#and with a whole lot of extra steps because i'm trying to learn how to do more on paint than just copy paste and crop
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I've seen (typically older) therians talking about how they feel that their subculture as animal-people and nonhumans is slowly disappearing. This is a point that, in all honesty, I'm inclined to agree with-- although I think I'd perhaps frame it less as "disappearing" and more as just "changing."
Because let's be honest with ourselves here: is the subculture actually vanishing, or is it just evolving into radical new dimensions as excited newbies join and find different focal points for their nonhumanity? As they express themselves in whole new dimensions and ways, as they explore a digital landscape that didn't exist ten, twenty years ago? As the older members lose touch with the newer members, and no one bridges that gap between the two?
I think I'm also extra frustrated because when I see these discussions go down, a lot of the time they're either 1) self-pitying, or 2) finger-pointing.
It's not bad or wrong to look around and realize that the community you found comfort in has changed in ways you could have never predicted and which leave you feeling off-kilter. But approaching these changes with a complete lack of curiosity, with an absolute woe-is-me sort of perspective, where you drag your feet and glare bitter daggers at everyone else, isn't the way to do anything.
And going around trying to pin blame on whoever happens to be at hand is an even worse way to approach it. "It's the furry fandom's faults!" "It's the alterhumans' faults!" "It's the humans' faults!" Who does this approach realistically help? What does this do, beyond ostracize people and make whoever is saying it feel temporarily vindicated in their solitude, in a vicious cycle where they never step out of their ivory tower and always use how alone they are as "proof" that they're right?
I think having discussions about the ways the subculture has changed is extremely worthwhile. But I think that they're at their best when enthusiasm over sharing takes a main, central point. When you see people excitedly telling others about Werecards for the first time, or when you get to introduce someone to the concept of personal websites and webrings, or when you link someone who's only just starting to learn that there's others like them to old and new groups and forums alike. These are the ways you keep those traditions alive, these are they ways you get people both informed of and really excited about them.
And like, maybe I'm just cheesy and optimistic, but building bridges is way more fun than building walls! And more than that, I also think it's fundamentally something that's significantly more helpful and productive. I'm always so hype when I see community projects taking off that involve connecting many different people, especially if they're centered on a specific group or identity, but I also think that those sorts of things are how we keep a community healthy and moving, how we avoid things getting stagnant and rotting away.
I've said it before in past essays I've published and I'll say it again: alterhuman communities survive through their internal momentum. We're still around and kicking because we're a bunch of opinionated, passionate animals and objects and entities and people and concepts and and and-- this is what we are! This is how we all, both together and individually as separate groups, continue to be around. We write. We argue. We dance. We leave tracks. And then others see all those things, months or years down the line, and they know they're not alone. They know that it's okay to join in around the campfire, and they end up leaving their own tracks, and the cycle repeats.
So I guess what I'm saying here is that I'm not just beseeching people to create, but I'm asking you to create with others. To extend that paw towards the people around you in your immediate community spaces and wider, and to realize that yeah, the digital grains of sand and time might erode and change the landscapes we're all in, but we can still have a damn good time exploring the new nooks and crannies around us and showing others our old hidey-holes and favorite spots to watch the sun set.
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Buddie Meta 7x03 + 7x04 (Part 1 of 4)
Mostly 7x04 but I'm gonna include a bit about 7x03. So fair warning for a lot of talk about Buck/Tommy, but as always this will always be a Buddie canon/endgame positive space. Ain't no one jumping ship here. Once again, I apologize for my shitty screenshots and also warning: my meta does include some speculation and all of my meta are long AF, so this might be one you want to read in bits or when you have time to read something long.
Starting with 7x03. A lot of people speculated that the direction and blocking of this scene is likely foreshadowing, and I'm inclined to agree. First, we start with Buck and Eddie standing next to each other as they're known to do, and when Tommy joins them, he stands right in between them, foreshadowing that he'll be in the center of this speculated love triangle. Eddie is the first one to step away from the trio, leaving Buck alone with Tommy (foreshadowing how Buck and Tommy will have a romantic relationship).
Buck then has a solo moment with Tommy, which is already an interesting choice all on its own. It's a fact that Buck just met Tommy for the first time during this whole ordeal. It would make more sense for Chim or Hen, or hell even Bobby, to be the one to come talk to Tommy to say thanks. But the script called for Buck. This was done for a specific purpose, and now we know it's because they planned to put Buck and Tommy together romantically in the next episode.
Buck places his hand on Tommy's shoulders to say thanks. Up until this point, Buck and Eddie's primary way of sharing their feelings with each other has included shoulder touches. To me, this shows that Buck views these strong meaningful shoulder touches as a way to express strong feelings, something he's learned from Eddie (given that in all of the show, Eddie is always the one touching Buck's shoulder like this). This could also be interpreted as Buck unconsciously viewing Eddie's shoulder touches as romantic, so much so that Tommy picks up on it through Buck.
With that being said, with the context of 7x04, we also know that Tommy reads this shoulder touch as a sign that Buck might possibly be queer and/or possibly interested in him romantically. Interesting how this is the second time Buck's done something he views as "normal straight behavior" and queer men have interpreted it as him hitting on them (TK and now Tommy). And yet all of these things are actions Buck regularly does with Eddie and vice versa. So in-universe these actions have queer undertones according to the writers. Why wouldn't this then also apply to Buck and Eddie's relationship? At the moment, it's because Buck and Eddie themselves don't realize the extra meaning. But I predict they will eventually (maybe even sooner than we think).
Buck gives his unconscious "signs" by touching Tommy, and Tommy responds back by smiling flirtily and reaching back to touch Buck, almost to try and catch his hand, symbolizing Tommy responding to Buck's queer signs, and foreshadowing how he will be the one to take things a step further in the next episode.
Lastly, Buck walks away from Tommy towards where Eddie went earlier. This symbolizes how the Buck/Tommy relationship might have some missed connections (ie their hands never touching) and likely some miscommunication. And at the end of the day, Buck's attention will always be on Eddie. His path will always be to follow wherever Eddie goes. This is even more evident by the next episode which might be my new fave episode of 911.
Moving onto 7x04. The bachelor crossover call marks our first big season 2 callback. A bunch of beautiful women hit on Buck and Eddie at the same time. The last time this happened was in 2x04 Stuck when the 118 responded to the drunk girl with her head in the tailpipe. Women hit on them and Eddie says "I don't think I'm what you're looking for. I have a son" and Buck says "Thanks but no thanks I have a (invisible) gf". These are two very obvious and unnecessary excuses not to get with beautiful women that both the writers and the characters call out. And as we all know, this leads to the iconic "they weren't my type" "not mine either, not anymore" scene, and the rest of that episode is the catalyst for Buck and Eddie becoming as close as they are. The whole "they weren't my type" convo was a pretty obvious queer-coded scene. And this call-back in 7x04 isn't any different.
Eddie now has the (convenient) excuse that he's "taken at the moment" (note: he doesn't say "I have a girlfriend", another point for gender-neutral terminology in this episode). It's literally the exact same excuse as last time except this time Eddie has Marisol but she isn't even important enough to have a 2 second scene in this episode where he's all over another man, so. Make of that what you will. Additionally, Eddie adds a time limit to his relationship with Marisol by saying "at the moment", which means that subconsciously Eddie is aware that his relationship with Marisol will be temporary (however long that might be). He could've just said "Sorry, I'm taken, but he's not" if he really viewed his relationship properly as a long-term, possible forever relationship, but the "at the moment" is a purposeful line to let everyone know that Marisol is just a passing ship in the night. So for those who are still unsure about Eddie/Marisol rest assured everyone on every level knows it's gonna end eventually. Maybe even sooner than we think.
As a proper hetero wingman should, Eddie directs attention to Buck, who's surprised and actually makes up an excuse not to get with any of them because he "has a rule he doesn't date people (GENDER NEUTRAL) he meets on calls". This is a direct callback to Eddie during the cemetery scene in 6x15 when he says dating people on calls never works out, which ended up being a fulfilled prophecy given that Buck/Natalia break up in the interim between 6x18 and 7x01. This also comes up yet again later in the episode which I'll talk about later.
This provokes a weird reaction from Eddie, who doesn't understand why (single) Buck would turn down a bunch of willing single women. Additionally, I want to provide some context that the lovely @911bts mentioned which is that it seems like the network asked 911 to swap the bachelor call from 7x05 to 7x04. ((This is why we were getting info/stills about Hen/Henren but not really much of them in the ep. Their stuff was swapped with the Athena/Harry stuff). So there's additional context to this scene in that it was originally supposed to be Buck HIDING something (Tommy and their date) from Eddie and Eddie picking up on the weirdness of it. This then begs the question of why Buck would've wanted to hide this info from Eddie in the first place.
BUT it's now final that this scene is in 7x04, which loses some of the juicier context, but it's still showing that Eddie finds Buck's actions weird in that Buck appears to be losing interest in dating women at the moment, which is foreshadowing his lightbulb bisexual moment at the end of the episode.
This is tiny, but I find it interesting how Tommy follows very closely behind Buck's space, leaning his chin into Buck's shoulder as they walk, KNOCKING HIS ARM INTO BUCK'S FROM BEHIND (I don't need to explain that this is a Buddie thing), keeping near constant eye contact, and very obviously looking up and down Buck's body several times. Idk, I just appreciate the subtle queer hints even before the queerness is unmistakable at the end.
Tommy pointedly says "You didn't call me just to see the toys". From Tommy's perspective, he's unsure if Buck is queer/into him yet, but Buck reaching out to hang out might be the first indicator that he is. Or the hetero explanation is that Buck might be thinking of learning how to be a pilot. I really don't think we have anything to worry about with either Buck (or Eddie) leaving the 118 to be in air support, but it's an interesting metaphor. Safe and familiar vs. brand new and exciting and maybe a lil scary. The entire conversation is a thinly veiled metaphor for sexual fluidity which is later then proved by the ending. Also I want to point out that most of this convo pre-Eddie appearance has Buck appearing to have more of an awe/hero worship for Tommy, with the attraction being underlying, but that "so cool!" feeling still being the primary emotion we're supposed to pick up on.
I think these first real interactions between Buck and Tommy are a good indicator of where the rest of their relationship is gonna head. Buck asks a personal question about Tommy, and every bit of information he learns "I used to be a pilot in the army", Buck then relates immediately back to Eddie: "No way, Eddie used to be in the army!" Even when he's here, one-on-one with Tommy, with no Eddie present, before all of the jealousy starts, Eddie is always on Buck's mind. Tommy, at this moment, is still an afterthought. We'll see how long it takes Tommy to realize there's a reason Buck never stops yapping about Eddie (or maybe he's already picked up on it).
Buck then brings up his gender-neutral ex immediately (gender-neutral tally: 3), which leads me to believe that Tommy assumes Buck's train of thought brought him from Eddie to "an ex he rescued from a helicopter", which immediately links Eddie to potential Buck ex's, or men in general to Buck's exes. Tommy's eyes very pointedly flicker up to Buck's when he brings up an ex, which tells me that Tommy was very interested in knowing Buck's sexuality and relationship status from the very beginning.
Tommy then mimics the words from Eddie in the graveyard about not dating people they meet on calls.
(Gender-neutral tally: 5)
((Running tab on Tommy's similarities to Eddie: badass, competent, helicopters, army, and Eddie-coined phrases))
The rest of this conversation is a lot of flirting "ie. I can give you lessons" being a thinly veiled allusion to Tommy teaching Buck the ways of men loving men. And Buck is the one to offer Tommy a beer, which probably doesn't dispute the idea of Buck being queer in Tommy's head but...
Tommy's got a date with everyone's main man, Eddie.
Turns out Tommy and Eddie already made a friendly (offscreen) connection, enough for Tommy to invite Eddie out to an expensive and impressive date wrestling match.
I really want to talk about what this says about how Tommy (a queer man) views Eddie, but unfortunately, most of it would be speculation at this point.
First I want to talk about how one of the first things Tommy says in Buck's presence once Eddie shows up is calling Eddie "his man". This firmly places Eddie in Tommy's possessive. To be jealous is to desire something someone else has, or to be sensitive of someone else taking something that you view as yours. Which means two things: 1.) Buck wants what (he perceives) Tommy has: Eddie, and 2.) Buck believes on some level that Eddie is his and Tommy is trying to take away something that belongs to him. (Let's take away the fact that obviously Eddie is his own person and no one can actually possess him) in both scenarios the object of Buck's desire is Eddie. Not Tommy.
"My man" is also a vague term that can be used in both a friendly AND romantic sense. Which is the general theme we see with Tommy and Eddie's relationship, the vagueness of whether their budding new relationship is friendly or borderline romantic. Which is funny because this limbo between platonic and romantic is the same limbo Buck and Eddie have been existing in for six years. I think this is what Buck subconsciously picks up on, and it's the very fact that this COULD be romantic that triggers Buck.
As soon as Eddie shows up, Buck's entire demeanor shifts from excited, awed, and curious about Tommy, to confused, bothered, and even a bit uncomfortable. Keep in mind at this point, Buck doesn't know why Eddie is here, and yet he's upset at the prospect, even though he was just gushing about Eddie being super cool in the army.
Tommy's attention is now fully on Eddie. But Eddie is actually just as excited about Buck coming with them to the fight as he is by the idea of them going at all (his tone does not change). And yet this doesn't assuage Buck.
Second, Tommy says "I wish" almost as if he wished that he knew Buck had an interest in him before, so that either Buck could've joined them OR Buck could've taken Eddie's place. That doesn't inherently mean Tommy asked Eddie to go on a date (queer men can be platonic friends too!) but it's the fact that the line is unclear to BUCK that matters.
He also calls Buck "Evan" very casually, which is interesting to me. There are several plausible reasons why Tommy might call Buck "Evan", but I want to think of it from Eddie's perspective. "Evan" is a valued, special occasion, intimate moniker between Eddie and Buck, and Tommy's just using it willy-nilly. Eddie doesn't outwardly react to it, but he does show his own first piece of possessiveness over Buck in the next line.
God, I love Eddie's cunty lil raised eyebrows. Eddie jumps to the conclusion that Buck might be thinking of leaving the 118 and he immediately shuts that down, staking his own possessive claim on Buck in a plausibly deniable way (that Eddie is known to do, see: "do you know how much Christopher misses you?", "Christopher needs you", and "you're stuck with us (the 118)" all of which is Eddie saying he needs/wants/misses Buck without outwardly saying it, etc.) that is within their unspoken boundaries at the moment.
Buck then talks about his "options" and since we already know that Buck doesn't really want to leave the 118, the true subtext of this line is romantic options. Fluid is also not a word generally used with this phrase. It's typically "options open". The word "fluid" is more used when referring to the gender/sexuality spectrum, which is once again foreshadowing Buck's lightbulb bi moment in the end. "Options" also implies Buck has more than one romantic prospect, and since we know Buck's not really thinking about women right now, that points to men. If Tommy is a romantic prospect in this episode, that also implies that Eddie is a romantic prospect, or at least could be at some point in the future.
Buck appears to be stuck on how easily Eddie gets along with Tommy, apparently right from the beginning. Easily touching him, Eddie smiling super wide, excited as hell for something that Buck obviously doesn't know about. I can imagine that would grate on Buck's nerves because he and Eddie are supposed to be best friends who tell each other everything right? So why did Eddie hide the beginnings of this new friendship from Buck? Unfortunately, we don't know the timeline of when Tommy got these tickets to when he asked Eddie to go with him, but either way, Eddie didn't find it necessary to tell Buck. But WHY?
I would like to point out the last time Eddie seemingly "accidentally" forgot to mention something that should otherwise be easy for "just friends" to talk about: the will. Obviously, the will has larger implications than just going to a wrestling match, but it shows a pattern of "friend" things that Eddie doesn't tell Buck about. A lot of us have discussed how a large part of what puts the will scene in a romantic light instead of just something written off as purely platonic is the fact that Eddie did not tell Buck about it for a YEAR. Good friends would and SHOULD be able to talk to each other about something that life-changing, and yet Eddie can't bring himself to, risking the potential of accidentally dying at any point and leaving Buck and Chris blind-sided. Eddie must've had a reason to hide the will from Buck for so long. We know it's not because Eddie was afraid Buck would say no. He knew he wouldn't. So then, why? Most of us believe it's because Eddie's choice to put Buck in the will actually had a deeper emotional implication on Eddie's end that maybe he can't properly communicate to Buck, or even to himself. What could that implication be? In my opinion, Eddie was able to make this decision so easily because he's (unknowingly) in love with Buck, and he doesn't tell Buck because he's (subconsciously) aware that doing so reveals more about how Eddie feels for Buck than he's comfortable saying at the moment.
That long-winded tangent aside, I wanted to draw attention to it because this is another instance where Eddie seemingly has no reason not to mention to Buck that he's made a new friend in Tommy and that they've been hanging out a bunch and having fun. If anything, given how excited Eddie appears to be about Tommy and the wrestling match, you'd think Eddie would've been so excited that he would tell Buck right away. Instead, it gets to the day of and Eddie still hasn't thought to tell Buck, enough so that they're both equally shocked by their presence at Tommy's helicopter hanger. Not only that, but it implies that Eddie WOULD NOT have told Buck about it until the event passed (if he told him at all). But why? Why on earth would Eddie seemingly let this slip his mind so much as to not tell Buck at all. It can't just be oh I simply forgot or I'm having too much fun with Tommy. At this point in time, we still don't have any textual reason why, but I'm going to hypothesize that Eddie is aware (on some level but mostly subconsciously) that what he and Tommy are doing is basically going out on dates. And something in Eddie told him that he shouldn't tell Buck. Why? Perhaps because it implies something queer about Eddie that he's not ready to share with Buck yet? Time shall tell.
Additionally, it's interesting to note Eddie starts this episode hiding his friendship with Tommy from Buck, and it seems like the next episode is gonna start with Buck hiding his relationship with Tommy from Eddie. Much to think about.
Eddie also doesn't feel the need to tell Buck about the trip until after it happens and Buck has to be the one to ask. First of all, I want to say that Eddie should be given some grace here. Man doesn't have that many friends, and the last time a manfriend gave him this much attention Eddie gave him his son and built a forever home together so he just needs an adjustment period. Eddie is an intense bitch and tends to go all in with people (that he actually cares about *cough* not female romantic prospects *cough*), so I'm not surprised he's a little preoccupied with Tommy. Additionally, Eddie is a human. Sometimes humans don't pick up on the signs that others are in distress. It's not "ooc" that Eddie doesn't realize Buck is upset. It's a natural human mistake.
Now that that's out of the way this scene is hilarious because it's yet another parallel but this time, it parallels our very own Eddieana scene in 4x06 Jinx (written by the lovely Taylor Wong who also made a cameo in the bachelor scene as "tennis girl").
This is actually the second conversation walking to a scene that Buck and Eddie had about Ana, but both times Buck appears very interested in Eddie's dating life. In this same episode he also randomly asks what Ana's "love language" is despite knowing the man has had less than five whole conversations with her. What's important to note here is Buck's pattern of being overly interested in Eddie's romantic prospects. This is no different for Tommy (who Buck unconsciously realizes IS a romantic prospect for Eddie).
Okay looks like I've reached tumblr's limit on how many pics I can post so I'm going to be forced to make this into parts but I will make them all at the same time and post at the same time.
Find part 2, part 3 and part 4.
#911 abc#buddie#bucktommy#911 meta#buddie meta#evan buckley x eddie diax#buck x eddie#meta#7x03#7x04#speculation#911 speculation#buddie speculation
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A while back I had a chance to play Cyberpunk Red, which is the 4th edition of Cyberpunk by Mike Pondsmith.
Red is also the successor to Cyberpunk 2020 which was the inspiration for the notorious Cyberpunk 2077 - haven't played, don't intend to, not the subject of my discussion here!
So how did it go?
Cyberpunk Red is a lot of crunch though plays really easy once you get past the initial learning curve of the rules.
But there are a lot of rules.
I find my go to when learning a new game is to find a video of someone trying to give a briefer on the game system and then go to the book to cement those ideas myself.
I found this video pretty helpful when researching character creation. XPLoveCat does a whole series guiding through the creation process. If you like to listen to someone explain things (it's a big help for me) this might be a great place for you to start too!
Once you pick your lifepath, if you're going with the beginner one (i don't remember what it's called it's been nearly a year sorry!) the creation process is pretty smooth, it's just following some steps. There's a medium and veteran version of the life paths that add more complexity to your character creation process and I feel like since our group was a bunch of RPG vets we could have handled that, but it does speed things up to go with the quicker start for a one shot.
Meanwhile Red is like "You have 60 skills and one of them is fashion and one of them is looking good."
Whenever I'm starting a new game I also like to have a character sheet handy so I can piece everything together. And once you get Red's character sheet in front of you, it really begins to feel like a game from the 90's with a modern coat of paint.
The character sheet in question. 3 pages!
There's a lot of fun to be had in older systems! But newer systems have opted to streamline things like skills and stats and stuff nowadays. I remember being glad that 4th edition D&D cut skills by more than half by just folding a lot of similar ones together, something that would continue into 5th edition as well. There were some casualties along the way though (rip use magic device, and all the extra knowledge skills!) and typically the stuff that got cut was stuff that would facilitate like... You know.... Playing a character? Not just murderhoboing your way across the country.
Pictured below, everything that is "Cool" in the year 2045 (taken from a custom character sheet)
Creating a character is an interesting process because it follows this lifepath system. So you choose one of several paths and the game streamlines the creation process by directing you which page to go to next in an almost "choose your own adventure" sort of layout. This is very helpful, but while it's easy to go forward, it's not so easy to go back. If you went to the wrong page or just didn't like what you read and want to try something else, you'll be searching for where you made that wrong turn. A lot of ttrpg books can be like this so this isn't exactly a new problem, but the way the book is laid out it really does need you to follow this path to new pages instead of discovering the information yourself by reading on. I guess just write down the page numbers of places you want to go back to before flipping forward.
Initially finding things on the sheet is tough because if you're told to make a "Tracking" check, you might not immediately assume that's an Int skill. Since the skills are grouped by attribute, you'll have to go through the process of figuring out what skill belongs to which group. I don't think this is a bad thing, because the alternative would be an alphabetical list of 60+ skills, which might make it harder to figure out their associated stat, or would just make the sheet more bloaty with repeated stats beside each and every skill. All games have an adjustment period to them and this is a pretty minor one. I remember this being a sticking point for our group after playing it originally but having some time to think on it I think there's a valid argument to be made either way. Someone in our group even mentioned this was one custom character sheet away from not being an issue and I agree. And apparently others do too because there's a lot of them out there! Many of which sort the skills differently and many also try to condense the 3 page sheet to 2. I know there's a lot of wasted real estate on the third page but it's pretty cool!
There are also apparently free quick start rules that come with premade characters and everything! Free is free and you can check that out on drive thru RPG! It's called easy mode but my understanding is this includes the core rules too. This would probably be the best choice for a one shot game to test the water but we just weren't aware of them at the time.
But a major part of creation is your role. This is the part I might be the most critical of. While they give you a lot of skills and everyone has access to the same skills, each role has basically one major ability that only they can do. The med tech can use medicines to help the groups, the netrunner can take more actions while in a netrun. That kind of thing. But that's pretty much it. Improving your role may allow you to use your role abilities better or more frequently, but there's not a lot in the way of new abilities.
And also the divisions between the roles feel pretty arbitrary. Like the med tech is the only one who can use a bunch of medicines. But why? Everyone has access to the first aid skill, which is something the med tech is also proficient in. What's stopping someone from taking one of their medicines and using it?
I think having well defined roles for each player is very important! And the roles do provide this, but I don't feel like they go far enough. We did only play one session though so perhaps this is something that would be more evident over time.
I played a Netrunner (a hacker) which ends up also having to play a little minigame separate from the rest of the action. I knew what I was getting into but wanted to try it out to see how the game handles it. In previous games that I've played a hacker, it bogged down the game by either having an entire session play out for the hacker while everyone else waits, or does nothing while everyone else is in the middle of the action because they have to stay with their big cool hacker rig. Red deals with this in a really great way - your rig is a headset that has wifi. And if you want to hack a secure system, you need to be hardwired into that system. This means the Netrunner has to be on site and still has an opportunity to join the action. Or may even be forced to do both at once.
As far as the actual hacking game goes, I really like the implementation of hacking a cyber infrastructure. You bring programs that all serve different functions, such as attacks or other actions and then you have to fight your way up the digitial infrastructure, with each level offering more rewards, but higher threats. The programs all have a fantasy aesthetic and the architecture functions kind of like a dungeon in Netspace. You can take multiple netspace actions, but you're still able to act in meatspace as well during this time. Sometimes you'll have to balance your actions in and out of netspace.
The biggest problem I had with the Netrunner goes back to my problem with roles. There's a Tech stat and several Tech skills so what kind of check do you make? Why, you add your role to your roll! The Netrunner uses their role, which starts at +4. Compared to their Tech skills which are floating around a +10 or so. Now the DVs for these checks are all lower to compensate for this but... Why do we gotta do it this way?
There could easily be a skill that could have covered this and the DVs could have been comparable to everything else in the game. You might think, well if other characters were allowed to hack, they could prove to be just as effective as the Netrunner so it has to be a balance issue right? Well the Netrunner role allows them to take 3 actions a round in Netspace which would make them much more efficient than someone without the role. But also having the role is what grants the interface feature, which is required to take NET actions at all! But even though the Netrunner is obviously the best choice for the task, what's stopping someone else with a rig from attempting the same thing and just being less efficient at it.
The way I guess this is addressed, is that you can take on other roles potentially? You have 4 in your starting role, so I believe you'd start with 1 in a new role. But with a +4 in my Netrunner role I found that I struggled a lot, so I can't even imagine floundering around with just a +1. You'd be at the whims of the dice.
Despite that though, I appreciate the game does allow this sort of multi-classing. Especially since many of the roles seem to be very gear based, so it feels silly to not allow any crossover.
In the end, the hacking did feel balanced, which is important. But it didn't feel awesome, which i guess is what it came down to for me. But I also failed a lot of those checks Netrunner checks, which brings me to my last major gripe.
Rolling a single d10 for checks is fine, but if you critically fail on a 1, which is 10% of the time, that is lame. I don't mind using a d10 for checks but without some kind of way to mitigate 1's it makes things brutal, not in a fun or challenging way. I feel like if I was going to play again, I would need the crit fails to just be gone altogether.
Overall, I did enjoy Cyberpunk Red! I think it's a bit hard to dig into for a oneshot, but we managed just fine. If you really wanted to get a feel for it though, I'd recommend you play a 3-5 session arc. This game is definitely worth your time!
I'm also curious about going back to previous iterations to see how it's changed over time.
So, fun fact time, Cyberpunk Red was published in 2020, 30 years after Cyberpunk 2020 was originally published which is goes hand in hand with every scifi media that has predicted a date in the "far future" that we have now reached (and passed!).
See you in 2045 for the 5th edition of Cyberpunk I suppose!
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Sorry but I think you’re being super negative about the whole “Rachel Presents” announcement.
Rick Riordan is a white author who is passionate about mythology. After Greek mythology and briefly going into egyptology, he used his influence to give People of color a chance to write modern mythology stories from their own culture and experiences—and most importantly he stayed in his lane.
I think Rachel choosing to step back and give other people a voice is a great outcome, considering you guys all joked about how horrific it would be if she tried to appropriate another culture in her next series.
You also said she should have given LO to another creator who had the passion and dicipline to finish for her. That’s ESSENTIALLY what she’s going to be doing with RP. Maybe her true calling is just…being an Idea guy. She has wonderful concepts and cool ideas, but lacks commitment. In this scenario, we could end up with super amazing stories, with proper editing from Random house and proper commitment from new creators. I don’t really see the issue here, everyone wins.
(And lots of authors do the whole “___ presents” format. I don’t think she deliberately copied RR. Most likely her books sales did well and Penguin House approached her with this offer.)
lmao what? I was against the folks saying she should give it to another creator. I don't think not liking the series should mean she's obligated to "give it to someone else." The series is hers and so it's her responsibility to finish it. I do think she should have ended it a long time ago or if she was really miserable making it then she should step away, but she shouldn't be giving it to someone else to finish for her just because "boo you suck at writing your own comic". She started this, she should finish it.
And this is literally her doing exactly that - appropriating other cultures - with extra steps. Just instead of being on the front lines with her own work, she's sponsoring other works based on her own bar for quality (which we know is EXTREMELY low) and slapping her name on them so she can take a "backseat". It's really icky to see from a creator who practically failed upwards and is now using "herself" as a selling point, when she has no real legitimacy outside of LO, which was only as successful as it was because of WT constantly sinking money into it and advertising it over other series on the platform (and because it's based off a story that was VERY popular to romanticize at the time, the H x P myth. Like it was literally what was popular on Tumblr when it started as a hobby comic on Tumblr.)
I'm outlining all of these posts with "speculation" because obviously I don't know what's really going on behind the scenes here, but I think it's really disingenuous of Rachel to sell herself as some top tier brand name for mythological works as a whole when she's caused so much actual harm to the Greek myth community and its sources. It's furthering the notion that she has any credibility as a "folklorist" when really she just pulls whatever comes off the front page of Google. And the similarities between herself and Rick Riordan do matter here because of how commonplace it is these days for Rachel to rip off other works rather than take inspiration and make it into something that's organically her own.
That's my two cents. It's not me trying to be "negative", it's me being genuinely concerned over the blatant appropriation from a white woman gaining even more control over the depictions of cultures and mythologies that she claims she's educated on and isn't. Unlike Rick Riordan, Rachel does not have any formal education in the subject she's claiming to be educated about. Unlike Rick Riordan, Rachel allows her fanbase to use her work as a source on Greek myth and she obfuscates the line between "fiction" and "fact". Rick Riordan started Rick Riordan Presents after he had multiple hits under his belt that were celebrated and loved. Rachel is starting Rachel Smythe Presents after a one hit wonder that could be chalked up to a total fluke that wasn't even able to go out with a bang.
Rick Riordan writes fictional stories inspired by Greek myth for children. Rachel is writing fictional stories claiming to be "retellings" of Greek myth - and now other mythologies if the implications of this project follow through - for adults. It's disingenuous and it frankly deserves to be paid attention to and called out.
I do genuinely want to see creators given an avenue to monetize their work and that's why I think the thought of it is nice, but any amount of further digging just makes this feel like a grift that will lead young and inexperienced creators down a path that won't benefit them (or take advantage of them) due to the blatant lack of care and management exhibited by Rachel over the past 5 years. Just because Rachel had one massive hit that lined her pockets for years does NOT qualify her to be a titan of the industry. Not by a long shot.
To quote Super Eyepatch Wolf,
"Let's say you decide you want to become a carpenter, and particularly, how to build a nice chair. Think about the kind of person you'd want to learn that skill from - would it be from someone who's built nice chairs every day for 30 years, or would it be the guy who built ONE nice chair 5 years ago out of a special kind of wood that doesn't exist anymore, who has NO experience with the kind of wood available to you now?"
EDIT to add: it was more likely Rachel's representative, Britt Seiss who landed this deal for her, not Penguin House themselves. That's what agents are for.
EDIT EDIT: this is ALL assuming she even FOLLOWS THROUGH with this project, because god knows the only reason LO has even gone on as long as it has was because she was being held responsible via a contract, she's NOTORIOUSLY bad for committing to things and has even admitted to it in interviews. She barely even works on LO as it is. Spring of 2024 could roll around and this project could entirely fizzle out. Again, not me trying to be a negative nancy here, I'm just stating my own concerns based on what we all know about Rachel at this point and how she operates.
#ask me anything#ama#antiloreolympus#anon ama#lore olympus critical#lo critical#anti lore olympus#anon ask me anything
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Escaping The Night (Part 4)
Welcome! - Introduction and Request rules (important if you want me to write for you, or if you want to know who I am)
▶ Characters: Shinso x Fem Reader + Father/Mentor Aizawa (platonic)
▶ Genre: Angst to Fluff
▶ Summary: Reader is now under Aizawa's care, and Y/N isn't too willing to surrender just yet, fighting back viscously(sarcasm) with angry glares and the silent treatment. Aizawa isn't too sure how he's going to manage this, but he does know one thing: he'll be damned if he doesn't at least try to make life better for you.
▶ Word Count: 5304 (one of my longer ones)
▶ Warnings:
- Pretty slow chapter if you're one for action, reader and Aizawa just go to the store then back to his apartment (sorry!)
- I once again use Japanese terms, but I'll explain it at the end
- Mic isn't told about the whole incident, so he asks Aizawa if he got married and had a kid when he sees Y/N. He is not married in this story.
- Reader has slight PTSD from The Incident (as Aizawa calls it)
- Sorry, Shinso isn't in this chapter either, I have no control when I write, I really didn't mean for it to take this long (sorry, again!)
➜ [Part 1]
➜ [Part 2]
➜ [Part 3]
➤ {This is Part 4}
➜ [Part 5]
➜ [Part 6]
➜ [Part 7]
➜ [Part 8]
➜ [Part 9] Coming Soon!
He'd make things better, something that he was sure of.
The room fell silent, or rather it was always that way, the inner monologue of each other's thoughts slowing down and the deception of talk wore off along side it.
Eraserhead patted his pockets, and upon feeling his keys once again, a small optimistic idea presented itself to the man.
"How about we go to the store?" He suggested.
"Right now?", You questioned, tired and not exactly in the mood for extra travel.
He grunted in approval, then spoke again, "but I'm no good at knowing which things you'd prefer over another, so I'll let you pick out whatever you believe you'll need" he explained.
You raised an eyebrow at how dodgy that sounded to you. The tired pro meant exactly what he said, simply wanting to take you to the store and let you pick out whatever fulfilled your wants and needs (with secret hopes of getting on your good side), but years of living on the streets hardened your way of thinking, learning early on not to trust everyone that came up to you right away. Trust took time, not bribes.
"Anything?"
"Anything. Money's no issue for me, just nothing stupid or over the top." He answered with assurance.
And with that, you found yourself in the local supermarket in the beginning of the night with the sleepy man, the workers greeting both of you enthusiastically "irasshaimase!"*1 with large smiles and gentle waves.
You looked around as you both stepped in, having forgotten what it was like to actually be in a nice supermarket instead of scavenging like an animal. The lights were a bright intrusion into your tired eyes, and there were colorful characters and signs that filled every aisle.
You felt a bit out of place among all the polite and clean customers, but you supposed you weren't alone as Eraserhead didn't look like the typical customer either. In an odd way- that you refused to acknowledge- it was a little comforting.
Well, you were here, so you decided that you'd at least make something of it and get supplies and other things that you'd need. If anything, you deserved a warm bath and meal from the hell that you were constantly put through, but that thought never crossed your mind and the guilt of being given something made you feel like you were being dishonorable.
Eraserhead grabbed a cart and - after putting a basket inside of it*2- quietly trailed behind you as you scanned the brightly lit aisles full of assorted goods all up and down as far as you could see.
You appreciated the moment, never really getting to spend a lot of time in stores before. Because of your limited experience you took in all the colors, bright lights, neat rows of packaging and hushed conversation that customers held in between each other. It was relaxing, and you wanted to spend all night in the store if you could.
If you were being honest with yourself, you did think that the little characters on the packages were sort of cute, though you never admitted that out loud. There was some show or something playing in the background as you could here someone speaking rapidly and with lots of energy. The cashier's check out machines beeped in rhythm, and you discovered a new symphony of life that day.
You wandered wherever your legs led you, and with your mind empty they had no restraint holding them back. Up and down the aisles, you observed every little object, from tofu to mugs, to the long Chinese leeks to the row that was entirely dedicated to many different types of noodles.
However, your inexperience was the reason why Eraserhead had to help you through some small problems that would happen every now and then. Pulling you back before a turning so you didn't run into another shopper, pushing the leaning shelf back when you reached too far for an item on the top shelf, sneaking some snacks in the cart that he noticed you eyeing earlier, and other things similar.
After awhile of scanning the seemingly infinite shelves, you looked towards the cart and realized that you had only really put in some cleaners, a few toiletries, and other minimal objects that were needed (along with some snacks you didn't remember putting in). Otherwise, the cart was mainly empty, you having been too busy taking everything in, along with being overwhelmed with options.
Upon noticing this Eraserhead tried to help you out a bit, the best he could at least. You glared at the man, not needing any pity or babying, but in the end fatigue forced you to give in and you both found a middle point.
You let yourself get measured by a chatty lady who wouldn't stop smiling so Eraserhead had your size when it came to getting clothes, and in turn you got to pick out whatever outfits you wanted. You didn't really develop a certain taste for clothes out on the streets, so you just picked whatever you thought looked nice (Eraserhead had you put back a leather jacket that you were looking at- it just reminded him too much of Mic and he didn't think he could handle that mentally.)
You both struggled to come up with a healthy list of groceries, you never having been grocery shopping (at least not in a long while), and the pro never having had a healthy diet, too used to settling on whatever basics he saw first like bread and rice.
You both somehow made it work because in the end you wound up with what was a good assortment of supplies that you thought seemed like a surplus. Though it just looked like a shopping cart full of foods, clothes and cleaners, you had gotten used to only getting an insignificant number of things, forcing yourself to work with what little you had.
As you both drove back to Eraserhead's place, you couldn't help but think that the man didn't mean anything initially cruel, and doubt in your rough introduction with him started to blossom as you wondered just what was going on in that head of him.
You tried to shake off those thoughts as you recalled the night you got taken into custody. Memory of the panic and fear that seeped into your mind the moment you realized where you were before getting tranqed was unshakable, gripping onto your mind with dark claws, entirely unwavering no matter what you did or how you attempted to rid yourself of it.
Though, now that time had passed from the... Incident (as Eraserhead called it anyway), you found that you couldn't summon the same amount of fury anymore, seeing that it burned out to a lower level of simple bitterness, rings of fire turning to sour edges and thoughts instead of violent acts. You fidgeted in place uncomfortably as you for once couldn't understand your own brain and why your way of thinking was starting to change. Perhaps because you were starting to see this man as more of a person rather than an opponent that you'd see all the time.
You made it back to the apartment complex, and you both grabbed a half of the bags that you had gotten and brought it inside. You weren't particularly giddy over basically successfully being bribed, but you knew that you weren't exactly the nicest nor easiest to work with that night, so you felt obliged to express some way of thanks.
Upon opening the door to bring in the bags, you saw another man already inside, standing in the middle of the living room while looking at a small pamphlet with a confused look on his face as he continuously tilted it while looking at pieces of wood and metal laying on the floor.
The man looked pretty normal to you, though you could tell a lot about his personality by the way he dressed. Long yellow hair was tied loosely into a bun, and glasses with bright orange rims framed his confused expression on his face. He wore regular jeans with a wine colored shirt that was covered by a dark jacket that was left open, which allowed you to notice the small bits of jewelry he wore- a metal gold chain with a blue beaded necklace. You admired that he at least matched the chain and bead necklace with similar bracelets on his wrist, and on the other wrist a shiny silver watch sat.
You figured Eraserhead already knew this man as he simply walked past him into the kitchen, you following apprehensively, eyes never leaving the stranger.
After all bags were put on the kitchen table, Eraserhead went over to the man in the living room, and you followed wanting to know what was going on.
The stranger had his back to you and Eraserhead, and you noticed that he didn't have that pamphlet anymore but now was trying to piece together two pieces of the wood that were once in the floor with the others.
"I thought you said you'd be done, and I quote, 'in a snap'. So, what's the problem?", Eraserhead questioned the man, his arms crossed while he watched him struggle with the wood.
The man answered with his back still turned, "I'm tryin', ok? It's a lot harder than it looks... been ages since I put together a bed. The movers put mine together when I first moved into my place, I'll admit that."
Eraserhead sighed, rubbing at his temple, not wanting to deal with any problems this late into the night.
"Look, I trusted you to put it together before we got back, because in case you didn't know, that bed is for company, and that company doesn't have anywhere to sleep now." Eraserhead answered back to the man. You looked over and noticed that he was staining his voice, as if he was trying to hold back from yelling.
"Company? What kind of company? I thought you were a loner, since when did you go out and make a friend? I thought that wasn't 'your thing'." The stranger playfully jabbed, causing Eraserhead to sigh once again and drag his hand down his face in exasperation.
Eraserhead turned to you before apologizing and explaining.
"Sorry about him, he's a close friend of mine, but he can be a bit airheaded at times. Wish he came with a warning label sometimes." Eraserhead muttered the last part a bit, but it was still loud enough for you to hear.
"Anyways, I called him over to fix you up a bed while we were out getting grocery, but it looks like I'll have to take matters into my own hands for now if you don't want to sleep on the floor "
When Eraserhead finished speaking, the stranger immediately jumped up, as if realizing something.
"Wait! They're here right now?!", He exclaimed, finally turning around. His eyes landed on you as soon as he turned, and he adjusted his glasses as if he didn't know if he was seeing something correctly.
"Umm.. am I seein' this right, Shota? That is a kid."
"I know she's a kid, that's the main reason why I had asked you to put together a bed. A bed... mind you, that isn't for adults... "
"But...- Like what's goin' on?! Did I miss something?! Since when did you have a kid?! Are you married?!" The stranger asked in bewilderment, not comprehending anything that was happening.
Eraserhead sighed the deepest sigh you heard that night, once again rubbing his temple in fatigue and annoyance.
"Look, I'm going to saying this simply. I'll explain everything tomorrow, but for now, I'm tired, you're tired, and she's tired. Everyone's tired. So let's just get this bed made so we can all go to sleep. Okay?"
And with that and a shrug of the man's shoulders (who you later learned was called Yamada, but he said you could call him Mic for short), everyone began to prepare for the night's rest that awaited them beyond the bed.
Speaking of beds, yours didn't get finished that night, only a few parts of the frame being built into place, to which you thought looked sort of like the skeleton of your bed, devoid of any outer materials and vulnerable to the outside world. You needed to stop thinking that way.
So for that night, you put on some of the new pajamas you were bought (hastily muttering out a 'thank you' to Eraserhead- because while you lived in the streets you never lost your manners, in fact you had a particular distaste for people who never used them), brushed your teeth which were in dire need of a cleaning, got cleaned up and off to the couch you went.
The skeleton bed frame was left on the floor of the living room, patiently waiting for tomorrow to come to gain its body. Eraserhead made sure to lock every window and door (making a bit of a scene, he just wanted you to know that he wasn't messing around), and then proceeded to thoroughly lecture you about even thinking about escaping.
Mic (as you learned to call him, but for the most part you just called him the 'loud blonde guy') bid you both a goodbye before heading off to his own apartment with promise of returning the next morning in order to construct the bed, properly this time.
You laid on the couch after Eraserhead went into his own room, and remained still as you stared at the now dark ceiling. It was quiet, something you were quite used to.
(For your assistance in visuals)
In the distance you could hear the soft sounds of the town beginning to awaken for the night, and through the curtains you could see lights on different buildings beginning to flicker on, one after another.
You were always fond of the night, preferring it to the day. You never knew why, maybe it was the beautiful glow of the neon lights, or the way the stars and the moon shined their light on the darker parts that were vacant of light of their own, or maybe it was just a more... peaceful time. You didn't know what it was exactly, but you did know that you loved it.
When you listened carefully you heard cars rushing by, the sounds of air whooshing as they sped up and away, you heard dogs barking every now and then, never knowing what it was at or why, sometimes people's voices as they walked near the building, although they were almost unheard because of how far above the ground you were.
Not only did you hear sounds from the outside, but there was also a small set of sounds that came from the inside as well.
The AC, gently letting out a stream of warm air, the humming of some device somewhere (possibly the fridge), the gentle shuffling that came every now and then from Eraserhead's room whenever he walked around. You were always an observant one, not really having a choice because it saved your life multiple times when you were on your own.
You laid there, eyes wide open and not the least bit tired anymore, enjoying the calm atmosphere of the sounds that played in the background. Because even though your life was upside down, life for everyone else still continued.
Suddenly remembering the bracelet, you brought your left arm up from where it was laying, and held it up and over your face. As you examined the metal (at least the best you could in the dark), you didn't really think it looked like much. Though you knew to stray from thinking that way, as most often the strongest enemies you ran into were the ones that were most overlooked or underestimated.
A thought, a flicker of a thought... What would happen if you tried to use your quirk? You knew most likely it wouldn't work, but nonetheless curiosity pushed you to try anyways. You held your hand and strained, trying your best to summon any energy left inside of you in order to be converted to power.
And nothing came. Odd, even though you knew that was most likely going to happen, the reality of it actually happening in front of you spurred a new type of fear in you. And for the first time in ages, you felt powerless. It was a horrible type of fear, one of vulnerability and having fallen prey to predator.
You breathed in and out, trying your best to calm yourself as you brought your arm down. Deciding that that was enough thinking, you laid on place and just let yourself enjoy the daily harmony of everyday life.
You heard a police siren wail in the distance, cringing to yourself a bit as the memories started to flicker a bit in your mind. A sudden voice startled you,
"Can't get it out of your head?"
You sat up, and next to the arm of the couch, just next to where your head previously laid was Eraserhead, holding that yellow sleeping bag that you had noticed in the car earlier.
You didn't say anything, just turning your back to him and looking out the window of the kitchen at an the lights.
You heard him sigh, along with some shuffling noises, and upon turning around you noticed that he was beginning to sit down next to the couch, his lower half being swallowed by the sleeping bag.
"What're you doing?" You asked, fatigue beginning to make its way to your system, but was kept from interfering with your voice, giving the slight illusion that you were wide awake.
Eraserhead didn't say anything for a second, sitting with his knees loosely near his chest, resting his arms over them in a casual manner. After the pause he answered,
"Can't leave you out here to sleep by yourself", and with that never further elaborated. You didn't have the energy to ask him anything further, so you let him be and you both sat in silence, both looking at the curtain covered window as if you could see right out of it.
"You know, I understand this is all new for you. I understand you'd want someone to talk to. I just want you to know that if you need something, anything, then don't be afraid to come ask me, ok?" Eraserhead suddenly spoke up, breaking the silence with his soft words.
You still didn't answer, but you clenched your jaw as you continued to stare at the window with a hardened glare on your face.
'Not tonight...'
"Y'know... I can't get it out of my head either..." Eraserhead spoke up once again, but this time it was quiet, almost a whisper and trailing off, so much so that it made you think that it wasn't meant for you to hear at first. He had some kind of emotion lacing his voice at that moment, but you couldn't pin down what it was exactly. All you knew was, it was different, different from the normal fatigued monotone that he normally presents the world with. It didn't make any sense to you, and trying to figure it out but coming to a dead end caused you to become frustrated with yourself.
You didn't bother trying anymore and quickly dropped back down to the couch, facing the back of the couch so you didn't have to be face-to-face with the man beside you.
As you laid there, fatigue slowly started to fill your mind. The soft blanket, plush pillow, and warm atmosphere basically made it a luxury compared to your old ways of sleeping. Slightly glad that you weren't laying on cold wood or concrete with a slightly too small blanket that would either leave your legs or arms cold, you allowed yourself to rest for once, although the tension never left your body. Always alert, you refused to let your guard down, because if one unpredicted event lead to this, then you were made more wary of future attacks.
As you began to fall into the abyss of your very consciousness, you were pelted with a sudden barrage of memories that crawled their way up from the pit you pushed them in.
Voices surrounded you once again, all bitterly jesting towards you and your defeat.
Like film rolling out of a roll, memory after memory presented itself to you, all fighting to dominate the top spot and clearest configuration.
The fight for the top grew, and in turn so did your anguish. Completely crowded, as if you were on a shinkansen*3 on rush hour, in Tokyo.
Memory after memory, each filled with its own unique personality and emotion, pushed and pulled on your mind, all clawing and competing for the claim over your mind.
Voices, faces, events.
Colors, sounds, feelings.
Too much. It was too much.
They suffocated you in their unrelenting torture, filling every single spot that existed within the realms of your being.
Random things broke off, creating an indescribable mess of color and sound hurling at speeds incomprehensible towards you without hesitation.
Strawberry milk.
The little bunny plush that had frayed edges.
The train speeding by.
Red scissors.
"Why do I want to forget something that was so important to me?"
Purple eyes... (Where?)
Calculator and it's clicking.
Witch hat.
So many objects, all out of the ordinary struggled to put themselves into the spotlight, without it they risked being forgotten. But they wanted life, even if it meant through you and your mind.
The flashes eventually grew inconceivable, no longer being able to read nor understand anything as they would flash by in such a sudden stroke that it seemed as if they were no longer individual, but rather all one morphed together.
The edges of your sleep began to fade, and you could feel the effects of your rest beginning to lift from your mind, getting further and further away, until, in a sudden move they were swiftly dissolved. Almost as if they never were there to begin with.
Your eyes darted open, and you blinked as you were met with unfamiliar surroundings. That is, until the truth of your reality hit you like a group of bricks dropped from 10 meters above.
You felt as if your mind was swashed with a bucket of cold water, and the bitterness returned and filled the empty spot that the agony of your dream once had before departing.
The dark room of the living room greeted you unenthusiastically, it's dull walls boring into your eyes. You heard light snoring and looked to the opposite end of the couch and spotted Eraserhead in his yellow sleeping bag, resting on the floor opposite of you, next to where your legs were.
For a second, you wondered if he realized that you were uncomfortable with the close proximity and acted accordingly. You pushed the thought away.
You stretched your arms out, and laid back down once again, too tired to do much of anything else. Sleep greeted you again, but possibly as an apology for before you were given a silent, blank rest that was devoid of any color or movement.
The next thing you knew, bright sunlight that was muted by the curtains covering the windows spilt into your eyes, causing slight tears to form and waking you up in the process. This time you remembered where you were. You didn't know if that helped with the pain or not.
You laid on your spot for who knows how long. Simply laying there, you pondered on your current position. Where were you going to be a month from now? Or a year? What about your friends? You weren't close, but you all did have a mutual understanding and formed many types of bonds with each other.
You sighed, everything that the world created and presented to you being too much for your mind to handle. The weight was unbearable, the pain agonizing, and the paranoia frightening.
So you did what you always did when you were overwhelmed.
Nothing.
You laid there, body too awake to go back to sleep, yet you lacked the energy to do anything else. Defeat once again bit at your mind, and as much as you wanted to deny it, you were stuck. So, what now?
You rested with your eyes closed, the large fluffy brown blanket swallowing your body whole, and the pillow gently supporting your head.
However, some sounds from the kitchen drew your attention towards it. Sounds like a pan hitting another and different things being shuffled and poured (although you had to strain to hear it because they were all very gentle and quiet) caused your curiosity to grow, but you never indulged it. The shallowness that had consumed you was stronger than your will to observe and fight, and so you stayed.
That is, until the door to the front opened and in walked that loud blonde man Eraserhead called Mic. As soon as the front door opened he was already loud. Walking loud, talking loud, laughing loud, heck even breathing loud for you.
You didn't bother, simply covering your head with the blanket and turning to face the back of the couch. You hated how much your life had changed. Just about 72 hours ago, you were doing your own thing, enjoying your own life.
You heard the two men silently conversing in the kitchen, and it just proved to agitate you further. Their lives were still basically the same, they still had the options of what they could do, so why should your way of living change in order to cater towards the man who took you in?
A light 'clink' on the coffee table text to you caught your attention once again, and this time since it was much closer you decided to investigate, peeping your head out of the blanket.
You were greeted by a bowl of rice with a single raw egg cracked on top (tamago gohan), a smaller bowl of natto, some pickled vegetables, a pair of chopsticks, and a bottle of tea from the Konbini, all laid out next to where you were sleeping.
(For your viewing pleasure ꈍᴗꈍ)
Curious, you looked around and found that the two men were sitting at the dining table, still conversing lightly.
Fully sitting up, you garnered both of their attention (although it was inevitable), and then blond greeted you with a smile that made it seem as if he knew you his whole life.
"So! Look who's finally up, huh? Have a good sleep?"
He didn't pay any mind to the glare you gave him nor the silent response, still smiling that large dopey smile.
"I told you to leave her be, she's probably still a little tired. Anyways you still need to put that bed together like you promised", Eraserhead's scolding tired voice suddenly started after Mic's.
"Alright, alright. No need to keep breathin' down my neck about it." Mic answered, raising his hands in defeat as he got up from his place at the table to go finish putting together the bed (that you found out was moved to where your future room was).
"The food's for you by the way. I haven't seen you eat anything since you've arrived so don't try to pretend you're not hungry" Eraserhead pointed out with a bluntness in his tone, although compassion accompanied it as well.
You didn't say anything, opting to give another tired glare at the further tired man who sat ever so casually sipping his coffee.
You were given a few choices of clothes to pick out from the assortment that he got you the day before, and upon your refusal to collaborate he ended up picking out what you'd wear for the day.
You were sent to shower and dress for the day, which you did, but in all reluctance. The icy resentment that gripped your heart was at an all-time clash with the fiery rage that resided in your mind, both at a battle for what you would do and you didn't know if they were battling for you, or if they were battling against you.
After you left to go shower and change in the bathroom and with Mic in the bedroom nextdoor, Aizawa had the advantage of having the quiet space all to himself- albeit temporarily.
He sighed upon seeing your breakfast untouched, and grabbed the dishes to store them with hopes that you might eat it later. Truth be told, Aizawa wasn't the best cook, and he had to go to the store early that morning for some sensible groceries and then spend even more time trying to find a breakfast recipe online and work to actually put it together.
It was a lot more effort than he was used to, his solo routine normally just getting up, and maybe grabbing a cup of coffee. He didn't have the best diet or habits, he knew that, but he wasn't going to keep them any longer now that he had someone else's health to look after. Yours.
That day, he planned on taking you around the main areas of his life that he frequented, wanting to get you as comfortable and familiar with your new life as possible. He wanted to do a sensible approach, fearing that just throwing you into a new life and new routine would be difficult on your mental well being, and you didn't need anymore of that.
After you exited the bathroom, clean and clothed in a brand new attire, you immediately made contact with the always ever tired Eraserhead who was waiting patiently for you on the couch. You didn't expect so much social interaction so early, right after you woke up, so you just kind of halted your movements upon his sight.
Nevertheless, he still started his explanation anyways.
"So I understand that you're most likely not in the mood for going anywhere or doing anything today, and I completely understand that" he started.
You sighed, knowing that there was going to be a 'but...' and then they would start talking about everything you didn't want to do or wouldn't like.
"But there's a tight schedule I have to follow, along with the fact that it would most likely help you out greatly if I introduced you to some areas that you'll be running into frequently."
There it was. And really, a day after you got taken into custody? He wasn't going to give you a day to yourself or anything for you to gather your thoughts together or something?
"You don't have to worry about much, though. You'll be sticking to my side the whole time, and you won't be expected to do anything. This is just to help you get a little more familiar with different places and people so you aren't confused in the future." He explained, and looked at you expectantly for any glares or questions.
You ended up surprising him by not having anything snarky to say, simply remaining silent with a hardened glare on your face. Aizawa internally decided that he was going to work that glare off and get you to smile somehow.
And with that, he gathered his keys and you silently trailed after him out of the door. When he had his back turned you looked down at your wrist.
That quirk canceller-tracker bracelet was still there, easily ruining any chance of escape without any real effort.
You scratched at it a bit before following Eraserhead out to his car.
A/N: I'm sorry that the chapters have been sort of slow, I never intended it that way, but I'm currently working on trying to speed things up while having it still make sense and maintain its emotional train of thought. Also I want to work Shinso in soon as well (*´ω｀*)
Notes:
*1 - Irasshaimase is the greeting that workers typically use to greet customers in Japan. Serving the customer the best they can is normally top priority.
*2 - Carts in Japan are different than those in other countries, you have a cart base and put a basket inside. Here's an image:
Neat!
*3 - Shinkansens are the bullet trains you've probably heard of that connect all around Japan. They typically get very crowded, and it's made even worse depending if it's rush hour or if you're in a heavily populated area (such as Tokyo). I love using images to make my point, so here you go:
(I can't breathe just looking at this image)
Well, I hope you enjoyed! I've been really busy lately, but I promise I'm working on this as much as I can! I really like the plot and look forward to writing it more! Thank you, and please have a lovely day!
This is ok for reblogs and other uses by the way as long as you don't claim it's yours (^^)
[年2022/ 月12/ 日22]
#Escaping The Night#boku no hero academia#my hero academia#bnha aizawa#dadzawa#aizawa x daughter reader#shinsou x y/n#shinso x reader#aizawa shōta#aizawa comfort#my hero academia fanfic
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Story time. I think Donnie would also hate most lipbalm. They're so fucking greasy on the lips and good lord, I would rather feel the pain of dry ass lips than have it plump and moisturized but feeling like I just put cooking oil on, so with the power of headcanon on my side I'm inflicting this annoyance to him too.
I bet he takes like an obscene amount of time researching on lip products before realizing that there's no guarantee that they'll help all too much because he's half-turtle, his skin is different than a human's, which eventually compels him to go on a sort of lip care pilgrimage trying out all sorts of lip balm, like a lot of them. A LOT of them. He jots down the results in a fun little spreadsheet before he manages to narrow down to one brand which happens to be from a smaller, more ethical company than the rest. Even if that brand was much more expensive than others, its not as if he didn't have money that he stole to spend on quality products, so he managed to put his cracked lip woes to rest.
Unfortunately for him however, his brothers keep stealing from him so he barely even get to use the stuff he buys.
Mikey's the biggest culprit of this of course, he's one hell of a yapster (/pos ofc I love Mikey) his lips dry out easily, and he doesn't usually carry a lip balm with him (because he forgets to/keep losing them/keep eating them) so sometimes he just swipes on those bad boys off Donnie's pouch and he doesn't even notice and well, its not as if Donnie wants to take it back anyways. Its already got his lil bro's cooties all over it.
Meanwhile, Leo mostly just steals for funsies. He doesn't even use the ones he steals from Donnie, He's got like, a whole stash of flavored lip balms because he's the face man, he doesn't want chapped lips it'll ruin his gorgeous face! Anyways he gets a whole different bunch in case he loses one (which he never does) and keep buying some until he amassed a whole ass collection (which Mikey also steals from, not that Leo minds). He doesn't need to steal Donnie's, but its REAL fun to figure out how to. He'd literally figure out a whole ass 8 step plan in his head and even learn new tricks with his portals because Donnie literally had to resort to locking his lip balms up in a multi-password protected vault, only to end up not even using the damn stolen things because like Donnie, ew his twin's cooties.
Donnie's extra offended because of that cuz like, at least use the damn thing like Mikey does you heathen he paid 15 dollars for a tube!!
Anyways, since Donnie's no pushover he schemed to get revenge on Leo and begun to steal his chapsticks too, much to Leo's (hypocrital) annoyance and amusement, so now there's an unspoken war that's happening in the Hamato household at the moment which they both refuse to back down on.
Meanwhile, Raph's at the corner just shaking his head in exhasperation. He doesn't really care much about lip balms in the first place because he didn't really use those, but Donnie got disturbed seeing him walking around with El Niño on his lips one winter and begrudgingly gave him one to use, which Raph does use but only sparingly so he doesn't run out, though it's not like he doesn't have money to buy his own cuz he does off jobs in the hidden city then and again. Also he kinda gave up trying to stop the disaster twins from fighting over lip balm because they're gonna keep doing it anyways, so he kinda just kinda tune them out when something inevitably explodes in Donnies lab and Leo comes out running holding a lil tube. Mikey gets let off the hook though, lil bro priveledges you know?
So yeah.
Even if there's a huge L in Leonardo there's still two Ls in Donatello. He's gonna be having PTSD flashbacks whenever someone mentions chapsticks near him for sure.
#text#kursed rambles#rottmnt#rottmnt donnie#rottmnt leo#rottmnt mikey#rottmnt raph#rottmnt headcanons#man i love making shit up
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how are you downloading Ici tout commence?
From the official site!
First, I use a VPN to get a French IP (or Belgian--I'm not sure which they accept, I just know these two work) so I can access the network's streaming site, TF1+. You should be able to sign up for a free account without issue. This is the page for the season 4 eps:
https://www.tf1.fr/tf1/ici-tout-commence/videos/saison-4
Apparently there are always two eps in advance available for the premium subscribers but I'm not caught up plus I think it'd be a little harder to sign up for an actual paid account so I probably won't be able to do that.
So normally I would use youtube-dl/yt-dlp to download the eps but that won't work here, or at least not without some extra steps, because these are DRMed. This is where it gets a little tricky and the whole process isn't super well documented both because it changes a lot and it makes more sense to teach people to learn how to do it than how to do it and also because, well, the more these methods are spread, the more networks change things up and make things harder.
This thread can help you get started: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/412113-MYTF1-Help-needed-New-DRM-system-can-t-download
The whole forum is quite useful and I've only had to post for help a couple of times, mostly I just search my issue and read through.
That provided command in the second post, that's something to be used in your command line, on Windows in Start you can open that by typing in cmd or PowerShell or just google what you'll need for your computer.
These are the things you'll need to get to run the command:
N_m3u8DL-RE is a tool you can google and download, and also ffmpeg and mp4decrypt. You'll want them in the same folder for convenience. (I think you might need to install python too? If it says you do, then go ahead, lol.)
The way to get the key, this is the most gatekept part, probably. The various streamers out there use different methods of encryption and increasing security levels, and if you read up on it, you'll see stuff about kid and pssh and cdm and L3, it can be overwhelming, but in this case, the things you need are relatively easily accessible.
I'll tell you how to get the pssh and the license URL and you'll be able to use those to get the key. There are several tools you can use them on, one is public and easy, one is private but still easy-ish, and one is pretty complex and not a route I've gone down myself yet (it's the pinned thread in that particular forum). I don't want to link any of them myself, but I'll link to a thread that mentions the easy public one. It does go down at times which is why the hardcore people recommend that last method.
First, before you click on an ep, open up your browser's Developer Tools, usually Ctrl+Shift+i will do the trick. Go over to your Network tab, this shows all the requests your browser makes when you go to a site.
Then click on the episode in the actual browser. You'll see a flood of requests in the Network tab, filter on mpd.
Select the mpd result and the details for it show on the side, click on Preview. Scroll down until you see <!-- Widevine -->. A couple of lines below it, you'll see something like <cenc:pssh>AAA[a bunch of characters]</cenc:pssh>
Grab that whoooole part that starts with AAA, that's the pssh. Go to the Headers detail tab while you're there and grab the Request URL, this is the mpd link we're going to use later.
Now to get the license. Usually you can filter in your Devtools Network tab on license or, in this case, widevine. Since we're already on the Headers detail tab, grab this Request URL now, it should start with https://widevine-proxy-m.prod.p.tf1.fr/proxy?
Now go back to that easy public tool linked in that thread I linked, lol, and just fill in the PSSH and the License. Hit Send and you get a list of three keys at the bottom. I've always gone for the one in the middle and not bothered with all three, but you can try them all.
So at this point, you should be able to fully create and use the command in the first forum link above. If you read the documentation for N_m3u8DL-RE, there are various flags you can use, --save-name "Outputname" will let you name the output what you want, -sv best defaults to the best video quality, -sa best is best audio quality, and so on.
The way to get the subtitle is to turn on subtitles on the video player on the site and to go back to the DevTools box and filter on textstream. Grab the first request, the one that ends with =1000.dash and paste it into a new browser address, and change the .dash to .vtt. That's the subtitle. :) You can use the free tool Subtitle Edit to both convert it to srt, which will let most video players play it with your video, and there's also an Auto-translate option that lets you translate to English. It offers several ways but as I don't have a Google API, I just use the normal "slow" method, it's not that bad.
A second way to get the subtitle is to use the same command as when you're downloading the ep but remove the -M format=mp4 at the end, and instead add -ss 'id="textstream_fra=1000":for=all'
This was all figured out through a LOT of trial and error on my part so please do try your own best if you hit some issues, that's the best way to learn. Also, I just don't want to be the helpdesk on this, lol.
#replies#Anonymous#sent on 20240213#whew#that's a lot#but for real unless there's a huge error in what I've said just try to troubleshoot your issues on your own :x#there seems to be increased interest in this show...I wish I was in the mood to catch up#unfortch I've stopped on both this and neighbours for now...#I don't want to waste them on the mood I'm in these days#ici tout commence
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Hi, Jinxy! Thank you so much for your wonderful conversions! Please, can you tell, which tutorials you've used to learn? I would love to make conversions too, but some parts of creating process are quite confusing (like getting GUIDs for example). Any advices would be much appreciated! Thanks in advance!
Hello, anon! I'm happy to offer up the tutorials I used to figure out (as much as I have, anyway...) this whole conversion and object creation thing.
@keoni-chan has a really well written tutorial on converting objects (with pictures!) available on her Livejournal here. For the most part, her instructions are what I do, we just have a few differences in settings. For instance, in blender, you don't need to check "Write Normals" and "Write Materials," because they just create unnecessary files for you to delete and if you're new to things, the fewer files you have floating around to confuse you, the better.
The other main difference would be that there is no longer a database for GUIDs in Sims 2 (as so many tutorials point you to). To create a unique GUID for an object, in SimPe, go to Tools > Object Creation > Hash Generator and make sure the little dot beneath the "string" box is on CRC 24. At the bottom of the box is a field marked "Hash Value." So long as you've given your object a thoroughly unique name, it will create a random GUID derived from that name that you can use. It's super easy to do. The picture below shows each of the necessary elements.
If the object you're creating requires multiple GUIDs (like a dining table or bed or the hutch I'm converting right now, for instance), I just use what would be immediately around the GUID SimPE generated for me. For example, if the GUID the program generated is 0x0075768B, I'd make the additional GUIDs 0x0075768A, 0x0075768C, and 0x0075768D. Or 0x00757680, 0x00757681, 0x00757682, etc. Just change that last letter or number, and you're good to go.
The only tutorial I regularly reference is by @hugelunatic and that's her repository technique tutorial. I can never remember all the steps on my own, so I check back on it every time I'm doing something I want slaved.
My biggest piece of advice would be to work smarter, not harder. Think about what you're creating, and clone something that makes creating your job easiest, at least until you really get the hang of SimPE and all the different parts of it. For instance, if you're making something decorative with glass, clone the football helmet in a case because it has a glass subset and you won't have to change a bunch of things in the TXMT because of it. If you want to make an end table with a lot of slots, clone an end table with a lot of slots already. There's no need to reinvent the wheel. Learning to do this can be time consuming and frustrating, but so much of it is trial and error and just getting used to the SimPE program. Any way you can make things easier on yourself... do.
Other tips based on my own errors... if at first your object doesn't succeed, go to Tools > Object Tools > Fix Integrity. More than once that's righted a frustrating problem I spent way too long trying to puzzle through. If you find your recolors aren't showing up, it's because you forgot to click the checkbox next to update all MMATs and update (see: Keoni's step 16 for reference). Go and check it, update it, and then redo your recolors with the corrected MMAT. For glass subsets, make sure the "stdMatAlphaBlendMode" in the TXMT has a "Value" of blend. If you have things like leaves or filigree or something that has a white outline that should not have a white outline, go to the TXMT and find the field that says "stdMatAlphaTestEnabled." Change the "Value" from 0 to 1 and the white boxes will be gone.
I hope this was clear enough to be at least a little helpful. I'm still learning myself, so I know just how overwhelming it can be. If I get a little extra time, I'll try to put together a step-by-step tutorial myself with all the little tips and tricks I've picked up through trial and error.
It can be really intimidating at first, but once you start spending time in the program, the pieces of it kind of fall into place. I know that may sound like a cop out, but it's really not. I'm nowhere near an expert, but I'm much more confident with it now than I was just a few months ago.
Be patient with yourself! If an object is causing tons of problems, sometimes it's best to start over from scratch, or at the very least, walk away for a while and come back to it. Making mistakes is part of the learning process. Good luck!
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Okay friends of the MDZS/The Untamed fandom
If you've seen my previous post about making lotus root and pork rib soup, you know the journey I've been on. If you'd like to try making the soup yourself, a link to the recipe is toward the end of the OG post. That one got a little long with all the additions and extra advice from friends, but since I've made it again I'm reporting the results. Why I feel the need to do so is beyond me but this is the only genuine cooking I do and I deserve to be proud of every attempt, so if this annoys you, imagine these faces:
I will give a disclaimer that I had meant to make this soup a week and a half earlier but the mental illness was too strong, so yesterday I forced myself to push through the mental illness anyway so I wouldn't waste too many ingredients (we still wasted some 😔). So, alas, this soup had no ginger and half as much lotus root as desired, plus I forgot to read how much seaweed I was actually supposed to use (way less than what I used), and completely omitted the chopped scallion even though I had it ready because I just. Forgot to actually add it.
We carry on.
In all of my past versions of this soup, I didn't include the rehydrated seaweed. I was advised to give it a go this time and ...well. 😅
That bowl is a good 9 inches in diameter and 3 inches deep. And I took that photo AFTER adding a liberal amount of seaweed to the pot. Yes, I rehydrated the whole package. I didn't think about anything other than, "I'm finally adding the final step to this recipe I've been following!" and entirely missed that it only calls for 1 cup. [Hold on. Googling how long rehydrated seaweed be stored right now. OMG YOU CAN FREEZE IT THANK HEAVEN.]
This is me scooping out all the fuckin seaweed that entirely took over the soup 😅😅😅😅😅😅
Remember how I said there was half as much lotus root? Yeah, this is seaweed soup with a hint of pork now. Good luck finding any slices of lotus root.
I had also assumed that this seaweed would be salted (the packaging was NOT in English, but honestly I can't blame the label for this). I had certainly added what I thought was already a generous amount of salt but let's remind ourselves that I am barely a cook by any means. This girl doesn't know shit about how much salt should go into 12 quarts of water to add enough taste. I did go heavy on the goji berries though.
This resulted in the broth being mainly pork and goji berry water :/ if I'd had the motivation to go out and buy fresh ginger and remembered the scallion I'm sure it would've been better (and more salt obviously), but hopefully I'll be in better spirits next time I make an attempt. I learned a lot from this one.
The one thing I am proud of though?
Look at how clear that broth is. The oily bubbles are from the meat, and I also apologize I don't know if it's my phone's camera or my photography skills, but if it doesn't look clear to you I promise it does irl! I didn't use any of the cooking wine or soaking the meat with the ginger like @of-sevenseas suggested, but just by following the process in the recipe and making extra sure I washed the meat well this time, it seemed to work out!
Lessons learned:
Making soup while having a bad mental illness day is not a failed endeavor, but watch out.
Don't do this without ginger. What are you doing. That soup is wet stuff in hot water.
ADD MORE SALT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, YOU CANNOT BE THIS WHITE.
Read the recipe including measurements. Cooking is, of course, more improvisational than baking, but there's a reason we follow guidelines. Especially when we're rookies, still.
Next time we're gonna try the cooking wine and ginger thing with the meat. It sounds like an adventure.
Celebrate your wins!!!! I did have a success in this attempt!
I also did very well keeping the cat away from this whole 7 hour process, which is the greatest success of all.
(Obligatory kitty pic, since I mentioned her. Meet Lucy everyone. She's hiding under my blankets from the loud scary generator outside my window.)
#lotus root and pork rib soup#mdzs#the untamed#wangxian#yunmeng siblings#jiang yanli#wei wuxian#maddi's cooking (mis)adventures#also y'all gonna start recognizing my kitchen counters if i keep this up
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Hey! I'm a really big fan of your art and I have a question. Do you have a certain process for drawing hands? I've been trying to get better at it since forever and maybe you have some tips bc yours are awesome for a beginner :D
:O THANK YOU SO MUCH! Hands are like one of my only artistic talents that I just had beforehand so I'm more than happy to show you my process! I have no official training by the way, everything I'm telling you is just stuff that I've learned from drawing them and observing them.
This is a simple sketch that is eventually going to turn into something for Taddy, but it will do for right now! I'm going to walk you through how I sketched this.
First step: ALWAYS ALWAYS START with the outline of the three big fingers. These determine the proportions of the rest of the hand. Where you might be getting tripped up is trying to draw the whole pointer finger first, and you should not do that. Doing one finger and then another one messes with the proportions; it's much easier to fix three lines than it is to redraw the whole finger. Make sure you curve for the knuckles!
Second step: In this picture, only the index finger and thumb are fully visible, but if the others were to be visible this is where you would draw the rest of them. You should have three distinct sections, and those sections should be CURVED. Your fingertips have a very unique curve to them and it can take a few tries to get it right.
Third step: the thumb. I hate doing the thumb. This one might take you a bit because the thumb is always smaller than people think it is. The tip of the thumb should come out to just below the first joint in your index finger. The line going across the back of the hand should always be over the one coming down from the fingers. Your thumb is also not flat; it curves inwards and then back out as it goes down to your wrist. It should only have two sections!
Fourth step: the pinkie and the "back" of the hand. PINKIES SUCK EVEN MORE THAN THUMBS! I normally choose hand positions that don't feature the pinky because I hate drawing it. But cheat sheet: the pinky never extends past the second joint of your ring finger! Your pinky still has three sections, just smaller than the rest, so the second joint of your pinky is roughly level with the first joint of your ring finger. The "back" of your hand also has a slight bump to it: the pinky curves out and then it curves back in at the wrist. The transition from back of hand to wrist isn't supposed to be smooth like it is from the thumb.
Fifth step: knuckles! This one can be ignored if your art style doesn't do knuckles. I choose to do little v-shapes like that or just bumpy lines whenever I feel like being extra, but they're always pointing downwards and they're bigger than you think!
Some extra details that might be helpful:
A bunch of the stuff above I already mentioned, but for the ones I haven't mentioned...
-The skeleton lines you drew at the beginning should always curve away from the thumb. Not by a lot, just a little!
-The top joints for the three fingers are roughly equal with the index and ring, but the middle finger top joint is higher up. The second joints are all roughly level with each other
-Middle is tallest, than index, than ring and finally pinky. The thumb is shorter than the pinky
I think that's it? I've never really done an art tutorial before so let me know if I need to explain anything else! This was pretty fun though :D
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So I recently finished reading TGCF... But I have a problem with two things. Spoilers ahead obviously.
In human years, Xie Lian is about 10 years older than Hua Cheng, yes? Since Xie Lian gets turned into an immortal at 17 and doesnt physically age anymore... So how is it that Hua Cheng dies before turning 18 like the fortune said? Because he dies as a soldier... But there is no way that a decade has passed before the war, no??? I can't remember exactly - I feel like I've read the whole thing too fast, the timeline feels blurry in my head - but hasn't it been less than a year since Xie Lian steps down to help for the first time? Isn't that when the war breaks out? That should still make Hua Cheng a child, not a nearly adult teenager...
But THEN - even if I assume I misread that and he actually did die at 16-17, where the hell did the adult form of him come from??? Wouldn't that make the one that followed Xie to puqi shrine the "real" form??? Since that's approximately the age he died?? His image with the eyepatch and the pearl bead and all that, it kept being described as a man in his 20s.... I keep trying to think what have I missed, but even the time he gets killed as a "no name" ghost for the first time, too, he's also in his actual time-of-death state. That much was clear. So what was up with the sudden body change? This whole time, between dying as a ghost, to rejecting becoming a god, he was an immortal still, in one way or another. He couldn't age, right??? It was never mentioned that in the process of becoming the ghost king he could mature physically as he was gathering more power. The only thing explained seemed to be the eye part.
What am I missing here????? No doubt there must be something I misread or accidentally skipped, but what.... What's the explanation for it???????????? How did Hua grow more and Xie didn't even though they were both turned immortal at approx the same age????????????????????????
Also, actually another thing that really annoyed me: that damn array password being left unrevealed. Not that I was that curious of what it was, but I expected it to be revealed and it wasn't, not even in the extras (and in the extras it was even revealed what the last mural was which was EXTREMELY obvious and didn't need to be said). So I went on reddit and I only found theories and someone mentioned that the author stated that "it's to stay between hualian". Which made me even more annoyed LOL because it just makes it sound like even she couldn't come up with what it could be. Personally I don't think it would be sexual, since obviously hua had a ton of worshippers and was a pretty boy and everything, so a lot of people, especially residents of ghost town, wouldn't actually mind saying some stupid stuff like praising his dick or something. I think it would be something like "hua cheng is the best husband in the world" because by the time Xie learned it obviously they still weren't a couple and if it was something Xie-specific (like "San Lang" since he's the only one to refer to him with that. He was soooooooo embarrassed of being so in love with Xie Lian he would NEVER force him to say this kind of stuff in fear of revealing too openly wanting to be spoken to in such way).
I don't know LOL I think I'm overthinking this way too much. But I don't want to give too much shit to the author, I think the story was fun and idk I honestly enjoyed it. Should I draw fanart. I kind of want to.... But yeah I think that's all I really have to say about it lol. It was fun! Definitely not watching the anime or reading the comic or anything else. Genuinely surprised there was no *actual* sex scene though. Also no wedding?????? I can't believe there was no wedding.... Have I missed a chapter or two???? How was there no wedding............ That's so crazy. I can forgive the lack of sex scenes but no wedding...... I'm so disappointed. I was actually so excited to read about a god + ghost wedding. That would be so interesting.
#Normally I never talk this much about books I read since they're usually nonfiction and biographies...#So forgive me for blabbering on so much#pogaduchy
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”deeper depths of his queer love” the realization that’s he’s been in love with his best friend for YEARS is going to hit him so hard I can only imagine how buck would react. Is he gonna laugh is he gonna cry is he gonna be scared is he gonna be happy is it all of the above?
Yeah, Oliver sees the vision. He seems to realize that Buck's relationship with Tommy is leading to something bigger, that there's more under the surface that needs to be discovered than just what he's found in these last two episodes, and I'm so excited to see it all come to fruition.
I personally think when Buck does finally realize he's gonna shut that shit DOWN. I don't think he's going to say shit for fear of losing Eddie and Chris. What I think could happen is Buck realizes in the season finale, it shakes him to his core, he keeps it to himself, the hiatus happens, we come back in season 8 and find out that Buck still hasn't said a word to Eddie but now people are starting to notice that Buck's acting a bit different around Eddie. Not enough for Eddie to notice (man is nothing if not oblivious to men who are in love with him), but enough that it draws the attention of the rest of the firefam. But there are subtle signs, such as a lot of staring, both jumping to spend extra time with Eddie but also holding himself back for fear of being too obvious.
Meanwhile, Eddie may or may not still be with Marisol. If he's still with Marisol, I want to see this being the continuation of his queer realization. I'd be okay with more issues popping up with Marisol and this time Eddie's got no excuses. Or regardless of if she's there or not, Eddie's back in therapy and trying to work through things. OR it could be fun to have Eddie AND Marisol in couples counseling, having the two of them trying to work their shit out, and have the culmination of that be Eddie realizing he's queer.
I just think if they don't have Eddie's queer realization arc in season 7, then a significant portion of it should be dealt with in season 8a. My timeline that I would love would be a mutual bucktommy break up in 7x10 + agreement to remain friends. Buck is pining for Eddie the whole of 8a, and Eddie figures out he's queer by the mid-season finale. A marisol breakup could be on or off screen at that point. As long as he FIGURES. IT. OUT. Then 8b could focus on Eddie coming to terms with his own queerness, now with Buck's conflict being "do I tell Eddie or do I not tell him?" Maybe even have BUCK shifting into TOMMY'S position, of sort of being a "guide" for Eddie, but worrying that he could be taking advantage of him. Meanwhile, Eddie's learning the freedom that comes along with finally being true to himself in 8b, and maybe he's seeing that everything he's ever wanted aligns exactly with what Buck gives him and their family. We could maybe even have Eddie bringing Shannon back, and worrying that realizing he's queer won't change a thing and maybe the issue really is him. Being scared that if he accepts the love Buck clearly wants to give him that he might ruin the best love he's ever had.
NOW. Depending on if the show wants to extend buddie out or they want to get them together, I could see the season 8 ending episodes going one of two ways: 1.) Buck confesses, Eddie accepts, they start their relationship, including first kiss and first date in s8 ending episodes. S9 sees them in a relationship for real OR 2.) Buck confesses to Eddie, Eddie rejects him not because he doesn't reciprocate but because he's afraid of destroying their relationship like he destroyed all the rest of his other relationships. Season 9 then starts with angst where they BOTH want each other badly but they can't take that final step. Season 9a ends with Eddie realizing that he can't waste time anymore, and their relationship starts for real in s9b.
Anyway, this got away from me. I think both of them are going to be more scared of their feelings than accepting right away. BUT I do have faith they'll find their way to each other eventually.
#911 abc#speculation#buddie#this got away from me LOL I didn't mean to map them out all the way through s10#this is the shit that runs through my mind#the craziest thing is that this shit isn't even delulu anymore
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EDIT: We've gotten a lot of requests, so I'll have to close this for now, just to make sure I don't overwhelm and hurt someone by inviting 34083048 people in when I can only effectively cycle between two groups of 5. But thank you everyone for your help!
Hey, this is kind of a weird ask, but I'd rather go to here than Reddit or another group finding website first (I like it here better, I like the people here more, and I know I have a cluster of people who like D&D here).
Me and two of my current players (Ellerian and Kelogul, if you were curious) are looking for more people to play with in some one-off sessions. We thought about this back when the whole OneD&D debacle was going on, but we wanted to try looking into some other games with different people.
Current games we're looking into trying just as various one-offs:
Pathfinder 2e
13th Age
Genesys
Shadow of the Demon Lord
Worlds without Number
I'd also like to try running an Out of the Abyss campaign again. I began running one with Kelogul and Ellerian where we went hardcore survival (everyone started naked and you had to find your materials/craft your own stuff/find your own material components) and it was a lot of fun, but we wound up dropping it because I got too busy. One day I'd also like to run Rime of the Frostmaiden as well, and I wouldn't mind running CoS again... but all of that is extremely long-term. There's also joining From the Mist/Into the Horizon as well, but again, I'd like to just try things out with one shots first.
General information about us and how we run things (below the cut, because this is already long enough):
We don't use voice. We could if it's a huge hurdle to get over, but we've been just text based for 3+ years at this point so we're used to it. If you want a kind of example of what that looks like, here's a screenshot of one of our sessions of From the Mists.
We use Foundry VTT. I've already paid for it and you connect to it similar to roll20, so it should involve no extra work on your part. I also already have all the books and a google drive to share them, so there should be no additional costs there. If you need help learning how to use Foundry, we are more than happy to teach.
We tend to be higher on the RP and story side than average, though I'm not sure how much of this would really come across in one-shots where characters are more throw away.
We're located in the CST time zone. The date would likely be on Sunday, as it's the only day other than Saturday we can all get together (and Saturday is when From the Mists/Into the Horizon happens). We're flexible to run anytime from 11 am CST to 11 pm CST.
We are in our late 20s/mid 30s.
We are LGBT+ friendly (I'd hope so, I'm a dude married to a dude)
We've been playing for 3+ years (almost) every week at the same time on Saturday. The only time we've missed sessions have been family tragedies, medical issues, and planned vacations, so between the three of us we're pretty stable and consistent.
In general we're looking for 2-3 additional people (4 players total would be perfect, 5 would be stretching it but I could manage). If there's a lot of interest somehow, I'd also be more than happy to cycle people around so people get a chance to play. I would likely be DMing, but I'm also not hardcore bent on it so if someone else wants to dip their toes in it I'm more than happy to step aside.
If you're interested, message me or send me an ask and I'll give you my discord so we can talk about it. Into the Horizon (legacy campaign of From the Mists/CoS) happens at 5:30 CST, so I'll be busy around then but I'll try to get a response as soon as I can.
Thanks for reading.
#palidoozy rambles#been meaning to ask about this for a while but kept psyching myself out#kelogul and ellerian are really passionate and want to get more passionate people in#and honestly i do too
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I just saw a video from one of my favorite content creators, called My little pony: a new generation. the banality of facism, it sounds ridiculous, but that's why I like it.
in general, besides summarizing facism to your Daddy/Mommy issues turned into your political ideology and how capitalism opens its arms until it gets stabbed, it talks about how facism is a self-destructive ideology since it is sustained by the fear of the 'other', but once this 'other' is defeated, facism has to look for someone else to call 'other' and so on until they end up killing each other. (the video is in Spanish, so I can't really recommend it).
Draxum seeks to found a Utopia based on facism, which is impossible, spreading hatred and terror towards humans in order to put the Yokai as the superior race, Draxum believes that once the majority of humans are mutated, there will no longer be discrimination by race, however, facism is not a fire that goes out just like that, it will seek to continue burning and look for its next target: the mutants.
I don't remember which was the chapter in which Gale and Draxum have a conversation about this, in which Draxum can't understand why the Yokai and mutants would fight each other.
You've posted about this before, and it's made clear in the story that the many Yokai who follow Draxum see mutants as only one step above humans, which isn't much either.
I know the story is about Donnie and his family trying to get him back, that the whole war thing came later. But I really, REALLY need Draxum to have his reality shock at the end, especially since I know it would hurt him. I don't know how he would do it, maybe Bishop would be the one to give him the talk (wouldn't that be ironic) that depending on him being an ally of the turtles and having a relationship with immortality, in which case, he would have experience.
It's really interesting studying anthropology, learning how different social stratas formed across history and regions and the different factors that influenced it. People will start categorizing themselves no matter what you do, and they'll come up with bullshit to justify one category being better than the other. This fact is pretty much constant throughout all of history, but the details change. I could write a whole paper on the evolution of ethnic groups throughout history and remnants of tribal mindsets-in fact, I did start, but I was writing a lot and just kind of info-dumping, so I'm not gonna do that.
We're seeing the whole 'fascism needs a scapegoat' right now in the U.S., (and all the places influenced by our media) with the repeal of Roe v. Wade and the trans panic. Because the American far-right has been using RvW as a rallying cry for decades-like, literally, the fact that abortion is even controversial in the first place can be traced back to conservative political groups needing to find a thing to unify them and draw their voters together, because the only thing their ideologies had in common was 'progress bad' and they weren't gonna last on that. Anti-trans rhetoric has been in the media for a while now, but it's ramped the fuck up in the past year-because conservatives no longer have RvW to scream about. They had to scramble to find something, because if they give their base two seconds to think then they might start to realize that their political party isn't actually standing for anything.
Draxum is trying to create like...a reverse ethnostate, where literally anyone is welcome and equal aside from this one particular group. Which holds all the fallacies of real-life attempted ethnostates, and is also just extra stupid on top of that.
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I absolutely love following along with your art and the process behind it! I'm curious about more behind the scenes stuff, as I have picked up digital art after not having drawn regularly in 10+ years.
When you do your drawings, what steps do you take? Do you use real references? Skeleton sketches? I'd love to know more about how you approach things digitally!
Oooh, first of all, thank you so much @emeraldzephyr! It is such a lovely thing that you decided to pick it up again!
As for how do I organize myself for drawing, every person works with a different procedures and it is important to know what works for you. For me is organization and inspiration.
For me, the most important thing is having references. It is more important than experience, more important than skill and even than inspiration. When you start messing with a blank canvas you need to know first hand where you want to go, or at least, have an idea. I won't likely start drawing without some references pictures. I learnt this when I took classes last year and this is probably the only thing that actually fully stuck.
My main resource for them is Pinterest, and I navigate through it with intent. I also have multiple packs of pictures of models and references that I have purchased in Artstation. Either way, references, to me, are essential and necessary. In Pint for example I have different boards, some for poses or compositions, some other for finishing, some other for colors palettes, or effects, or styles. I may have (and it is likely to be that way) multiple references for a single illustration ("I like the composition of this one, but the color palette of this other one, but the light works incredible in here, and wait, how was exactly the curvature of the nose of Joe Quinn in this perspective...? Shit! Keery's moles!! How were them distributed in the right side of his face? asdfadfs").
So you see, this is the first and the main thing I do. And I am also fattening with pins all my boards anytime I've got the chance (on my way to work, in public transport, waiting in lines, etc.), so I don't run out of ideas.
When it comes to actually drawing, I always make my canvas extra large and fit the main reference there so I don't get it out of sight (probably the one I'm using for composition) and make a first sketch than I later proceed to fix because it is often that I get wrong the proportions or the perspective, and that's okay. I can do five or six layers of sketches and then I do a first lineart that is messy, but it compiles everything that I have from different references. I spend a lot of time with this. Before shit gets serious and you start with colors, it is important for me to be happy with the sketch, or I may work a lot of hours on this particular illustration and you will end up hating it because "fucking shit, that ear is too small, how didn't I see it before!!!! [yes, I have no shame in showing what I think I failed miserably, the next piece was better, and so on. I keep learning everytime. I trust the process in broader aspects of art, not only in piece by piece]).
I create folders for the color process and try to organize the layers in it, first painting them with plain colors in separate layers and then adding layers once the whole illustration is fully coloured, first starting with shading, and then to light.
For me it is really important to play with the different effects of layers, play with opacity, gradients, brushes, tools, etc etc. I always find some effects that I wasn't expecting and the quality of my work will rise up just because I just found something interesting that weren't expecting at all, so, yeah. I play a lot with my software. All the time.
And finally when I am happy with it as a whole, I add a few filters (noise, blurs, etc.) If I want a very specific effect and I don't know how to do it, I have no doubt in stopping for a minute and finding a tutorial that teaches me how to do it (like the flare in this illustration, or the video effect moving color channels in this one). I always keep in mind that I should not get frustrated when I don't know how to do anything because I can always google it and it is a great opportunity to learn something new.
I am so so so sorry if this was too long, and probably it wasn't interesting enough, but that's what I do. And again, I want to make myself clear when I say that there is not a correct way to do things when it comes to art, this is just what works for me. I am no expert, I had to try and fail many many times to find the right approach for me without getting sad or frustrated. I, myself, have reconnected with art not that long ago after a decade, too.
I wish you the best of luck with your reunion with digital art!! Looking forward to seeing your pieces <3
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Honestly have no idea if this is a narc crash or bpd splitting episode, but when someone implies I'm not good enough or accidentally rejects me. Or doesn't fit my expectations or standards or whatever, I often just get so enraged and disappointed in myself. Then I get upset with them. I feel like, I should be getting what I want and what I need. I need them to see me for who I am, and adore me and respect me and see my worth. But when I just... struggle with my own self-esteem, I just... feel so awful. I just dissociate, I lose my appetite, I get angry easily, and my brain won't shut up about how this person rejected ME. How they don't like ME. That I'm *flawed*. That I'm worthless. I might get paranoid that they're talking about me behind my back, using info against me, or they may abandon me. I begin to start thinking I'm superior to them in every way, shape, or form. I split on them at one point, obvi. But, I just... I end up going back to unhealthy behaviours (being dysfunctional, not taking care of myself, being too hard on myself, trying to be too perfect all the time, etc.) as a way to cope with these feelings of worthlessness. I just... get extra "I'm envious and jealous of you" feelings, and constantly compare myself with others on small levels like how well they can brush their teeth or how much sleep deprivation can they truly handle? Or how good their imagination is?? Idk. I just... I get so incredibly lonely, frustrated, and push everyone away during these times. I just want nobody around me, but also need someone to validate me and my existence. Bc it's so hard to validate myself, all alone. Idk. What the hell is this experience? And what do I call it?
at it's core, that's a spiral. it sounds very much like a narc crash, but i also dont know much about how bpd splits feel and so i cant comment on how close it is to those, but thats very much how those spirals used to happen for me
it's essentially a distress meltdown. so something upsetting happens, but because we never learned how to properly manage and handle distress, there's no framework to catch ourselves and validate ourselves, so we spiral down an abusive self hating rabbit hole. in an effort to claw our way out we attempt the maladaptive coping strategy of devaluing everything around us and everyone that hurt us because we dont know how to build ourselves up, only tear others down. but that doesnt actually work or give us real substantial comfort and so we just continue to wallow in lonely self hating misery and default to another maladaptive coping mechanism which is to purposefully reject the thing we need/want in order to further punish ourselves
so if we want validation and connection, we self isolate and reject ppl and push them away. we unconsciously continue to punish and abuse ourselves because we learned during development that when we are rejected its because we fucked up, and if we fucked up we need and deserve to be punished, and so we unconsciously punish ourselves in place of our previous abusers
but then our child-brain kicks in and tries to defend us from that punishment by again, devaluing and attacking everyone around us. because we also learned during our abuse that if someone hurts u, then u hurt them back to teach them a lesson. but none of these are real or healthy solutions so they dont make anything better, just worse
dbt has a lot of good coping strategies and mechanisms to stop those disordered patterns and redirect behavior towards more healthy and sustainable coping mechanisms and distress tolerance. i'd definitly start there using some of those keywords to search for more reading on it. it's a slow process and it takes a lot of steps and it doesnt feel like its working at first, but if u force urself to practice those techniques over and over eventually they very much do click and u realize ur not hitting those spirals anymore and are able to stop them early on so u dont fall the whole way down
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