#when will they return to my screen...

[bugaboooooooooo]

ladynoir i love you ladynoir

[wardensantoineandevka]

I will admit I'm a little salty that people, in an effort to prove that there is no good dialogue in Veilguard at all, keep comparing mission exposition to the high point narrative set pieces of prior games. I agree that some of the writing related to plot mechanics and mission exposition in Veilguard is a little too utilitarian, but that doesn't mean none of the dialogue is good or that prior games didn't also sometimes have this issue here and there.

I also generally dislike when people put the bar for good writing — and all writing too, not even just dialogue writing, ALL writing — at mic-drop sentences that still sound good completely divorced from context, because that really just reduces "good writing" down to like fake-deep philosophizing or witty quips exclusively. sometimes, a really good bit of dialogue sounds like a completely normal sentence out of context.

[tblsomedoodles]

The Preferable Alternative - part 13

Start - previous - next

Alt-Don has no immunity to Mikey's puppy eyes stare : )

[swiiivet-screamathon]

"Hey-hey-hey-hey Pure Vanillaaaaa??? Why is Shadow Milk here???"

"Hm? Oh, I wanted to give him a chance through a method he might be comfortable with."

"Excuse me??? You let him follow us???"

"We needed to return home, we've spent far too long away, but I know that leaving him to simmer in the pot for however long we'll be away from Beast-Yeast was just going to get him to sour even more. I meant every word I told him at the end, I want to be his friend, but that can only happen if he does as well."

"So you put the entire kingdom in jeopardy for that insane clown!?"

"We beat him once when he was on his home turf and with his compatriots, as long as I keep an eye on him I don't assume much can go wrong for long."

"Do you not think that might still be a bit risky?"

"I'm not sure if you've considered this Wizard, but I think its worthwhile to remember that he chose to follow us. He could've left Beast-Yeast the moment he was set free, and yet he didn't. He could've left to meet up with his other beast friends at any point, and yet he didn't. And according to his companions his experience with me specifically is one of a kind for him. We never invited him to come along, we never even told him where we were going, and now he chooses to leave his former tower? I might be gullible to him, but knowing him as well as I do, I think that's enough evidence for me to think that he's not followed us purely to enact revenge."

"At least its comforting to know you've thought this through at all; but it still seems like the idea of a madman! Is there no safer way at all to-- ourgh, befriend--- him?"

"Perhaps, who's to say sharing his mindscape for so long didn't make me a madman either. I simply cannot help but not be the one to ostracize him, whenever he's ready he can come talk, but I won't treat him unequally."

"Well-- not that I think you would, but if anything goes haywire-- thats on your shoulders! AND his!"

"Of course, I never considered that I wouldn't be responsible for him. :)"

[grimbeak]

god even the neutral route in chapter 2 ends with berdly being fucked up if you fight him at all. in chapter 4 he can't move or feel his fucking arm. he had a nightmare about what happened (his arm "burning"). jesus christ.

[centaur-dreaming]

How do you think Jean washes his hair? Do you think one day Cat is brushing it for him and makes a comment about how it's grown out and a little unhealthy and that she'd be happy to help him with it? After all--she used to cut her brothers' hair for them all the time.......Do you think one day Jean approaches her while Jeremy and Laila are out of the house, staring at the floor and debating just giving up until Cat gets out of the chair and comes over to him, places a hand over his and asks him what's up and it takes so much effort to get the words out but eventually he says "Would you help me with my hair?" ? And do you think Cat would let out the softest, proudest little sigh and say "Of course I would, Jean. Anytime." ? And they take their time with it--Cat telling jean everything she's doing/ going to do before she does it, what products she's using? what they're for and what they do, distracts him with chatter about exy to keep him calm and relaxed, stops when a little bit of water trickles into his eyes and his hand flies up to wrap around her wrist, waits it out patiently and reminds Jean where he is and who's with and how he'll be okay and won't let anything bad happen to him....

Guys just,,,,Jean and Cat's friendship means so gd much to me. So gd much.

[sea-jello]

CHAT

CHAT I WAS JOKING

[ducktracy]

SOMETHING ABOUT HOW PORKY LOOKS IN LTC AND TDTEBU LOOKS WEIRD TO ME

LIKE

HIS EYES

THEYRE TOO.. BIG?? DETAILED?? IT'S WEIRD CUZ I LIKE LONG EYED PORKY BUT NOT IN LTC CAN YOU TRY AND ARTICULATE IT FOR ME

AWWWW i love the tall eyes personally!! i think they fit his face volume well, nice slim contrast to his round head to create visual interest

i think it's a Jim Soper thing... and Jim's probably my favorite living artist lol. it is funny comparing the LTC model to the TDTEBU model though, he's adorable in LTC but in revisiting some eps since TDTEBU's release i can't shake some of the "his proportions are too even"-ness of it out. but it also depends on the ep. the eps that Jim does layouts on tend to look the best and most naturalistic, i know this first model was pretty early into production

as for what might be squicking you out though.. hm. it's hard to say, but Porky's design has a lot of golden age "cuteness points" baked in. for the same reason a lot of cartoon babies are drawn with huge foreheads, he has that big ol' forehead that can make him seem cuter and enunciate this sort of round... "fleshy" sounds gross when i say it HAHA but "fleshy" i guess appeal. again, very baby-esque

this Bob McKimson model sheet does a good job of showing that appeal, even if he often seems to give Porky these tiny, beady little eyes that can read as UNappealing... which is perfect for the cynicism and grounded humor of his shorts, where Porky is at some of his most violent and awful (which are some of the shorts i laugh hardest at) HAHA. but it kind of gives off this feeling of him not having properly grown into all of his features yet, and that makes him seem more cute and compact

in my near 6 years of drawing him, this is always something i've STILL been stuck on. i tend to default to the taller eyes because i really love the contrast they give against the roundness of his face--i like big eyes in general, and i admit i'm more won over by that appeal than by "big forehead" appeal... but there is something to having his eyes smaller. it gives a sort of modest and demure appeal that perfectly fits his character. i go back and forth on what i wanna go with him..

i actually just found this pig i'd doodled last year while i was looking for screenshots: this has its own appeal but it feels naked to me!! maybe i needed to angle the eyes forward more. this feels a little uncanny to me. but it has an appeal of its own

i think i'm also biased to the tall eyes because John Carey's my favorite Porky (and in the running for all-time favorite) animator, hugely influential to how i draw Porky and tall(er) eyes are his specialty... just love that contrast of slim and tall against his round, pudgy baby face. it matches his tall, slim ears which is a great balance!! aaaagh! these are so appealing to me personally

actually all my favorite Porky animators usually draw him with tall or huge eyes... Bill Melendez and Rod Scribner have entered the chat. particularly Melendez in terms of the wide eyes (top three)

my god isn't this such a good drawing. Scribner's a frequent culprit for my favorite animated scenes of all time, this being one of them

BUT YEAH! i think a more forehead-forward pig maybe connotes a bit more of a modest, reserved, baby-ish charm which is all perfect for Porky's character. a lot of the wider eyed expressions i used above are certainly for more high octane moments, i can see how it might be weird or off putting too have Too Much Eye on his face... i guess the overlap in shape language is stronger with the wide eyes and wide face. i personally prefer it, or a mix between that and the tall eyes, just because i like a more wide-eyed Porky--it's personally cuter to me and i think there's something to be had with that wide eyed innocence. i very much would love to learn how to effectively capture a more modest appeal with smaller eyes, but i haven't quite figured it out yet...

[vaguely-concerned]

one thing I have to keep reremembering every time I'm playing a soulslike/similar kind of difficult game -- and that I wish I could internalize elsewhere in my life as well -- is that you always, always have to suffer through the long dark of an inexplicable failcringe era before you can emerge into a fresh new dawn of competence. faceplanting into humiliating failure in ways you hadn't even conceived of before on a loop can sometimes be the herald of great and wondrous things to come soon. don't be so quick to abandon yourself in the early murk of daybreak because you think you just suck!!!

[phoenixcatch7]

Kintsukuroi

'What if I put a clock pendulum in my torso' was the sort of question Bruce had come to expect when visiting Oracle.

"Pendulums are dependant on a stable base," he replied, because the last time he'd assumed they were being unserious Tim had tried to fit a chemistry test lab in his mouth and accidentally leaked the fumes through his mask.

"It'd be so aesthetic though," said Barbara, not looking up from the dozen screens she was surrounded by. "Listen. It would look so cool - Spoiler, robbery on fifth and main - Especially if I put a clock face over my heart."

"I thought you were trying to fit a super computer in it?"

"I was, but progress is slow. It's hard to fit it and enough padding to protect it plus leave enough room for ventilation. If I add the pendulum I might at least get inspiration." She gave a heavy sigh and pushed away from the desk, gliding in her chair to where her doll body was resting on a table, the glue separating the two halves of the smashed torso still glistening. Bruce followed, peering over her at the many scanners and wires hooked into it, flashing and beeping.

"Any luck?" he asked, and they both knew he wasn't talking about the computer anymore.

"Nothing."

He squeezed her shoulder, and she leant into it. They stayed there for a long moment.

"I just don't understand!" Barbara finally burst out, hands clenching on her chair arms. "I glued nearly every single piece back together! I made sure every splinter I could find went exactly where it should! I know the contract is still there. She's worked with more missing pieces before. But she's just not responding!"

"It's not you," Bruce soothed. "You've more than enough determination and strength to puppet, and we know the human body's state doesn't affect performance."

"That's the thing!" Barbara threw her hands up angrily, nearly smacking Bruce in the face. There was a chatter over comms, and both reached for their own. "One second," she said tightly, and wheeled back into the glow of the monitors. "Copy. BW, you're nearest? Thanks. Try and avoid the sniper this time. Wing, backup is in five."

She muted again and spun around, pinning Bruce with a heavy stare. "Is there anything, anything you can think of? We've - nothing I've tried has worked."

"Well...." He trailed off, one hand coming up to rub at the chin of his mask - a quiet night meant the opportunity to forgo the practical but muffling gas mask for his favoured plain black.

It was far from the first time a doll had been horrifically damaged. The incident with Bane came to mind - Batman had been in a very similar condition, body shorn clean in two and tossed to opposite corners. It was an awful memory, but the expression on Bane and the audience's faces as his bloodless body fell apart like a rotting tree trunk and then kept moving was a silver lining he'd always treasure.

But he'd been repaired and back on his feet in weeks, if bearing the incandescent fury of the doll for several more. It had been months for Barbara, and still nothing was happening.

"There's something we're missing, and I doubt it's on your side."

"I know THAT-"

"Listen," he demanded, and her jaw clicked shut mutinously. "There's something we're not seeing. Batgirl is in no shape to demand it herself, it seems. So its inaction is something we can't fully rely on."

"You've got the most experience with the dolls of all of us. Can you.. I don't know, sense anything?"

"Nothing more than the usual, with the Patriarch Doll, but we might get more if we return to the doll house -"

"No." Barbara interrupted again, but Bruce did not take offence. "She's not going anywhere. She doesn't want to head back to the cave."

Oh?

"She doesn't want to, or she doesn't care to?"

"I say she doesn't."

Interesting. This was likely a case of the doll exerting its will. The bats were well versed in avoiding the few lines their wooden bodies drew in the sand, treating them with the wary respect one would give a favorite blade or a highly trained attack dog. They could work together, share the highs and lows of life with them, but never get complacent. The dolls were forever a foreign, inhuman presence, and as with all wild creatures they would never be so arrogant as to assume full understanding. For Barbara to so strongly decide for the doll meant she was most likely not the only one deciding.

Which meant the solution would not be found in the cave.

"Perhaps there are upgrades she wishes to have?"

Oracle paused.

"Maybe," she conceded. "But there's practically a limitless amount of things I could do, and I wouldn't know where to start. And I could more easily do them when she's up and walking."

Not that then. If the doll wanted something to change but not receive upgrades or heal, than what?

... Not heal.

Batman hurried to the table. Oracle watched him with hawk eyes, but another call on the comms turned her away with a final warning glance.

Recovering every single splinter from a damaged wooden object and perfectly reattaching it was nigh impossible on a good day, never mind in the dead of night with a moving target. The dolls always returned to the cave to regenerate scratches and nicks they couldn't buff out, or accepted plaster to transmute with whatever supernatural power guided them.

The batgirl on the table, divested of all covering and armour, was still as chipped and scuffed as the day nightwing recovered last splinter.

The pieces fell into place.

"She doesn't want to be perfectly rebuilt," he realised. "She doesn't want the damage to disappear as it normally does... She wants it to remain visible. A different type of repair, then."

Oracle spun in her wheelchair to face him.

"Why?" she asked, something sharp in her eyes. Bruce chose his next words carefully.

"Perhaps she thinks such damage doesn't need to be hidden away," he said, slowly, and didn't comment when she turned away. Though she put on a strong face, and the doctors had recently released her full time, it would be a long time until the young hero was able to truly heal her mind.

"She doesn't need to do that for me. She's just causing me trouble."

"I don't think she is," he tried. "Dolls tend to reflect their puppeteer even after they accept us. You can't deny your trajectory has been changed."

They both sent a significant look to the enormous super computer taking up the wall.

"You've said you almost feel better able to protect Gotham now, with your reach and skills. Do you really feel that way?"

"I - I don't -" her mouth worked silently, and Bruce waited. "I mean I guess... But a part of me always assumed it'd be temporary, you know? Once I fixed batgirl.. It'd all return to normal." Her voice wobbled, and Bruce didn't hesitate to crouch before her, wrapping her in a long armed hug. She buried herself in his chest, regardless of the chilled metal.

"It's okay if you don't," he whispered into her hair, and held her as she shook. "I'm just throwing ideas around."

"I do though," she rasped. "I think I do feel that way. There's so much that can't be solved by violence, and it feels good to be out there but... I think I can help even more people, this way."

"That's good," he praised, "that's good. You can do whatever you set your mind to."

"You stole that from a parenting book verbatim."

"It's applicable to the current situation."

"Fine," she sighed, and pushed him away to roughly scrub at her eyes. "I'll give the doll another chance. Find some glitter glue or something, I don't know."

"Any materials you need will be provided," he promised. "I wouldn't recommend glitter glue or our usual tar."

He moved to pat her on the hair as the emotions of the moment faded, making sure to keep his unsheathed claws out of her hair.

"Once you fix her, though, I would recommend you puppet the doll during night hours still," he told her. "It wouldn't be good to put your body through twenty hour days."

"I've got a good system set up for now, but thank, B-man."

The computer dinged with another alert, and oracle spun to squint at it with a muffled curse, typing furiously. Batman escaped to the other side of the room, where the folders he'd originally come looking for lay. She waved, distracted, as he left, and although the doll could not smile, he could feel it on his face all the same.

@puppetmaster13u I summon thee dear mutual ^^

[weregonnabecoolbeans]

You know what!?!?!

I don’t want to see Cody before TBB finale

Why? You might ask

Well it’s because of the overwhelming sense of dread that has been growing within me the closer we get to the end

If he isn’t there…then he can’t be harmed and I can live in blissful ignorance

[animationismycomfort]

genuinely my favorite villains from PPG have to be the RRB idk why but I just adore them they’re funny crazy and a bit terrifying

[noirineverysense]

tbh when i first watched lady parts i was judging ayesha for falling for that influencer girl but like not even a month later i got a crush on an influencer girl who wouldnt stop taking pictures and pretended i knew how snapchat works so i could be her photographer

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

oohhh i know you did an ask on who every teachers favourite child is but who are the kid’s favourite? out of the teen parenting trio, who were tsumiki and megumi’s favourites? or atleast the one they were individually closest to?

This is a legitimately hard one and there is no exact answer to it. Here’s the best approximation.

Tsumiki:

When she was little, it was Shoko. This was not for the best reasons.

I don’t want to delve too deep into this because we’re gonna find out a lot more about how Tsumiki felt about the teen parenting trio as a kid in the fic itself, so I’m leaving a lot of context out. But she liked Shoko as a kid because Shoko was a drug addict, and so was her mom.

It’s not that she liked that Shoko was addicted to drugs. I think Tsumiki violently hates drugs for what it did to her mom and, later, Shoko. But there was a safety in familiarity for Tsumiki. She liked Shoko because she knew how to deal with her and what her problem was. She’d take the monster she knew over the one she didn’t any day of the week, and she just could not understand why Gojo and Nanami were hanging around or why they pretended to care. She was too afraid of anything new to feel comfortable around Nanami or Gojo for a long time. She kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Shoko was good to her as a kid. Better than her own mom ever was. And Tsumiki really, truly liked her for that. But she also liked her because she thought that if things went sour with Shoko, she would know how it would and how to handle it. She felt most comfortable around Shoko as a result.

When Tsumiki grew up, I don’t think she had an exact favorite. She was comfortable with and trusted all of them equally, which shouldn’t be confused with her trusting all of them entirely.

She loves her family. And she trusted them enough to bring megumi to them at the start of the fic. But we also know that Nanami found something to make him think she thought they would cut her off from her brother. She’s got a bit of a distance from all of them.

I think she’s spent the most time with Gojo. He was around the most as a kid. I think she likes how he always pushes megumi to be out of his shell. I think she trusts him to take care of them. All of them were really a team in raising them, but Gojo was the closest they got to having a dad. She called him “Dad” once by accident and then immediately tried to drown herself. Megumi had to follow her into the ocean to get her to come up for air. Gojo was insufferable for a month trying to get her to do it again and moped for ages when she wouldn’t.

But I also think that she still has a soft spot for Shoko in the present. They have a little bit of a girl's club. And Tsumiki's unspeakably proud of Shoko for getting clean, and a little bit emotional about it. Shoko got clean for them. Her mom didn’t get clean for her.

It means a lot to her.

Megumi:

When Megumi was little, it was Gojo.

He would never, ever admit it, but it was. He was the one that Megumi trusted to save him from the Zenin, and it fucking broke him when he didn’t. He thought Gojo was a pain in the ass, don’t get me wrong. But Gojo appeared first. Gojo took care of them first. Gojo went to their stupid school recitals and walked him home from school and ruffled his hair and gave them a stupid house even when they said he didn’t have to.

Megumi thought Gojo was just some asshole with ulterior motives when he met him, and it took a long time, but Gojo was the first person he ever thought would take care of him unconditionally. He was a pain in the ass. But he never hurt him. And he always took care of him. It was like gravity, and Megumi trusted it would still be there when he asked for help.

And it fucking hurt when Gojo didn’t.

He took a huge amount of distance from everyone, after, but Gojo especially. He’s most comfortable with Nanami. Nanami has judgment he trusts and has a quieter energy that Megumi is most comfortable with.

He believes that Nanami means it when he says that he won’t let anyone hurt him again. He doesn’t believe Nanami can do it. It’s nothing against Nanami. He just knows how badly he can be hurt, and how hard it is to stop people from doing it. It took a Herculean amount of trust for megumi to trust that anyone even meant it when they said it, so Nanami does mean a huge deal to him.

He believes Gojo would protect him. He doesn’t necessarily believe he will.

It took a long, long time for him to trust Gojo again, but he does. He wouldn’t say it out loud, but he does. He believes Gojo would absolutely intervene on his behalf if he knew Megumi was being hurt. He just doesn’t have the same confidence of him finding out in time.

I can’t find the post again, but I touched on this a little in a different ask about Megumi’s delirium, when he kept insisting that he thought Gojo was busy—he wasn’t saying that because he thought Gojo wouldn’t come and save him, he was saying that because he was certain Gojo would save him if he found out in time. He just didn’t think Gojo would find out before the Zenin killed him.

If Gojo knew, then he’d come save Megumi. The Zenin could only get away with this because he was too busy to realize Megumi was missing.

Gojo was busy. Gojo was busy. It’s not that he didn’t care; it’s that he didn’t know. He’d save him if he just weren’t so busy.

I think Megumi would really struggle with this question if you asked him this in the present day. Not outwardly—he would say Nanami because that’s the safe, obvious answer, and he’d leave it at that.

But he’d struggle, because I think he knows that Gojo was actually his answer once. And I think he is afraid of looking too closely at whether that’s changed.

[gothteddiesdotcom]

not to brag about being good at my job but I’ve now developed two separate tools for debugging entirely on my own within my company entirely from scratch without help and A. it makes my job so much fucking easier and B. my boss is thinks im incredible just because im too lazy to want to write the same bits of code over and over just for debugging purposes

[heycoyotegirl]

the writers should've just committed to the one-sided pining daxton, but they're cowards who refused to accept that it's fundamentally impossible to write a version of paxton who is not in love with devi