arson the Tommy house.

Arson the trees.

Oh an awesome old house.

Ah yes more tnt.

Fox boy has had quite the explosion obsession lately.

Upwards MLG. So talented.

I still don’t trust this not to be real. Because Fundy very well might explode things.

My dog is laying on my foot.

Lots of explosions.

Making more tnt nice.

Fundy gets banned arc! Let’s goooo.

Ok I want to see Fundy make this shot.

Explosion hour!

You can do it!

Chat is so divided between encouraging chaos and desperately hoping this is an April fools prank.

It’s still April first over there isn’t it?

1000% cannon

I love how Fundy understands that people do what they are told not to. So he tells them not to prime.

So close.

Come on! Explosion!

FOR THE PRIMES!

Yesssss!!!

MLG Fire. All the talent of this man.

I was so excited for Pokémon cards. But no face cam.

Wait don’t do Pokémon cards. We can’t see. 😢

Ah yes, Pokémon card asmr...

I wish I could see the cards. I love Pokémon cards.

I don’t know what some of these Pokémon he is vaguely describing are.

Oh wait! What was the last one???

Oooo what is it? What is it?

Rainbow glitter doesn’t limit it.

I could not understand that name. I can’t tell if it’s good.

Also Fundy. Time to look at this card.

Quit retaking the picture and just post it.

I swear he is enjoying toying with us.

We’re being shot while he’s trying to take a picture.

Ok time to check the bird site.

I have replied to the tweet with the requested phrase.

I don’t believe it’s worth a lot but it’s pretty.

Finally we’re done being stabbed by the skeleton.

Skeleton coming into close shot range.

Please don’t drown sir.

He’s comin’

Anyway back to causing problems.

Or you know back on memory lane...

Oh wait nevermind. Problems on purpose.

Really cool idea?

Another lovely ranged shot.

Aww. Didn’t quite make it.

Again didn’t quite make it.

Lazy way now.

“Eek” -Fundy

That’s one way to get revenge.

Chat keeping on calling for the death of Michael.

Casually sneaking into creative cause he’s out of tnt.

Tnt balloon launcher!

Oh Fundy planning on causing trouble at the other prison.

Tnt launcher let’s go.

Oh a being donated 100 lovely.

They deserve to have a tnt launcher named after them.

The chests being full has me suspicious but I still doubt the boy is truly causing problems on purpose.

Tnt launcher did not work.

L the streamer.

Oh Niki is going live on the smp. I suppose that’s one way we can find out if it’s the true smp.

Off they went. But it’s not accurate.

We’re just working with Fundy to cause trouble.

Nope. He just can’t do it.

Wow he’s flying like magic! (And covering that with tnt)

Making homemaker a bigger target isn’t going to work.

He’s gathering so many arrows.

Not a single one hit. Awesome looking but a lovely failure.

I tried to check on Nikis stream but the only thing that happened is I had to watch an ad to get back to Fundy.

Also Niki was hosting Minx. I missed her.

Awesome explosion Fundy.

Ah. Auto build.

Oh we auto built a bunch of signs. And none of them have the message.

Fungi grave. With diamonds. Lovely.

I am enjoying this even if I know better.

Ah. A lovely pile of tnt.

Poof!

Someone should have let Fundy have tnt sooner.

Casual flight.

I always love the music on Fundy’s streams. Just That lovely nostalgia.

Just piles of tnt by the hotel.

Chat is so panicked.

I don’t think most of them know it’s April first.

Oooo are we gambling?

Nope not gambling. But it did work gorgeously.

I’m not a griefing kind of person, but this does my heart good.

Enjoying problems.

“Oh what’s this place” adds tnt “gone” -Fundy

Come on chat people. Just encourage him. Quit saying check the date and that it’s a fake server. Just role with it.

Oh that was a very pretty explosion.

Exploded early but it worked (stupid egg bits)

A gorgeous sideways explosion.

We still aren’t destroying... oh wait. We are exploding. No sign.

No escape. But he survived. And the prime bell is still safe.

Castle explosion time.

I’m kinda sad about the castle I’ll admit. But I’ll still up for a good explosion.

Made the lil house and now he explodes things.

Chat blowing up the rainbow castle isn’t homophobic. Hush.

Oooo shaders. That’ll look pretty.

Cant wait to see the pretty screenshots the artists use.

Probably a back up. We’ll see.

Oh I’m also a bit sad about the museum. But you know. If we gotta explode things we gotta explode things.

I can’t wait to see the shaders with this.

Struggling to explosions.

Oh pretty. And the hotdog survives!!!

Cinematic. Beautiful.

Donos playing along saying he’ll be banned. Or donos just confused.

This boy truly pretending he hacked his way into creative on the smp.

Ok that was a pretty cinematic shot.

Holo mellons

Sniff raid! Lovely!

Also the person telling them to check out foolish’s stream. Hush. Let us worry people.

Oh did Fundy build the funky cube thing? I doubt but still.

Prison time.

Oh got to get the skeppy and bad house

And whatever that pit building is.

Everyone still talking about how it ain’t real. Quit it y’all. Come on. Join the joke.

Our dearest mods trying to keep everyone from spoiling it.

The prison is a really pretty build. And it does look explodable.

Explode the prison. Yes and 5up is hot is what are winning.

The no’s can’t catch up. It’s fire time.

You can tell the prank has failed, but it’s still good for the heart to see it explode. It is still a game after all as emotionally attached as we have gotten to it.

A small thing. A small explosive thing.

Everyone changing lag already.

Everyone already ready to fight Fundy if he were to blow up Michael.

Button time.

Oh we even have the cool undertake music.

And the cannon didn’t reach.

Auto build plus lots of tnt.

This is the grand finale of the prank I believe.

I might to go foolish after this. Get some chaotic building man.

Prime bell!!!

Poof and pop.

Oh that was pretty.

Wait... inner wall...

Well. Lore people take your notes on prison construction.

This knowledge will help you on your quest later.

Prison couldn’t even be broken by a fox with a tnt canon.

Phil Raid! Hooray!

Please be a real raid. I want the extra half hour of chaos.

Even though the fox should be yelled at to go to sleep.

Oh. Was it a real Phil raid? I half expected it not to be.

The chat is both confused and chilling.

You get that hype train rich people.

Walking around trying to pretend we haven’t been blowing everything up.

Casually walking around showing off his destruction.

It’s not even April first over theee anymore is it?

Ah. Yeah it is April fools joke.

Ah. Is Fundy actually coming clean about his stuff.

Ah no. He’s continuing to pretend nothing is happening.

Lots of tnt.

Gorgeous. Magnificent. Fantastic.

I love tnt particles for whatever reason. They always look so good.

That actually did a lot.

Yes join the fox discord! Yes follow the fox Twitter! I’ve already done both. I don’t really check either but still.

Showing off his explosions.

Oh we’re doing a reenactment.

Let’s gooo.

L’manhole v. 3 (4?)

Lots of tnt. Always good.

Oh. Oh no. It’s lagging bad.

The tnt. Isn’t going.

Ah now the true lag.

“Cool guys don’t have the frames to look at explosions” -Fundy

That was a good explosion. How deep did it go? No very probably.

TNT parkour! We love it!

That didn’t work but that was a nice explosion. Plenty of bedrock.

Good job with the hype train rich people.

We enjoy our streamer causing problems.

And the sign has changed again. You know the one. “You heart...”

Trying to fill the orb thing with tnt.

That was a very contained explosion.

Good explosion time.

Ok. We’re talking concrete replacement.

Blood vines exploding this early again.

Casually exploding the tiny Eret.

Everyone convincing him not to blow up the tiny Eret.

I love how those who watch one watch the other.

L’manburg yeah explode it. Eret? No.

Oh wait don’t look at the spoilers.

Secret Base Here.

Ahh. Blowing up his tower as well.

Nevermind. We like the tower.

Reasons. Mhm. Didn’t plan on that when he set this up. (In relation to snowchester)

Boy’s tnt penmanship is like that of a toddler.

Great explosions.

Oh we’re poofing the Targay next.

I love the two types of people. People like me, playing along, and the people who are panicking and praying it’s a copy.

Love the mods telling everyone it’s real.

Aww he died.

It’s ok. We respawned.

Defiantly cannon.

We don’t want it to be? That’s worrying for future lore.

But we’re not talking future lore. We’re doing therapy explosions.

Oh an ad. I didn’t get it. I won’t complain.

All the levels gone so sad. Not like they can spontaneously appear.

No. We aren’t going to snowchester. Too far away.

Where is the next level?

Random fire arrows???

Yes we are question marking.

Coder boy? Minecraft commands?

Run command?

Execute command?

He’s typing. I understand none of it.

Oh it’s peaceful.

There it goes.

Withers our favorite thing

Withers and chickens.

Oh. We stuck. We lagging bad.

Let me join the L group really fast.

The game crashed and now he’s trying again.

Wait all the damage reset?

Oh wait no we’re on the real smp now aren’t we!

Maybe not... we’ll see.

It never saved?

And here is the April Fools reveal.

Oh hooray sub goal and piano tunes!

Oh American roadtrip by Fundy!

That’ll be fun! It’ll be fun to see the vlogs and the like!

Raise that sub goal! Get that fun adventure!

It’ll be a month but it’ll be fun!

Ah he is telling them it was a real April fools steam.

But this is a cool idea! I hope the boy gets to come here on an adventure.

Why do many New York and New Jersey people? Also hooray 5up!

I hit the text block limit. Good song time! Banger tune time! Oh that’s neat! FundyJam! Another? I could make a part 2 to this instead of cramming, but that’s too much work. GOOD SONG GOOD STREAM! I love Fundy streams so much. Very therapeutic explosions. And the raid went through. 15TH FOR MAIN CHANNEL VIDEO!!!!

[theashofwkm]

AHWM Theory // Actor!Mark is Heist!Mark and what he was hoping to achieve in the Heist...

MASSIVE SPOILERS. This refers to several endings so please don’t read until you’ve seen all of AHWM.

All screenshots are mine and I apologize for the poor quality. My internet tanked last night when I was getting them and I was too lazy to go get the same screenshot, caption it over again, all with better quality.

Also forewarning that this is kind of a mess. It was mostly made late last night.

It starts with the first choice. Sneak out, or guns blazing? Obviously, he wants to go out guns blazing, but if you choose to sneak out, he listens, even though he doesn’t like it.

He’s the one holding the explosives and the gun. If he wants to fight his way out, he could. But he doesn’t. He complains, but listens to you, continuing on to say “but you might be smart.” As soon as you make the choice to sneak out, he drops the gun and pockets the bomb.

Next, you have to choose between the light and dark tunnels. Again, it’s clear that he’d rather go down the light tunnel, but if you choose the dark tunnel his only reaction is \/

And then he goes down it. Trusting you. Again, nothing is stopping him from going down the light path, but he listens to you and goes down the dubbed “tunnel of screaming and death.” He’s a bit (very) passive aggressive, but he doesn’t hesitate in following your choice.

Then, the chain of stick together/split up. In all of them, he’s overly eager to split up, go your separate ways. Every time you split up, he dies.

If you choose to stick together, he gets rather... childish with his disapproval.

In this choice, he could lead you both into the red room (the one he wants to go in), but he doesn’t. You leads you down the other path which ends him dying twice, your meeting with dark or you both making it out. This is where Actor!Mark comes in.

What if he wants to split up because he knows that he dies when you do? In WKM, he was stabbed 37 times, poisoned, beaten, strangled, drowned and shot. He’d died multiple times, but he didn’t stay dead. He had tried to kill himself, having no will to live, but it never stuck. What if he hasn’t given up? For all his grand plans about being the hero, what if it’s just his backup plan to dying?

He wants to die.

So he tries to get you to leave him behind — by getting super passive aggressive, by pouting, by being super excited every time he brings up the idea, being disappointed every time you don’t go along with him, and then the final time you have to make this choice. He reassures you and tells you everything he can to get you to let him go (literally, now). That he’s a burden, he would rather have you live over him, getting excited when he talks about you making it out, saying that splitting up isn’t what either of you wants (even though previously, he had wanted that, now he’s just trying to play to your emotions)... by telling you that he’s okay with dying, if it saves you.

He does care about whether you live or die. He mainly tries to leave you behind (the crumbled path, the broken bridge) or to get you to leave him. Maybe you die in the one because he can only sense his incoming death and not yours. And that particular talent only extends to the choice you’re about to make, because he really only pushes for a choice when he directly dies in one of them. Like, look at when you’re with the scientist.

He jumps in front of her laser blaster for you. She tries to kill you and instinctively, he jumps to protect you.

He knows that you’ve been bitten by a zombie at that point. As far as he knows, you’re as good as dead, but he gives his life so you can live your last hours. He cares more about your life then he does his and this moment proves it. Because he could have let you get shot and walked away with a relatively guilt-free conscience — you were messing with timelines, you were the reason for the apocalypse, it was for the greater good... but he didn’t. He’d have damned the world, if it meant watching you die.

When put in that position, you don’t do that unless you actually care about that person. Like, you can’t live without them, they’re your only lifeline kind of care. Whoever you are, you’re important to him. He even asks you out on that date in ending 6, referring to ADWM.

He does trust you.

You could play through to an end choosing the opposite of what he wants, and he’ll follow you anyway, insinuating that he cares about your opinion more then he does his own, even if it means not getting what he wants. You don’t do that with people you don’t trust completely. If you’re not convinced, look at the cave.

His fists are clenched and ready to strike, but he’s leaning away from the stranger. He looks more afraid/wary than angry, and straight up asks you what you should do, leaving the choice to you even though he obviously has his own opinion. And if you say to go in the cave?

He immediately relaxes, dropping his arms and asking the stranger if they have food and buddying up to them. All because you gave him a thumbs up. Before, he’d thought that the stranger was dangerous but when you decide to trust him, he does as well, to a fault, later letting himself be strapped to a chair with a hood over his head because — you trust them, so how can they be that bad?

One more example. If you choose the helicopter, he immediately goes, not asking if you knew how to fly the thing since he didn’t. It’d only take a couple of seconds to ask, but he waits until he’s in and you’re standing in the door to do so. Because he trusted that you had a reason for picking the helicopter, and that you had a plan to get you both out.

You might be wondering about Dark, what he said about Mark. “Same snake, different skin.” “Games are more his forte.” The snake thing could just be referring to how we all thought he was a separate ego — Heistiplier. And as for the game comment:

Well, isn’t the Heist kind of a game in itself?

Strip it down and it holds a lot of similarities to Stealing the Diamond. It’s kind of a bare bones version of that, except it starts once you have the thing and it goes until you escape. WKM was a game to him — starring a Clue-style who dun it in his own home, about him. From that, he got his ‘perfect villain’ as he declares in DAMIEN.

His life is a big story, a big game. He has infinite lives, as far as he can tell, and he’s willing to play the long game. In most of the endings that Mark lives for, he’s still buddy-buddy with you, even if your choices aren’t ideal for him. Maybe the Heist was a way to ensure that he gets his next character assigned — you.

There’s one theory that the bloopers are the truth in that they show that the Heist was all a show, a game, a fraud. That theory holds some weight here. It’s by @statictay (hope you don’t mind the tag).

He’s spent years building up the plan, which, in the end, doesn’t exist. So he spent years, with you, molding you to accept his request in heisting with him and for you to be another character in his story. Along the way, he’d grown to care for you in some way, though that probably wasn’t in his plan, and he did have a plan, because out of 31 endings, how many does he die in?

19. That’s 61.29% of the endings. Yes, I did the math, and yes my chart of living/dying is probably wrong. And I should mention a few things about how I accounted to it being a living/dead for either of you.

I counted Zombie you as living. There are four instances of a Time Reset being used, all ending in both of you living, and those are accounted as such. I counted the jail human-shaped hole ending as a death for both. Aliens were counted as a double live. All Illinois/Yancy/Captain endings were a death for Mark. When you’re about to enter the cave, the run away ending counts as a death for you but not him. Now I did this all really quickly and mostly from memory so a few numbers may be off, but roughly, it’s close enough.

Look at the numbers.

You live almost 3/4 of the endings. 36.36% of the both live endings are due to TR (time resets), and the TR endings make up a third of the Mark live endings. You live without him more then he does you. Your live rate is almost double his. All of this supports that Mark wants you alive, that you living is part of his plan, maybe the most essential part.

You live in 23 endings. He dies in 19 of them. So, that’s more important to him. There are only two endings that are the opposite of what he wants (him living, you dying). So, he’s successful in at least half of his mission in 93.55% of the time. That’s a pretty good success rate. He succeeds in both parts of his mission 38.71% of the time. Little over a third.

We know that when Mark died in WKM, he went to the Upside Down. Maybe that still holds true, now, and he treats it as a home base, a place to plan his games. So maybe he does still want to die, or he goes there and does something that’s beneficial. Maybe it’s a place that Dark can’t enter because he’s not human and doesn’t really have a soul. So it’s a safe house. That’s why him dying is seen as a ‘good’ ending.

And we know that he twisted Damien into becoming Dark to fulfill a Villian role. Maybe you meeting with the new Egos (Captain, Yancy, Illinois) was so he could find them and twist them into a role, much as he did with Damien and it didn’t really matter if you lived/died there (no, I’m not running those numbers. Not now at least). Or maybe he wants you to fill a role, as I mentioned earlier.

Or you could be a scapegoat for him. You make every choice so technically the fallback would land on you instead of him and any death that’s caused because of the choice could be pinned on you. It’s a shaky argument, but for Mark, it’s sound. He’s just following your orders.

As for why would he trust the viewer so much, to allow them to make EVERY choive:

WKM could have scarred him in some way. It was his plan to have William kill him and he succeeded, but he’s still human and they were best friends at one point, even if William betrayed that. Making that choice could have made him not want to make another that leads to death. It could have broken his trust in himself because we know that WKM didn’t go according to plan and maybe it went worse then what he was expecting, making him learn that things spiral sometimes and can’t be predicted. He’s okay with having his death on his hands, but not others and WKM taught him that any small choice could lead to death, so he doesn’t make those choices anymore. Hence, he befriended you.

Or it could his reputation that keeps him from making choices. If he made a choice, say where Ed shoots you, and word got out that you died while in his presence, it could cast doubt over him. They’d question why he didn’t save you. And, well, if you don’t die there, there are two relatively happy endings. Pacifying zombie you or finding a cure for zombies. Both are pretty heroic acts, even if he just stumbled on them, he’d build it up to be more. He cares about his reputation. He wants to be seen as a grand hero and he won’t risk anything getting in the way of that. And he partly succeeds in almost every route, so he built the Heist to his needs quite well.

It could be him working on perfecting his Hero persona (or it could be a side effect of him letting you choose because he trusts you. They could go hand in hand). He lets you choose because it’s the kind thing to do, he wears a suit (heroes always look nice), and in the fifteenth ending, this is his immediate reaction to being outside the museum with the treasure.

Who else would say that, if not Actor Mark? No one we know. So there’s a good bit of evidence suggesting that this is Actor Mark.

So, in summary, Heist!Mark is Actor!Mark, the viewer was a tool to him, in some shape or form; the Heist was a ploy for him to get something else that he wanted, and you were a big part of his plan.

[cosmosrival]

there it is! kama interlude analysis by a kama fan!

WELL. LIKE IT SAYS IN THE TITLE: this is just my own thoughts!! youre free to think whatever u want !! i am just putting my own knowledge into words because i genuinely love kama, and i would like for kama’s depth to be understood by the NA fandom a little more!! i try to stay as close as possible to their character in everything i do because i believe that the more in character they are, the funnier/more interesting content ppl will produce. 

and hopefully i understood them well ???!!!! HOPEFULLY ?!

i will be screenshotting the translated reddit post under this read more and stop whenever something i find interesting to develop pops up ! or else it’ll get way too long lol if you wanna read the interlude for yourself heres the link!

with that said, let’s go!!

kama’s interlude begins with guda passing the hell out because of exhaustion and then waking up in a dream sequence where kama treats them to some relaxing adventures, stuff to take their mind off heavy things!! first dream sequence is kama roleplaying a highschool setting where they’re dating.

i like this because they openly admit that its an illusion, breaking the immersion but as long as youre okay with roleplaying, they’ll continue it LOL  at some point, caesar mentions the student council president and arjuna appears behind him 

since this is an illusion that kama made, i’ve been wondering about the fact that the way servants conduct eachother in this interlude is mostly because that’s how kama envisions they would act in a highschool setting, in an amusement park and finally with eachother (mostly for confirmed couples such as siegbryn, consort yu and her hubby etc...). suzuka and sei being gyarus is obvious, but arjuna as the student council president... is so cute???!!! i MEAN IT FITS ?! THATS A GREAT IDEA KAMA!!!! ANYWAY

this is kama’s first monologue and since they’re primarily the god of lust, all of the more vanilla stuff they mentions such as sharing a pair of headphones embarrasses them since its so tame. ITS CUTE !!! kama expects you to be horny in class !! what are you doing thinking about hand holding !!! medusa saves u from that tho with a direct reference to her relationship with kama’s vessel 

this is interesting !! and reassuring !!! i think that kama as a character has a lot of depth and just reducing them to “sakura” would be a waste and this interlude shows how different they are from her. but they’re also similar! sakura went through a lot just like medusa says and kama does have trauma related to shiva. its not the same circumstances but the same kind of suffering which explains the nuance here. and what i like about chaldea is that there’s been multiple instances where its been proven that servants can grow thanks to their relationships with guda (most common example: leveling up your bonds) BUT ALSO, saint graph evolution (alts). and as a kama fan i’d like to see them happy someday and this interlude as a whole is proof of their healing/coping because of the time they spent in chaldea and how they interact with others. more on that later ! here, they don’t recognize medusa which is normal since they’re not sakura (someone else entierly), but...

they care about her ! because of sakura’s influence being a part of the servant called Kama(assassin). the difference here is important !! but i’ll come back on this in a bit. quick mention to the greek cupid <3 kamadusa nation we were fed (i clap by myself because im the only one who has 57575757557 kama rarepairs-----)

kama is a delinquent whos horny in class but still takes a few notes, enough to do well on their tests! and thats tea<3 smart horny lazyass !! theyre a gift

SO ARJUNA WAS OUT FOR BLOOD ????? ANYWAY, this is right after the actual fight against weirdo terrorists, and im happy to know that kama DOES enjoy a good fight (as proven in their voicelines as well) but theyre not a farming unit because it’d be too much work (single target NP..)...!!!!!!! lavish god of love.... 

FINALLYYYYYYYYYYY THE REAL DEAL !!!!!!!!!!!! “it feels wonderful to be your girlfriend” christ, kamadeva was so used to being a husband and a good lover, it reflected in their servant version.... but ree what do u mean by servant version???

I MEAN THE OBVIOUS !! kama explains it very well in the screenie just above ! 

“You know very well how servants work.”

KAMA ASSASSIN (the servant in your chaldea) is neither KAMADEVA or SAKURA MATOU or MARA. they’re a MIX OF PARTS OF THE THREE. creating an entierly new person(in this case, servant) !!!! it might sound like i’m repeating myself, but this is important!!!!!!!!! i will say this multiple times so people remember it !!! and if u already had this figured out: GOOD JOB I LOVE U !!!

Kamadeva (the god) has many stories, ones where he was born from concepts (dharma and shraddha), one where his parents are brahma and sarasvati, one where his parents are vishnu and lakshmi, stories about his reincarnation after his death where his parents are krishna and rukmini, his love with Rati and so on. We all know Sakura’s backstory since this is nasuverse. And Mara is a demon, an entity that tried to corrupt Buddha and prevent him from reaching enlightenment/stray from the path. Kama assassin has parts from all of these entities which explains why they have a vague longing for Rati, why they have a soft spot for Medusa and why they have an affinity with Kiara(and also like talking about corrupting u !). 

they then mention how a japanese highschool setting is fun and all i have to say is: i’m gonna make an indo fam delinquent vs student council au out of this one folks !!!!!!!! i gotta !!! 

OK next

TIME FOR THE SECOND DREAM SEQUENCE WHICH I WAS VERY VERY VERRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYY AFRAID OF BEFORE THE TRANSLATION CAME OUT.

THE PART WHERE KAMA ACTS LIKE YOUR CHILD.

well with their stage 1 it was expected but without the translation i have to say that i was scared shitless! because people hate thinking! and even if kama clearly tells you that it’s a charade, u know a JOKE. A DREAM SEQUENCE. DONT BE A CREEP. KAMA INTENDED FOR IT TO BE WHOLESOME. i know some ppl wont use their brains. but u know its fgo and degenerates are everywhere. 

anyways. family bonding time ensues until another monologue appears!!

exactly like before, kama mentions myths that belonged to kamadeva. Meaning that the Kama in our chaldea isn’t the Kamadeva we know and is not Pradyumna either but the fact that the writers chose to have kama acknowledge it is very reassuring !!! Because it means that they’ve chosen to make it a part of their (complicated) history. Kama says that Pradyumna is the myth about themself they know the least, once again proving us that the Kama in our Chaldea (Assassin) is a different entity and that they were summoned to the throne upon their death, the moment they were burned by Shiva’s flames and became Ananga, in any case they’re still familiar with all of their own myths. it allows us to keep heroic spirits separate from their original myths. Obviously! And in the case of pseudo-servants, it allows us to keep them separate from their vessels. Cuz this is a fanservice japanese game. Andddd the fandom likes forgetting this fact quite a lot i’ve noticed. As a person who loves thinking about tons and tons of headcanons for fun, this allows us a lot of space ! Because this is fate/grand order at its base. Nasuverse. 

I’m glad that the interlude explains it so clearly, it’s very good !! Because the majority of myths from every culture are confusing, family trees are confusing, names are confusing, powers and attributes are confusing... its a mess !!!! the fgo characters we know are just cut from their own respective timelines/historial figures so the writers can organize themselves more easily. Like cutting halves from a big cake. Kama (Assassin) is the Kama that died from Shiva’s flames and became the universe ONLY. In Nasuverse, Arthur Pendragon is a woman. Anastasia Romanov NEVER had a demon familiar named Viy in real life despite the creature being part of russian folklore. u know ! im russian i can testify dude !! 

hopefully everyone got this bc i wont be explaining this any further dude, its exhausting !!!!!! bangs my hands on the table !!!!! 

ANYWAYS kama mentions “eternal pain that turns [them] into ash” being their key element. Their trauma is at the center of their heroic spirit self, what they are as a servant. This suffering is tied to everything they do, why they’re so lazy, why they’re so lax, why they’re so detached from their job.  But they’re not detached from their role. And “job” and “role” have different connotations here. They refuse to work as a cupid because of obvious reasons. BUT. They’re not detached from their role as the God of Love, as the God of Passion. The embodiment of those feelings. This whole interlude is proof ! They’re giving u free therapy because they Love you. Passion. They feel your love. Passion. They acknowledge how much fun you’re having. How passionate you are about certain things. They might seem extremely detached and hateful, but they aren’t. They’re one of the most empathetic servants there is. And their ability to love everything, even the things they hate is what makes them so miserable. Because it’s a part of them. Because the concept of Kama in hinduism is linked to them. Be it lust or simply the passion born from anything you do where you’re enjoying yourself. (quote:  “ the term also refers to any sensory enjoyment, emotional attraction and aesthetic pleasure such as from arts, dance, music, painting, sculpture and nature “. R. Prasad (2008), History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization )

... I’d like to say that this contrast with Mara is interesting. And that i’m glad the writers chose to add in Mara to the kama assassin Beast mix. 

Because the anger Mara feels can become a drivepoint for Kama. I’ve always believed that anger and sadness are two sides of the same coin, it’d explain how layered Kama is and how valid their emotions are. Constantly torn between love and hate. An eternal grudge (i don’t deserve to be hurt like this) and an eternal misery(maybe i do deserve to be hurt like this). 

i wish they were my roommate <3 oh fuck ree got emotional wait where were we.

OH YEAH

i think kama saying that they dislike being involved with other indian servants because theyre linked to shiva is a feeble attempt at trying to keep up a strong front because they still love them in the end. cuz that’s how kama is ! after a while they’ll get bored of bullying ganesha and ashwatthama. they’ll get interested in rama because their respective mythos are linked even if their servant selves have no connection. hell, at the end of the interlude they talk about parvati and how they themself changed and realized things. BUT OH WELL, THATS STUFF FOR ANOTHER POST HEHE thats just ree wanting kama to b happy yall move along !!

.....THIS ISNT A COLLEGE STUDENTS ROLEPLAY BUT ITS A CUTE JAPANESE COMPANY BOSS/UNDERLING SETTING AND ITS CUTE SO I THINK KAMA WEARING A PENCIL SKIRT AND POURING U ALCOHOL IS CUTE. CUTE.

further proof of kama’s overflowing affection and what i detailed above!! hopefully u all knew this one simply from reading this interlude/their profile page and dont need me to write it down for u. HOPEFULLY !!!!!

(I START BEATBOXING VERY RAPIDLY AND RUNNING TOWARDS YOU) KAMA IS A SADIST AT THEIR CORE AND I WILL NEVER STOP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they’re easy to fluster because theyre not used to being so vanilla, but whats underneath is how they truly are !! a beast turned servant, the sweetest sadist !! theyre very mature and this interlude is so well written (wipes my teears

this is directly linked to what i explained above, by burning you away, you’ll melt into nothingness just like they did. When they were the universe, they felt both everything and nothing. 

But was it really relief ... ?

... IT WASNT.

AND PARVATI SAVES THE DAY !!!!!!! phew!! thank u paru, it’d still like to be able to touch kama’s huge titties and i cant do that if i turn into ashes (falls down the stairs

ok she summoned lovey dovey canon couples to annoy kama since they’re exhausted of seein them!!

...............(I TAKE OUT A KNIFE) TAKE THAT BACK. DONT TALK TO THEM LIKE THAT. TAKE THAT BACK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

ohhhhhh im obsessed i love when theyre angry<3 i love when theyre fighty <3 i think they should beat the living shit out of a boxing bag DAILY to let out some of this steam. they’d be a monster on the ring... aaa kama in training boot y shorts aa a .. .uughg hg ouu... (you all shove me into a locker)

ok this is interesting !! i think that the interlude showing us that parvati feels a semblance of guilt is character dev. proof for what i mentioned before!! in ookuu parvati felt quite ..unsympathetic to me, even if kama is a beast who wants to annihilate humanity, when u think about it, at their core their grudge is because of her and shiva’s betrayal. and here, she properly apologizes for making kama so upset. this is heartwarming to me since i dislike thinking that members of the indo fam hate eachother :( same goes for arjuna and karna, at some point i’d like for them to act like bros normally and finally be comfy. but anyways !!

u wake up from the dreams and da vinci, mashu and paru are here to tell u whats going on. But its fine bc u remember everything and u have to go thank someone for helping u out!!!

CUTE !!!!!!! THEY CARE ABOUT U !!!!!! but whether it be because of their role or because theres a deeper meaning is entierly up to your own interpretation because...

of what they say here. 

and here !! 

ohhhhhhhhh this is so important !!!!!!

this is actual proof of kama’s growth as a servant and how servants evolve in chaldea !! chaldea is not the same as a grail war, its a special, cut-off place and thats what makes it even more relaxing to think about. Everytime u summon a servant in ur chaldea u give them a chance to have fun with you, to have fun with other servants, to make amends, to start from scratch, to discover things they would’ve never known in their time (movies, video games, tons of different foods etc...), u give them a chance to relax. to grow !! this is the headcanon that im most attached to and im glad to see it be confirmed in the interlude of a character i love tbqh i had to stop and talk about that.

everyone say thank u kama !! can we roleplay a college roommate coffee shop slowburn au next time <3 

ANYWAYS if you’ve read it this far: thank you !!! im sorry if you expected something very serious, im not that type of person hehe im jus here to have fun and look at things i like, and the interlude itself was quite lighthearted and refreshing. By talking about the myths and all of kamadeva’s stories, the writers basically gave lore nerds a huge thumbs up like... “its ok now !! u can go ape now !! go be insane<3 love u<3″ and all of this kama characterization GENUINELY makes me so happy because i think they really needed that. kama assassin... (i blow a kiss to the sky) is a little mess of a servant... a god, human crumbs and a demon... a total mess... im in love with them...

..............tho now the wait for a summer alt where they interact with the entire indo fam begins (im sitting in a chair unmoving)(i have a gun in case minase begins acting gross

[mellometal]

This upset me. I thought I made it very clear that fatphobes aren’t allowed to interact with me at all.

So...on part two of the fatphobia videos that Dhar Mann made, there was some fatphobia from someone in the comments.

For anyone who doesn't know what exactly happened, I saved screenshots of what they said. Their username will be scribbled out. I don't want any witch hunts.

TW: Fatphobia, mentioned thoughts of s3lf h@rm, bullying, self-esteem issues, and su1c1d@L thoughts.

Fatphobic anon (first screenshot): Good for Kurt. I’m proud that he was shown what was wrong with him and finally decided to change for the better and lose weight. I do admit that the coach was a bit harsh but he did apologize in the end. I find this story an inspiration to myself as well, I admit I have problems. One of them being I’m fat. I hate being fat, you should too. That’s why I’m losing weight instead of being lazy. I’m happy that I didn’t fall into the crowd of thinking being fat is okay.

Me (second, third, and fourth screenshots): @ fatphobic anon, That’s good for you and all, and I’m proud of you for making a change for yourself. However, NOBODY should be hating themselves and if they love themselves in their own skin, that’s their choice. I already have struggled with fantasizing literally harming myself to the point where I was actually considering going through with it, and MANY fat people have had similar thoughts.

I already hate myself enough as it is, my self-esteem is absolute shit, and losing weight is something I know will NOT solve my problems. I got more issues than Vogue. Don’t advertise weight loss as a end-all solution because it’s really not. Quit with the fatphobia.

You don’t know if a fat person’s actually been trying to lose weight or not. To assume they don’t “because they’re lazy” is so wrong. I’ve been trying to lose weight since I was TWELVE YEARS OLD. FUCKING TWELVE! I’VE BEEN BULLIED FOR MY WEIGHT SINCE THEN TOO, IN REAL LIFE AND ONLINE. I actually thought about ending my own life so I could be with my mom again. I refuse to be pushed to that point again. If you could NOT do that, that’d be awesome.

The coach apologized, yes, but that doesn’t change the fact that he, A GROWN MAN, tormented Kurt, A TEENAGER, and continued doing so into Kurt’s adulthood. He could have started by just not resorting to tormenting and ridiculing a teenage boy in the first place.

If any of you saw that comment the fatphobic anon made and it upset you, I’m so sorry, you’re not alone, and I’m here for you if you need support. I blocked them and they will NEVER be able to comment on my posts about this subject ever again. Or ANY subject, for that matter. I hope anyone who was affected by this disgusting person is okay.

From this point forward, anyone who makes further comments that are fatphobic or said comments contain body shaming of ANY kind will be automatically blocked and blacklisted. I’m being dead serious here. If you have an issue with the body positivity movement, including fat people loving themselves in their own skin, this page isn’t for you. GO AWAY. /srs

It costs nothing to be kind. My page is supposed to be a safe space. I’m trying to keep it that way and I’ll do whatever I can to do so.

[5-secondsofcolor]

Te Guardo || A.I.

Warnings: None? a bit of odd angst? This is unedited so tenses are funky

Length: 2K

Prompt: “Kissing you is all I’ve thought about since the moment we met.” & Ashton x Airport

AN: This is a part of @h0tsos and @maluminspace second fic event. Thank you so much for organizing this again!! I’ve linked the event masterlist below if anyone wants to go check out other folk’s work. 

EVENT MASTERLIST

_____

Ashton shuffles through his glove compartment of his car, he should’ve registered the car months ago when he first moved to LA but lies of ‘next week’ let him go on far too long. Now he slowly pulls out old ticket stubs and memories of nights passed, looking for his title and registration in the parking lot of the DMV. 

He pauses when he finds himself gripping a smooth plastic paper, pulling out square Polaroid. All of them tossed in there unceremoniously after his moving away party. By the look of the pictures, it’s clear they’ve survived a few seasons, fading in the time spent in his glove compartment. 

A smile breaks out as he plucks one out and tucks it into his wallet before he continues to pull out crap. Finally, a piece of pink paper peaks out, a sigh of relief coming alongside it as he joins the appointment line. 

After an eternity, he gets to the attendant, the woman doesn’t look up from the last form on her desk before asking “What’s the reason for your appointment?”

“Registering a vehicle”

“Can I see your license and registration?”

He pulls out his wallet, as the attendant finally looks up at him giving him an irate look for not being fully prepared, he returns an apologetic smile as the top of his ears warm. Shuffling through the wallet for his license produces the polaroid first, he tucks it back down and grabs his license. 

“Here it is,” he announces as he hands it over, the attendant giving him no response. A couple of moments later, the woman hands back his forms alongside a small ticket with ‘B36’ stamped across the top.

“Take a seat and wait for your number to be called,” The attendant says excusing him to the waiting area. 

With little else to do, he pulls the polaroid out and allows his mind to remember the night it was taken. Vanessa had done her makeup in the way that made her brown eyes pop, the bright colors complementing her brown skin. He always liked the way her highlighter made her look so golden. The darkness of her hair blends slightly into the dark background but he remembers her soft natural curls and the way they always smell like coconut oil and soft flowers. 

They’ve spoken since he moved but it held an awkwardness and it’s all his fault. Truly, he’s replayed that night over and over so much so that he wonders if he’s remembering it right. It was nothing but a moment stolen but it put them on a different path.

“Kissing you is all I’ve thought about since the moment we met,” Ashton said as he cupped Vanessa’s cheek. 

In the poorly lit backyard, it all felt rushed, childish for Ashton to use their only moment’s alone all night to make half declarations of love but it’s what it boiled down to as the timer on Ashton’s big move nearly hit 0.

Her breath caught in her lungs as he pressed his lips to hers. She tried to commit it to memory, feeling it was the start of something. The way string lights gave everything a warm light, the chatter pouring out of his— well now Luke’s apartment, the way was just cold enough for goosebumps to raise on her skin, and the softness of his lips. Instead what’s committed to memory is the sadness, the reality that he was driving away in 2 days.

“Ashton! Andrew’s looking for you,” Luke’s booming voice breaks the moment before she has a chance to acknowledge what happened. 

“I’ll be right in. I’m just going to walk Vanessa to her car,” His attempt to shoo away Luke is useless, Luke’s too drunk to realize what he’s walked into. Instead running out and wrapping an arm around Ashton’s neck. “Can’t believe he’s all grown up. Leaving us for LA. Can you believe it?”

“Don’t worry about walking me, my car’s just a house over. I’ll just text you when I get home, promise.”

“Please,” it sounds like a plea as Luke turns him around, shouting about one thing or another as they rejoin the last party, leaving Vannesa with a blank mind and absolutely too much to process.

She pulls into her driveway quickly. Surreal feelings hitting her as she sits in her car a moment after turning it off. That couldn’t have really happened, she shakes her head as she collects her things. Habitually pulling up Ashton’s contact as she turns on her living room light. Her mind still blank as she opens their conversation. 

After a moment, she presses on Calum’s contact and quickly types, “Home safe! Let Ash know please.” and tosses her phone on the couch.

Ashton waited for that text message. Holding on to the promise made in passing, he got her message from Calum but nonetheless, he called her, wanting to hear anything from her but got her voicemail and waited for her to call him back. 

____

After a dinner with, Vanessa finds herself down the street from her apartment at a little brewery. It’s the one that always reminded her of Ashton. Countless afternoons spent meeting up. He used to make these walks down the streets with her on lazy afternoons.

Her friend’s saved a booth, as is Friday tradition. Except today, an acquaintance won’t stop chatting her up. He’s cute, kinda interesting, she knows he’s a good guy, Cameron, their mutual friend, won’t stop talking him up. 

Talked up or not, Vanessa can’t remember his name as she nods and gives a polite chuckle when a change in cadence indicates a joke. It also doesn’t stop her from glancing at her phone the moment it vibrates. “A. Irwin” it reads with a familiar contact picture popping up.

She all but jumps out of her skin the second she sees the name. Grabbing a jacket and excusing herself, “I’m sorry. I need to take this.” 

The brisk fall air hits hard after her being inside the warm bar. She nestles her phone between her shoulder and ear as she wrestles her jacket on, breathless she gives a small, “hi.” 

“You busy?” 

“No, no not at all,” she says. Only half a lie she thinks as she turns around and gives her confused friends a reassuring thumbs up and smile, “What’s up?” 

“Not much, just heading to bed and I was hanging with Calum, he did the you thing for the first time in a while,” Only kind of a lie, he thinks to himself as he eye’s their polaroid now balanced in the corner of a larger frame. He couldn’t force himself to toss it into another drawer to get lost with time, the same way he couldn’t ignore the way he felt all day. 

They’ve texted for months, catching up at odd times but the overwhelming feeling to hear her voice pushed him to call her after the day at the DMV. 

“The me thing?” She laughs, forcing him to elaborate just which odd habit he is referring to.

“The fidgeting thing-- bouncing on your heels.”

“I don’t do that,” She argues, planting both her feet firmly on the ground. 

“It’s not exactly the same but you gotta admit it’s pretty similar,” Ashton argues, he can picture her doing it now, holding her phone to her ear. 

“Whatever,” She breathes a laugh through her nose and with that Ashton can see the accompanying head shake. He tries to find an excuse to keep her on the line. Does he bring up the Polaroid? Does she remember that day the same? Did he make their afternoon melancholy up for himself, in search of an odd comfort? 

“I’m gonna need some proof here, Ash.” 

“Fine I’ll go get it myself.” Her scoff in response only eggs him on as he promises, “I’ll get a ticket back there right now.” 

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” 

“Give me a few weeks. I’ll get the evidence myself.”

“Ok. You can show me,” a wave from indoors catches her eye, her friend beckoning her back inside to collect her things, “I gotta go Ash. It was great talking.” 

“Yeah it was. We’ll speak soon, yeah? I’m serious I’ll come up there and show you.” 

“Whenever you book that ticket, don’t forget a sweater. It sure as hell isn’t California warm here,” She jokes one final time before hanging up. 

 She can’t help the smile when she gets a screenshot of his flight. Almost two weeks to the day. Friday, November 15th. 

___

Two weeks fly, Vanessa thinks before she rushes out of work. So much for making it on time. Maybe the flight is delayed, just allow her a little buffer. It doesn’t feel real to be picking him up. Excitement and anxiety is all she can feel as she dumps her work supplies onto the passenger seat and hits the road.

A bit of relief hits her as she sees the sign at the gate. Two minutes to spare, she laughs at herself as she pauses at the loading zone. She spent an afternoon cleaning her apartment, forgetting her car but it’s too late now. 

“Is this my Uber?” The voice is all too familiar, her heart skipping a beat as she looks over to the passenger window. His skin tanner than she remembers but the smile, it’s always stayed the same. She opens her door with a shriek, running around the car, and into his arms. 

“Ashton!!!” She shouts into her chest. Her heart beating so hard he can probably feel it himself.

“Hi,” he breaths her in planting a small kiss to the top of her head. She feels smaller than he remembers but then again maybe that’s just a sign that too much time has elapsed. 

“Welcome back,” She laughs. Unable to shake the smile on her face as she bypasses the city and begins their drive to her apartment. 

He stares openly, unable to believe how much more he’d missed her. In the car, things feel simplified. She doesn’t face his stare until they’re at a stoplight. 

“What?” She gives him a true smile, showing her teeth and he knows he booked the right ticket to visit her.

“Nothing. This place has been good to you,” He’s unsure what it is but she’s different. 

“I think you’re just falling for the look of a real autumn,” She brushes aside her compliment as her eyes return to the road. Her stomach does a backflip as she ignores his eyes. 

A feeling of regret rears its head as she’s tempted to reach out and hold his hand. Her brain is all shaken up as she tries to focus on the tales from LA. Traffic is and she’s grateful for it.

They get back to her apartment right before sundown, her entire apartment illuminated by the lazy afternoon sun. Ashton’s been here a thousand times but with his time away, its familiar feel isn’t fully there. As his eyes sweep her living room, he sees that the same milk crates hold her records but the tables above it are now natural wood, matching the rest of her furniture. Her apartment looks more streamlined from its previous Craig’s List used furniture charm. 

“You can put your stuff on the chair,” She points to a corner of the room, it’s apparent the chair’s been cleared of her own pile of miscellaneous clothes in preparation for him to visit. The entire living room gave a feeling of a deliberate organization that it never gave him before. 

Ashton tosses the duffle bag onto the chair and pauses at the same bookshelf from years ago, he recognizes some of the book titles and peruses the new ones before a new picture frame catches his eye. He holds his breath recognizing it as nearly the same picture he’s been carrying in his glove compartment for months. The pair to the one that now lives on his mantle at home. 

He knows he can’t toe the line with her anymore, the unknowing drowning him this time around as he gently calls, “Nessa?”

[chiaki-translation]

Spring Troupe 7th Play: Magician’s Pure Love Translation Ch1-2

What am I doing to myself? Out of a very weird reason I started translating this story. I will try my best to post translation everyday (at least 2 chapters a day) so I would be able to post everything before the actual event ends. I hope there’s someone else out there who actually want to read the whole story so here it is, the first part of the translation under the cut. Enjoy~ Some extra things I’m tempted to say. I really want to scout for Magician Chikage, but I’m saving so hard for Glitter Kazu and I shall not be tempted. I also won’t have a lot of screenshots for this series because I’m quite lazy since each chapter is quite long...

Ch1-2 / / Ch3-4 / / Ch5-6 / / Ch7-8 / / Ch9-10 / / Epilogue

Disclaimer:

A3! is owned by Liber Entertainment

Translator’s Note:

I actually haven’t read Act 3, so I’m not that familiar with Madoka and the 1st generations. If there’s anything wrong from this translation, please feel free to tell me so I can correct it for others. Thank you~

Magician’s Pure Love (Chapter 1-2)

 Masumi:

So look over here, and… there it disappears.

Chikage:

Right, you’re good.

As expected, you really have a dexterous hand.

Masumi:

Everyone can do this much.

Chikage:

If you tell that to Chigasaki, he’ll get angry at you.

But you have quite a repertoire of magic tricks now, don’t you think it’s time to try putting on a formal show?

Masumi:

I’ll only put on a show for Director…

Chikage:

If it’s for that purpose, then you might need to polish the magic tricks even further…

Misdirection technique might be effective, it’s a necessary trick to get Director-san to enjoy it.

Masumi:

…

Chikage:

Memo?

You wrote on that memo sometimes, what have you actually been writing?

Masumi:

It’s a note on how to grab hold of Director’s love.

Chikage:

Vol.26 huh…

Masumi:

It’s the 26th one.

Chikage:

As usual, your dedication towards Director-san is amazing…

Masumi:

I’ll do anything to be able to become her ideal man.

Chikage:

Anything, huh… to have such a passionate love for something, I wonder what kind of feeling it would be.

Masumi:

You want to know?

Chikage:

I’ll refrain if we’re talking about love stories.

Masumi:

You won’t understand anyway, so I won’t start.

Chikage:

Haha. Even Masumi, are you going to treat me like a man with no romance?

Director:

Ah, the two of you, can I have a bit of your time?

Masumi:

--

Chikage:

Right when we’re talking about it, right.

Masumi:

What happened?

Director:

There’s something I need to talk to you about.

<Shifts to Living Room>

Tsuzuru:

What are we talking about?

Director:

I just had a talk with Sakyo-san and the manager…

There are a lot of attention on the troupe now because of GODza’s and 1st generation’s act-off, as well as the all-out performance on “Spotlight”.

Citron:

Oh, it’s crawling through the tension!

Masumi:

Boiling.

Itaru:

There’re really a lot of God-za’s fans and the 1st generation fans when you pay a closer attention.

Sakuya:

Even for “Spotlight” as the special feature, I was so nervous at first but I’m glad that it seemed popular out there!

Chikage:

It’s all thanks to Kasumi-san’s editing skill.

Director:

From then, I have received a lot of inquiries regarding our local performances… Then from this, I thought we should go for an attack instead.

In order to realize the value of Mankai entrusted by the 1st generation, we should aim to level up and improve the popularity of the theatre company while improving the performance level of each individual.

Tsuzuru-kun will also take steps to further improve on his ability to write for our performances…

Tsuzuru:

Yeah. In order to be able to match the stories that Hakkaku-san made, as expected I still need a lot more experience.

Director:

That’s why, while still working on our local performances, I would like to plan for new performances that would highlight the strength of each troupe.

It’s exactly because we received a lot of attention now, shouldn’t we use this chance to redefine the strength of each group?

Sakuya:

I want to do it!!

Citron:

I’m pretty sure there’re a lot of fans out there who’re still waiting for us!

Masumi:

I think it’s a good idea.

Itaru:

Why not?

It might be a good change to all the Mixed Plays we’ve been doing as well.

Chikage:

I agree as well.

We’ve only done one lap of ‘lead’  for Spring Troupe performances after all.

Tsuzuru:

You’re right.

Director:

Is there anyone here interested to take the ‘lead’ role this time?

Masumi:

I want to do it.

Director:

That’s fast.

Masumi:

I’ll do anything to rekindle your love.

Tsuzuru:

There’s nothing to rekindle over there.

Itaru:

So there’s a motive for some returns.

Chikage:

Your character’s too consistent.

Masumi:

Not only the Spring Troupe performances, I have taken many roles even in Mixed Play and act-off. The me right now would be able to shine brighter as a ‘lead’ compared to my time during Alice.

As the chairman, I think I would be able to put on a much better performance than that time, and I want to show it to you.

Director:

I see…

(Alice was only our second performance for the Spring Troupe and everyone had very little experience back then. Since then, everyone has accumulated a lot of experience.

The bond among the members has also deepened, we might be able to make a performance that portrays Masumi-kun much better now.)

Chikage:

I see.

Itaru:

As the chairman, huh.

Sakuya:

I think the Masumi-kun right now will be able to do it!

I’ll also support you!

Citron:

I also a breeze!

Tsuzuru:

Agree you mean.

Well, I think it’s good for Masumi to be the ‘lead’.

Director:

Alright, then, it’s decided that Masumi-kun will be the lead!

Masumi:

I’ll do my best.

<End of Chapter 1>

Masumi:

…

(There’s no vacant seat around…)

Madoka:

--

You can sit over here.

Masumi:

… thank you.

You’re writing GODza’s script?

Madoka:

Yeah. Recently I’ve been visiting GODza’s training hall, I need to keep studying theatre after all.

Masumi:

Hee…

Madoka:

After our loss in the act off, GODza’s seats has been more motivated, of course Haruto-san and Shifuto included.

Everyone’s practicing with all they have.

Kamikizaka-san also changed towards a good direction.

How’s your side doing?

Masumi:

We decided that I’ll be the ‘lead’ for the upcoming Spring Troupe performance.

Madoka:

Really. Congrats.

Masumi:

I’m going to do my best for her sake.

Madoka:

Her?

Masumi:

It’s the director.

Madoka:

You’re going to do your best for the director’s sake?

Masumi:

I started acting for her sake.

All the good performances I’ve done so far was to kindle our love.

Madoka:

Ki, kindle your love…?

Fukunaga:

That’s wonderful!

So your passionate fire of love has polished your performances until now!

Madoka:

!?

Fukunaga:

You should promptly get that Director-san to come to this year’s school festival’s performance!

Masumi:

I told you she won’t come.

Fukunaga:

Ikaruga-kun! For his sake and for his director’s sake, let’s write a good script!

Madoka:

I haven’t started writing anything.

Fukunaga:

Not yet!

Masumi:

Ha…

Fukunaga:

You started acting for that person, and now you’re aiming higher to become a better actor for her, such a melodramatic scenario!

Madoka:

Then, what if, you never met with Director-san, Masumi would you be doing acting at all.

Masumi:

There’s no such thing as a world where me and Director won’t meet, our meeting was fate after all.

When I manage to become her ideal actor, we would finally be connected as one…

Fukunaga:

Fyuuu.

Madoka:

You’re really a passionate one…

Fukunaga:

For you to be so head over heels over her, this director-san would be a very attractive person, isn’t it.

Masumi:

Of course. She loves curry, always working hard, pretty nice, likes curry, loves theatre, loves curry.

Madoka:

So she likes curry that much…

Fukunaga:

But for such a nice person, I would be worried if I was her boyfriend~

Masumi:

…We’re not going out yet.

Fukunaga:

Eh!?

Usui-kun that doesn’t sound like you, don’t say that she already has a boyfriend?

Masumi:

… Don’t have.

Fukunaga:

But, if you approach me so passionately, even I would relent sooner or later.

Masumi:

I don’t want to approach you.

Fukunaga:

It’s just an if!

That’s why I was thinking there might be someone else on her mind.

Masumi:

(Director has another guy on her mind…?)

--

(It can’t be… It’s impossible.)

<Shifts to Dorm’s Living Room>

Itaru:

Since Masumi-kun is the lead, I have an idea for a sequel.

We can make Alice in Wonderland II.

Sakuya:

We’ve never done a sequel before, so it sounds like a refreshing new idea!

Tsuzuru:

But the rabbit ears…

Citron:

Then how about puppy ears?

Summer Troupe already used cat ears, so we should try something different.

Itaru:

Is this a new animal series or something…

Tsuzuru:

I’m not going to make such series!?

Chikage:

Masumi’s good at sword fighting, why not we try a performance that can make use of his skill?

Director:

Spring Troupe doesn’t really have a performance with battles and stuffs, maybe we can make it work!

Masumi:

…

Tsuzuru:

Masumi? Something bothering you?

Masumi:

It’s nothing…

Director:

?

Itaru:

If you want to make use of something Masumi’s good at, the other choice would be…

Sakuya:

Ah! What about story about magicians!?

He learns a lot of magic tricks from Chikage-san after all.

Chikage:

I see.

We can showcase the result of your training.

Tsuzuru:

It sounds like it’s going to be a good theme, sounds like it can highlight the brightness of Spring Troupe too.

Citron:

We played some live performance during the Quartet performance, maybe we can do the same with magic this time.

Director:

Sounds fun, I’m looking forward to it!

Itaru:

If it’s magic, then the co-lead would be senpai?

Sakuya:

It’s the master-pupil combination!

Tsuzuru:

Sounds great, why not.

Citron:

I approve!

Chikage:

I don’t mind.

Masumi:

…

Director:

Masumi-kun will you be alright with this arrangement?

Masumi:

… Yeah.

Director:

(His answer’s a bit vague, I wonder if this is going to be alright…)

Tsuzuru:

Then I’ll start thinking of a plot.

Director:

Yeah, I’ll leave it to you.

<Shifts to Corridor>

Masumi:

…

Chikage:

Masumi, is this alright?

Masumi:

?

Chikage:

You were practicing to hold a magic show for Director-san, weren’t you.

If we’re doing it on the stage, your performance will not be exclusive to Director-san anymore.

Masumi:

Ah… It’s alright.

Even if other people see it, I would still be able to convey my desire to show it to Director, it’s no problem at all.

Chikage:

You’re so consistent.

Masumi:

Just consistent?

Chikage:

Ah… Well, if you’re satisfied then it’s fine.

Masumi:

…

Chikage:

(Since earlier, I’ve been feeling something weird…

Well, it’s Masumi after all, most probably it’s something about Director-san

Such a pure love is not my specialty…)

… the upcoming performance, I’m looking forward to work with you.

Masumi:

Yeah.

<Shifts to Itaru/Chikage’s Room>

Itaru:

Woah, the rug’s expensive.

Chikage:

…

Itaru:

Ah, how’s Masumi?

Chikage:

Masumi?

Itaru:

I thought you went to talk to him?

Chikage:

So you saw.

Itaru:

I’m his dad after all.

Chikage:

And I’m the grandfather huh.

But he seemed to be fine for now, how to say…

Is it alright for me to give my grandson some pocket money.

Itaru:

I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work on that one grandson.

Maybe a bromide of Director-san will work instead.

Chikage:

You’re right. Well, since I’ll be co-starring, I shall communicate with him carefully.

Itaru:

Please do so.

Chikage:

By the way, how was he during the Alice performance?

You’re the co-lead right.

Itaru:

Ah…

We understood that we cannot understand each other.

Chikage:

What’s that.

But, I think I will be the same.

Itaru:

Nah, senpai’s pretty unexpected, I think you might actually understand each other normally.

I don’t have any basis for saying that, but if you find nothing in common with him, you won’t even teach him magic.

That dry part was somehow similar as well.

Chikage:

Starting from the basic.

Our age difference were quite big… how about that.

Above everything else, it doesn’t help that Masumi’s most prominent feature, being his passionate love, it’s not similar to me at all.

Itaru:

Well, around the time when Spring Troupe was formed, there was a time when Masumi lost his passion in love. That’s when everyone started sharing love stories to him.

Chikage:

Love stories… huh.

Itaru:

Why not senpai go ahead and present one to him as well.

Chikage:

Are you serious?

Itaru:

Well, I don’t expect any interesting story to come out from you though.

Chikage:

I don’t want to hear that from you.

Well, I was told straight to  the face that he doesn’t want to share love stories with me.

Itaru:

Haha. So Masumi understands well.

<End of Chapter 2>f

[well-shit-im-a-morosexual-now]

Hey, it's me again! The Anon that constantly comes back because I'm too lazy to play the new lessons myself.

Anyway, Lesson 30-something, what happened in it? I've just seen screenshots and most of them are Solomon blushing (which, well, can't really say I'm complaining).

Hope you answer, and I'll probably ask you about the lessons after this.

-Anon that's still somehow stuck on Lesson 31. Seriously, I should really start playing the game again soon.

I'm screaming I literally wrote this whole thing and it got deleted because tumblr refused to send it and just banished the reply into the void i want to fight someone. I'm so sorry I'm gonna bang my head against something now.

It's okay if you ask cause I need someone to rant to after lessons!

So two days before the ritual to break the pacts. Solomon is researching how to use the night dagger.

Lucifer & Satan are arguing on the staircase (cause 50% of all important conversations happen on staircases - and I mean this sincerely). Lucifer promised mammon he'd come play cards with him and Satan doesn't want him to go cause he thinks it'll be a scam (he's worried about his dad big brother❤). MC asks Satan if he's worried about Lucifer and that makes his affection go up. He asks MC to promise him to go with Lucifer and keep an eye on him. He ruffles MC's hair and gives them the same we'll still be friends talk that the others do

They go to play cards and place bets, if Mammon wins he gets Lucifer's credit card for a day and if Lucifer wins he gets mc alone for a day. You can choose whether you want mc to either play along or cheer for Lucifer. (And look my MC's performing Olympic grade gymnastics to avoid Lucifer's advances & this lesson has a lot of options to romance Lucifer that I didn't pick so...)

Lucifer gets distracted by Mammon's car before they start playing.

WE GET THE BACKSTORY ABOUT THE CAR!!!!!! AND LOOK IT'S BEING THERE FOR SO LONG WITHOUT BEING ACKNOWLEDGED THAT I WAS ALMOST CERTAIN IVE BEEN HALLUCINATING IT. the backstory was actually really cute.

Mammon really really wanted this limited edition car (it had a rare colour) so he worked his ass off and earned money to buy it (I think it's mentioned that this is the first thing he bought from his own money). But by the time he'd earned enough it had been sold out. As far as Mammon knows Lucifer spoke to the dealer and was able to find one last car (can you do that? Can you just ask them to look in the back and they'll just pop out with a car they accidentally overlooked?). BUT Lucifer recalls that he actually spoke to diavolo and called in a special favour to get the car for mammon. Lucifer tells mammon he was impressed by him and I no longer possess a physical form I'm now a bowl of goop with thumbs to type

Lucifer wins (duh) and mammon asks to speak to mc alone. He tells them that even if their pact is severed he'll always be their first man. MC says 'I won't forget.' Mammon does that stuttery thing and says something like 'don't forget.' He hugs them tight. I added a screenshot of this (& other important moments) to my first answer but I don't wanna risk it cause if I lose this again I will realistically commit homicide. But anyway this line killed me 'suddenly I feel like the invisible bond between us is even stronger than it was before'. If I wasn't a puddle before I would be now

The next day mc & Lucifer meet up to go out, Asmo and mammon complain, I'm a total dick so I don't let MC hold Lucifer's hand and it makes him sad (I cry). They meet Solomon at the gate and he says he needs to talk with MC but can wait till after. He suggests going to the carnival (from the beginning of the season) cause it's the last day at the devildom and Simeon was planning on taking Luke but had to bail to go to the celestial realm. (Also the devildom is only one city/district right? I always saw it as the capital of The Devildom as a whole)

Lucifer laments not being able to remeber their first time at the carnival, mc gets to reassure him that it's okay. They get popcorn and go on the ferris wheel.

He asks them what they spoke about last time on the ferris wheel. The answers are 'Lucifer' or 'diavolo' . if you choose diavolo he throws shade at past Lucifer for being an idiot and talking about another man when with MC (*SNORT*) .

LUCIFER CONFESSES!!!? HE SAYS "MC I LOVE YOU"?!? HE'S THE FIRST BROTHER TO DIRECTLY CONFESS AND HAVE MC DIRECTLY CONFESS BACK.HE BASICALLY SAYS 'ANYWAY PAST LUCIFER WAS A FUCKING IDIOT BUT I LOVE YOU'. my mc goes 'lol as a friend'

Yes yes ik mammon technically confessed first and did so twice (thrice?) but neither were direct. The first was him agreeing with mc about them being in love in front of someone else and the second was under the influence of the truth bracelet. Asmo confessed too but in a 'never thought I'd find someone I love more than me. That's wild' way.

After mc shoots him down he goes 'that sucks guess I'll have to try harder to make you fall for me'

@like-nxrthernstxrs if you say you love him back, you get to kiss and mammon who followed you sees and goes quiet which yeah no, no thanks

I didn't unlock the locked lessons but screenshots show that all the brothers follow them I think (imagine the nightmare of dating one of them for real tho? Like you, me and your friend Steve except Steve is your 6 brothers who want to sleep with me)

The most notable exchange during them is when Levi asks whether Lucifer seems happier without his memories (he actually is more carefree) but mammon says he wouldn't be happier because he loves all his little brothers and he wouldn't be happy if he couldnt remember them. Levi tells mammon it's gross whenever he starts acting like an actual older brother (so we've seen mammon step up to the role of a older brother every once in a while - specially when Lucifer isnt able to - and he's actually really good at it? And that's just💞💞)

When they go home, solomon's in MC's room. He goes 'so do you want the good news or bad news first? Actually they're both bad news and you're fucked lol'

The dagger is so old that it doesn't have enough power to break the bonds and even when charged with Solomon's power it isn't enough.

The only way to restore the power is to use it to stab a powerful demon in the chest and have it absorb the demon's power.

Then he gives mc the dagger and is like 'anyway go stab Lucifer in the chest or we're all gonna die'

MC's like 'what the fuck'

Solomon goes 'lol just kidding i wouldn't ask you to do that'

Solomon tells them that he spent his whole life protecting humanity and that he is willing to do anything to save it. He tells them that choosing between all of the three realms and one demon should be easy. But he can't because he knows that'll make MC sad and he doesn't want to hurt them (honestly some of the dialogue from Solomon, Simeon and even diavolo makes me wonder if they'll ever become LIs down the road)

Lucifer has been eavesdropping the whole time (obviously) and kicks Solomon out.

Mc tells time not to worry and that they'll figure something else out. He tells them that he cares about his brothers and them (he puts a bit of emphasis on MC) and that he wants them to stab him. MC keeps on protesting. He grabs their hand and makes them point the dagger to his chest. You get a choice. You can either stab Lucifer, MC or command him to 'stay'. If you choose to command him, he freezes for a sec and then tells MC they are too distraught to be able to put any actual power behind the command. He moves their hand to stab himself. The screen goes white. If you decide to stab MC he screams their name. The screen goes white

A '???' voice tells them to stop and that it's not needed. Simeon (the only person with even a single braincell in this entire game) stops their hand and tells them they've been brave. He slips an old ring on to their finger. The screen goes white.

The screen's still white but now it's white in a way that makes it look like it's sunlight blinding the screen.

Another '???' voice apologises to MC for not being able to meet them before. It asks mc why they refused to stab Lucifer. They can say it's because they love him, because they didn't want anyone to get hurt or because they wanted to find another way. And look even if you aren't romancing Lucifer you have to admit at this point of the game MC does love him and all his brothers as well.If you pick the first option the voice says that it's a good thing and that they should cherish that love and let it grow. If you choose the second it tells them they are kind. The voice then tells them that after seeing how much the brothers adore them it expected them to be wicked and that it's happy they aren't. It tells them that they don't have to worry and that the ring of light will keep their powers in check and that they should go back because the others are worried. MC wakes up to Lucifer calling their name.

I'm 90% certain the voice in Michael, 10% of me is terrified it'll turn out to be God. And look I'm not religious, I don't really believe in anything and either way I was raised in a Buddhist household so God has never been anything I believed in BUT God talking to me through an otome game is definitely not something I need rn or ever really

Mc, Solomon, Simeon and Luke are by the lake at the palace. Solomon says he can finally relate to Mammon cause Lucifer had punished him. Simeon reveals that Lucifer had punished diavolo as well and would be coming after the rest of them that kept this whole thing secret from him (And this kills me! This man loves his family so much he was not only willing to go against God and his army when his family was in danger but he was also willing to lash out at DIAVOLO who he has so much respect & loyalty towards when he accidentally put Lucifer's family in danger!??? Anyway any chance I had of solidifying into a physical state has been completely swept away)

It's revealed that Simeon may or may not have stolen the ring from Michael who still loves Lucifer and keeps a shrine to Lucifer all of Lucifer's things from the celestial realm with him. And honestly I want whatever superpower Lucifer has that allows him to act like a dick with major issues but still makes ppl just absolutely love him. (I absolutely adore how easily om! throws around the word 'love' or actions of love. And I don't mean regarding MC. I mean between the brothers, undateables, Luke and side characters. Like at this point there's no doubt that despite all their differences everyone loves each other.)

Simeon (or Luke) note that now with the ring MC is as powerful a sorcerer as Solomon and may someday surpass him. Solomon is asked of he's jealous and he says he's not and he's glad to finally have someone like him.

Solomon pulls MC aside and asks them for a favour. They can either ask what it is or say 'anything for you'. If you choose the second option he blushes. He tells them he has spent his whole life looking out for humanity (thousands of years) and that he would like to work side by side with them to protect the humans. In his own words they'd be 'partners'. You can either agree or tell him it sounds like a pain in the ass. If you agree he says that a part of him knew they'd agree. (I can't remember if this is said outloud or implied but I'm assuming this means Solomon will teach them to use actual magic thus making 3 out of 4 of my main game MCs magical apprentices. Nice.)

*Solomon refers to himself as 'the witty sorcerer' confirming that all their aliases in the cards have actual canon meaning...so Mammon's 'fallen warrior' and 'punishment party' is basically just confirming he was probably the only one classed as a fighter from all his brothers back in the celestial realm and that he's a masochist right? That's what that means?*

Barbatos arrives to welcome them and ask them to follow him.

The lesson ends.

The pre stabbing scene with Solomon and mc doesn't really follow the exact dialogue of the first scene in S2 and the backgrounds don't match either (the human world vs MC's bedroom). Now this could mean the devs fucked up or it could mean there's more BS waiting to be stirred up. Personally I believe it's the first one BUT with how determined the devs seem with turning all of Lucifer's hair white i wouldn't be surprised if it was the second either

Hope that helps 31!❤ sorry it took some time I had to take constant breaks to scream cause the app sucks :)))