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what-shitfuckery-is-this-ew · 4 months

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A Critique of Riordan's: Neurodivergency

tldr: Rick made ADHD and dyslexia superpowers in the books which fit the time he wrote the books, but it's not accepted now cause it diminishes neurodivergent struggle. At the same time he made autism coded characters the 'annoying' ones and had a very racist thing of having the only neurotypical be Frank.

He tried to fix it in the show. It worked for about 3 seconds.

TW: Ableism, Autism speaks mention, r slur, anti-schizo stuff.

This paragraph is useless so don't read if you don't want to: Sitting in my drafts are 3 different 'A critique of Riordan's' posts i made as i tried to redo my full critique of the Riordanverse with a little more positive feedback and a little less Rick Riordan is the devil spawn. I have decided to not do it in order because because i watched the show and i noticed some things which were iffy and others which were great. So yeah neurodivergency first. Enjoy and think Critically.

Books

Research and Diversity

The books were written in the early 2000s for Rick's son who has ADHD and dyslexia

As a result, it takes on a very "your ADHD and dyslexia is a superpower" message which were popular during the time, but we recognise now has delegitimised neurodivergent struggles

Also as a result, the books were very focused on his son's symptoms, and represented ADHD as a monolith which quickly turned into stereotypes (e.g jumpy, impatient and fast reflexes becoming the connecting feature of half-bloods)

It got so unresearched that at one point he said:

He also talks about coffee in a similar way, despite sugar and coffee not making us more hyperactive and instead making us sleepy. Unless all the scientists and people with ADHD are wrong i really don't know this works.

and also said this: "Leo was extremely ADHD even by demigod standards" Like what

But the worst part about the PJO books was that the neurodivergency was limited to the first book. Percy's ADHD and dyslexia magically vanish and honestly it's only really brought back up in HOO every now and then (not very well might i add)

Ways he could have improved:

He could have given other characters, like Annabeth, more diverse symptoms of ADHD. It wasn't that hard, For Annabeth recognise that she as a 'gifted kid' is more likely to have undiagnosed and so have to face the issues related to being undiagnosed and/or being both a gifted kid and having ADHD, and then also give her more symptoms common to girls like being really chatty or frequently daydreaming.

Continuing having ADHD (and dyslexia) as constant parts of the novels rather than throwaway lines. Build it into the characters actions and persona rather than add it on like an accessory

Research. Never stop researching. Always reach out to people with the disorders and ask them to help. Writing is nothing without research.

Get sensitivity readers

Grammar

This is really minor, but he keeps say ____ was ADHD, and like gramattically that's a no. I am not a disorder i am a person with a disorder . Note for autism, the prefered grammer is Autistic person (aka turn into adjective and describe, something we can't do with ADHD)

Nico and Leo

Making Leo and Nico the 2 characters who were annoying and unlikeable (to everyone else not to fans) was really weird cause these 2 characters were the autistic coded ones.

NOTE: I did see a post explaining it better in the past, and i will link it when/if i find it again.

Tyson and the R Slur

I genuinely think he tried to make the r-slur scene show that it was bad, but the way Percy reacted to it wasn't quite right. Especially for childrens books these things need to be really clear. So it was good to make a bad bully character who was hated say it, but he could have made it better by skipping Percy saying "He’s not r*tarded" and go straight to "I had to try really, really hard not to punch Sloan the face."

The scene was ok, it could have been better, but again these were written in the 2000s, we have to acknowledge that.

Percy and School

Now this is interesting because this is more recent. Percy tried really hard in school and was smart, it was part of his characterisation. But he never did well in school, because that's how his disability affected him (especially since it was the American school system which we all know is shit and even more shit for people with learning disabilities).

The problem stems from TSATS, where Percy is made out to skip school, and not try at all (feeds into people with ADHD do bad cause they don't try/are lazy)

credits to @aroaceleovaldez

Racism: Frank Zhang

Frank Zhang the only Asian member of the 7 has no form of neurodivergency, despite the rest of them all having. It must be a just coincidence that there's a stereotype that asians are really smart and good at maths and the fact that the rest of the Romans have dyscalculia/s.

It's not weird at all that the character instead has lactose intolerance, which is really common in East Asia unlike dyslexia, ADHD or dyscalculia, which has such a low rate of diagnosis because there is a large stigma behind the disorders and because white people don't think Asians can have learning disabilities/s. No not weird at all that the dude is described with symptoms of dyspraxia but Rick refuses to recognise he is not neurotypical/s

I'm stepping out of sarcasm speak to remind you that Asians with learning disabilities are significantly less likely to get diagnosed with anything because:

because their parents won't let them until they have no other choice (glares at my parents) because there's a massive stigma behind intellectual/learning/development disorders in these communities

When we do try to get diagnosed our claims are diminished because of racist stereotypes and the belief that booksmarts/giftedness = no learning disability. It means most psychologists and psychiatrists (who are usually white) think that all Asians are smart so they don't ever have any form of neurodivergency and we're left to struggle.

Schizo Rep

Octavian. Villain. Schizo. Again.

Do i even need to explain this?

Show

Not actually a specific disorder - Percy just has a learning disability

Interestly Percy's dyslexia is just never talked about, And even his ADHD is never mentioned by name. He's got a random learning disorder which isn't specified. At first i assumed it was still ADHD cause the books, but watching more, you realise they aren't actually focusing on what learning disorder he has and what he has to deal with as a result of that. It's just a generic learning disorder.

Which is weird because learning disorders are all different and we all face different things, even with the same disorder. So placing all learning disorders in the same group? not good. Don't know what i expected from disney, but it wasn't this.

Autism Speaks

So the show tried to acknowledge that Percy was constantly told he was special and heroic when he really wanted to have help for his issues and for people to recognise that he has problems and those are bad. It also represented less stereotypical adhd symptoms (though whether that's because the disorder is no longer adhd or whether they wanted more inattentive symptoms to be present, we'll never know)

but then it went ahead and used a broken puzzle metaphor for his neurodivergency?

Puzzle piece metaphors when talking about any form of neurodivergency are a no go because the creators of the metaphor literally want Autistic people dead.

I DON'T GIVE A SHIT THAT HE DOESN'T HAVE AUTISM, WE ARE NOT ALLIES TO THE AUTISM COMMUNITY IF WE USE THE LANGUAGE AUTISM SPEAKS CREATED

Not only that but a broken puzzle is not a good way to represent us anyways because NEURODIVERGENTS AREN'T BROKEN.

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decepti-thots · 1 year

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Wayyy back in 2021, a good two years ago now, I wrote a post on a bad brain day that was less actual meta and more just me rambling that was me trying to unpick a specific thing I have a problem with in Dying of the Light as a kind of springboard into my bigger thematic issue with the arc. And I've always wanted to go back and redo it but never gotten around to it. But now I have! That's what this post is! You see what I am doing here.

Right, so. Hear me out here. The crux of it is that I think the turning point of DotL works a lot better in a scenario where Rodimus saves Megatron against his will. (This is a lie, the first thousand words of this are actually just about Rodimus and Megatron's narrative roles, but I swear I will get to the DotL bit.)

Let's back up a bit. One of the things that gets pointed out about the back half of MTMTE a lot is that Rodimus' arc quickly loses a lot of focus, and that this is jarring in a comic that had previously used him for a lot of its forward momentum narratively speaking. Rodimus didn't just get a lot of focus in early MTMTE in the sense of character spotlight, but also in how the same things that drove his "personal" arc drove the wider conflicts in the comic and pushed its overall story forward. That is to say: when Rodimus fucks something up for himself, or fixes something for himself, it has broader impact on the surrounding narrative. Rodimus' low point when the mess with Overlord comes out is also the comic's low point when a bunch of people have died and things reach a nadir. And when Rodimus resolves to change things after Remain in Light, it feels like a similar moment for the entire cast and story as a whole, this sense of "OK, now we're back on an upswing post-finale".

Megatron's introduction to the story massively reduces the degree of symbiosis like that between Rodimus and the story as a whole. Rodimus stops feeling like an ostensible protagonist among the ensemble even when he still gets pretty decent page time. I think the reason why is that a lot of the connections that were previously being drawn between his arc and the overall story progression shift to instead draw those links between Megatron and the direction of the story. Which causes a few issues, but in my opinion the biggest one is: Rodimus' entire character is designed to be a character who works like that. His arc is about understanding that his fuck ups have wide ranging consequences and how to be a leader that does not hide serial killers in the basement that ruin everyone's day. (He's very relatable, isn't he.) If you meaningfully reduce the degree to which his arc drives the broader conflicts of the plot, you can't really... do much with him. Because now, a ton of the page time when things go tits up in a big way gets handed over to Megatron for reasons of pursuing his arc, which also requires he face Big Consequences head on. And page time is scarce! But without Rodimus being the character whose investment in those big stakes is the focus, you don't have those opportunities to drive his character arc forward anymore, and frankly he was way too central for that to ever be anything but awkwardly noticeable as a dangling thread.

And I was scratching my head about why all this was such an issue when this is a comic that can pride itself on narrative efficiency above all else. Listen, MTMTE is really good at having almost everything pull double duty. The first issue is a masterclass in this on its own; every scene is using character dynamics to introduce multiple characters and often multiple relationships at once, foreshadowing is used to drop character notes, interpersonal dynamics are used to lay groundwork for bigger stories that will be told down the line. So the obvious answer to this issue is surely just that you need to incorporate the new character you're finding room for in your story into one of those dynamics.

Which I do think winds up being the issue. The comic never really manages to find a 'hook' for that Megatron-Rodimus dynamic that allows them to both occupy the same narrative space, as it were, where more than one or the other character they and their dynamic are driving the story together. So we wind up with this effect of Rodimus fading into the background of it. The problem seems to me to be that their arcs don't wind up with enough overlap for them to both occupy these story beats together without one of them- overwhelmingly Rodimus- seeming superfluous. The thing is, the arc set out for Megatron can't really be about his interpersonal issues with Rodimus. The scope is too big. You're never going to be able to turn them bickering due to a personality clash into fodder to drive the actual themes of it. Not in a way that feels actually relevant to what's at stake there.

Which means that to make them foils that can function as a tighter and more cohesive narrative unit, so that both of them can take equal billing in the "this is us moving the overarching plot forward" moments, I think the conflict between them needs to be operating on a thematic level. Because in MTMTE, it's... not? Seriously. It feels like it is, because it resembles what that setup looks like in other stories where characters are these ideological foils. But in what way is Rodimus, in MTMTE, a foil to the themes and aims of Megatron's arc? He's, errr. Not someone who has been an evil warlord? He's an Autobot who has... always been an Autobot? His arc just isn't obviously complementary because it's not an arc about redemption, or even really morality at all. (Note that characters don't really talk about Rodimus' fuck up with Overlord as a moral failing, but as a personal one. The moral framework doesn't tend to come into it with Rodimus, because that's not what the story is really interested in exploring with him.)

Which makes sense, because Rodimus' arc wasn't conceived to be a counterpart of Megatron's. And Megatron's wasn't designed around Rodimus. They are two lead characters whose arcs need them to be in very different stories for things to go in a direction that will bring out the beats of their respective arcs. And Megatron's got catchup to do in series two, so Megatron wins out.

But I don't think it actually has to be like that, because there is a way I think you can take the arcs as they're shown to us and intertwine them much more, which is where I can finally circle back around to the question of Dying of the Light.

At that point in the comic, I think you can say that the one really obvious parallel between the two that can be drawn is that (on admittedly different scales) they have both struggled to work out what accountability is supposed to look like. You have Rodimus who has been through the Overlord debacle and then Remain in Light, and you have Megatron who in DotL has the whole thing where he is confronted with just how many people he's killed. Rodimus in RiL especially has a whole thing where he dismisses the idea of dying heroically to make up for his mistakes getting people killed because it's cheap, and this is a defining character moment for him. It frames everything he does going forward and answers the question of "is Rodimus capable of taking actual responsibility", which sets us up for the vote and all that stuff. Rodimus is asked to risk dying to fix things and correctly identifies this as an easy way out and says "no, I'll do one better than that", and the remaining arc we get for him before Megatron's introduction is him dealing with fallout.

Dying of the Light has the scene for Megatron with the spark flowers, and while that scene does not tend to land for me overall, I can acknowledge that it has a really specific purpose: it's the point that Megatron's later attempt to just die with Tarn is calling back to. It explains his change in behaviour. What we've seen of Megatron up to that point suggests him as someone who is trying to make amends in the sense of balancing the scales- yes, he's done bad things, but now he's doing good things, and eventually this will even things out. The flower scene is there because it provides a visual metaphor for the sheer scope of what Megatron did, and importantly it provides that perspective to Megatron. It makes the point that doing this is clearly not possible given what, exactly, Megatron is making amends for. You can't just community service your way out of that graveyard, essentially.

So this allows us to look at Megatron trying to die alongside Tarn in DotL through the lens of him basically being like "there's no way for me to actually fix this, so all I can do is die for it". And this is where we run into the change that I think would allow this to be a point where Rodimus and Megatron's arcs could be tied together by a larger overarching theme: Rodimus thinks that's bullshit. Specifically, he thinks it's cheating. We know he does, because it's what he rejected in Remain in Light.

Rather than frame Rodimus as reaching for Megatron because of his personal investment in him as someone he's now come to care about, and Megatron accepting as a gesture towards accepting that friendship, I'd offer an alternative. Megatron does not accept and Rodimus hauls his ass out of there unwillingly. Not (just) because of their developing relationship, but because Rodimus is articulating an ideological disagreement with Megatron's conclusion; he thinks that Megatron accepting he has to die because there's no point trying to do anything about it is a cheat. Cowards' way out and all that.

This reintroduces Rodimus into the parts of the comic that are now mostly being progressed through Megatron's arc because now all of that is Rodimus' fault. He's the one who decided to save Megatron when he didn't have to, and any further consequences aren't just the consequences of Megatron trying to deal with what he's done and how it continues to impact everyone; they're also the result of Rodimus' decision to save him when he didn't have to. It also means that there's now a clear thematic concept being explored in the space between these two characters and how they differ. What does accountability look like? What does punishment look like? What investment do these characters have in those concepts? These are now disagreements that can not only fuel the panel-to-panel petty conflicts between these two characters, but their actual arcs. You can draw much stronger parallels between them than just 'this one's hotheaded and rash, and this one's not, and they are Bickering', which can drive individual character interactions but not the actual wider ideas the comic wants to engage with.

It opens up a lot of narrative space for these two characters to align their personal arcs in a way that engages what is at this point driving the overall plot forward, and it therefore allows them to both occupy that walking-inciting-incident position as opposed to just being like. Well I Guess Megatron Is The Protagonist Now. Their relationship becomes a central argument about what the comic is about that they can embody and express together, and conflict over whether the right choice was made can push them through the upcoming story beats.

Overall, MTMTE has an issue where it wants Megatron and Rodimus to be foils but can't actually find a place where they are outside the surface level. But they are both characters whose arcs are about being gigantic fuck ups and living with it, so the material like... exists! The text is there if you massage it right! And that's why I think they should have been even more dysfunctional. Megatron would be sooo mad Rodimus ruined his big death scene, and if nothing else, can we all please agree that would have been really funny.

#there. you're not allowed to say i don't ever write megatron meta now.#i wrote you one (1).#idw #meta #megatron #rodimus

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15minlatewithbatbucks · 5 months

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untitled janet/talia, Bruce's bio kid Tim AU pt. 1 (NOW no choice but to love you)

AO3 Link (a little behind, but better edited)

Janet scheduled her appointment with Bruce Wayne for a Tuesday.

Mondays were for business matters that came up over the weekend, easing back into the daily grind, and not much else. Wednesdays were notorious for dragging on and putting everyone in a poor mood. Thursdays were basically the weekend and Fridays for men like Bruce Wayne were simply not.

It had been a struggle to get such a short notice appointment, but she was wily and knew how to sweet talk assistants and secretaries alike and as such she earned herself her preferred time.

Tuesday morning at 9:30 am.

Sitting in her car at 8:53 am, Janet could only continue driving herself mad with her own swirling thoughts and recriminations. On one hand, she could leave and say “fuck it” to all of her hard work getting this meeting with Gotham’s unofficial official prince. Who would know? Not Bruce Wayne or the paparazzi, that’s for sure.

Unfortunately, she’d learned the hard way that avoiding this particular problem hadn’t made it go away. No, something had to give and she knew it was going to have to be her.

The thick stack of divorce papers on the passenger’s seat said as much.

She wasn’t much for dithering, not really. She’d gotten her crying out in the shower this morning like an adult and she wasn’t keen on revisiting it. She would have to redo her whole face, probably while walking through Wayne Enterprises to avoid being late. She could only imaging what the soulless corporate drones would think of her.

She let herself wallow until the clocked ticked over to 9. Then she killed the engine and climbed out, smoothing her business casual blouse and skirt. Checking her reflection in her side mirror, she fiddled with her ponytail and squinted over her eyeliner – was it uneven? Oh well. There wasn’t time to fix it now.

Before she walked away, she grabbed her purse from the backseat and checked its contents.

This was a first for her, she thought with a humorless smile; one of the most important business meetings of her life and she was walking into it armed only with a child sized toothbrush and a hairbrush. She would have to stop for replacements on her way home and thought that maybe Tim might like to go with her. The toothbrush was from a passing interest in dinosaurs and these days he was more of a superhero type kid.

The young woman at the front desk – the girl, really, was Bruce recruiting out of middle school? - rattled off a list of rules and restrictions for visitors as she efficiently issued Janet’s visitors pass. Tacked on at the end, she gave impressively detailed instructions on how to get the elevators and which one to take.

Janet nodded easily and was just about to move around to the plainly visible elevators behind the desk when a man appeared and slid into the vacant chair beside the girl. He gave her a little paper cup and kept the other one for himself.

“Sorry,” he said with an easy grin. “You treating our guests right, Becca?”

“I did the badge all by myself,” she confirmed, a slight smile peeking out from behind her general teenage apathy.

“Sorry,” he said again, turning his attention to Janet. He glanced over her pass quickly. “It’s bring your kid to work day, but you don’t need to worry about that if you’re visiting Mr. Wayne. His kids don’t like coming here any more than their daddy does. And the littlest one isn’t going anywhere soon!”

Janet’s answering smile was glass.

“My son actually loves coming to the office with me,” she said, choking back heavy guilt. She never should have come here. She should have made different choices ten times over, never should have dragged her son down with her. “He thinks shuffling paper is the single most important thing any businessman can do. I think he likes the sound of the paper on wood.”

“And he’s right as far as I can tell,” the man – his name tag read “Ron” – agreed easily.

Janet faked a laugh and extracted herself with a friendly shrug before bee-lining for the restrooms. She found a stall and firmly locked herself in before her face screwed up in misery. She shook her hands out, wanting to press them into her eyes or grip her hair, but she couldn’t ruin her mascara or her ponytail.

She forced herself to stop and took her phone out instead. Her phone background was a breathtaking view from a rented home in Tambobamba. She felt, if possible, shittier. Other mothers had their children as their background or lock screen.

Turning her screen off and then on, she stared judgmentally at the picture there of her and Jack. She would have to change that soon.

Then, just because she was deep in her self-loathing, she clicked through into her photo gallery. The last picture she’d taken of Tim was almost a week old from when the two of them went for ice cream after she’d fought with Jack – it had been a desperate grab for normalcy and she’d immediately posted it to her social medias, desperate for someone to see how hard she was trying and-

And what? Praise her for doing the bare minimum?

Tim was a cute kid, he was. But he was so sticky and clingy and he always talked too loud and after Tim fell asleep in his car seat on the way home Janet had cried herself nearly sick.

Janet swiped back to the home screen to search what she’d originally intended when she took her phone out.

Talia al Ghul due date

From the gossip rags, it looked like Talia would have a late summer baby. A son. Bruce Wayne’s “first” blood son.

Just after Tim’s birthday, she thought. Which was... just over two weeks away at this point. She had nothing planned yet. What did people do for sixth birthdays?

…Hiring a clown was probably out.

Janet didn’t sigh, very aware that there were other people coming in and out of the public restroom. She double checked that her phone was set to silent before stowing it away again. Not that many people were clamoring for her time, not anymore. She was viciously glad of the fact. Let Jack choke on all the emails he couldn’t bother reading for all she cared.

Janet slid the lock and stepped out into the fray once more.

She still washed her hands because she wasn’t a savage and quickly exited the bathroom. Now that she knew to look for it, a few of the people she saw around did look too young for the workforce. Stepping into the elevator she needed, she was joined by a couple of employees dressed smartly and a girl around Tim’s age in a shimmering mermaid tail dress.

This had to be a punishment. This was as close to Hell as she believed in.

The little girl chattered happily up until the 21st floor when she was pulled out of the elevator by her mother. The other employee got off on the 25th and Janet rode nearly to the top all alone.

#tim drake #janet drake #batman #robin #dc #my writing tag #bio kid tim AU #fic: no choice but to love you

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erinhime83 · 8 months

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Edit: lol, I thought I had posted these designs before, but couldn’t find them…until now. >.<

With the realization that we had a twenty year collab anniversary coming up (hold up, hold up, twenty years? Shiittt) and deciding to use the current designs for the characters rather than use the actual characters due to some…dislike of the story they came from, I discovered that I had recently redesigned all these characters, although I had forgotten how recent that had been. From what I recall, I had seen a twitter/tumblr post about Viking dresses, and saw one that just blew my mind so much that I had to design Buttercups’ dress around it. Just wish I had kept the link to the post, lol.

But as I looked at the designs, I realized I really really like them, but I have a new template for designs, and the older ones, although very nice, didn’t ‘look’ right anymore. So I made it my mission for the past couple of days to redo all the designs using the new template. (It wasn’t as challenging as you might thing, since I basically reused a lot of my lines. It was a lot of copying and pasting and fixing lines.) So I figured I’d make a stupidly long post and show off all the designs I did.

The biggest difference in this version is that I have designed to age up the characters. Sure, their story really doesn’t need it, but eh, I sort of like writing not-teen characters now. Besides, it makes the whole thing with people worrying about Buttercup not being engaged/not have any prospects a little more understandable, since she’s older. Rereading it, it was weird how everyone was so worried although she was seventeen.

Buttercup Angelia: Age 20. Buttercup is one of the voice characters, and she’s the daughter of a blacksmith. She helps her father with his job since she’s a Fire Mage. She’s one of the very few Fire Mages what wasn’t brought to the Temple when she was younger, since her parents decided they wanted to raise her. She is the second oldest of nine, and people consider her a bit odd because, well, technically she is. Her father educated her and she has a weird obsession with the written word, she doesn’t think the Lumentians are as evil as everyone makes them out to be, and she helps out at a forge. It’s really no wonder that none of the guys in the village have shown little interest in her, but she doesn’t really care. She’s a skilled archer, since every Alterian is required to know how to fight. She chose archery because she doesn’t like being up close and personal, and she’s really good at it.

I really love her dress, and how it’s sort of a call back to her first dress a bit. She really looks like a Viking!

Raito Akira: Age 22. Ratio is the other voice character, and he’s the second prince of Lumentis. His people don’t think too much about him, mostly because, well, he’s the second prince, not the heir. He’s more of a scholar than anything else, preferring to hide away in the library reading than attending his lessons. He’s a skeptic when it comes to religion, which hasn’t endeared him to the capitals’ priests at all, and they basically go around slandering him whenever they can. Raito is bothered by it because he does want to help his people out, but most of the people who live in the capital think he’s worthless. He goes on the journey to find out what happened to the Angelus Dei partially to prove himself and mostly because he was tricked by his older brother.

His outfit isn’t really anything new or original. Its sort of like his 2013 outfit, tweeked a little, but damn, making his sash longer worked wonders. I also redid his hair (ignore the fact that it’s Connor’s hair), and...wow. He looks awesome!

Clover Gunvald: Age 23. Clover is Raito’s bodyguard and best friend. Clover’s parents are royal guards as well, so she grew up in the palace and around Raito since they were close in age. Despite the fact that they were basically polar opposites, the two of them got along very well as they got older, such that Clover declared that she was going to protect Raito no matter what. She is a very skilled warrior, although she herself is an Earth Elf. She tags along with Raito on his journey because she knows he wouldn’t be able to survive on his own, and because, you know, she’s his bodyguard. And while Raito is annoyed that a girl knows how to fight better than he does, he doesn’t hold it against Clover because, well, she’s an elf. She’s a little distrustful of Buttercup at first, since she’s from Altere and a Fire Mage, but she warms up to her quickly once she realizes Raito’s interest in her.

Her outfit is ridiculously simple, but also awesome. It suits her very well, even if she lost her awesome jacket in the process. This looks better on her, in my opinion. Makes her look like a medieval badass.

Odessa Wilson: Age 21. Odessa is a Dragon Tamer that the group comes upon when they visit with a traveling merchant troupe. She’s from Tara Nora, being the only child of a poor farmer. She started traveling with the troupe about three years ago because she was always longer for adventure, and the advantage of the troupe is that they stop in her hometown several times a year, so she still gets to see her family. She Bonded with her dragon Regalis by accident when she was about ten, although it was more of his part than hers since he took an interest in her. (She didn’t find him as an egg, but rather when he was fully grown. He’s a good thousand years old or so). She ends up joining the group just for the hell of it and not at all because she develops a crush on Clover.

Odessa was always the hardest one for me to come up with a design for, for whatever reason. I wanted her to be tomboyish, but not overly so, and honestly, what I landed on here is perfect. I love her dark skin and light hair, and I love her outfit and I love everything about her. It just all works so well together.

Ruby Starleaf: Age 24. Ruby is pretty much the only one I don’t have much on, mostly because I keep forgetting that she exists, whoops. But Ruby is/was the sacred fairy before the Angelus Dei disappeared. The old one recently passed and she had just gained the position a few years ago, so she’s never really been in contact with the Angelus Dei. But thanks to that connection, she’s the only fairy who isn’t effected by her disappearance. She sort of randomly stumbles across the group and decides to join them, which Buttercup casting a communication spell on her so they could hear her like they would any normal person.

I can’t really say much about her outfit. It’s cute, obviously, and I love the wings. Another benefit of being the Sacred Fairy is that she gets an actual dress rather than the leaves and the like normal fairies wear, lol.

Ignatius: Age ???. He’s the Diabolus Dei, at least according to the Five Kingdom’s religion. His real title is the Younger God of Fire, and he’s considered the evil one of the four gods, which annoys him to no end. He’s the only one of them who actually interacts in the world and the people and he’s not quite sure why no one but the Alterians dislike him so much. He’s the one everyone is blaming for his sister’s disappearance, which he doesn’t understand. Why would he kidnap his sister? He ends up being summoned by Raito, mostly because he is confounded by the fact that a Lumentian prince is trying to summon him. He and the rest of his family started pulling away from the world about a thousand years ago, with his final appearance being about five hundred years ago, which is why there are skeptics like Raito out there.

I like how I ended up designing him. I’ve been trying to add a ‘flair’ to the gods’ outfits for a while, but doing something simple like this works very well as well. He’s the only one whose continued to pay attention, which is why he’s up on the current fashion.

The next group is the villain characters.

Selene Deangelo: Age 21. Selene is the second princess of Silverstine and Raito’s betrothed….sort of. (I actually forgot about this detail until I was rereading the story.) Basically, should Raito not be married by the time he turns twenty-five, he’ll be married to Selene. She is absolutely obsessed with this idea, despite the fact that Raito clearly doesn’t like her very much. He’s probably be fine with it if she wasn’t obsessed and annoying. She basically just recently moved herself into the palace right before the story starts, which annoys Raito to no end. Obviously, she views Buttercup as the enemy since Raito picked her over Selene. She doesn’t have much of a role in the first book beyond being an annoyance, but she’d be more of a villain in the later stories.

Her design…I really like it. I like the dress I came up with. It’s elegant and pretty and suits her extremely well. She’s pretty.

Dante Eld: Age ???. I really don’t have much on Dante, at least nothing that’s not spoilery. I remember I included him the first go around because he was a randomass character I had created, and I felt like I needed to use him, but he had no real purpose, and that’s sort of true now, at least for the first book. He’s supposed to show up and have no point, and then he shows up in later books as a villain and people’ll be like…oh, hey, I remember him! But anyway, Dante is a Dark Elf, and I switched him back to his original appearance (he was a traditional Dark Elf for a while) mostly because I already have a dark skinned elf. Plus, I always thought it was fun to have a Dark Elf that wasn’t a traditional Dark Elf, you know?

And eh, I didn’t change much about his outfit. It works, it’s dark, and it looks better in my current version, so I like it. I like how he turned out.

Aria: Age ???. Aria is the titular Angelus Dei whose disappearance at the beginning of the book sparks the adventure. What no one knows is that she chose to severe herself off from the world because she had been corrupted, and that she ends up being the main antagonist of the first book.

One thing I like about designing Aria is the idea that the other gods are not paying attention to the world around them after they start disassociating with the world, so their clothes are outdated. Way outdated, which is why she’s wearing a Roman inspired dress. Also, with Aria, I liked the idea of her looking like a storm cloud while she’s corrupted, since she’s the Younger God of Air. Which is why she’s in all greys there. She actually turned out looking pretty damn cute!

The next set is the ‘extra’ ones I did, and sort of what I consider the Lumentian designs, I guess. I mean, the first two designs are what the main three wear in Lumentis – Buttercup in the dress she’s given when she arrives at the palace (her ‘princess dress’, if you would), Raito in his prince attire, and then Clover in her royal guard uniform. I was going to give Raito the extra sleeve things I had given him in his previous prince design, but I sort of liked how this looked without them, so kept them off. Also, Buttercup sort of tries to de-Alterian herself so the Lumenian people might accept her more, but, uh, girl. You a Fire Mage. Can’t work yourself out of that, but that’s why she doesn’t have the braids around her face, or the eyeliner.

The other three, though, are Raito and Clover’s siblings.

Yukino Akira: Age 18. Yuki is Raito’s little sister, the only princess of Lumentis, and both her bothers are overly protective of her. She and Raito are closer, though, and she’s always sneaking off to hang out with him. She’s the first in the palace to accept Buttercup, since Raito trusts her. Raito hates the fact that she’s technically an adult now, and guys are starting to court her.

Her design is really cute, and her dress is something different but still medieval looking.

Fern Gunvald: Age 23. Fern is Clover’s twin brother and polar opposite. Where she’s a warrior, he’s a scholar, and was actually the first one to meet Raito when they met in the library when they were younger. He is Raito’s other best friend, although Raito and Clover are closer. Despite the fact that they are so opposite, the twins are extremely close and supportive of one another.

I love hos nerdy he looks, lol. He did have spiky hair, but that didn’t suit him (or look right), so standard boy hair it is, and it works perfectly for him.

Kazuto Akira: Age 24. Kazuto is Raito’s older brother and Crown Prince of Lumentis. He is, in a word, a womanizer, and has been seducing any girl who has shown any sort of interest in Raito for as long as he’s been able to. Not like Raito has really cared about any of those girls, of course. Naturally, he attempts to sway Buttercup as well, much to Raito’s annoyance. The brother do not get along at all, with Kazuto constantly having to prove that he’s better than Raito at everything.

His design isn’t anything exciting, but I like how I managed to make him look like a playboy prince somehow.

The next set, I suppose is the Alterian design, which are Buttercup’s friends as well as two of her siblings. Her friends aren’t featured that much, but I had wanted to design out their dresses, so…here we are. Buttercup had more friends in the original, but I whittled it down to three.

Lilac: Age 21. Lilac is the brunt one of the group, as well as being the oldest. She’s not engaged because all the guys their age are terrified of her, but no one’s really worried about her, despite her age, because she does have a guy she’s talking with. Also, she’s very independent. She’s trained in melee fighting.

Rosemary: Age 20: Rosemary is technically Buttercup’s best friend who also happens to have just recently become engaged to her older brother. She is sweet and gentle and perfect, and pretty much beloved throughout the village. (Given that she has the more complicated dress, I think you can tell which of the three is my favorite, lol). She’s trained in sword fighting.

Lavender: Age 20. Lavender is sort of shy and withdrawn, although not to the point where she’s soft spoken. She’s the one closest to actually getting married thanks to an arrangement her parents made with another family, although neither party minds since they’d been close since childhood. Thanks to her glasses, she’s trained in using a staff so she doesn’t have to get close to her enemies.

Seth Angelia: Age 22. Seth is Buttercup’s older brother and he’s highly protective of her thanks to being the only one older than her. He’s also the only Angelia son who’s training to following in his father’s footsteps – the others work on the family farm which is run by their father’s cousin. He and Buttercup are close and he’s unsure what to think about Raito’s interest in her. He was a little unsure about asking Rosemary to marry him, seeing as she had a lot of other options, but considering all the time she spent with him growing up, it was really no completion. He’s a trained swordsman.

It was hard to come up with a male Viking design, especially after seeing how plain they tended to be, but I think I did really good! I mean, he is really plain, and then you have Rosemary looking all gorgeous over there, and it’s sort of funny knowing they’re a pair. But I like how he turned out! He’s just as adorable as everyone else.

Lily Angelia: Age 12. Lily is Buttercup’s younger sister, and the second Angelia daughter. (With everyone aged up, I decided to give the Angelia’s two more children, and the last one is another daughter.) She is pretty much the opposite of Buttercup, believing herself above her own status and that she’s somehow going to catch the eye of some nobleman in the future, despite there being none in her life. As such, she’s a bit lazy since she doesn’t see the point in learning homemaking, although she’s forced to learn. She is obsessed with Lumentian culture, which irks everyone due to the fact that, well, Alterians hate Lumentians for the most part. Buttercup loves her little sister and all, but the two do not get along.

Lily ends up looking simple as well, but I amused myself with the idea that she’s wearing a Lumentian inspired dress that turned out extremely pretty! I wasn’t going to give her a braid at first, because at some point, she absolutely refuses to participate in any of the Alterian cultural attire, but figured she'd find a way to make it work where she was still pretty. I also like the soft pink on her.

I know the three girls look similar, but that’s because I found a design I love and wanted to run with it. I liked the idea that, since their village is a border village, their clothes would have some Lumentian elements to it anyway, and I just…I don’t know. I really like how everyone turned out.

I think my biggest problem with this story is realizing that I wrote the original ten years ago, thus making it a prospective story to write for NaNo, *dies* I mean, I still want to do Division, and it’s still, you know, two months away, so anything can happen, and knowing me, I’ll probably lose interest in this once it goes out, but there you go. I had to do these because my muse was bugging me, and I figured I’d write out this long ass description for my future self, lol. And because I wanted to put these designs out into the world.

#my art #designs #angelus dei

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tikal-the-echidna · 20 days

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I’m fixing and redoing my tagging system, which includes unifying a few tags where I accidentally had 2 versions, like #chaos emerald, and #chaos emeralds, but I just realised that the 2 tags I have for sage (#sage, and #sage the ai,) are acting really weird???

#sage, will give me both #sage, and #sage the ai, results but #sage the ai, returns no results. This is. Not normally how linked tag searches work.

#lunar lullabies #note that i’ve since edited the results for just sage with the other tag to be aligned #just means I can’t find any other unaligned posts because I know there are more :/

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aburruso-capstone-uhwoacm · 28 days

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Progress Update #5

Not that much has happened since the last update, but I still managed to hit some major milestones.

First of all, I got *almost* all of the preliminary sprites done. I actually forgot to make sprites for the markers, though this is because the markers themselves were not part of the original plan. Other than that, I did all the sprites for Sasha, the firewalls, the servers, and the buttons. That being said, I’m going to have to redo them. I will explain why pretty soon.

Besides the sprites, I also made some sound effects. I made them with the help of a website called jsfxr, where you can generate various sound effects for video games. For most of the sounds, I just fiddled around with jsfxr and then downloaded them when I was satisfied with them. However, I did a bit more editing for the sounds that play when you take down a server and run into a firewall. For those, I made two different sounds in jsfxr and then blended them together in Adobe Audition. I am mostly satisfied with the end results, but I ran into an issue with the firewall sound effect.

Now, remember how in the last post, I mentioned that I was going to do a playtesting session? Well, I wanted to get all the sprites and sound effects into the game so that the students who would be playing it wouldn’t have to just look at squares; even if the sprites weren’t perfect, they would still be a step up from what I had in the first build. So, the day before the session was spent importing all the sprites and sound effects into the game. This is when I found some issues.

First of all, Sasha’s sprite is super small compared to the play area (see the picture below - this is before I put in the other sprites; fortunately, their sizes were fine). Her sprites’ current resolution is 22x22, so I’m thinking I’ll have to increase it to make it easier to see her. Besides that, the firewall sound effect sounded different when I put it in GameMaker. Specifically, it sounds less like an electric shock (which is what it’s supposed to be) and more like a really loud and annoying grinder. I don’t know why the sound changed, especially since the others didn’t. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to fix those issues, so I just had to leave them as is in for the playtesting session.

As for the session itself, it went rather well. A lot of the kids had fun playing it. They also provided a lot of good feedback for the game. While they provided some suggestions that I do not think I can do (such as adding more levels), they also had some that I will try to do this month. They include:

Polishing the graphics

Recoloring either the servers or firewalls so they look more distinct (most likely, I’ll make the firewalls yellow instead of orange)

Adding a working tutorial (fun fact: the old tutorial still used the squares, and I didn’t have time to add the new sprites in it, so I completely removed it from the build the students played. As a workaround, I did demonstrate the game in front of the class. Regardless, I want to get the tutorial done since I obviously can’t do that for all the people who play it).

Try to implement numbers into the grid (to make it easier to see where the coordinates are)

Fixing the firewall sound effect

This is quite a lot to get done. I am a little nervous about redoing the graphics; I'm not 100% sure if my skill is up to par to make something better than what I have now. Still, I’m going to try my best.

Also, here’s the link to the game; you can now try it out with the new graphics: https://aliyah-burruso.itch.io/capstone-sneaker-first-build. (Yes, the url says “first build.” No, this is not an April Fools’ prank. I just didn’t want to change the url and confuse the teacher who let me playtest with her class. I’ll definitely change it later).

That’s all I have for this update. For the next couple of weeks, I’ll focus on revising the sprites. Once I’m done with that, I’ll do the tutorial and add some more things I’ve been wanting to do for the game. Let’s see how things go.

#gamedev #cm491 #capstone #gamemaker #video games

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shoheiakagi · 1 month

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Give me any and all the Shouhei/Sakuno headcanons, be they fluffy and cute, filthy and smutty, or angsty! Like, I just love everything you’ve told me about these two and I think they make a really good couple so more of them would make me very happy!

Ah i’m so glad you think they make a good couple cause they’re my fave 🤧 i want to make sure they’re interesting while remaining realistic

Before they even start their fling, Shouhei would always try to catch Sakuno’s attention at the award shows they attend aka a lot of alone time in empty hallways which includes whispers and stolen kisses.

Bandou and Kaoru once walked in on Sakuno straddling Shouhei’s lap as they makeout. Bandou is envious, Kaoru is disgusted, Sakuno is mortified and tries to get away from Shouhei, while Shouhei is just chilling and doesn’t let go of Sakuno’s waist

When they were fwbs, sakuno was the first to realize that she was falling hard for shouhei. It was when her group was traveling overseas and she finds out via twitter that he was with another girl, she starts feeling hurt and jealous, wondering why does she even care if they’re not dating. she can’t even bother kaoru or any of the other girls about it cause she’s hiding this whole situationship from them (and she knows that kaoru will be blunt and blame her for this mess). When they return to japan, out of spite, she ignores his calls and texts. She even tries to link up with some other guy, only for it to miserably fail. a few weeks of her giving shouhei a cold shoulder go by when he finally gets fed up and confronts her in her apartment

Shouhei spends so much time at Sakuno’s apartment, he ends up smelling like her floral scented body scrubs and lotions. Once, Chitose literally had to pull him by the collar and sniff his neck, wondering why the fuck does he smell like a girl. Whereas Sakuno makes sure she leaves some of her clothes in Shouhei’s apartment, so she has less things to pack whenever she stays the night. She also steals some of his shirts and hoodies when she gets ready to leave his place, treating them as a souvenir of some sort

He likes watching her get dolled up, especially if its for him. He even volunteered to apply her lipstick once, leaning close and carefully lining the applicator against her lips. But too bad he has shaky hands, so her lipstick ends up a mess and she needed to redo it otherwise she’s going to look like a clown (shouhei secretly takes a pic before she fixes her makeup)

When their relationship gets public, they don’t act all clingy and touchy, and keep their interactions limited. But people will know that theyre confirming the relationship when sakuno is seen wearing one of shouhei’s trademark caps

**NSFW**

Although they’re not into hardcore bdsm, they are very into bondage play. If he’s not using his belt, Shouhei uses Sakuno’s pink ribbons to tie her wrists up. Sometimes he even blindfolds her, rendering her useless while he has his way with her

They definitely fucked in front of the mirror in Sakuno’s bedroom. Sakuno personally likes glancing up at the mirror to see how she looks all sexed up during missionary, while shouhei likes to have a good view of him pounding into her from the back

Whether he’s kneeling down before her or she’s sitting on his face, Shouhei loves to bury his face between Sakuno’s thighs. He takes his time too; nose almost buried into her folds to take in her smell, leaving a wet kiss on her clit before he lazily starts to suck, his hands massaging her thighs and ass before slowly making their way up to squeeze her boobs. Shouhei moans while eating her out, the vibration giving Sakuno a wave of pleasure. He even spits inside her p*ssy

Sakuno wants Shouhei to fuck her raw and come inside of her, so she eventually starts to carry plan B around. At first, they experiment with him pulling out and spilling his cum all over her face, boobs, and stomach. When he finally cums inside her, he doesn’t pull out and keeps her as his cockwarmer for the night

While not extremely rough, Shouhei likes to think of himself as a gentle dom. He thrusts into her harder when she’s begging for him. He’s edged Sakuno a few times, smirking at her cries when he pulls away. Once Sakuno was being bratty so Shouhei “disciplined” her by throwing her across his lap and spanking her ass

Shouhei has thrown Sakuno over his shoulder multiple times while marching over to the bedroom (or anywhere they can fuck, really). But there also was a lot of times where he carried her bridal style or with her legs wrapped around his waist

Shouhei loves Sakuno’s tiny waist, marveling at how he can wrap one hand around it. He always has a hand on her waist, rubbing the dip of her torso as he pulls her in closer. Whether its during sex or while they’re simply cuddling in bed, Shouhei trails a path of kisses down her stomach, dipping his tongue in her belly button

Sakuno has a nice, perky set of tits that Shouhei likes. Not too big, not too small, but a good size to cup and squeeze with his hands. Sakuno’s moans while he’s sucking on one tit and squeezing the other with his rough hand will always be his favorite song.

#ask #chickadeedeedeedee #celeb au

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janiedean · 11 months

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Wait you think Jon will be on the IT (not that it matters since the series will never finish) but King Bran was a plot point D and D were directly told by GRRM lol. I don't like it and think it's stupid but that was always GRRM's endgame.

I think that but like the two things aren't mutually exclusive X°D like yeah... king bran is a plot point... because he's king in the north XD okay quick summary:

first of all lemme link you my at length reasoning wrt bran being the in series deconstruction of the arthurian fisher king figure which is half of the explanation;

now, after we have that out of the way, tldr: I think bran was obviously and without a doubt stated as next king in the north which like.. the north has technically seceded so unless whoever comes up on top next is a kingdom unionist the north is gonna stay seceded which btw also happened in the show, except that they put sansa as qitn when she had no business being there but like.... yeah the north is gonna stay separated so it has to have a ruler and diff. from sansa bran has all the book lore to back up his kingship (esp. if rickon survives and can give him heirs in case he ends up unable to have any)

jon will be on the it to end the entire dynasty the way it was created by aegon i which I think is a great bookmark because targ empire being ended by stark/targaryen bastard descendent who makes all the kingdoms independent and does it without changing his name bc I'mma eat my hat if when he gets the throne he's not jon snow first of his name? that's a good bookend/parallel;

now, lemme see if I find that damned jon meta so I don't have to redo it, why jon is the chosen one deconstruction there we go plus this isn't specifically that but why jon is AA and there's no way he's not so I don't have to redo it too;

so: whatever the fuck happens, jon is also atm the best throne candidate because robb legitimized him and howland reed has the document to testify it (in book canon) and howland reed knows he's r+l and the moment it's out someone is gonna legitimize that claim too because it's just too convenient for everyone involved except for dany and I'm still of the idea that dany/aegon vi/cersei are the current dance with dragons parallels so the moment she comes out on top or whatever but has gone through her shit already with aegon and turns out someone else has a better claim and zombies are coming... like again idt dany actually wants the throne anyway and jon has a better claim bc male son of firstborn male son of last targ king so he automatically passes in front of last female daughter of last targ king and at that point if she decides to go back to khaleesing in essos literally no one is gonna want that job

so imvho: jon gets the iron trap, jon dismantles the seven kingdoms and all of them get into fantasy reinassance as separated kingdoms and he undoes the og targ empire, he fixes everything that has to be fixed while being absolutely unhappy and hating every single thing about the job, gives bran the north after bran is back from beyond the wall and then he gets his show ending ie he gives the throne to someone else after he fixes everything and most of all redoes the small council the way it was more or less in the show (I mean at the end of the show the small council was all made up of previously marginalized ppl which imvho was the most grrm thing that stood out so I don't doubt that jon does the same) and then fucks off beyond the wall by his own choice because the only time in his life he actually was happy was with the wildlings which checks out with his show ending

tldr: dnd also said killing shireen that way was smth grrm told them and there is literally no physical way stannis can be behind shireen being burned alive and they used that to justify their stannis character assassination so if grrm told them bran was kitn and they decided it was as good as sansa taking his place and him taking jon's when they also took AA away from jon because they wanted ppl to be shocked and not even maisie williams thought arya being AA made a lick of sense and they had written everything leading up to jon being it... sorry but I'mma not taking 'dnd says grrm told them' face value when dnd heard what grrm said and 90% of the time most likely changed the entire context X°D

#anonymous #ask post #janie writes meta #possibly #ch: jon snow #ch: bran stark #sorry guys jon getting the iron trap is so painfully obvious idc what dnd say #XD #also for the record i've been saying jon fucks off w/ the wildlings since long before the show ending #so that just made me feel vaguely validated xD

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sammysundog · 1 year

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hi Sammy! hopefully I'm not pestering you (I'm ThatDayDreamer on yt btw), but I had to ask where would you upload a maxis redo/no cc version of Ajay Loner's house you made in your Strangeview series please? are you on modthesims? tysm have a lovely day 💚💚

You are not pestering at all! I was thinking I could post it here on tumblr & on my website for safe keeping, but I figured this ask would be a good place to go ahead and share! Download below the cut! 💚

So the lot did end up having a bit of CC which is of course not included in the file download itself. I am gonna list what I did use all below but most of the place is Maxis so if you don't want to mess with the CC you can just not download it and replace the items in your game (I did all the proper file cleaning of this version of the lot too to make it safe).

Lot Download Here!

CC Used (Not Included)

Shiftable OMSP

Stair Wall Fix

Monique's Hacked Computer as 3t2 PC (really not necessary but technically it's in there lol)

Bunch of plants from this set

This Pool Table

Social Bunny Statue from here (EP06 Backdrops Link)

This neon light set

These custom beddings (green cross hatch one used)

That's it! I also recommend using this rug fix for any rugs placed off grid, and of course installing the lot with the Clean Installer.

Below are a few shots of the lot in my Strangeview for those who might also be interested in having it but are not familiar:

#the sims 2 #ts2 #lot download #ajay loner house #answer

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stargazersroom · 2 years

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This is home (Animatic storyboard) | Hermitcraft The Infinity Room AU

I finished storyboard (sort of - read further to understand why) for Tango and Mumbo from Infinity Room AU! I got pretty lazy and bored half way, so some of those frames were made for shits and giggles, and there is one part I have no idea what to do with. This storyboard was fun to make, which helped a lot with actually finishing this task. I have no idea if uploading it with audio here is okay, but on youtube everything seems sort of fine, so here’s the link: https://youtu.be/CuB1hYG_bIE. Feel free to pause and read every bit of text in the storyboard - text is mostly relevant and maybe more helpful than my drawings. Enjoy!

Known problems: video quality is less than ideal and looks like some animation stuttered during rendering, but as of now I have no idea how to fix this. Yes, I memed too hard. No, all those memes won’t go into final animatic. No, I’m not doing a normal version of the storyboard. It already took me at least 6 hours to do it and I’m not willing to redo it. I had my share of fun doing this, not redoing it for the sake of “it needs to be serious and close to my vision”, at this point I better start doing final product.

#cw bugs #cw scopophobia #cw murder #<-mention #I'll better overtag this post than undertag it #infinity room au #infinity room Tango #infinity room mumbo

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kaiowut99 · 1 year

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GX Finalized-Subs!90 (WIP): The State of GeneX Medal Play [UPDATE!]

Spent the past week getting work on finalized 89 and 90 going, and since I only had one quick animation fix to work on for 89, I'm onto prepping 90--as part of that, I'm getting to redo one of my first on-screen translation edits, done way back in 2012-ish when I first subbed 90 using only Sony Vegas and Aegisub, iirc. It's neat to take another crack at it using Photoshop, though I also necessarily had to redo it due to the differences in video quality (I did also use a DVDRip back then, but it was a more manual encode from a different source, iirc, hence the black bars on the side) and the fact that somehow I thought to encode a hardsub into the raw clip... which I wouldn't have done now, lol.

So, this is Samejima's computer screen as he looks over GeneX's progression with our main crew early into the episode; in Photoshop, I first stitched together the screen he scrolls through (on the left), then worked to blank it, painting over the Japanese for most of it. When it came to the DA circle in the middle with the dorm names, I tried to apply a render off DeviantArt, but between the border on each letter and the text not quite matching up, I opted to instead redo some of the letters (mainly the "ISK" in "Obelisk," done with Times New Roman, and painting over the bottom of the "B" in Blue, while I copy/pasted part of the "R" in "Ra" over the "R" in "Osiris" to cover up the end of the "count" kanji). Got it fully blank by about Wednesday night.

Then, yesterday, I started adding in the English text and got that knocked out easily (final product on the right, with my last go at it in the middle for comparison); I don't have the original sub file I used for the text here way back (thanks, failing drive in October), but I did remember using the Corbel font for the header there, then also used it for the "Duel Count," "Medals Won," and "Primary Cards Used" text, while I used Arial here for the names. I also lengthened the boxes under the latter to fit "Monster/Magic/Trap Cards" to match the original text. Applied a light blur and some noise on the text, as well as a light drop shadow, and voila. Overall, I think it looks much cleaner than the 2012 attempt, though I wish I could figure out how to make the drop shadow a smidge less blurry, but it'll do.

So, next steps for this is to throw it into Sony Vegas and redo the scrolling, while applying a light screen flicker (which I'll do using a solid blue every couple frames with a screen blend).

The kicker is trying to make this work in the follow-up scene after the OP with Samejima on top as he scrolls from Misawa to Saiou (which I managed to; see the update reblog linked above!]:

I was originally thinking of also stitching together the scrolling here, then redrawing Samejima as needed on top of the text I'm covering up, and I did stitch it together, but I'm realizing I'll have to make the edits frame-by-frame to account for him and three of his lip-flap frames that I can just loop as needed once it stops on Saiou.

So--and thinking out loud--I'm thinking I'd redraw more of Samejima and then save and mask him out to use later and keep him looking consistent, while I use that stitch I've done to redraw the screen to just leave the text, recycling the text edits for the Duel Count/Medals Won/Primary Cards sections from earlier on Saiou's side; once I redo the text, I'll put Samejima back and make him more transparent where he's on top of the new text. Then, when I throw the frames back into Sony Vegas, I'll take the original video and mask Samejima back on to the parts without text in each. I think... that'd work... Hmm. (EDIT: Funny, that's exactly how it went; see the update link above to my reblog, lol.)

Seems I did go frame-by-frame in my last try too, though not as clean as I'd have liked now:

I can see why 4Kids opted to just cut the Misawa-scrolling part of this scene and just keep the Saiou part for the dub (though I would've thought they'd have access to the files used for this at least lol)

#subbing rambling #yugioh gx #GX #yugioh #ygo #ygo gx #we'll see how that last strategy plays out i suppose lol

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ehh-is-the-name · 6 months

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Happy (late) Holloweeny!!

It may be like almost a week after the holiday but whatever! I decided to be Jyushi this year since I already made the hat like 2 years ago. That led to me wondering how much I could do for the costume without buying things, and well... I think the only thing I really bought was the baseball uniform but I had to dye it and whatnot so idek what I was planning with that. I think I just wanted an excuse to make stuff and this is what I got to show for it. I think it turned out well!

Though, I think I really like just dressing up as characters at this point, and of course work in process photos under the cut!

Gonna go in chronological order, so starting with the hat.

The photos of it are at the other post linked above if you wanna see it but I'll say my process/thoughts on it here.

If I went back in time to redo the hat I would've changed the way I did the white base. I did it with a spray primer and it made the hat really stiff. I used to wear it out, but also because of the primer, the fabrics not breathable anymore so you get sweaty FAST. Even with the wig on above, it made my head hot. It also made it not able to like stretch easily, so when I had it on with the wig, it kinda looked weird from some angles. Otherwise, It's pretty good. It's just the fact it has so many paint layers.

I unfortunately forgot to take wip pics of the bat and ball, but I have all the resources I used to make them if that counts!

I used the ball pattern from Supergurumi here. For the bat, I used Jay Hen's pattern linked here.

The only thing about the bat is that I switched up some things for this. Like I barely used any stuffing (mainly bc I didn't have much) but also because I just don't think the silhouette of the one on the site matches what an actual metal bat looks like and Jyushi got a metal bat. So I just crocheted around a pool noodle. And gotta say, very fun to hit my friends with, 10/10. Another thing, is that I made the whole bat the grey seen above and just wrapped some old fabric around it, since sometimes Jyushi has it and sometimes he doesn't?? It's weird.

Like in the earlier season (top right), he doesn't, but later in the show (bottom left) he has one and the grip is black? Oh but in the game (top left) he has a yellow grip! BUT THEN THE FUCKING NENDROID DOESN'T HAVE IT EITHER??? SO WHAT????

Idk. The whole thing kinda pissed me off since I didn't know what would be right. In the end, I just went with the yellow grip to match the uniform. I saw all of this like I care about accuracy- I fucked up the baseball stitches anyways, but that'll be our little secret.

I bought the whole uniform from a bulk sellout sports company for like only a handful of dollars. Even with shipping and everything, it wasn't even $20. The only thing was that they weren't selling yellow ones, so I had to dye it. Wouldn't have been that bad if it weren't polyester! Do you know how hard it is to dye polyester??? Well I didn't when I bought it, so lemme tell you.

You gotta make your witch's brew with synthetic fabric dye and soap. It took me a while, but I'd found some of RIT Dyemore in a store (but there are also some online like iDye Poly that should work). I just used a broken hanger to stir that shit for like 30 minutes since I didn't wanna ruin a spoon. Then I had to soak it in a dye fixative, which I did not buy 'cause fuck that. I'll just made some with water. vinegar, and sodium carbonate which you too can make at home. I will stay thanking NileRed for everything here, love his content. I think I soaked it for about 10-15 minutes, and from the pics above I wouldn't say much washed out.

This was probably the dumbest thing I've done. I could've just bought a wig for like $12 but no, I chose to make one instead. Also, I know he doesn't have blue strands in his hair, I just ran out of black yarn and had to make do. These are trying times, ok!! Anyway, I got one of the mesh wig caps meant to cover hair and then started tying strands to every couple of rows and holes. I guess this is where the stiffness of the hat came into use since I used that to hold the mesh cap. I got the idea from this video which helped with telling me what not to do if I wanted to make a wig like this. I was about as far into tying as the first pic below before I found cosplay veteran, Kind of Derp's, yarn wig series which put the idea in my head to press it. The only issue was that I couldn't brush out the twist since they were already tied and it would've pulled out all my hard work. So, I had to individually spread out every piece before pressing... That took the most amount of time, tbh I spend days doing that. I do not recommend it. If you're gonna make a yarn wig either do it KoD's way or like Uropa Queen does it here. That vid helped me quite a bit with styling.

Lastly, although the final photos don't show it, I did put Jyushimatsu's lil ahoge thing! I made it out of a spring and wrapped it with a shitload of yarn before stitching it in place.

And the last thing was stitching their last name! I thought about doing it directly onto the shirt, but since the uniform shirt is kinda stretchy and I don't have any fabric stabilizers, I chose not to.I wanted the stitches to be really crisp and nice, so I just did it on a different piece of fabric and pressed it on. I also kinda wanted to have a yellow shirt by the end of this without the kanji, so I wanted the chance to peel it off afterwards. But, me being silly, I didn't check if the iron-on adhesive was permanent before ironing it onto the shirt. Not the end of the world, I'll still wear it anyway. Though I think I could've cut the edges closer to the word since you can see it pretty clearly irl and even in the photos, but again the damage is done, what am I gonna do about now.

For the sketch, I used an erasable pen to draw 松. And for the stitches themselves, I just used the satin stitch to fill and some back stitches for the outline. This was probably the easiest and quickest part of the process.

I did the little "14" wristband thing a similar way. I just whipstitched the numbers onto some strap material (poly webbing, I think?) and attached some velcro. I folded it in half and stitched down the sides since I didn't ant the stitches to show on the back side of the cuff.

And I would put stuff for the mask, but that was super last minute. I literally just took one of my cloth masks and painted his smile on it with some acrylic paint and pouring medium, 'cause I was too lazy to whip out my actual fabric paint. Took about an hour to get it done, max.

But yeah, despite all the corners I cut, I still like the way it turned out. I can really see why cosplayers do what they do. It's fun to do stuff like this. I don't know if I'll have the time to squeeze in a DIY-heavy costume like this next year, but for Jysuhi and Airy, it was nice to do it.

And as always, I share the process because OH MY FUCK PEOPLE SHOULD!! The cosplayers that share their processes, I love you I love you I love you so much. Their stuff was really helpful for doing this! Hence, that's why I linked so many things. Plus, I know there are others out there who are trying to do the same and if it was helpful for me to stumble across other people's processes it'd probably be helpful to them too.

This is your sign to make a costume if you've been putting it off because you don't know how to do it. Start with something small, just for the hell of it. Hey, in 2021 I didn't think that painting his hat would lead to this, but look where we are. I believe in you, go forth and be creative!

And if you've made it this far, thanks for reading!!

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bdoubleowo · 1 year

Note

...sitting still in minecraft to get mmd background is so smart i was over here teaching myself to export chunks through mininator to blender to pmd fighting for my life getting textures to look right. god.

so, it really depends what you want from your background. if you don't care about like. the small animations like candles and torches then you can literally just take a screenshot. or you can sit and record for the background. but that severely limits your camera options. you cannot move the camera, and you need to make sure that the mmd camera matches the minecraft one's angle or it'll look weird.

i used this strategy for one of my first minecraft mmds (and actually probably my first public mmd akjshdsda) but actually instead of importing it directly into mmd as a background .avi i chromakeyed out the background, as i did with my most recent one. the first time was because of hijinks where i didn't save the motion edits after exporting, but then decided to change the background. and i didn't want to redo them.

this time was because i couldn't figure out how to use a background image with raymmd.

however, using an image does have the benefits of "i don't actually have access to this world right now but i do have a screenshot from a youtube video!" which i did here.

I use mineways to export portions of minecraft worlds to blender, but i've only used it like twice. it was. a bit of an ordeal because the materials weren't linked to the textures properly so i just. ported the mmd model and motion to blender. and rendered it there. you can see the results of that here, but it's not grreat. because i didn't know blender as well as i knew mmd. which honestly wasn't even that much at the time.

the second time i tried to use mineways i bit the bullet and figured out what the issue was. i had to go through each block and fix the texture paths. one by one. it had the issue of the textures being blurry but i think it was very much worth it. fancy camera movements really added to the fun, and by this point i'd learnt raymmd well enough to get some decent looking shading

now the reason i chose to go with the stationary camera method this time was partially i don't wanna fix all the textures again,,,,, but also the fact that it was a fully enclosed space. i wasn't certain how well mmd would respond to that, and it seemed like it was more effort than it was worth to try and fight the lighting. and i wanted to emulate lizzie's lighting as closely as possible, so i figured that'd be easiest in minecraft itself. even if the amethysts are considered?? emissive in my game but not hers?? so they're WAY brighter in my shader. i don't know. how to fix it without turning out all emissive light. which she CLEARLY has on with the lava and lanterns. so. rip me ig.

sorry this is kind of rambly haha. i just have many thoughts on the matter

#og post #ttechnically you could work fancier camera movements in with multiple recordings/screenshots. and cutting between them #but that's less camera movement and just. multiple shots. still adds some variety #which i'm looking into for my next thing i think #ask #anon #anonymous #mmd

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herrmannhalsteadproduction · 2 years

Text

Promises Kept (Chapter Three)

Summary: This is Part Two of my series A Herrmann/Halstead Production. It is an AU where Christopher Herrmann's mom had an affair with Pat Halstead resulting in a baby. The series follows this OC character (Rebecca "Bex" Herrmann) as she grows up and gets to know her brothers and the various Chicago teams.

Part One was Oopsie Baby which you can read here. Part Two follows Bex and Jay during the four years while Jay is away in the Army Rangers and then the following four years while Bex is away at school

Rating: Teen Audiences and Up Relationships: Christopher Herrmann & Original Female Character, Jay Halstead & Original Female Character, Will Halstead & Original Female Character, Jay Halstead & Will Halstead Warnings: Talk of war, PTSD, multiple minor character deaths, ill parent, parental death, sibling friction A/N: I'll post the link to the ao3 page at the bottom. This story has not only an OC character, but some quirky elements which may or may not be everyone's jam. Just FYI. Please enjoy my mostly fluffy with a bit of angst story. :D

Click here for Chapter One.

Click here for Chapter Two.

Chapter Three

Graduation day arrived and Bex wasn’t sure who was more emotional—her or Chris.

They hadn’t even left for the ceremony yet and he’d teared up five times already.

And when Chris cried, she cried so she’d had to redo her make-up a stupid amount of times.

“I’m just so proud of her,” he said, voice getting hoarse as Cindy popped another mini-packet of tissues into his suit jacket.

“I know, sweetie,” Cindy said, patting his chest. “We all are. We still have to make it through the ceremony though so have some water. You’re gonna get dehydrated.”

“Ha, ha, Cind,” Chris said. He was halfway to the cupboard to grab a glass when Bex came in, dressed (make-up fixed for the last time) and ready to go.

“You look so grown up!” Chris’s face went all scrunchy and Bex snapped her arm out, pointing a finger at him.

“No! Not again,” she said. “We can’t be late. We still have to get all the kids into the car.”

“Nope, okay,” he sniffed, squaring his shoulders. “I got this. I’m good.”

Twenty minutes later, they had the kids wrangled into the van and were arriving at the high school. The ceremony was taking place outside with hundreds of chairs set up in front of a raised stage. Luckily, the weather was co-operating and, unlike Chris, not a drop was falling from the sky.

Bex went inside to get set up with her cap and gown while Chris, Cindy, and the kids went to go find seats. Jay couldn’t make it for obvious reasons and Will wasn’t coming either. To be fair, he was a broke medical student and couldn’t afford to fly out. He’d sent a nice card with fifty bucks tucked inside which was more than the email Bex had been expecting.

She filed in with the rest of her class to take their seats at the front, craning her head the whole time, trying to catch a glimpse of her family, but not spotting them. She’d get a better look when it was her time to go on stage.

After a few boring speeches, she was called up to give hers as valedictorian. As soon as she hit the stage, a huge cheer went up from the back of the crowd.

“Whooooo! Go, Bex! Yeah!!!”

She almost tripped when she saw a good chunk of the 51 standing there, waving signs. Uncle Bo, Uncle Mouch, Kelly, Andy, Casey, and even a bunch of the new new crew, Joe, Otis, Capp, and Gabi. People were turning around to look at them, chuckling at their shenanigans. She shook her head, laughing, and made it to the podium where she finally caught sight of Chris, Cindy, and the kids. And—

Her breath caught in her throat.

Sitting there beside Chris (who had the smuggest grin on his face) was Jay. He waved and gave her his little smile.

Crap. She was going to cry again.

“SPEEEEECH!” Andy yelled from the back and Kelly and Matt promptly cuffed him on the head from either side.

Okay, that helped. She shook her head at Chris and Jay and smiled before taking a deep breath and starting her speech.

“The best teacher I ever had was my big brother, Chris,” she began and had to bite her lip for a moment to stop from laughing when Cindy handed said brother another pack of tissues. “I didn’t want any of my fellow classmates to leave here with an incomplete education so I decided to share some of his lessons with you today.”

She started with the first ones—the simplest: mind your manners, share your snacks, and the word sorry doesn’t mean anything unless you back it up with your actions too.

Then there were the ones he’d taught her when her world turned more complicated: the most important thing you can do for someone is to show up. Just being there can be what helps them to keep moving forward.

And the truths that he’d shown her over and over again: Family is something that’s forged with not with blood, but with kindness, honesty, laughter, loyalty, and a helluva lot of love.

It might sound cheesy to some, but he hadn’t steered her wrong yet.

She thanked him for all of his wisdom and for giving her the best family in the world.

The rest of her speech and the rest of ceremony went by in a blur. Bex’s gang started up their cheers again when her name was announced and she walked across the stage. As soon as it was done, she pushed her way through the crowd to her people.

Chris was first in line. “Bex,” he said, voice breaking as he held out his arms.

She gave him the biggest, squeeziest hug. “I would be here without you, big brother.”

“You got yourself here,” he said, giving her one more squeeze. “Hey! How good am I for keeping this a secret?” He let her go and pointed over at Jay. “Got Severide to pick him up from the airport and everything!”

“Jay!” Bex leapt on him next. “I can’t believe you’re here! This is amazing!”

He lifted her up off her feet with a bear hug. “I wasn’t sure the time would go through so I didn’t want to say anything.” He nodded over at Chris. “Then when it did, Chris thought it would make for a good surprise.”

“You’re both jerks,” Bex said, swiping at her eyes. “Awesome, awesome jerks.”

She made her way around the group getting hugs and congratulations from everyone before moving the party back to the house for a classic Herrmann family barbeque.

After everyone had full bellies and was sitting around enjoying the company, Uncle Bo tapped on his bottle to get their attention. “We’ve watched this one grow up from a tiny little peanut—”

“So small!” Chris whispered, head on Cindy’s shoulder.

“—to the wonderful young lady before us here today. It won’t be the same around here without you, but you make us proud. To Baby Herrmann!” He raised his drink and everyone else followed suit.

“To Baby Herrmann!”

“Thanks, guys. I’m going to miss you too,” Bex said. “…but maybe we can let the nickname go now?”

Silence while they pretended to consider it.

“Nawwwww,” Mouch said and Uncle Bo chimed in with “Not while I live and breathe.”

“Baby Herrmann forever,” Kelly and Andy cheered.

“They really stick with the nicknames here, eh?” Otis sidled over to murmur at her.

“Yup,” she said, clinking her drink against his. “Sorry about it.”

The crew cleared out after helping to clean up and once the kids were in bed, Bex was left in the kitchen with Chris, Cindy, and Jay.

“Just like old times,” Jay laughed.

“I still can’t believe you’re here,” Bex said, shaking her head. “Thank you—all of you—that was the best surprise. I mean, I almost lost it on stage, but still. Thank you.”

“Family shows up,” Jay said, slinging an arm over Chris’s shoulder.

“Family shows up,” Chris agreed.

Jay was only able to stay for a few days, but it was great catching up in person. He didn’t want to talk about how things were going with the Rangers. Just said Mouse and the guys were fine and said hi. He focused on getting her to tell him more about school and showing him her dorm online and what classes she’d be starting with.

He shoved an envelope in her hands at the airport and told her to wait until she got home to open it.

And then he was gone again.

She sent him an email as soon as she was in her room, envelope sitting open on her desk.

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Jay! WTF! This is too much. Way too much.

Thank you so much for wanting to help with school, but I can’t accept this!

***

Radio silence until a few days later.

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Shut up, I do what I want.

Seriously, Bex, I’m so freaking proud of you and I know you have a good chunk of school covered, but I don’t want you to have to worry about things like paying for trips home. Let me do this for you. Plus, it’s not just from me. The guys chipped in too. I don’t think you’ll win an argument against all of us. We’re well trained.

***

Stubborn. The lot of them.

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Thank you. All of you.

And this means you better tell me next time you plan to come home so I can make sure I’m there for it.

Love you lots.

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Love you too, kiddo.

***

Bex’s summer was full of working and getting ready for school. She spent as much time as she could with her nephews, not a fan of how much growing up she was going to miss out on.

She took on extra volunteer shifts at the hospital too. Some of the kids were regulars in peds and had been coming there since she’d started a few years ago. Kids like Lily who had been in and out for leukemia treatments since she was a toddler. Or Anna who was waiting on a heart transplant.

They were all waiting for her on her last shift along with the nurses she’d made friends with over the years. Big smiles stretched their cheeks as they handed over piles of handmade cards and artwork for her to take with her. Bex carefully tucked them all into her bag, promising to use them to decorate her dorm room and to come back for visits whenever she could.

The big day came and Chris surprised her once again. He’d switched a few shifts so he could drive her the fifteen hour trip to school. “Chris and Bex! Going on a road trip!” he crowed as he stuffed the last of her boxes in the van. “The open road! Living it up!”

“Good luck,” Cindy said, laughing as she wrapped Bex up in a hug. “He’s cut off from any more coffee today, no matter what he tells you.”

“I heard that!”

The road trip actually was epic. She and Chris hadn’t had many opportunities to hang out just the two of them since the kids were born. It was great to be able to talk about anything and everything. A perfect send off in every way.

She settled into school, nervous until she realized everyone around her was also completely nervous. That made it easier to approach people, weirdly enough. And soon, she had a little circle of friends gathered.

It was an odd feeling being on the other side of the emails and phone calls this time. Being the one who was away and hearing all of the stories from home. Always feeling that little bit out of the loop. Always being that little bit removed.

Celebrating her eighteenth birthday over video chat with Chris, Cindy, and the kids was a strange experience. Laughing as the kids shoved cake in each other’s faces. Being glad and yet sad that she wasn’t there to help clean up.

And then in November there was the one call from home was the one she never wanted to get.

“Hey, Bex,” Chris’s voice sounded weird over the line, tired and stressed.

“What’s wrong?” Her brain immediately going to worse case scenarios. Something had happened to him at work. No, then Cindy would be calling. Something must have happened to Cindy or to the kids or—

“First of all, Jay’s okay, but—”

“Jay? What happened? Is he okay? Chris!”

“Bex, Bex, let me talk, okay?” Chris tried to soothe her with low tones, but it wasn’t enough to combat the internal freakout she had going on. “There was an incident. I don’t know the details. I know he was injured, but he’s receiving treatment and he’s going to be okay. He’s going to be fine, okay, Bex?”

“There’s a but,” she said. “I can hear the but.”

“He’s getting a medical discharge,” Chris said. “I don’t know exactly when, but he’s coming home.”

“Oh.” Bex said quietly, taking that in. Jay couldn’t be happy about that. “How did he sound?”

“You know Jay,” Chris sighed. “He keeps it pretty close to the vest. I think he’s disappointed and I don’t know what else. We’ll work through it when he’s here. He won’t be alone, Bex.”

“I know. Thanks, Chris. For telling me. And for being there for him.”

“It’s what we do, kid.”

Bex was able to see him face to face finally over the Christmas holidays and check him out for herself. He had his own place now, but she’d badgered him into coming over to theirs for presents and Christmas dinner. He was still moving stiffly and had dark shadows under his eyes.

Chris was right though and he was keeping everything locked down, not talking about what happened, just repeating that he was fine and redirecting the conversation.

Bex tried not to push. She just let him know she was there for him and cooked up a storm in Cindy’s kitchen before she left so he’d at least have a well stocked fridge and freezer. She didn’t comment on the amount of beer she had to move around to make room for it all either.

Getting him out for short walks seemed to help too. The pace was slow which began to frustrate him, but Bex managed to chatter enough to distract him.

“Oh, hey!” She turned to him during their last walk before she had to head back. “I totally forgot. I have a new Very Specific Super Power.”

Jay paused, huffing out a laugh. “How do you forget big news like that?”

“I’ve been distracted by presents and babies and things,” Bex said, moving them along down the sidewalk again. “It’s a good one though, you’re going to be impressed.”

“Better than the others?” He raised his eyebrows at her. “Lay it on me.”

“Apparently, I can find people from Chicago, no matter where I go,” she said, raising her eyebrows back at him.

“That’s just good taste,” Jay said.

“Well, yes, but you don’t think it’s weird that every single one of the new friends I’ve made just happens to be from Chicago?”

He hummed and then shrugged. “RISD also has good taste.”

“That’s fair,” Bex agreed. “A few of them are like me too which is kind of nice? To meet people who get what it’s like?”

“What do you mean, like you?”

“You know, not born into a traditional union so to speak. Illegitimate. Born out of wedlock. ‘Actual bastard children’ as my friend Devon likes to call us.”

“Sounds like a band name,” Jay laughed before looking a bit horrified at himself for doing so.

“That’s what I said!” Bex exclaimed. “Faith says we’re reclaiming the terminology which I don’t really care about. I just—I like have friends where I don’t feel like I have to hide any of this stuff.”

“I didn’t—” Jay frowned. “Were you doing that before? When you were back here?”

“With some of the kids at school, yeah,” Bex said. “It was easier that way.”

“I’m glad you found these guys then,” he said. “Tell me about them. I know you already did, but..again?”

She told him about Devon and Faith and Malia and Isaac who were all on Team Actual Bastard Child with her. They were also all in the illustration program together. With Devon came his boyfriend Sam and with Faith came her boyfriend Ben and with Malia came her girlfriend, Kira. Bex’s roommate Emery was fitting in well with the group too.

Together they were exploring Providence and discovering new favourite places. Studying together. Brainstorming projects. Talking each other down from deadline related freakouts.

“Sounds like a good group,” Jay said. “Not sure about the nickname, but whatever works.”

“We’re not getting t-shirts made or anything,” Bex laughed. “It’s more like our little in-joke of solidarity.”

“I get it.” He slung an arm over her shoulder. “It’s good. Really good, Bex.”

She wished she was leaving feeling like Jay was in as good a place as she was. Weeks went by and it was killing her being away and knowing that he was barely treading water. Their last few phone calls, he’d clearly been drinking, not flat out drunk, but slurring his words just enough for her to notice.

He talked about Mouse being there every once in awhile which was good. She was glad he had someone around who understood. Who’d been through the same thing. But he needed more than that. The problem was whether or not he’d accept it.

As calls with Jay became more sporadic, her worry increased. She finally broke down during a call with Chris and Cindy, all of her worries spilling out. They said he’d been shutting them out too which did nothing to ease her fears.

“We’re working on it, Bex,” Chris tried to reassure her. “Cindy and I are keeping an eye and the guys at 51 are too.”

“If you crowd him—”

“We’re not—we’re handling it, okay? Can you let me be the grown up on this one? I promise you that I will not let Jay slip through the cracks. Never have and never will.”

Bex couldn’t argue with that. Chris had always had Jay’s back just as much as he’d had hers.

“Okay,” she agreed. “Keep me posted though?”

“Yeah, you know it,” Chris said. “Try and focus on school though, okay. You cover your end of things and I’ll cover mine.”

Bex sighed. “Deal.”

She couldn’t put it out of her mind completely though. And she couldn’t help herself from doing one thing.

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

You pinky swore you’d come back. You’re not allowed to leave again.

***

Was it a low blow? Maybe.

But she couldn’t lose another member of her family. Not if she could help it.

It was days before she got a reply.

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

I know.

***

I know?! What did that mean. He knows what he promised? He knows he’s not allowed to leave? And he won’t? Bex was trying to leave it be and let Chris and Cindy work their magic, but she was about two seconds away from running to the airport. Devon and Faith sat on her until she calmed down enough to call Chris for an update instead.

“He’s not shutting the door in my face anymore so that’s a good start,” Chris said. “We’re going to get there, Bex. It’s just gonna take time.”

It did take time—lots of it—she spent her summer carefully walking a tight rope of being supportive and hanging out with Jay and being supportive and giving him space. The elusive Mouse was still around, but they’d yet to cross paths. It seemed like he and Jay were always there to pull each other out of the worse of it and they never showed the worst of it to anyone but each other.

Jay was slowly, but surely letting other people in though. He went back to hanging out with Kelly, Matt, and Andy. He was getting out and getting back into his exercise routine now that he’d been cleared for it. He was even talking to Gabi’s brother Antonio about enrolling at the Academy to become a police officer.

Her worries flared back up when she was back at school and he was out of her sight again, but he was back to answering her calls and keeping her in the loop. During their last check-in, he told her he had taken the leap and was starting at the Academy for the next semester.

“That’s great, Jay,” Bex said, trying not to overwhelm him like she seemed to do so easily these days. “I think that’s going to be a really good fit.”

“We’ll see,” Jay said. “I tried to get Mouse to join me, but he’s…he wasn’t really into the idea.”

“Maybe he’ll change his mind,” Bex said and Jay made a non-committal noise. “Tell him I said hi next time you see him.”

“Yeah, for sure.” He got off the phone quickly after that, but Bex still counted it as progress.

Jay started at the Academy a few weeks later and kept at it. All of a sudden, he had new determination powering him forward. The next year, Bex was able to turn the tables and surprise him by showing up for his graduation.

She and Chris were there, cheering him on like loons. She spotted Will and Mrs. Halstead in the crowd, but no Mr. Halstead. Things had been strained for awhile between him and Jay and had gotten even worse since Jay’s return.

After the ceremony, Bex and Chris wove their way through the crowd so they could congratulate him. Will (surprisingly) and Mrs. Halstead stood off to the side and Bex ignored the awkwardness to focus on Jay.

“Jay!”

“Bex! You made it!” He grabbed her up in a big hug. “I can’t believe it.”

“Of course, I did,” she said. “Proud of you, big bro.” Bex knew she had a stupid big grin on her face, but she didn’t care. She hoped Jay was proud of himself. This was a big step. “I’m home for a couple of days,” she said. “Text me and we’ll hang out before I go.”

“We better,” Jay replied.

She turned to see Will and Mrs. Halstead watching them. “We’ll let you guys get to your celebration or whatever,” Bex said, grabbing Chris by the arm and tugging him back with her. “Have fun.”

“You should come with us,” Mrs. Halstead said, surprising them all. “Both of you.”

“Uhhh.” Yeah, she did not know what to say to that.

“Are you sure, Mom?” Will began before Jay cut him off.

“Of course, you should,” he said. “It’ll be fun.”

It wasn’t fun. It was awkward, but they all put on their best faces for Jay and focused on cheering for his success and new career. Mrs. Halstead managed to be pleasant and didn’t say anything weird this time. If anything, she was fairly quiet and as Bex looked a little closer, she noticed she looked a bit frail too.

She hadn’t seen her in awhile though, not since they moved. Maybe it was just her getting older and Bex was noticing it more because she hadn’t seen her in so long.

Will looked different too. Older and more sure of himself. Borderline cocky. He was having a good time out in New York if his stories were anything to go by. Bex was…happy for him? She was never sure what she was supposed to feel when it came to Will.

Chris and her escaped shortly after dessert with another promise to catch up with Jay before she left. She also managed to fit in a visit to 51 to catch up with everyone and she got to meet the new paramedic, Leslie (“Please. Call me Shay. Everyone else does.”) And Chris proudly showed off the new bar that he had bought along with Otis and Gabi.

And by new, she meant new to them. It was kind of a dive.

“We’re fixing it up!” Chris protested her observations during the tour. “It’s going to look great when we’re done. Ah, you wait and see.”

She squinted and tried to picture it. Some new decorations. Better lighting. It could be good. “I believe you, bud,” she said, clapping a hand on Chris’s shoulder. “Send me pictures. I want to see how it comes along.”

A couple of months into her return to school, Jay let her know his mom was sick. And it wasn’t good. The cancer was moving through June quickly and she didn’t have long. Will wasn’t any help, wrapped up in school. Bex felt like she was just as bad. She tried to help out when she was home over Thanksgiving—dropping off meals and tidying up the house (whenever Pat wasn’t around.)

Cindy and Chris stepped up and did what they could. Cindy told her that Pat tried to put up a fight about it, but Chris went with Uncle Bo and Uncle Mouch to sort him out. They sat him down and told him in no uncertain terms that none of them were there for him.

They were there for Jay. And June. Pat could do them all a favour and stay out of the way.

Miraculously, he did.

Cindy was honest with her and said it was rough going. About the only ‘good’ thing was that when it was time for June to go, she went quick. Her hospital stay was over in a few days.

Bex gave a convincing argument for extensions on her midterms and made it home for the funeral. She couldn’t let Jay go through that without as many people around him who loved him as possible. Even if it meant having to see Mr. Halstead.

When the service and reception were done, she and Jay went out for a walk. He needed the breather. They walked in silence for awhile before he quirked a smile at her. “I wish you could stay.”

“One more semester,” Bex said. “Then I’m home.”

“You’re sure?” he asked. “Coming back to Chicago is the best plan?”

“I can do art from anywhere, Jay,” she said. “I want to be back home with everyone. Besides, my friends are all moving back too. We’re going to find apartments together.”

“That’s gonna be…” he trailed off with a laugh.

“Chaos,” Bex agreed. “It’ll be fun while it lasts.”

"I'll be glad when you're back," he said, throwing an arm around her for a little side hug.

She had to head back the next day, but she knew everyone was keeping an eye on Jay.

Her last round of finals were approaching when her family took another hit.

Chris called with the news that Andy had died. Finals meant that she couldn’t make it home for the funeral and Bex was gutted. She sent her love to everyone, but it didn’t feel like enough. Chris said things were rough at 51 for both the obvious reasons and also because Casey and Severide were both blaming themselves and each other.

Everything was a mess there.

Uncle Bo and Chris were doing what they could to mediate and help everyone through it. Bex hoped they were making progress. She didn’t want 51 to fall apart. They needed each other. Even if they couldn’t see it right now.

Bex couldn’t get through finals fast enough. She wasn’t unfamiliar with loss, but this had been a lot in a short amount of time. She was hurting for her family and needing to be home.

Jay had his own news in the middle of everything. He’d been moved up into Intelligence. He was thrilled about it—excited to move on to this next phase of his career. Bex remembered Chris saying something about the sergeant who ran the unit. He had a sketchy past and had maybe been in jail at one point? She tried to ask Jay about it, but he brushed her off.

He said Voight had a past and a reputation, but that the unit was solid. It was where he wanted to be. Bex knew Gabi’s brother Antonio was in it as well. Couldn’t be all bad if he was there. Antonio was a good guy. And if Bex asked Gabi to maybe ask Antonio to keep an eye out for Jay, well, that was between her and Gabi.

Bex graduated RISD with a smile on her face and her friends by her side. She had a smaller group in the audience this time—Cindy was nine months pregnant so she stayed home with the kids and Jay couldn’t get the time which he felt terrible about. Bex assured them all that she’d be happy to have a big party when she got back home. Will didn’t come, but that was Will.

Chris was there though. And Uncle Bo and Uncle Mouch came along which was a great surprise.

She really did have the best family.

And now she was heading back to them.

Click here to read Part Three in this series: Stop Adopting My Friends

(Here's the link to read all of Promises Kept on ao3)

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