#but EVERYTHING seems to indicate that its very much true | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

five-rivers · 1 year

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Turpentine

An AU following the same 'ages' concept as Baroque. You do not have to read Baroque to understand this.

As a superhero, ghost-based or otherwise, Danny tended to be hyper-aware of changes in his environment. So long as he wasn't sleep-deprived, anyway. Which he was. Frequently. But Frostbite didn't spar with him when he was sleep deprived, so, when he called a time out to their bout, he wasn't.

"Is everything alright, Great One?" asked Frostbite.

Danny, a little out of breath despite not needing to breathe - it was a psychological thing, okay? - shrugged and pointed. "What's that?"

Frostbite turned to look and stiffened. Danny didn't blame him. The sight had surprised him, too. A flat, black disk, about the size of his pinky fingernail held at arm's length, hung in the Ghost Zone sky, over what had formerly been its brightest part. It looked like an eclipse, only with a lot less light escaping from around the edges.

"Oh, dear," said Frostbite.

"What is it?"

Frostbite turned and flew quickly out of the training stadium.

"Driftice!" he called. "The age is turning! We need the telescope!"

"The telescope?" asked Danny, matching his pace with Frostbite's.

Frostbite spared a moment to smile down at Danny. "It's very impressive, I think you'll like it."

Danny nodded. He’d never met a telescope he didn’t like.

By the time they reached the buildings proper, yetis were starting to stop and stare at the black spot. A few of them would then start running, doing something, but others just… kept staring.

“The telescope!” Frostbite called again. That spurred a few more yetis into action. He started giving people directions.

Soon, they were dragging a long, ridged tube from within one of the larger caves and hooking it up to all sorts of equipment. The lens inside winked at Danny, its curve seeming highly exaggerated for the length of the telescope, until Danny realized it must be made out of ice, which didn’t bend light as much as glass.

… He may have looked into making a few ice telescopes of his own. Hey, having a hobby under his circumstances was hard!

“What’s going on?” asked Danny, after Frostbite paused in his orders. “Are we being attacked or something?”

“Not… as such, no.” Frostbite looked back up at the black spot, clearly worried. “Every so often, the Realms… change. We call it the turning of the age. It begins with the color of the ambient ectoplasm, and the color tends to indicate the character of the age. So far, we have been experiencing a green age, which tends towards the more natural or chaotic, with differences between ghosts exaggerated. With ghosts themselves exaggerated to a degree.”

“Okay,” said Danny, “so… it’s not normally like this?”

“Normal is relative.” Frostbite waved his hand as if dismissing the entire concept. “Ages can last from anywhere from one year to thousands. This one has lasted only a few hundred.”

“And I’m guessing black isn’t a good color?”

“It is somewhat more complicated than that. It is possible that it isn’t true black, which is why we’re looking. To make sure. It could be a very deep blue, or green, or red, which tends not to be terribly comfortable, but is still bearable. It could be the color of a starry night, which is a good deal better. It could be a color we do not have the senses to see directly, such as ultraviolet or infrared, both of which give rise to rather alien ages, but…”

“But black?” prompted Danny.

“I do hope it is not truly black,” said Frostbite. “How to put this… There are certain popular conceptions of afterlives, and other… let us call them worlds beyond worlds, yes?”

Danny nodded, not sure where this was going. “Like heaven and hell, or the Greek underworld?” he asked, to clarify.

“Indeed,” said Frostbite. “The Realms reflect those. Or, perhaps, they reflect the Realms. Again, the color is the indicator.”

“So, what does black mean? Hell?”

Frostbite shook his head. “No. Hell is red, and… to be truthful, Great One, despite all the woes that come to the fore when we become demons, red ages have positives as well. Black, true black, is… nothing.”

“Nothing?” repeated Danny. He was hoping he was misunderstanding.

“Nothing,” confirmed Frostbite. “Cessation. Nonexistence. Not Ending, but stopping. It is–”

“You’re going to die?”

“No,” said Frostbite. “As I said, no Ending. Typically. But… if the age is truly black, then we will cease to exist until the next age, only returning when it turns again. It is not sleep. It is not death. We simply will not be.”

Danny wasn’t sure if that was better, and he was sure that showed on his face, but Frostbite didn’t look all that enthused, either.

“The black ectoplasm will spread from where it began, affecting other ectoplasm constructs, including ghosts, on contact.”

“So, if it touches you, you just… stop existing?”

“There is generally a small amount of time between contact and cessation, but… yes.” Frostbite turned more fully to Danny. “That is why, if the age is true black, you must leave and not return until the age changes again.”

“What? Why just me?”

“Think, Great One. We are fully ghosts. We cannot survive without ectoplasm. Yes, some might try to hide in the human world, and avoid the touch of the black. Some might even succeed. But they will be much weakened, perhaps even to Fading, should the age last long at all. But here, we will return, even if much time has passed. But for you… You are different.”

“Because I’m a half ghost.”

“Yes,” said Frostbite. “You may be affected just as we are, but imagine, what might happen to you if you suddenly lost your ghost half?”

“I’d… lose my powers, at least,” said Danny, swallowing against sudden nausea. That was a little too close to what had happened in the bad future, even if it was in the opposite direction.

“Yes, and if that happened here, while the black was coming, you would not be able to escape. You would simply fall, unless you managed to hit something. What is the other option?”

Not one Danny wanted to consider. “I might… die.”

“And your ghost might come back at the end of the age, or… it might not. I do not mean to frighten you unduly, Great One, but let me say it again: if the age is black, leave, and do not come back. Close your portal, leave town, go where you will not be found.”

“Because other ghosts might be affected and bring it through the portal?”

“Because the portal itself would go black, and radiate throughout your town before collapsing.”

“Oh,” said Danny, softly. “Okay.”

“I would not wish to come back to this world, only to find that you were unmade by black ectoplasm. I would far prefer to learn that you had died after a long and happy life.” He smiled. “But the age might not even be black! There could be stars, or–”

“Chief Frostbite,” said one of the technicians, nervously lacing and unlacing his fingers.

“Yes, Flashfreeze?”

“It’s black.”

“I’m so sorry, Danny,” said Jazz.

“It’s not like anyone is dying,” said Danny, mouth dry. No one but him, if he screwed up.

No one but him, Vlad, and Dani.

“It’s still a loss,” said Jazz, who looked like she wanted to cry herself. “How are we going to tell Mom and Dad?”

“I–” He hadn’t made a decision to tell them anything. “I don’t know.”

“They won’t close the portal unless one of us says something,” said Jazz, which was very true. “We’re going to have to tell them, especially if we have to move away to get away from the natural portals.”

“I know,” said Danny, hunching his shoulders.

“I know,” said Jazz. “This is awful, but… I don’t want you to die, Danny. I don’t even want you to have to lose your powers.”

“I know,” said Danny. “I know. I’m just… I think I need to talk to Vlad first.” Vlad was out of town for the rest of the weekend for some business thing, but he’d be back on Monday.

“What?” asked Jazz, making a face that was a very appropriate reaction to Danny suggesting they talk to Vlad.

“He studied the same stuff they did. He’ll know how to explain it to them. And he might know how to find Dani.”

Jazz cursed softly under her breath. “I didn’t even think– You haven’t heard from her lately?”

Danny shook his head. “Last time, she was in Eastern Europe and it was a payphone. She’d broken the burner Sam got for her and couldn’t get a new one.”

“Crap,” she said. “Wait, what about Valerie? Isn’t her board powered by ectoplasm?”

“I don’t know,” said Danny, chewing his lip. “Maybe. Oh, gosh, what if she falls out of the sky or something?” He rubbed his face. “Do I have to tell her, too?”

“Maybe we can get Mom and Dad to warn her,” said Jazz, in a blinding display of optimism. “Maybe after we tell them, they can make a public service announcement or something.”

“Maybe,” said Danny, significantly more dubious. “I just– I think I need to tell Vlad first, that’s all.”

Jazz nodded, then paused. “We have time?”

“Yeah, it didn’t look like it was getting any bigger from where I was,” said Danny. “Frostbite said it could take months for the age to completely flip over, depending on stuff like where it started.”

“Okay,” said Jazz. “Then we can wait until you tell him.”

“Okay,” said Danny. “Great.” He rubbed his arms. He itched to leave, to run, to fly and put this behind him, but… The idea of a touch of black, then falling–

Jazz hugged him. “It’s going to be alright,” she said.

Danny hugged her back. “I hope so.”

“Anyway,” said Danny, picking at a sliver of veneer that had come off Tucker’s desk. It was only attached by one end. “That’s it, I suppose. The end.”

“That’s… a lot,” said Tucker. “Are you… okay?”

“Not really,” said Danny. “It’s– Maybe it’s a good thing? I won’t have to fight ghosts anymore and all that, right?” He rubbed his eyes.

“I mean, maybe? I’m a little… stunned about it, too.”

“So am I,” said Sam. “It’s just going to disappear? All of it?”

“Yeah, apparently.”

“How long?”

Danny shook his head.

“Oh my gosh.” Sam got up from the beanbag chair and started to pace. “It’s just, we have friends there. And they’re just going to–? Are you sure we can’t do anything?”

“Frostbite was pretty sure,” said Danny, curling up.

“But–”

“I don’t want to die again, Sam.” That brought Sam’s pacing to a stop. “I’ll always fight if it seems like there’s a chance, but. I really don’t want to die.”

Sam sat back down.

“Frostbite really made it sound like there was nothing we could do,” continued Danny. “He’s been around for a while, you know? It sounded… It sounded like he’s done this before.”

“Okay,” whispered Sam. “What do you want us to do?”

Danny shrugged, then made himself laugh. “Get into whatever college I do? That’s a joke.”

“Hey, you tell us where you’re going, and we will,” said Tucker. “Fast as anything.”

“At least the same city,” said Sam.

Danny had to ring the doorbell three times before Vlad opened up. Jerk.

“Why, Daniel,” purred Vlad, who had clearly just been taking his time, “are you skipping school for this?”

“Shut up,” said Danny, already annoyed by Vlad’s whole… everything. “We need to talk.”

“By all means, come inside.”

Vlad’s mansion was as opulent as ever.

“Can I offer you some breakfast? Guaranteed not to come alive.”

Danny forced down the thought that soon his home wouldn’t be at risk for that, either, and shut the door behind him. “No thanks,” he said, and began to share what Frostbite had told him.

As he did, the smug look slipped off Vlad’s face, replaced with something stonier.

“I’ll have to confirm independently, you understand,” he said. It didn’t sound like a taunt or a joke, just a fact.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I have to go to school, so don’t get yourself killed.”

“I’m touched by your concern, Daniel, but unlike your father, I do understand basic lab safety.”

That had to be a new addition since college, but Danny kept the snark behind his teeth and just let the door bang behind him on his way out.

Vlad was waiting in the parking lot for him when school got out.

“Why’s he here?” asked Sam.

“Probably because he’s just as freaked out as I am,” said Danny. He sat down on the steps. “I’m going to wait for Jazz.”

“You sure, dude?” asked Tucker.

“I’m sure.”

“Okay,” said Tucker, dubiously.

“Call us if you need us to kick some vampire butt.”

“Got it.”

Danny only had to wait a few more minutes before Jazz came out. “Why’s he here?”

“Dunno,” said Danny, getting up and brushing off his pants. “Want to find out?”

They walked over to the running car. It wasn’t quite a limo, but it was long, and the back seats faced each other.

“So?” asked Danny, climbing in.

Vlad looked wrecked. “You were right,” he said.

“Wow, no kidding.”

Vlad waved off his sarcasm. “This is not time for jokes, Daniel, I– Jasmine.”

“Vlad.”

“I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Well, you get both of us or none of us,” said Danny. “You can drop Jazz off at home just as easily as you can drop me off.”

“And Jasmine’s car?”

“Aren’t you rich or something?” asked Jazz. “Just drive me back.”

Vlad rolled his eyes. “I can send someone to come pick it up.” He leaned over to close the door after Jazz, then tapped on the closed divider between them and their driver. The car started forward.

“So, you’ll tell them? Our parents?” asked Danny.

“I’ll try. But do you really think that will stop them?”

“Yes,” said Danny, forcefully.

“If they know it’s something that could hurt Danny, they’ll stop.”

“I certainly hope you’re right,” said Vlad.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Vlad’s sneer was a shadow of its former self. He looked genuinely ill. “Daniel, they already know their research has hurt you. Or do you think they forgot about bringing you to the hospital after your accident with the portal?”

“That’s different.” That was an equipment problem, not an issue with the content of their research itself.

“Is it? They are very aware that the same research landed me in the hospital for years, no matter how much they like to ignore that little fact.”

Normally, Danny would dismiss this as just another ploy of Vlad’s, an attempt to turn him against Jack and become Vlad’s evil apprentice, but… Not today. There was a little too much truth to his words.

“Did they even put up any safety measures after that? How about when they learned their portal was spewing dangerous ghosts into town at all the hours of the day and night?”

“They did,” said Jazz, although her tone rang false to Danny. It was true that they’d installed the doors on the portal, and the ecto-exodus alarm, but… for all they claimed to be dedicated to protecting people from ghosts, they hadn’t done much else.

Vlad leaned back. “As I said, I hope you’re right, for both our sakes. Based on my calculations, we should leave town before the month is over, to be safe. If they haven’t left by the thirtieth, I advise you to come with me. My lawyers can sort everything out after the fact, and if not, I have enough contacts to be able to create entirely new identities for both of us.”

“Do you have any idea how threatening that sounds?” asked Jazz, peeved.

“It’s a service Daniel might find himself in need of, if Jack and Maddie are unreasonable. I have no intention of dying or letting Daniel die because of this.”

The declaration made Danny feel better. Not much better, but better.

The car rolled to a stop. “In the meantime, I will try to use less drastic measures.” Vlad raised an eyebrow. “The question now, I think, is whether or not you will tell them.”

Danny hunched his shoulders and fiddled with the door handle. “Yeah,” he said.

“Excellent. Then we can begin.”

“Wait,” said Danny.

“What?” asked Vlad, flatly, clearly annoyed.

“Do you know where Dani is?” asked Danny, reluctant to bring Vlad into this particular problem, but unwilling to give up even the thinnest lead.

Vlad gave him a baffled look.

“Danielle,” clarified Danny, annoyed.

“Yes,” said Vlad. “Don’t look so surprised, Daniel. We may have parted on less than amicable terms, but she’s still my daughter.”

“You tried to melt her.”

“A misunderstanding.”

Danny wasn’t sure how that could be a misunderstanding.

“We all do unwise things under the influence of our passions, Daniel. The important thing is that we rise above them. You’ll understand someday.” He climbed out of the car.

“I hope not,” muttered Jazz.

Then, some of the conversation’s implications caught up with Danny.

“Wait,” he said, phasing through Jazz to get out fast and jogging after Vlad. “Wait. You don’t expect me to tell them now, do you?”

“Daniel, there is no time. Tell them now, or tell them never.” Vlad opened the door and walked in like he owned the place.

“Vladdie!” exclaimed Jack, who had been tinkering at the kitchen table. He leapt up and embraced Vlad, swirling him around. Vlad looked like he wanted to die again right then and there.

“Hello, Jack, is Maddie home?”

“Yes,” said Maddie, coming up the stairs from the lab. Her voice was about as warm and cuddly as sandpaper left in Antarctica for three months. “What do you want, Vlad?”

“I have discovered some disturbing news,” he said, “but I’m afraid that much of it will only make sense in the context of what Daniel is about to tell you.”

Everyone looked at him expectantly. Jazz gave him a small thumbs up.

Danny very much would have liked to strangle Vlad. If someone had to out themselves, why couldn’t it be him?

“What is it, Danno?” asked Jack.

Danny swallowed. “Do you remember that time I got shocked by the portal?”

As far as reveals went… it was neither everything he’d feared nor everything he’d hoped for. There had been a lot of shouting. No one thought he was dead or possessing his own corpse. Jazz had accidentally outed Vlad somewhere in the middle of an argument. He was able to go to sleep in his own house without being afraid he was going to be dissected. His parents had agreed to start the process of shutting down the portal. The only reason he wasn’t super ultra forever grounded for the rest of his life was because of the whole ‘might die soon’ thing.

It was exhausting. Danny didn’t know if he was glad it was over or not.

This whole week was exhausting.

He pressed his face into his pillow and swallowed back tears. He was going to miss his friends. Heck, he was going to miss his enemies.

He didn’t want to die.

Every time he went to school that week, every time he went to Sam’s, or Tucker’s, or the Nasty Burger, or anywhere in town, he was acutely aware that it might be the last time he was in any of those places. Every time he went ghost, he understood that this time might be it. Every time he shooed off an animal ghost or spotted Valerie in the hall, or saw the green glow of ectotechnology–

It was ending. It was all ending. At least for Danny.

He wanted to hold onto it. He wanted to stop time - and wasn’t that a temptation? To try to find Clockwork? But he’d learned his lesson about meddling with time, and there was no guarantee Clockwork was even still…

Danny settled on the word awake.

So, he did his best to savor it all, even the bad parts. It didn’t always work very well. There was too much tension, too much fear.

Tension and fear did wonders for his Doomed score, though. He was actually close to beating Sam, for once.

Except, no he wasn’t.

“No, no, no,” said Danny as Sam pulled a power move out of nowhere. “Argh!” Annoyed, he pushed his rolling chair back so he could stare more directly at Sam, where she was playing on the other side of Tucker’s attic. She wasn’t even looking at the screen, but staring over her shoulder to grin smugly at Danny. “You suck,” he said.

“No, that’d be you. You know, the one whose screen says ‘you died’ on it?”

“Ha!” exclaimed Tucker. “I’ve got the key!”

Danny turned back to the computer and started smashing the resurrect button.

Danny’s phone began to ring. He juggled it open with one hand. “Hi, sorry, Jazz, I lost track of time and–”

“Don’t come home,” said Jazz.

“What?”

“They–” Jazz inhaled sharply, angrily. “The ectoweenies are dead.”

Danny’s hand fell still. “What do you mean… dead?”

“They’re just. They’re hot dogs! Rotting hot dogs. I don’t– I think they’re experimenting with it. Mom and Dad. I overheard– I think they found some, and they’re experimenting with it, and some of them got into the fridge full of stuff we eat because neither of them ever heard about lab safety, and I don’t know if it’s safe for you to be around me, Danny.”

The death jingle played tauntingly over the speakers, three times over.

“What- Why wouldn’t it be safe for you to be around me?”

“For you to be around me. I could have black ectoplasm on me and not even know it. I don’t think it’s really detectable without an energy signature, is it?”

“Jazz,” said Danny, voice cracking. “Do you– Why?” He gasped. “Why would they–?”

“I don’t know.”

“You have to know!” Danny had to know!

“They said something about fixing– I don’t know if I heard it right. I just–” Her voice crackled over the phone. “Go to Vlad’s. Forget whatever they promised. Leave now. I’ll– If they ask, I’ll say you’re in bed.”

Danny closed his eyes. His face was wet. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I– I love you, Jazz.”

“I love you, too, little brother. Stay safe.” She hung up first. She must have known he wouldn’t.

“You have to go, don’t you?” asked Sam.

“Yeah,” said Danny, hoarsely. He scrubbed at his face. “I do. But… I will see you guys again.”

Tucker nodded. “You’ve still got our numbers and our Doomed codes, right?”

Sam threw a pen at him. “Not the time?”

“Then when is the time?” demanded Tucker, rubbing the back of his head. “When is the time, huh? When he’s gone and can’t contact us because he doesn’t have our phone numbers?”

“I have them,” said Danny. “Memorized. I– I’ll call. As soon as it’s safe.”

“You’d better,” said Sam.

He hugged them.

(He hoped it wasn’t the last time.)

The sun was just beginning to set when Danny reached Vlad’s house, and the comparison between the darkening sky and the darkening Ghost Zone made him shiver. He bypassed security and knocked on Vlad’s door.

“Daniel? What are you doing here?” Vlad asked. Unlike before, he was wearing clearly casual clothes. “Did something happen?”

“You were right,” said Danny. “They didn’t stop.” Danny’s voice cracked and he swallowed. “Jazz says we need to leave, now.”

“Oh, Daniel,” said Vlad. “I’m so sorry. Genuinely, I would have preferred them to see reason, for both our sakes.’” He reached back inside and grabbed a pair of long coats. The first he threw at Danny, the second he put on around his own shoulder. “Can I assume that second bag is your ‘go-bag?’”

Danny nodded. He’d kept one at the school, and hadn’t brought it home after the reveal. He hadn’t thought to. He’d raided his locker on the way to get it, and before he’d left Tucker had shoved a lot of other stuff at him that had gotten squished either into his backpack or the go-bag.

“Good.” Vlad knelt and phased a hand through his entryway tile before pulling out a hefty duffel bag of his own. “Then we don’t need to wait. I’ve had my plane fueled and ready to go at a moments’ notice since you told me.” He took two steps back into the house. “We will transform and fly there invisibly, to avoid notice. Can you maintain that for the entire journey?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, stepping inside and closing the door behind him.

“Don’t let your pride get in the way. Can you? Surely, you’ve noticed our abilities becoming more difficult to access.”

Danny had thought that was just him. Some kind of psychological thing. But if Vlad had noticed it, too… “I can do it,” he said.

“Good,” said Vlad, transforming. “Follow me.” He turned invisible and flew through the ceiling.

Danny paced him. “So, where are we going?” he asked. “On the plane,” he clarified, catching Vlad’s look.

“For now? Missouri. I have properties there that I never involved in my research and which should be safe for us. Afterwards, we will be able to assess our situation and move from there. I will have to contact my lawyers - our lawyers, now. The child endangerment and neglect case against your parents will have to be absolutely airtight, which shouldn’t be too difficult, considering the deathtrap they have downstairs and how long I’ve been collecting evidence.”

Danny wrinkled his nose. “And how long have you been collecting evidence?”

“Quite some time. Don’t forget, I’ve just been vindicated, Daniel.”

He wouldn’t. Not for a long, long time. “Is there anything else I ought to know?”

“I was able to get into contact with Danielle earlier today,” said Vlad.

“What did she say?”

“Not much to me,” said Vlad, with a hint of wryness. “She wants to hear everything from you before she believes anything I say.”

“And you didn’t call me?”

“She hung up on me. Don’t worry, she’s far away from any major supernatural hotspots. I thought I’d give her time to cool down and then contact her again while you were present.”

“Fine,” said Danny. “Where is she?”

“Poland, at the moment.”

They reached the airport and descended into the plane. Danny let go of his invisibility with a heavy sigh as Vlad went about turning on the lights.

“Our pilot will be here momentarily,” said Vlad. “Make yourself at home.”

Home. Danny put his bags on his lap and hunched around them. He’d been bracing himself for this. Really. He’d known he was going to have to leave for a whole week, now.

It still felt worse than getting thrown clear through a building.

“It’s true,” said Danny, looking out the landscape windows of Vlad’s Missouri estate. “I’m with Vlad, the Ghost Zone isn’t safe, the…” He trailed off, not wanting to recap everything. “I’m the one who told Vlad it was happening.”

“Okay,” said Dani, voice small and distant. “So… What should I do? If even your powers are getting harder to use…” She trailed off, but she didn’t have to finish the sentence. In more ways than one, Dani’s existence depended on the careful use of her powers.

“Let Vlad bring you back here. It’s– I know,” he said in response to Dani’s groan. “I know. But he doesn’t actually want either of us dead, and he’s got, you know, resources. And– And I don’t want you out on the streets in a foreign country, okay?”

“All countries are foreign to me,” grumbled Dani. “I don’t want anything to do with him.”

“Please,” said Danny. “Even if it’s just long enough for him to set us up in a boarding school or give us our own apartment or something.”

“You think he’d do that?”

“I have no idea,” admitted Danny. “He’s rich enough to. Please come, Dani.” Vlad was… not being as terrible as he could be, about all this. Actually, he was being… fine.

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. “Alright,” she said, finally. “I’ll come.”

Living in Missouri… Well, living in Vlad’s version of Missouri was beautiful, lavish, luxurious. Vlad was definitely going all out. But every day Danny spent here, it felt more and more like living in a photograph. The sunlight, the grass, the leaves on the trees… it all felt flat, as if something vital had been drained from underneath the world. Even sitting in the garden, bare feet in the fountain, felt unreal.

Danny didn’t know if that was just him, or if it was another side effect of the Ghost Zone going dormant. He hoped it was just him. That would mean it might go away if he got a grip.

“Daniel,” said Vlad, shoes crunching along the gravel path. “I think you’ll be pleased to know the court case is going well, and I am attempting to develop a decontamination procedure that might allow Jasmine to visit us here someday.”

“Okay,” said Danny. He swished his feet through the water. “Do you feel like…” He sighed, not being able to find the words.

“Every day,” said Vlad, sitting down next to Danny. “We won’t be able to stay here longer than a year. Our own ectoplasm will tend to form a thin spot.”

“That’s fine,” said Danny. “Dani likes traveling.” She liked traveling, and hopefully Vlad would hurry up and get her fake passport made already.

“I hope you will come to like it, too… Although, I’m not sure we’ll need to keep up that pace for very long. Our ectosignatures are fading. I suppose we owed more of our powers to the Ghost Zone proper than I expected.” He shook his head. “In any case, we should look towards the future. Our futures. You want to be an astronaut, don’t you?”

“Does that even matter, now?”

“Daniel, you are aware of how rich I am, aren’t you? I could buy NASA.” Vlad’s dramatic gestures matched his words. He even went as far as to light his hands with pink ectoplasm. Danny watched them flicker through the reflection in the basin of the fountain.

“No, you couldn’t.”

“No,” said Vlad, lowering and extinguishing his hands, “I couldn’t.” He kept looking up at the sky. “It’s strange, isn’t it? It’s strange. All this power we’ve had, and our passions, all our goals, simply… remained out of our reach. But now we’re losing them. Our powers. Our passions.”

“Do you think we’ll find them again?” asked Danny.

“Perhaps. Perhaps if we live long enough, if we fight hard enough. You do want to be an astronaut, don’t you, Daniel?”

Danny looked up, but not towards Vlad. He focused on the thin, faint gibbous moon, visible even in daylight.

“I guess,” he said.

Vlad patted his shoulder as he stood. “There,” he said. “Then we should start discussing your education, little badger! You can’t become an astronaut by moping around my mansion all day!”

Danny turned his head to regard Vlad with a mixture of disbelief and disgust. “Don’t call me that, fruitloop.”

“That’s more like it! Now, come along. We have tutors to vet!”

Thinking about potentially doing more with this continuity.

#danny phantom #dannymay #dannymay 2023 #dannymay 2023 day 6: eclipse #badger cereal

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kurosstuff · 1 year

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Hello, how are you doing? :)

Since requesrts are open and your writing is marvelous, I wanted to request an Azula x gn reader oneshot/fic where reader is a childhood friend who grew distant to Azula over time, but is now chosen to be her fiancé in an arranged marriage.

You don't have to write it, but I still hope you likr the idea!

Have a great day ^^

Hi! I'm doing better at least! Thank you so much♡ It means so much to me to hear you like my writing!

I'd like to apologize for not writing this sooner- was taking a break with long fics- and idk how accurate azula is still- haven't watched fhe show in so long-! Also hope I got Ozai ok? Never wrote anything with him in it before I don't think

I got carried away♡.. this came out as more of a reconnection type thing? Eh- maybe that's good?

Summary: read ask♡

Warnings(?): azula being azula, reader freaks out/panics alot, ozai, soft(?) Azula(she's like kinda nice sometimes); slight angst. Misunderstanding(but not really), friends to strangers to lovers(?), both reader AND azula are oblivious on how they really feel,

Azula x G/N reader: arranged

Being azulas friend had its ups and downs

Mostly downs

"Oh, come on, Y/N. Don't such a kid, " Azula grumbled, trying to get you to stay still. She read a trick where if someone still stays, a firebender can hit the target above the person's head without any injury. In a book for children for whatever reason. "I'd never hurt you," which is partly true - Azula wouldn't hurt you on purpose, or she would - you weren't actually sure

But like time- friendships come and go.

As you grew older, you saw how awful of a person Azula was turning out to be. How cruel of a person she truly was - how little care she had for another being - even her own brother. Seeing how she was amused and not concerned for her brother during the Agni Kai- you decided enough was enough.

This 'friendship' was becoming too dangerous too frightening. You were aware you can't just up and end the friendship you decided to distance yourself from her. Feeling confident, she wouldn't notice the change

You weren't sure if she ever noticed- if by chance she did. She never said or gave the indication she knew. After a couple of months, you stopped coming around to hang out.

You felt bad, but you believed this was for the best.

It's been almost a three full year when you received the letter. One you'd overlook if it weren't for the very specific golden charm closing the envelope showing it was from the royal family. Usually, being given this letter is either an honor or.. something much worse. Swallowing down your nerves, you sat down staring at the envelope for almost an eternity. Opening it carefully, you begain to read.

Everything seemed normal in the letter besides the fact you are to be summoned to the Fire Lord himself for something. Totally normal. Not like your gonna die or anything. Be shipped off to war maybe? You'd 100% are not worried.

Nope.

Rushing to get ready, you practically jumped in the air in Fright when you heard the knocking on the door. Your nerves were shot, and this whole thing was just making it worse.

You almost hoped to not see her there. But that'd be impossible since she lived there. Opening the door two guards stood infront of you looking at you sternly.

"Are you Y/N?" Nodding your head yes- you didn't trust your voice at the moment. They turned and gestured to follow "come. We will escort you to the Palace"

You don't remember anything on the way there - it was all a blur - you blame it on your nerves, but it did help distract from the imitating Palace. Until you got there. The two guards stepped out and opened the door for you - following them the huge door to the Palace opened slowly with a creek. You took a deep breath and stepped in- turning you watched as the doors closed, sealing your fate. Locking you in - A sound of someone clearing their throat caught your attention

"This way," following closely, you dared not speak, not trusting your voice - and for the fact your throat was so dry a word couldn't get out when if you wished it.

Being led by two fully armed guards was almost as unnerving as the lack of decorations in the halls leading to the Fire Lords office. It was devoid of anything to show the human side of him - if there was any. The only lights shown were from flames - obviously, one's from the Fire Lord himself probably made. The only sounds you could hear was the sound of your heart beating harshly in your ears and the metal taps of the swords on the guards.

Stopping in front of huge double doors, they turned to you unblinking. "He's inside." Was all they said before they opened the doors for you. Once you stepped in they shut loudly the candles blowing out closest to you leaving you alone in the dark- minus the glow of flamed down the hall. Clenching your hands you took a deep breath and tried to relax-

The closer you got to the flames- the more the urge to run as far as you could got worse- alarm bells ringing in your head at the thought of this all going wrong. Something practically 100% possible. Even on his good days, he would be cruel. Stopping in front of the flame wall blocking you from the full view of the man himself - Fire Lord Ozai. His face covered in the shadows from how he sat, but the flames didn't hide how terrifyingly huge he looked - bowing in respect you were about to great him- before he put his hand up to stop you

"Do you know why I asked you here?"

It took you a moment to gain the courage to respond - surprisingly, he allowed you the moment - as if he thought you actually knew the reason. "No, Fire Lord Ozai. I do not. " A deep hum was all you got in return - fabric moved, glancing up, you gulped.

He stood up.

Walking towards you, the flames moved, almost glinding out of his way like a door - he stood before you. Moving his hand in a gesture, you understood to stand straight up , your eyes cast away in respectfear. Walking around you in a circle.

Like a predator hunting his prey. He stood in front of you again after a moment. "Yes. You are perfect." The odd complaint from him did nothing to ease you - seeing your confusion, he hummed."There's an arrangement. Obviously, your Father never told you." The look you held did nothing to stop him,"the arrangement was. His firstborn was to marry my firstborn." The words he spoke caused a mixed sense of emotions in you- confusion, anxiousness. And fear from what was your next thought.

His firstborn was banished.

"But. Giving the events that unfolded with my firstborn. The agreement changed a bit. You will marry my second born."

Clicks of footsteps echoed behind you. You didn't dare look behind you.

"You are to marry my daughter- Azula. Whom I was made aware you were friends of sorts." Turning away, he walked back to his throne. "You will be Wed in two months."

Behind you, someone cleared their throat, turning around, and froze. Azula stood arms crossed, staring at you - almost glaring from how narrowed her eyes were. The same smug smirk from years ago is still present. She almost didn't seem to change much but all the more terrifying. Even if deep down you were happy to see her

"Well. Hello Y/N, " she spoke, voice coming out in a condescending purr. "It seems like we have some catching up to do." Turning, she gestured you to follow her

You followed Azula to her room. You've been in it once before, but that was years ago. Before you felt comfortable - now you felt uneasy - tense about the whole thing. Standing far away from the bed but close enough, you looked around the room - it looks the same as it did, but with some added things such as plants and a new dresser replacing the old silver one she used to own.

Azula sat on her bed, pulling some books out to go through every once in a while, looking up at you - face unreadable. Shows how much has changed before you could tell what she was thinking even if she wouldn't show it - now it's like she's a new person - and in a way, she is.

"What's the matter with you?" Azula asked(more like demanded), looking over at her- Azula seemingly growing frustrated at the books in her hands- what about you weren't sure. Turning towards you with eyebrow raised an annoyed look on her face. You haven't answered her yet

"Oh- uh, nothing. Why?" Humming she placed the book down on her lap- gesturing towards the bed. Getting the message you sat down on the edge. She sat silent for a moment before sighing.

"Look." She started after a while. She took a second to think her response through - it was an odd sight. Azula glanced at you- raising an eyebrow at the unnerved state you were in. Standing up, she walked to her counter. "I get it. The situation we're in is weird. " Pulling some object out, she turned to face you. Handing it to you. It looked like a squishy turtle duck

Seeing the confusion on your face when you took it, she sighed, facing away from you once the look of realization hit you. "You always needed something to hold to calm down when you got like this." She spoke, sitting down beside you. Turning it around the squish toy was the same one you were given- and forgot about years ago. When you and Azula were close. The same accidental burn mark on the shell of the toy. You still remember how she gave it too you

Sitting on the bench, you held your hurt, burning hand crying. Clutching them close - you knew you shouldn't have let Azula talk you into doing such a trick.

A dangerous trick - yet she did. And here you sat hurt.

And alone.

Hurried footsteps came from behind you - you knew those footsteps. Sitting upright, you used your uninjured hand to whip the tears away harshly. You didn't want to give Azula another reason to tease you.

"There you are" she spoke. Sitting next to you she held something behind her. Face slightly flushed from either embarrassment or what you didn't know- nor gave it much thought once a toy was shoved in your face "here- I. I heard from the towns people that a thing called a 'squishy' helps calm people down. Brings comfort or whatever. So take it. It's yours" Holding it in your hand you smiled tearfully. Azula looked like she practically softened before she turned to your hand- huffing she gestured for it

"we need to clean this."

The memory brought a happy smile to your face. Looking up, you saw the quick look of relief on Azulas face before it hardened. "..you kept it?" A shrug was all you got in response for a moment

"Of course I did." Azula mumbled before clearing her throat, brushing you off without a word. Turning away from you - Azula was silent as you messed with the squishy in your hand. Turning towards you, she opened her mouth before shutting it. This caused to pause - Azula never hesitates, nor does she stop until she gets what she wants. Somethings wrong

Before you could ask, a knock came at the door. After giving permission, a maid came in bowing, "My lady, your training room is ready for you." A wave of her hand and the maid ran off hurriedly down the hall.

"You're coming with me." Azula spoke standing. She walked to the door, glancing back at you - an eyebrow arched. Obviously she was waiting for you to follow. Trying to swallow your nerves you jumped up putting the squish on the bed before turning to follow Azula.

The walk was quiet

Entering the training room a couple test dummies stood around the room. Arms stretched out like you used to see from the target practice dummies you'd come acrossed before.

"Sit there- I'll be back" Azula pointed towards some benches a bit far off- you sighed- it's better to just let her do what she says half the time anyways.

After you sat on the bench, Azula moved to the changing room. Her mind jumbled. Scattered around, and she couldn't think of a good reason as to why. Pacing back and forth, she clenched her jaw angrily

Azula was panicking on the inside - ever since she found out it was you, she was to marry. Even worse when she saw you. Would she be a horrible wife? Be like her father and treat her spouse horribly to the point of another abandonment? No. She won't be like him. Azula refuses to treat the one she's bound to in such a way - even Azula isn't that cruel of a person. She's not soft - she's not kind either. She knows the reason why you left her even if you didn't say.

It was her fault

Learning the first choice of who you were originally gonna be married to didn't help her feel good at all. Did you know you were gonna marry her brother? That you left cause of that? The selfish, selfish side of Azula prayed that was the real reason you left. She knows it's not, but it's just easier to think

She wants to prove that she's the best choice - the only choice. Of course, the arranged part of the marriage didn't make her feel happy made her feel horrible. If you were to marry her, she'd want it to be of your free will - not be forced.

Azula stopped pacing. What? Why is that the thing she's focused on. Blinking she crossed her arms. Of course the thought of someone being forced to marry her set an uneasy feeling inside her, but. The thought of marrying you wasn't bad at all-

Why is that? It makes no sense why Azula was and still is hung up on a loss of a friend. The loss of you since the beginning was horrible. It made her sick- she'd admit it only to herself now that she missed you- but.. why does she feel relief from the thought of marrying you? Was it cause she knew you?

Shaking her head she quickly got dressed

Fiddling with your thumbs, you glanced around the room - thankfully, in a more relaxed mood. Your heart no longer felt like leaping out of your chest. The whole area was spotless- which wasn't a surpise given how certain people would react to a messy training hall. You shuddered at the memory.

Looking over when the door opened, your face flushed a bit. Azula was already looking your way when she came out. Without a word, she stepped up and moved the dummies a bit before she begins she started to stretch. Standing straight she smirked back at you.

"Keep those eyes on me," she begain her training. Hitting the dummies far back with a punch in the air- blue flames came out in a flicker illuminating her air and passing some of the training dummies closest- but surprisingly never touching them. Only hitting her target

It wasn't much of a surpise on how good of a fighter Azula was- but you can't help but you can't help but still be surprised at how well she can control her flames. You've seen fire benders fight and train before, this wasn't the first- but it was the first seeing just how different she was to the others. If anyone else tried this. Tried to hit the target from the farthest to the front. 100% the flames passing the others would be hit and burned, but for Azula- it was like it never touched.

The more she hit and kicked, the more in awe you were in watching. If anything, it looked like a dance you'd see from how fluent and confident Azula moved to attack.

As quick as she began, the training ended. Azula walked towards you, and she didn't even break a sweat- even her hair was kept in place even though she was hitting and kicking. Standing infront of you she crossed her arms almost smirking. "Well?" She spoke with an eyebrow raised

"You were perfect! How did you even do that?"

"I'm a natural. No trouble at all" Azula spoke smugly- she wasn't gonna tell you how long it took for her to get the attack right when she was younger. Everything needs to be perfect. Azula hummed, interrupting your praise for a moment. "..We added more flowers to the garden. I'll show you" she spoke almost oddly. The praise you gave her felt weird- but it filled her ego. Of course it was perfect.

This was Azula

Nothing less than perfect no matter what.

She turned to leave to redress ignoring your call.

"We'll go once I come back"

The garden wasn't totally different from how it was since the last time you saw it. The tree in the middle has grown much older but still hanging strong - a knew bench was placed near it, giving the tree and pond underneath. The sun hitting perfectly in-between the leafs and from the rocks below made it have almost a glow to it.

Looking around, the bushes nearby were cut in the specific square way the Fire Lord himself seemed to prefer rather than the rounded ones. Stopping once you heard quaking noises. A smile came over your face, walking to the center pond. You knelt down, looking at the turtle ducks

"Here. You can feed them if you'd like" Azula spoke, holding a small bag of bread out. Thanking her you took it and started to break them up. Azula watched her eyes softening at the sight.

Azula couldn't put her finger on what was wrong with her. Was it her nerves? Why does this scene in front of her make her feel off? The way you're kneeling in front of the turtle ducks the way you gently fed them. The way the lowering sub hits your face. Blinking, she scowled, looking away from you. Looking out to the pond on the other side

"Do you want to feed one, Azula?" Not getting a response, you looked over, frowning at what you saw.

Azula looked almost troubled by something. "Azula?" Calling out to her gave no help. It was like she was here but not here at the moment. Calling out to her again in a softer tone to not startle her- she blinked at you slowly before registering where she was. Standing up, you watched her closely

"Azula. Are you ok?"

Azula just nodded slowly. A moment passes before she bits her tongue. A question on the tip of her tongue. She doesn't want to ask. But she has to. She needs to if she really wants to not be like her father. Not in this way at least

"Are we still friends?" Azula asked before she could stop. "Like I know this is an arrangement but. Are we?"

You didn't responded right away. Just stood there thinking. The way she looked at you- you couldn't tell what she was thinking. It was like looking at a new person. Slowly nodding your head "yes we are." You bit your lip in thought "can we have a do over? From how things ended-" it was a selfish thing to ask. To pretend you didn't just disappear from her life.

Azula nodded her head

"Then.. we can start over?" You said, looking away from Azula for a moment - turning back to look at her - her gaze was on the pond in front of you both.

"Don't see why not. We're not getting married for a couple of months, so we have time"

#azula x reader #avatar x reader #azula #atla x reader #azula kept the squish toy totally not cause it reminded her of you and she missed you alot #and she totally didnt keep it in good condition cause she hopped youd comw back♡#idk i kinda added the panic/squish thinf cause i was panicky earlier and wished i had something like that♡#so um♡ hope you dont mind #this is more of a rebuilding of a relationship and more type thing #like- idk??

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kittyball23 · 5 months

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Could you please do a fanfic about Bruce and Brandi? I’ve always been in love with married couples and now I’m just in love with them and no one talks about them! It’s killing me! Maybe how they met or something but it’s okay if you can’t. ☺️

Sure thing! I like this ship, too :)

Meeting You (a Trolls fanfic)

Slowly, but surely, Spruce came back into consciousness.

He hadn’t quite remembered when he had been knocked out, and was still not in the right mindset to remember exactly how, either. His head was fuzzy, throbbing with a dull but persistent aching, and his whole body felt like someone had beaten him senseless. He willed himself to move, but was unable to find the energy to do so just yet. Everything seemed heavy, his muscles burning with soreness and protesting against anything that would require him to shift his position.

Suddenly, somewhere in his mind, he had a dreadful thought. Maybe I'm… dead.

But his conscience was adamant to not believe that. He couldn't be dead! The life he'd had was a short one, barely two decades worth of existence, and it would be unthinkable that it could end so soon.

Straining to search for any sign that it wasn't true, Spruce honed in on his senses, trying to pick out anything indicative that he was not, perhaps, actually dead yet. It took a second, but soon he heard it - the sound of a voice, worried at that, and a little muffled, coming from nearby. And, as his hearing equalized back to its normal level of sharpness, he came to note that it was, in actuality, coming from right above him.

"Come on... wake up..."

He felt what seemed to be a large hand pressing down on his chest, pumping rhythmically up and down against his sternum.

"Come on," it came again, in a desperate whisper this time. The pumping continued and, with the building of pressure within him, Spruce felt a substance rise in his throat, salty and acidic, and finally a violent cough sputtered out of him. He gasped for air, hacking hard for a few moments before it finally subsided. Then, slowly, he forced open his heavy eyelids. His vision swam for a moment before focusing enough to make out the basic shapes composing a face. A tall, blurry, indistinct figure hovered over him, outlined by a stunning halo glow that, if possible, made him feel even more breathless than he already was. Hoarsely, he managed to find the ability to speak.

"Am... am I in heaven?"

A light, feminine laughter met him. "No... but I guess this place comes as a pretty close second."

This place? Spruce rubbed his eyes, blinked a few times to adjust to the harsh, bright lighting, and squinted. Now that he could see clearer, he made out the powdery white sand underneath his body, and the thick jungle-like foliage some distance behind him. Blue waves crashed at a shoreline several yards away from where he lay, in the company of whom he presumed to have been his rescuer from whatever the accident was that he'd endured. She was not a Troll, that much was clear, but what creature she was, he couldn't say he had a clue. But, even with the intriguing felt texture of her skin, stringy yarned hair, and puppet-like features that devised her characteristics, there was still something awfully alluring about her.

She was staring down at him with large, dark eyes, her expression filled with concern. "I was worried I'd have to do CPR. Are you okay?" she asked.

Suddenly, even in his withered state, Spruce felt the need to turn up the charm. "Better, now that I'm with you," he purred seductively. Or, as seductively as he could. It was difficult to sound an ounce attractive when his voice sounded like it had been put through a meat grinder. Oh well. At least his abs would fill in where his words couldn't. He turned to lay fully on his back, so that the firm, pectoral muscles were very much visible, and continued. "But just to be sure, I wouldn't mind you performing some of that mouth-to-mouth." He winked and pursed his lips, waiting to see how she'd react.

There seemed to be a sparkling look in her eyes, like one of enchantment, and Spruce believed his captivating spell to be working... until she spoke.

"Hmm. I dunno, you seem pretty fine to me."

He took it in stride. "Oh, I am fine, baby. And so are you." Spruce smiled at her, and gave another quick wink. She laughed softly, rolling her eyes at him with obvious affection, and leaned over to gently pat him on the cheek. Spruce felt his insides flutter, though he remained outwardly cool. He didn't want to appear too eager - there was a certain method to his madness, after all.

A method, it seemed, that she wasn't going to so easily be played by.

"Nice try," she whispered, getting back up on her feet and starting to head off.

Spruce was surprised to see her go so quickly. "Wait! Miss, uhh... um..." He trailed off, not actually knowing what to call her.

"Brandy," she responded.

"Miss Brandy," he repeated smoothly, wondering if her lips tasted as subtly sweet as the drink that was her namesake, "you wouldn't just leave a gorgeous, hunk of man laying in the middle of the wilderness, would you?"

Brandy paused in her steps and turned to look back at him. She tilted her head and smirked. "Maybe," she said coyly, "if he was uninjured and more than capable of walking back to town after a few minutes of rest."

Shoot, Spruce groaned inwardly. While feeling a tad bit bruised from the rough waters that had tossed him in the first place, he sported no major traumas on his body. He'd be more than capable of doing what she'd said without so much as a problem. A tad exasperated that this was not going the way he'd wanted it to, Spruce sighed. "Come on, girl, I'm trying here!"

Brandy chuckled. "Well then, I guess you'll just have to try a little bit harder then, huh?"

Spruce watched her saunter towards the trees, a small grin stretching across his features as he remained mesmerized by the slight sway her hips made with every sashaying step she took. After a few moments, she called over her shoulder.

"You're welcome for saving your life, by the way!"

And with those parting words, she slipped into the treeline, leaving him alone to stammer one meager, lovestruck reply.

"Th-thanks!"

#trolls #trolls 3 #trolls band together #spruce trolls #brandy trolls #sprandy #dreamworks #fanfiction #kittyball writes #thanks for the ask!#kittyball answers

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masc7scht · 8 days

Text

Min Hee Jin x HYBE drama

Lets decode

Updated: 23-4/24

Ador and mhj "escape hybe "documents?

The heirophant reverse , the magician

Heirophant rv is misuse of power , the magician is indicating here " a bad decision " Its true but some information is manipulated , seems like its leaked by an insider of the company , if she confirms it she will face heavy charges for it , id she's involved then she'll try her best to save herself from it , seems like she's also shifting the blame continually like going round and round, not sticking to one thing . Also someone else is involved who might be taking all the blame soon . Something here is hidden and manipulated .

Who is this MR . L/A ? And how is he related to MHJ?

2of cups , the lovers , 3of pentacles

Ohh its a big investor , they have a good relationship and bond with each other like their ideas align , they have a lot of trust in each other , seems like they think each one of us is experienced as artists, directors , producers and they take really great decisions together as well . I refuse to believe this person is new , this person has been working with her or knows her from a long time , this could be someone with a feminine energy , they both are overprotective of each other .

Mhj and hybe's company secrets?

10 of cups , 8of cups , 2of wands

Seems like she knew a lot about future projects and how it will be handled , she had plans for it but both hybes and her's plans were too different so it created issues, they may also delayed her salary or something . She knows a lot about internal information about hybe's groups and connections with big names of korea , believe it or not they are trying to trade with her gently so she doesn't expose them . She knows a LOT about where this company dumpts their secrets . About their foreign affairs , burried controversies, power play , tactics , everything. She feels like they are trying to ruin her legacy and she's not happy about it , thinks its a dumb decision. Something also about an old groups mistreatment or trainees mistreatment ?

Min hee jin feelings about hybe?

6 of cups rx , 2 of swords

She feels used like they never treated her better , she thinks she had to do everything by herself and still she didn't got much credit, she feels trapped and she hated how much control they had on her , she knows hybe have numbers on her like they initially ignored her past claims and thats why she partnered up with them for projects but now they are bringing up issues to manipulate her is how she feels , very feisty woman she is , like she is street smart she knows they want an agreement with her and she wants to win so she's trying to get the public and people on her side . Except her to speak on new jeans and their projects a lot .

BANG PD feelings on MHJ?

3 of swords ,nine of swords

Oh he's mad big time , seems like they cannot get her to agree to one single thing , thinks people are constantly betraying him , he's feeling regretful , he feels kinda helpless and sensitive about this issue , he thinks someone big who is important to him is also involved , he's really upset he's not happy about this whole situation and how Hybe's reputation is being judged like that . People from different areas are pressurising him ? Oh why do i feel like there's a big company involved who's not happy with their arrists information being leaked like that and this company is very protective of their reputation and stuff like they are really mad at their mistakes and thinks its an nugu mistake i wont be surprised if they lose various connections with different companies after this , the main thing he's worried about is money tho for some reason ,this situation will get worse before it gets better , except then trying to cover up everything .

ADOR'S feeling about the situation x illit responsibility?

3of pentacles rx , 6of swords

nah they are not playing about their new group , they were really not happy with people's decision about their group , they are worried about their artists like hybe was trying to use their artist and they thought hybe wouldn't focus on them a lot , they also feel like they were purposefully trying to create controversies of illit and associate them with big groups , like they knew the conflict they would face if hybe is trying to get them out in the market like this . They really want people to focus on their group like if the general public will say , " dont perform this song " ... Then they would really listen to the public , they dont want any dirt on their groups . They also feel a lot of illit projects is not working put because of poor management they also feel like many big names of the company didn't focuse on them a lot as they should. Someone didn't kept this promise .

I remember my illit x bm reading where i channeled , they need better managerial system omg.

What is going on in the company right now ?

Death reverse

A lot of people are feeling uncomfortable, people are worried for their money seems like this issue just erupted like that ,no warning no controversies no nothing . They are really pressurised to keep up with their image, i wont be surprised if many of their employees is involved in this as well like they are really doing numbers on every one .

Yeah why do you guys think about this ://

Expect everyone trying to release various information on each other here and there 💁🏼‍♀️

#yourpsychicfriend

Alledgy for entertainment purposes only

#kpop tarot #bts tarot #formis9 tarot #new jeans tarot #illit tarot #enhypen tarot #txt tarot

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dextixer · 7 months

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"Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me", "Once its happenstance, twice its a coincidence, thrice is deliberate", " The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. "

Many quotes/sayings exist in many different languages and many different cultures, all carrying the same meaning. The meaning that while mistakes can and WILL happen, a person should learn from those mistakes to not repeat them. Making mistakes is natural, understandable. Repeating those same mistakes over and over however, indicates a problem, a problem that rarely has an excuse.

RT is no different in this regard. As always, we are at the point where the crew commentary is released, that part of the year when many a critic and fan can read the thought of the crew producing RWBY, and despair at what they see.

It was revealed and i think known a bit before the recent days that RWBY Volume 9 had an entire episode cut, in the second part of the show. It was "unforseen" complications that lead the crew needing to cut a lot of stuff and keep the "most important" parts of the episodes, thats why after Ruby suicide the cut-away seemed so strange.

While i did not see CRWBY make any excuses (yet) about this besides saying that it happened, many fans are already doing it for them, simply saying that these are just "expected" things in production, that CRWBY are not to blame, and yet, they are.

Priorities

First of all, CRWBY are the ones who decide on what parts of the show to prioritize in production. On Twitter Eddy Rivas confirmed that episodes 1-7 were fully produced before episodes 8+ were. The argument presented there is that the solution of "Cutting things from 1-7 and add more to 8+" doesnt work because they were both done at different times of production.

While that is true it does pose a question on why exactly does CRWBY keep doing this then? This problem is not new, the fact that many of RWBY volumes are very back-ended and it causes problems is not new and has been known for a long time now. This is the reason why in most of the Volumes, critics usually focus on things that happen at the end of the Volume, because that is when most of the problems with things like writing occur.

So why continue doing this? So many of RWBY plotlines can be better distributed alongside the entire Volume instead of trying to cram it in at the last second. Lets take for example a character like Oscar. Volume 7 proved that Oscar and his relationship/changes due to Ozpin can be very well done if its all distributed properly in the Volume. Compare this to V6 where it all has to happen offscreen just because "There is no time" to explore Oscar.

Why is then so much of V9 so back-ended? Apparently there was going to be an explanation there that Neo gained her new powers because she landed in the God of Darkness acre. The Ascencion phenomena was going to be expanded upon. We have Ruby and her suicide. We have Jaunes break-down. We have Rubys break-down and i could go on.... and on.... There is just SO MUCH there, why?

The explanations of Neos powers could have been done earlier in the Volume. Ascencion could have been distributed during the entire V9 etc.

Instead we have parts of an episode focused on a talking trash panda that ends up not mattering as an example?

It just feels like the wrong things are prioritized in the show and most of them are back-loaded to such an extent that its INEVITABLE that it will cause a point of failure. Just like it did the REST of the times with the preceding Volumes. Why has that lesson not been learned yet?

When one builds something, the most important first parts are a skeleton. You can do the rest later, but you should have the MAIN feature of your product finished first, everything else is extra. And yet it seems that RWBY constantly tries to do everything at once and then when they inevitably fail to actually finish it all, they start cutting important stuff.

Ambition

The other problem is that there is just SO MUCH SHIT that they want to do. They want to use the Ever After to confirm BB and to further give their relationship time. They want to focus on Neo, her new powers (Now related to the God of Darkness). They want the Ever-After to explore Ruby and Jaune and their developments after V8. They want to explore the concepts of acceptance and reincarnation. They want to develop a new character, Little. They want to connect the Ever-After with the gods of RWBY. Thats just SOME of what they tried to focus on, and at the end of the day, isnt it a bit much?

This always happens with RWBY, the show writers dont seem to understand their limitations and they try to cram as MANY ideas as they can into a Volume, when that Volume wont be able to properly develop those ideas in the first place. This is why a lot of RWBY kingdom arcs feel like they miss an entire extra Volume, be it Mistral or Atlas. They simply have no time to develop the concepts they want.

But instead of cutting down on them and focusing on whats most important, they keep stuffing more and more things into the show. And then decide "Well, people will understand/guess what we kept offscreen".

Did you know that Neo got her new powers with Jabberwocker (Basically, literal fucking death?) because she landed in an Acre that belonged to the gods of RWBY? Well, we were supposed to "Guess" or "Understand" that according to the writers. HOW? I have no idea. But we were "Supposed to".

This is the kind of thing, this bloat that plagues many an indie development. Where the developers/makers just add more and more features that pop into their heads, instead of focusing on what they already have and is important.

Understandable in V1-V3. But holy hell RT is a full on corporation right now, so now its no longer understandable.

End Word

Anyways, apologies for being missing in a large capacity for this, entire month i think? Way too much stuff to do, also got involved with wiki editing, which takes a lot of time. Next thread will be next week and i will focus on the suicide/reincarnation/acceptance message that the Volume tried to portray, because the crew commentary has given me more info to talk about.

"Budget" and "Cuts" stop being excuses for the shows writing when its a regular occurrence.

#rwby #rwde #crwby #roosterteeth #rwby volume 9

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agentperezbian · 10 days

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Anyway, what are some examples of Adam's kindness in the film? /gen

Unfortunately, because pretty much every scene of Adam outside of the bathroom (besides his kidnapping) didn't make it to the final cut of the film, I'm mainly going off of the original Saw script as well as deleted scenes from Saw 3 for my assessment of his character. Which means you can dismiss everything I say if you want, because only what makes it into the movie would be considered canon.

That being said, I like to consider the outline of Adam's character we see in the script as well as the scenes written and filmed for later movies to be indicative of Leigh's vision for the character, and not something to be tossed out just because they ended up on the cutting room floor.

The scene where Adam, who states how far he is willing to go to get money for food, gives his last bit of milk to a stray cat is a big one for me. He states that he likes how "non-judgmental" the cat is. Which I think alludes to Adam being harshly judged by those around him and maybe even avoided by others due to the way he's perceived. We learn that Adam used to want to be a vet in the script, and these two factors together seem to indicate a large love for animals and a desire to help and care for them. Adam in the script definitely shows nurturing traits.

We have the cut scene from Saw 3, a flashback of Adam and Amanda running into each other in their apartment building. Adam compliments Amanda's hair and tries to get her to open up a little. He's awkward but polite, and seems to feel bad about potentially making Amanda uncomfortable. He seems to flounder a bit but doesn't get upset even when Amanda barely says a word. He's handing out flyers for Scott's band, spending his free time giving them free promotion despite the fact that from what we learn, Scott doesn't seem to value Adam's friendship much. This, to me, is more evidence of Adam going out of his way to help others, with seemingly no reward for doing so.

Adam, to me, displays a very self-sacrificial personality. He seems to not really value himself very much. John calls him apathetic and it's very much true, but he isn't apathetic to others. He's apathetic to himself. Even when he tells Lawrence "facts" about him they all relate to things other people have done to him. I think he very much sees himself as a passive observer in his own life, which is why it's so easy for him to hide behind a camera. When he kills Zep, it's to stop him from killing Lawrence. Despite the fact that Lawrence had just shot him. Really, it would be more beneficial to let Lawrence die and continue to play dead - it would be safer, and allow Adam to attempt to escape. But he saves Lawrence anyway. In the original script John calls Adam a pawn, and i think even without him outright stating it this theme is still very much present in the film. The pawn is never meant to achieve greatness. The pawn will never be able to satisfy its own wants. The pawn can only elevate others.

#sorry for taking so long to reply to this #saw #adam stanheight #anon #ask

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cyber-corp · 10 months

Text

A summary/review of parts 1-100 of Homestuck

~by a gecko who knows what a Megalovania is

Let's start things quick and simple. It is the distant year of 2009, where the date is the 13th of April. It is the protagonist John Egbert (aka Zoosmell Pooplord)'s birthday. How fun!

John's actions are very much based around RPG mechanics (the Sylladex, Captchaloging, etc.), which as indicated by the chatlogs seems to be the norm in this world.

Once he opens the magic chest in his room, he gets access to a variety of artifacts, some of which he'll use later. He only takes the smoke pellets at first because he's stupid.

We get some glimpses of the author Andrew Hussie's dated yet charming late-2000's humour through asking John to shit on his desk.

After nailing a Little Monsters poster to his wall (a gift from his Dad), he gets a message from one of his friends on Pesterchum, TG, who says that he got the beta for SBURB for John's birthday.

However, his dad has just come home and John doesn't want to go through the trouble of holding a conversation with him. In the meantime, he figures out how to use his Strife Specibus by allocating the Hammerkind Abstratus, and reads the GameBro magazine, which John seems to have a loathing for.

However, with the freed up room in his Sylladex, he creates a convincing disguise to fool his dad and grab the SBURB beta (it won't).

He goes downstairs into the living room, examines his father's shitty harlequins, knocks over and picks up his Nanna's ashes and opens a large gift for himself, which is also a large harlequin.

Before deciding to sticking fake arms on the harlequin, John gets a message from another Pesterchum mutual, TT.

TT oddly knows everything that John has done up to this point, including being in possession of the SBURB beta and wearing a funny disguise. They tell him to go get the game from his father from downstairs.

After snooping around his father's study and playing a little tune (which is a great way that Homestuck utilizes its medium), John heads outside to the mailbox, to find that dad has already scooped the mail.

But there's a sense that something isn't quite right. With "Windchime Foley" by Clark Powell playing over empty streets and a main title appearing, it implies this scene is the true beginning of the story. The text mentions a "Desolation" that's playing the tune diegetically throughout the streets/town. Maybe it will be a long day.

John heads back inside to finally confront his father and sneakily get the beta, but oops! The disguise didn't work (who would've thunk it?), and there's only to get pass him, which is with a Strife!

(This fight scene's really cool, I quite enjoy this)

After the Colonel's book activates the smoke pellets, John quickly snatches his father's PDA as a joke, and finally gets his hands on the SBURB beta, which is where I ended off.

So is it good? I mean, yeah.

Even if I only read what is a tiny, tiny fraction of Homestuck's story, I can still see how so many people became obsessed over it. The cutesy, almost surreal art style (complete with low quality JPEGS in the vein of Newgrounds), Hussie combining the mystical with the silly in his writing, and the brief bits of music in it illustrate a very "calm before the storm" feeling. I can definitely see how people like Toby Fox were inspired by it.

Despite what some think, the first little bits of Homestuck are an enjoyable experience which foreshadows something bigger yet to come. Solid 8.

#homestuck #andrew hussie #john egbert #review #summary #i probably won't do this again #i'll read some it later #PUT THE BUNNY BACK IN THE BOX #gecko

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merakiui · 7 months

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Ooooh now I'm imagining all sorts of Danganronpa style drama for Azul's trial. So many false leads and tricks!

Someone strong (like Leona) is found dead and weighted underwater, so everyone immediately suspects the 3 merfolk. Some unintentionally specist comments get thrown around. But that's too obvious, right? There's evidence that excludes them, and the arguments go elsewhere. Who is capable of overpowering the victim, etc.? He has injuries that indicate a struggle.

Some eventual evidence indicates the cause of death was drowning. Suspicion returns to the mers. Did they work together to keep him underwater while he fought? He's so strong, it's still hard to believe. Would two of them actually be willing to die while the other wins? There are scary rumors about the Leeches. Was Azul even involved? The Leech twins start playing up their sketchiness (they're angry by this point). But there can only be one killer.

To Azul's horror, someone ignorantly mentions there were circular imprints on the victim's arm (with a picture). He was extremely cautious! There is NO WAY he left sucker marks; he even checked afterward. If they were familiar with octomers, they'd know the marks aren't even the right shape!! He's flipping out now and messes up his words. Nervous chatter has always been a trait of his. The jury ends up deciding the three of them worked together, but Azul is the killer since he had to be the one holding the victim, causing his drowning.

Azul IS the killer, but he's so upset they got all the details wrong. He did everything himself. He meticulously planned everything, accounting for the victim's UM, and krakened him. But he did not leave any of the evidence mentioned and those sucker imprints are fake 😨😡💀!! Now he's going to die looking like a fool where he wasn't.

Before Azul's punishment, Jade reveals that he figured out it was Azul before the trial. He knows him too well. He planted the main evidence because, while he cares for Azul, he has no intention of letting himself and Floyd die for him.

I like the idea that the twins remain super sketchy and intentionally misleading for all the other trials, without actually ever being the killers. They're very angry, and its their way of grieving Azul.

YES YES YES!!!! This is the vision in its entirety!!!! orz the twins continuing to be suspicious menaces even after his execution is perfect.

Azul spends the majority of the game being annoyingly kind and helpful, if only to spread goodwill and reduce the risk of being targeted. He may cut a strikingly scary figure when he's with the twins, but the truth is that he's an animal of prey at heart and he'll do whatever it takes to survive. So as nice as he seems, it's all an act to keep himself safe and on everyone's good sides. He keeps his ears to the ground, always wanting to know as much as possible, and he is genuinely helpful in the trials, if not a little pompous.

But he's so anxious. The killing game is wearing on and he desperately wants to get out of here. How is he going to keep up with the lounge if he's stuck here? This is horrible! He's losing so much business with every passing second! On the surface, Azul keeps himself composed, but beneath perfect smiles and his obnoxious flair for theatrics he's cracking.

I imagine the trial is filled with twists and turns and it's so very convoluted. It couldn't possibly be one of the merfolk, right? Anyone with enough strength could have drowned the victim. It's very possible. Azul keeps his composure up until the moment when everyone starts to suspect and turn against him. His own logic is falling apart and though he's used to quick-paced arguments and discussions in business this is different. They can't be serious. Do they all really think he's the one at fault here? Honestly, he wouldn't revert to his true form to commit murder. Come on! That's foolish.

With all eyes on him, Azul starts to break. It's suffocating to be under such intense scrutiny. Everyone's accusing him of such a monstrous thing. They're all bullies! >:( it's not fair! He's only ever been good and helpful and obedient! Sure, he may have seemed suspicious when he was with the twins, but that's just how they are as a group! It's all just an act to look intimidating, to look strong, to look untouchable. He's not a killer. He's a businessman.

He snaps when the twins don't take his side. So they're just going to bully him, too? Is that it? And from there, everyone sees the real Azul. Foul-mouthed and impolite, he's pointing and yelling, insisting that it can't be him; it could never! Why would he throw his future away just to commit a crime? Why would he make such a risk?! He's a businessman! His eyes are blown wide with delirium. He's definitely breaking into a laughing fit during the trial like how he did during his overblot. >_< he's crazed... it's haunting to see. The twins would feel bad, but he chose this. You make your mistake and you pay for it. Isn't that what Azul always says when debtors refuse to pay what they owe?

He's hysterical until he isn't. Until he can no longer be. After the vote comes in and he's declared the blackened, he gets this far-off look to him. Maybe he's reflecting. Maybe he's not. Maybe he isn't even thinking at all. No one can tell.

It's strange to see the twins without Azul. Their terrifying trio is forever down a member.

#twisted chit chat #azul breakdowns are my bread and butter <3 #the emotional range he has... it's so good #going from composed and calm to sobbing and screaming... aaaaaa it's wonderful #he can get so unhinged when pushed to the edge and i love it

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luveline · 2 years

Note

I'm always a slut for "you deserve someone better. someone who loves you." maybe with James? – 🎻

tw for toxic relationship (not with james)

Chasing after boys who don't like you is one of your favourite hobbies. Said sarcastically, though from the dedication with which you do it, you'd think it to be true. It doesn't matter how nice you are, how sweet you've been, how much you think you might be liked in return, something about you must drip desperation. You're always caught.

Your current love affair, a boy who can't decide whether he likes you or not, has just splashed his drink at you. It's summer in somebody's back garden, a barbecue roars and its heat ripples the air a few feet away. You've only mentioned how hot you are once, but this boy, he can't think you're deserving of any sympathy.

Despite his intense desire to be kind to you when alone and on the phone, around people you're more like a pet.

"You're hot?" he asks, and his eyes crease in kindness. Something about his mouth makes your stomach hurt.

"Yeah," you say lightly, smiling big, always smiling all the time, "it's so warm today."

You watch as he dips his fingers into a cold glass of pop and flinch as he flicks it at you. He and your friends start to laugh. You laugh too, uneasy as he tips an ice cube into his hand and holds it to your skin. You pull away, giggling and feeling like laughing is the last thing you want to be doing.

"Do you feel cooler?" he asks. You hate him suddenly. He sounds so genuine. There's not a single indicator that he's being anything other than playful, not even when he tips his drink down your chest.

You gasp from the cold and move away.

His laughter is roaring. One of the girls frowns and asks if you're okay, but the rest laugh.

"I'm so sorry! It was an accident," he lies with a smile. "You won't complain about being hot again."

Your small group of friends are part of a bigger group of peers. You push away from the table and meet eyes with a smaller group informally referred to as the Marauders, who you know. Some better than others. James, the sweetest, looks mildly disgusted. You flinch at his gaze and go to step away.

"Are you serious?" the boy asks, rolling his eyes, looking all in good nature. "I'm sorry, Y/N."

"It's okay," you say. You wince at your voice, how it shows clearly the upset you're in.

"Come on! You always spoil it!"

"I'm gonna… gonna go ask Mary for a towel," you say.

You're lying, obviously, skirting straight past your friend's table, down the side lane of the back garden and out into the driveway of the home. You slide sideways until you're sure you're out of view, horrified when tears start to fall. Your hands are shaking. Your breathing is worse.

You look down at your ruined shirt and then cover your face with your hands.

You hear footsteps down the lane towards you and hold your breath, turning so whoever it is can't see your face.

"I thought you came down here. Is everything okay, shortcake?"

"It's fine, James," you say, recognising his voice straight away. His voice is deep and unbearably attractive. Lilting in places, especially during pet names.

"I brought my hoodie if you want it. I know it's too hot."

You don't say anything, sniffling to yourself uselessly.

"I need to go home," you say.

"I'll drive you home," he offers without missing a beat. "But I'd love it if you stayed."

"I don't know why I let him humiliate me."

James doesn't seem very startled by your confession. You feel pathetic. Maybe you are – so desperate for love you'll take it from people who can't stand you. Who don't like you.

"You don't let him."

"I do. I do… I do," you scrub at your eyes cruelly. James skirts to your side. "I let him do that to me. Because he thinks he can. He knows he can get away with it because I don't stop him. I… tonight I'll be apologising to him over the phone and I hate myself for it."

"You don't have to," he says.

"What?"

"You don't have to apologise to him. Or hate yourself for it, if you do." James leans against the wall and tilts his head. You're afraid to look at him like this, worried that you're ugly covered in tears. It's a silly thing to worry about but it's intrinsic. You're rewarded with his reassuring smile. "If he… if he hit you across the face, would you hate yourself for it?"

"Did I defend myself?"

James' face is steady. "It doesn't matter. He shouldn't raise a hand against you. Do you get what I'm saying? I saw what he did, shortcake. I know how he treats you."

"Everyone knows."

"I don't think they do. He's a great character."

"He's not that bad."

"No, sweetheart. He's awful. Truly awful. He's a total dickhead, he's mean to you, he messes with you. It's like watching a cat play with a mouse."

"I'm the mouse?"

James extends his hand until his knuckles brush over your arm. Short seconds of contact before he pulls away. "No, I'm sorry. It's not what I meant. You're not a mouse."

"I think I can be. I keep letting all these guys treat me like rubbish. Because I-" You shake your head and look down at your hands. Because I'm lonely. Because I don't think anyone will ever love me the way I want them too. Because I've always taken what I can get, and what I get is too little.

You feel in two minds, one that's ragged with pain and another that feels like you're being increasingly dramatic about the whole thing.

"Y/N," James says. "I really don't think you're letting people hurt you. I don't think it's your fault."

"I just wanted him to like me," you mutter.

"You deserve someone better. Someone who loves you."

You sigh and dry your face with your sleeves. "I hope so."

"You do. Of course you do. Not someone like him."

You raise your chin slightly. "I'm too embarrassed to go back there but I think going home will be worse. You know? If I go back in I'm a kicked dog, but if I go home, everyone's gonna make out like I'm being dramatic."

James squints at you. "Come and sit with me. That way you're not going home but he doesn't get what he wants."

"I can't," you press your parted lips together and try again. "I don't want to impose on all your friends. And to be honest they're kind of intimidating."

"Who? My lot? They're all idiots."

"James."

"Y/N. I want you to come sit with us. Please."

You meet his browned honey gaze and think carefully. Someone better.

"If you're sure I won't-"

"You're not," he cuts you off, pushing his arm through yours. You half laugh, half gasp as he drags you up the lane. "Marl wants to meet you so badly."

"I've met Marlene."

"Properly meet you. She says you're really pretty."

"She's delusional," you joke.

"I must be, too. Full blown insane, because I think you're beautiful."

You forget about the cold streaks over your chest and let yourself be pulled back into the garden. You've barely an opportunity to look in the direction of your last situation or your friends as James sits you down in his seat and braces his arms behind you, his hands hanging in front of your shoulders.

"Collecting strays?" Sirius asks, though he grins at you to let you know he's joking.

"She could totally be a cat, right?" James leaps to ask, hand squeezing your shoulder.

"Meow," Sirius says.

#james potter x y/n #james potter x reader #james potter x you #james potter x reader blurb #james potter blurb #james potter imagine #marauders era #marauders #x reader

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rivalsforlife · 8 months

Text

The Yearly AA Series Future Speculation Post

I've given up on calling it aa7 speculation because that has never worked out for me. anyways [apollo justice voice] hiya!

It's been a while since I made one of these little posts where I try to predict things and end up horribly embarrassing myself. BUT this year has actually been very exciting for Ace Attorney. We have Ghost Trick! We have 456 ports! Could there be more? Who knows. Tokyo Game Show is coming up and that's always a bad time of year for my self-esteem.

In this post I will do the following:

-Go over the November 2020 leaks again, to compare that to where we're at now

-Talk a bit about the 456 port and what I think that means for the series and its future

-Talk a bit about how well TGAA is doing, I think

-Brief Tokyo Game Show speculations (there's not much to speculate about)

I'll reference my previous posts and sources where necessary. It'll get long and rambly again so I'll put the rest under a keep reading.

FIRST:

Revisiting the Calendar (Again)

For those who aren't aware, back in November 2020, Capcom got hacked (this was overall bad) and from that hack came a leak of a roadmap for the future of the AA series.

For this post, please keep in mind that this calendar is using the Japanese fiscal year, which starts in in April. Therefore Q1 is roughly April-June, Q2 July-September, Q3 October-December, Q4 January-March of the next year.

This calendar was likely made in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, which inevitably ended up throwing everything off quite a bit.

Some of these things came true. This leak was where we first heard about the official TGAA ports, and while they were delayed by about a quarter, they still came out pretty close to on time with all things pandemic to consider. What's especially interesting is that now with confirmation of the 456 ports, we now have no idea what is up with AA7.

We know that AA7 was in development at one point. We know that, if things were on track prior to the pandemic, they might have started the main production. However, the plan seemed to be to release it for the 20th anniversary and use those sales and the sales from TGAA to judge whether 456 would be ported; now that we have 456 confirmed before AA7, we can assume that AA7's delay is so severe we have no way of predicting if or when it will come out.

The thing is, though, AA has been doing really well the last few years, despite the lack of a new game. The 2019 ports of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney trilogy have sold around 2.3 million copies, when previously no other Ace Attorney game broke a million. The trilogy hit a million copies around December 2020, for reference. Ace Attorney itself as a whole broke ten million copies sold recently. In this post I covered how TGAA seemingly has sold way more than Capcom expected, and sold pretty quickly, and is confirmed to be somewhere between 500k-1 million copies sold.

I don't see any reason to believe that AA is in dire financial straits. We've gotten more official merchandise in the last year or so than we got for a while, AA is featured heavily on Capcom's Captown website, the Tokyo Game Show merchandise store has been selling out of AA merch faster than any of their other IPs... I don't see why they wouldn't want to milk that. And 456 is probably a part of it.

What Do The 456 Ports Mean

Back in March 2022, in an event I almost completely forgot about, Capcom updated their trademark for Apollo Justice. I covered my thoughts on that here, and speculated it might indicate a 456 port. ... Which it apparently did. I'll quote exactly what I said in that post, since I still feel this way:

Presumably, previously, the decision to port or not to port 456 would be dependent both on how well TGAA does and how well AA7 would do. With no AA7, they might be making this decision solely based on TGAA. And they… might actually decide it’s worth the port?

This tells us a couple of things.

1.Capcom is aware that there is a decent market and profit to be made porting the Ace Attorney games to all consoles.

2.This heavily implies that TGAA sold fantastically.

I also said in my post about TGAA's success that the 456 ports would be the best indicator of whether Capcom would find it more profitable to continue along with mainline or stick to writing more things about TGAA. Because TGAA is actually doing... pretty great? It's always seemed to have a pretty good fan reception, but it came at the end of the 3DS life cycle and seemed to do poorly enough that Capcom didn't try to localize it for several years. But now it's big enough that Ryunosuke made it onto the 20th anniversary logo, and Ryunosuke and Kazuma are featured in some of the Ace Attorney merchandise for TGS's merch store.

456 doing well would probably reinvigorate Capcom's desire to continue making stories set in mainline. It also might inspire them to finally give an official translation to my favorite game, Ace Attorney Investigations 2, who is Capcom's poor unloved child these days. I'm not expecting Investigations Ports for a few more years, since they seem to be spacing out the ports by about two years, but... it's more likely now than I felt it was about three years ago.

The Great Ace Attorney Sweep

Also, the last few years have had a heavy focus on Great Ace Attorney, even now a couple of years after the ports came out. Takarazuka made their first AA musical in a decade based on TGAA, and, if you ask me, it sounds pretty heavily like they were teasing for a sequel someday. There also has been a reading theater based on TGAA, with an original episode written by Takumi.

Of particular relevance is this source of dubious credibility I linked to in one of my other posts talking about TGAA's expected success. I've assumed it came from the data in the November 2020 Capcom Leak but I can't be certain, so take this next part with a grain of salt.

Here are the original sales projections from 2019(?): FY21: 195K (originally supposed to launch in Q1) FY22: 55K FY23: 8K FY24: 41K (with 32K being in Q3)

This sudden increase in FY24 has always been interesting. Again, as a reminder, Japan's FY24 Q3 would be equivalent to October-December 2024.

It would make sense to say that the 456 ports coming out would likely lead to an increase in sales for all AA games, and it could be that Capcom initially intended for a 456 port to come out about half a year later than the current projection of early 2024. At the same time... I can't deny the possibility that this could be hinting at a new game in the TGAA setting. And something coming out in late 2024 could be a reasonable candidate for an announcement at some major gaming show that Ace Attorney fans already have an interest in tuning into. These are all completely neutral things I am saying that I have no expectations or hope for whatsoever.

What IS Happening At Tokyo Game Show?

TGS is always the part of the year where I say "This is the most likely place for a new AA game announcement leading up to or during it" and it never happens. This year, though, will be different! We have a CONFIRMED feature of the 456 ports. This is the first time we'll have AA content at TGS since 2018, when I first got into the series, so I think it's a pretty big deal. (2018 was when the trilogy ports were first announced; TGAA ports had an announcement-release window of April-July, so they didn't get a chance to feature at TGS.)

Since all we have for a release date is early 2024, I wouldn't be surprised if there will be an official confirmation of the release date, probably a showcase of port features, maybe in-person gameplay? That could be all, and it would be more than we've had since 2018.

I want to say "because there's going to be 456 advertising there, it would be ridiculous for them to announce some new AA content to detract from that". But I said the same things about the capcom showcase where Ghost Trick was featured and the 456 collection was announced, so. Capcom's decisions on when to announce things can be counterintuitive, it seems, so maybe the least likely time is actually the most likely...?

Anyways, we have no idea what the state of New Ace Attorney Content is like in Capcom. From the calendar from the Nov 2020 leaks, the staff that had been working on the DGS ports would join the main staff for AA7, suggesting to me that there would be part of the staff working on ports and part of the staff working on new things. We have no idea what happened to these people who were supposed to be working on AA7. We *can* assume that at least part of the staff transferred over to 456 ports now, but we don't know when that would have been, or if they'd really need all hands on deck for a remaster.

It's been a few years now since Yamazaki left Capcom. We know absolutely nothing about what Takumi has been doing, outside of whatever contributions he may or may not have made to the Ghost Trick remaster, and only recently contributing to various stage content. (We know he advised at least somewhat on the Takarazuka play, and wrote that original episode for the reading theater, so I'd assume he's not in the middle of a big project right when those were taking place.)

This is all to say, there's reason to believe Something's Been Happening Behind The Scenes. And Therefore -- [clown wig descends onto my head again] Maybe TGS 2023 Will Be The Year Of New Ace Attorney Content. Since 456 will be taking the spotlight, I wouldn't expect anymore than a teaser, if it's happening at all.

And now that I've said it, it won't happen.

OVERALL

-TGS confirmed 456 port feature, which should be interesting to see what kind of quality of life features they'll add. Slight possibility there could be something else AA related teased there, solely because Capcom.

-I think TGAA is doing better than Capcom expected and I wouldn't be shocked if they tried to make a new game of it, or at least more extracanonical content like stage plays taking place in that timeline

-AA7 has seemingly vanished but I am sure it will come back when I least expect it.

-AAI ports someday. please. please. please.

#ace attorney #aa7 speculation #[banging pots and pans together] YEAR 3 OF FAILED PREDICTIONS LET'S GIVE IT UP FOR YEAR 3 #there's not much to say here I just wanted to get something out as we're heading into september #do I even want aa7 anymore? no. am I speculating anyways? yes.

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blazehedgehog · 3 months

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Between Shadow costume being added to Sonic Superstars, and Shadow Generations being a thing,,,,,, My theory is that these games will introduce us to Classic Shadow as young Shadow in his Generations levels. What do you think?

Well, since making that post theorizing on levels, I've thought about it a bit. I rewatched the teaser, broken down parts of it in my head.

So what's going on in the trailer?

(A lot of images follow.)

It opens simply enough: we see Shadow on the Ark. Time frame is unknown. There are GUN robots everywhere, but that's not necessarily an indication of anything. These could be leftovers from the raid 50 years ago, so this could be modern day, this could be Sonic Adventure 2, this could even be a flashback to that raid.

We see Shadow, mid-Chaos-Control, kicking some kind of device or possibly even a warhead away from the Ark. It seems like some kind of nose cone of a rocket, but there's also a big window or door on the side.

The next thing we see: Shadow's still on the Ark, running down a very similar corridor he met Sonic in right before their final race. He runs into Doom's Eye, who seems to emerge out of a black and red portal.

Doom's Eye gestures like he's saying dialog, but we can't hear it. His eye bulges and rolls around before the creature flies away and the Ark disintegrates around Shadow. It disintegrates to reveal Westopolis, where Shadow first met Doom's Eye.

But it's a crazy, hallucinatory, Dr. Strange fractalized version of Westopolis, the whole city folded in on itself, buildings jutting up towards a skyline that goes in all directions. Doom's Eye returns to taunt Shadow some more and we see a bit of Shadow running around this Westopolis, the strange broken city still in the background.

What this says to me is that we're going to open on The Ark (Shadow's investigation), but the game is going to transition seamlessly into Shadow in Westopolis. This is probably all one level, and Doom's Eye pulls Shadow through time, possibly to a broken, impossible version of the past.

I think to some degree this is going to try explaining why parts of Shadow (the game) contradict each other. If some readers out there don't know, that game has ten different endings. Each ending is about Shadow understanding a different version of the truth about who he is and where he comes from. Some endings directly contradict each other, like there are two different endings where it's implied Shadow kills Dr. Eggman, and others where he does not do that.

Once you see all ten endings, the game's true final boss unlocks and you get one last 11th ending to tie everything together... except this last leg of the game confusingly picks and chooses different elements from the other ten endings to canonize, suggesting Shadow somehow simultaneously experienced multiple conflicting endings and remembers them all.

(By all accounts this does not seem to be intentional, that game was just held together by chewing gum and duct tape.)

Given that Chaos Control has actually straight up allowed time travel in these games, it wouldn't surprise me if this is going to comment on how confusing that was, and either attempt to untangle or at least explain why it was so confusing.

The very next shot we see is Shadow back on the Ark, fighting The Biolizard at the end of Sonic Adventure 2, but things are different now.

The Biolizard has all these tentacle-like shredded wires coming out of its back on either side, which weren't there before. The arena is much more enclosed, too, with a tiled roof evoking the echidna temples in Mystic Ruins.

It's worth mentioning that we see a shot of what looks to be the very start of the boss fight, where Biolizard seems to drop out of the sky, landing in front of Shadow. It's tough to see through all the water, but the wires aren't there yet.

The fight probably starts out evoking its original battle, and then shifts to introduce new elements, such as when the Biolizard climbs up on the roof around the arena:

Here we see The Biolizard covered in some kind of purple goo, shooting a litany of projectiles at Shadow, who returns with a Chaos Spear shot.

We see various rapid shots of Shadow in Chaos Control breaking some kind of glass orb. All of these appear to be at different points during the Biolizard fight, as you can sometimes make out parts of its body or the arena around Shadow. (Meaning this is the glowing red core on its back)

If this is a thing about either Black Doom or Shadow trying to rewrite history and change Shadow's past, I don't know if I see much room for switching to a Classic Shadow. And, historically, in the lore of what we know, was there even a Classic Shadow to be seen?

Like, Shadow was grown in a lab and we've only ever seen him the same age as Sonic. To that end, Shadow himself is effectively immortal. It has been said many times that Shadow has "eternal life." And that's partially because Shadow isn't even a "real hedgehog."

Or he's not a hedgehog like Sonic is. He is a "bio-mechanical android." This means he looks like flesh and blood but a non-trivial portion of his body is a robot, a fact these games almost never comment on or explore in any capacity. But it's the whole reason Eggman had all of those Shadow clones in Heroes and later the Shadow game -- they were technically robots, not actual animals.

I didn't consider it at the time, but whether he's Young or Old, he is going to look exactly like he does right now. You even see this in the games:

When Shadow knew Maria on the Ark 50 years ago, he looks exactly like he does now.

And then, in Sonic 2006, Mephiles shows that humanity grew to fear Shadow and locked him in a prison. This particular scene is 200 years in the future, but the imprisoned Shadow in the purple cage has not aged a day.

I don't think there will be "Classic Shadow" levels, and I don't think "Final Chase" and "Westopolis" will even be separate levels.

This could go in some really weird directions.

#questions #pangolien #sonic the hedgehog #sega #sonic team #shadow the hedgehog #sonic 2006 #doom's eye #black doom #sonic x shadow generations

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analoghorrorexplained · 11 months

Text

Every single plot inconsistency and error In UrbanSPOOK in order.

This covers the first 6 episodes. Content warning for just about everything. As for why I am doing this? I hate bad writing that relies on shock value.

EDIT: apparently Urbanslug is Swedish which honestly explains the lack of understanding of American gun culture and some of the bizarre logistical details. Either way, I take back nothing. If you googled enough to describe murder in this much detail, you can google enough to understand the setting of your story.

These uploads are digitized versions of the tapes in question so we can assume they were found recently. However, the number at the end of the tapes is a 985 number which is an area code that used to be used in Lousiana for the areas outside of New Orleans. However, it was only used from 2001 till Hurricane Katrina. After the hurricane hit most numbers were switched back to a 504 area code which the 985 one was meant to replace. This means the murders had to have taken place between 2001-2008 when the code was switched back to 504. While this might not seem like a big deal since VHS was still around in the early 2000s, DVD had already outpaced VHS sales by 2001 and by 2008 VHS tapes themselves stop being produced on a wide scale. Given these taps are implied to be a method of locating victims and or the killer, it seems like a pretty bizarre way to go about doing that since the format these tapes were made in was already beginning to die when they were made. And given how the internet was becoming more popular around this time, its strange how the person making these takes did not use that format instead given it was both available and made more sense to get the word out there.

Speaking of the tapes: they are formatted in a very bizarre way. If the person making these tapes wanted to bring the killer to justice why is a majority of the focus placed on how the people in the tapes were murdered and the paintings left behind? Why would the focus not be placed on clues left behind by the killer like fingerprints, camera footage, personal effects, or anything that might point people in the direction of where the killer is? Why are there VERY FEW exact locations mentioned? Why are the details so vague? If this is meant to raise awareness or find answers why are all the details that might do that so vague? If these tapes were meant for the police like as a "this is what is going on" kind of way (like what we see in the first episodes of Mandela cataloge regarding the alternates) why does it have a contact phone number at the end? If a PI made this the same general "why would you graphically describe the murder but not include any other relevant information" issue still applies. And if this is a recording of, lets say, a true crime type show: where is the host, B-roll footage, or anything else to indicate this is a show? And if the killer made these: why add the number? I get the killer is cocky since he is leaving paintings behind: but this is a bit too much "suspend your disbelief"ey for me if we are going by the rules of normal reality, which it seems we are. These tapes seem to not have any reason for existing other to provide a backstory to the paintings. They serve no in-world purpose.

Why were the police in a random abandoned warehouse and why were all 3 paintings stashed in that 1 specific place. Was this where the killer was camping out? Where were these other 2 paintings found? Why Is the tape leaving out so much relevant detail?

While 2 of the first victims are women which implies this being sexually motivated, the last victim out of the 3 initial victims isn't. Along with this, there is no pattern between the parts taken/mutilated nor a connection between any of these people. Since we are not shown dates or locations there is no way to know how connected these victims are. Why is the killer going after these people?

If this has gone public, why is more not being done to stop the killer or at least track him down? Why are people not on higher alert? What police department is investigating this? And since "2 days ago" is mentioned in the episode: ONCE AGAIN WHAT TIME FRAME ARE WE OPERATING ON HERE?!

Why is the killer targeting cops? It makes sense from a "haha fuck you, you cant catch me" perspective but it does not make sense for the painter to target bill specifically and deviate from the "pattern" already kind of set by episode 1 unless Bill was somehow the head of the investigation, which was not ever stated.

"A few miles" is a long distance for corpses to be dragged or for people to be taken on-foot (which they presumably were). If the collins family was still alive when this happened, given Bill was a cop, why did he not fight back? And if not, how was the painter able to get them from point A to B without being caught (unless the car was ditched after)

If some of the paintings were found BEFORE the events of the lighthouse (including the ones featuring Jennifer and the bunt kid) why did the police not cross-reference the missing person's names with the names found on the paintings?

If those photos shown are supposed to be in-universe photos of the Collins family before they were murdered, they were either turned into something (other than mush) by the painter or those are not actual photos. They look too much like the paintings for me to think of them as in-universe photographs.

Why did the painter rip the twins in half and sew them back together again? While his mutilation of Cory's genitals and the stuffing of a brick down the throat of his sister (in a manner similar to a blowjob) seems consistent given the fact the painter is more or less a sex offender: the sewing people together does not. Unless you want to look at the parts which... given Cory was mutilated from the waste down and his sister's torso was sewn onto his legs... you cannot make the argument that it was for the intent of making a "futa". It is just brutality for brutality's sake.

If that cabin is implied to be the home of the painter just like the lighthouse is implied to be a body dump WHY ARE POLICE NOT LOOKING INTO IT FURTHER

How was the painter able to get into Tom's 3rd-floor apartment via the drainage pipe on the outside and manage to encase him entirely in wax? Was Tom a candle enthusiast? Did the painter have a vat of hot wax with him? How was this logistically possible in the time frame we are given. Along with this, given how Tom is neither a child nor woman (or police from what we know), why was he targeted? Further more: since wax does not always dry the fastest, especially when there is that much, how was Tom not able to free himself/why was he in an upright position? Unless Tom was drugged, even with the lack of arms he could have still moved.

Sean is a PI helping the police with a series of violent murders. He also presumably lives in Louisiana, AKA the South. This is presumably post-9/11. Why was Sean not armed and why did no neighbors come to actually help? How was the dog also not able to do anything either? If he got Sean by surprise I might be more understanding but for a PI investigating a violent serial killer in an area of the US known for its gun ownership: I feel like the fact the Painter has not been shot either by the cop, Sean, or ANY of the neighbors or victims is impressive

Assuming Sean installing a security camera was motivated by the painter, why does Sean only have 1 SINGULAR CAMERA. WHY WOULD SEAN NOT HAVE ADDITIONAL CAMERAS? And furthermore, why would nobody else have additional cameras around Sean?

This part about Tina' and the "south coast" road trip is confusing since the "South Coast" is apart of California which is on the other side of the country. If they meant "Gulf Coast" (which is where Louisiana is located the murder location would make more sense. However, due to it being named strangely, I am not sure if they meant California or Louisiana given other named locations (IE Tiger lake) is in Louisiana. Once again, I have no idea where things are happening.

If the cops found Tina so shortly after the attack, why was the painter also not found then either?

Why did the painter inject her with something? It does not seem to alter her mental state, she is still totally conscious, and I do not think the painter is using anesthetics before he amputates her ENTIRE ARM and her feet or is attempting biological warfare. What was the point of being injected in the first place?

Tumblr got mad at me so I need to break up the list.

18. Why is the painter so angry Tina lived if he really did not do anything to kill her in the first place. He might have had more planned, I am not sure, but all the painter did was inject her with something that does not seem to be important given we are never told what it is. If its medicine that is wildly out of character. And besides amputating body parts, the bodily damage done to Tina is nowhere near what has happened to other victims. The fact Tina lived is not surprising, at all. Tina would have bled out after awhile but it is not like the hammer to the face, the lighting on fire, or the stabbing in the taint.

19. The painter looks like Riff Raff from rocky horror picture show. This is not a plot hole I just thought it was funny.

20. Once again how is a retired cop who LIVES ON A FARM not armed or able to defend himself from a singular person?

21. This is never addressed but why is the horse skinned in the photo? It died by heart failure due to being pumped full of viagra. Where did its skin go? I get it is supposed to be implied that the horse SAed the wife to death, but I am wondering why the skin being gone is not being acknowledged or if its just from the fact the artist made the horse itself too red.

22. How was the killer able to live in that milk house without ANYBODY noticing.

23. So the painter now have several gimmicks. He seems to target women and children to sexually assault and then mutilate, the people living with them as collateral, and current and ex-police. The painter is also "the painter" so they paint twisted portraits of these people. BUT NOT ONLY THAT, THEY ALSO WEAR THE SKINNED FACES OF THE VICTIMS. So they are a pedo-zoophile rapist who hates cops and skins people that also paints their victims at some point before they die. This is a lot of shit going on. This is also why the victims seem to be all over the place. This serial killer targets too many groups at once.

24. So it is now implied that the painter is making the tapes which,... again, why? Why would the painter have an incentive to do that? They are already taunting the police enough.

25. This is Louisiana WHERE ARE THE SWAMPS. WHERE ARE THE GAITORS, WHY IS THE SETTING NOT USED AT ALL

So in short:

The victims in relation to each other make little sense due to how many "targeted groups" the painter is pulling from. Most serial killers have a type. The painter seems to have several.

The VHS tapes make no sense since they do not really do anything other than info-dump for the viewer of the series. They serve very little in-world purpose and we never see any other media from this universe outside of the paintings left behind or these tapes.

The details regarding location, time and character relationships are extremely vague at best and do not set up a good timeline for us to follow.

The painter being 1 person or even human is really questionable since its kind of implied there is either more than 1 person behind the painter (like a killer and the painter are separate people) or the painter is a demonic/paranormal entity.

For being such an in-universe threat the police seem to be doing fuck all (minus the one PI who is now dead) to stop anything. Its implied we found the painter's lil hideout, why is fuckall being done?

The lack of guns in post-9/11 America, specifically a post-9/11 South.

Why is nobody able to overpower or harm the painter if he is "just a guy"?

Why is there no other in-universe worldbuilding or even testimonies from still living family?

WHERE ARE WE, WHY DID I HAVE TO GOOGLE THE PHONE AREA CODE TO KNOW THAT? WHAT YEAR IS IT? WHY IS THIS EVEN IN VHS FORMAT

#analog horror #analog horror explained #urbanspook #urbanSPOOK

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linnaealyn · 10 months

Text

Been working on again off again on a Xenogears portrait mod for two years now, started in Sept 2021 right before I actually finished the game for the first time. Some time ago I started adding upscaled (hand painted) versions of UI elements, so I guess its now a general texture pack I'm working on.

Its done through RetroArch's Beetle PSX HW core real-time texture replacer.

My goal with this is to make a texture pack that stays very true to the original look of the game. I don't want to redesign elements, impose too much of my own influence into it, and make the game look like it had an identity crisis. I still want it to look like Xenogears in the end, just upscaled, and where the portraits are concerned I want it to look as close to the original artwork as possible, with no scanning artifacts and low res quality- as if we actually had digital versions of Tanaka's original artwork.

Also, this isn't intended to be super high res 4k or anything, idc about that.

Figured I'd make a full post here going over everything I've done so far. I'm on the home stretch! Just a few more left.

⬆ Starting with UI. I replaced the red selection arrow, the red/grey spheres, save block icon, save/load text/bar, Walk/Gear icons (more about that one later), compass cardinal points (was unable to get a proper dump of the circular compass texture), and the dialogue diamond and selection diamond within menus.

I totally get it if someone wouldn't want to use something like the dialogue diamond, as you see it all the time right beside the pixelated text and it seems to stand out more in dialogue vs the one in menuing bc your attention is typically focused elsewhere while menuing. In the end, all changes are optional and to remove something all you have to do is move/delete the equivalent img file from the texture replacement folder. Within said folder I have a sub-folder titled "alternate portraits" where I keep alts and things I want to "disable" without outright deleting.

⬆ In combat UI I've replaced the HP/dmg numbers, the Time/AP/numbers, battle palette text (used for other text as well), the circle and tags of the battle palette, Time/AP/fuel bars, green Gear text and numbers, Gear attack level/♾ indicator, black Gear UI backgrounds, and combo icons. The red arrows have been replaced, but unfortunately the black arrows around the red cannot be replaced based on how the game does it; it is not a texture you can change, it is a triangular shaped box that the game fills with the black texture from behind Gear UI.

⬆ Menu/gameplay buttons. Also numbers/"points/fuel/cancel end" Someone mentioned playing with a switch pro controller or joy-cons so I threw an ABXY version together as an alternate button display option. Used the same typeface as the combo icons to keep some consistency with a typeface already in-use as well as for overall clarity.

⬆ Also, DB icons, EP/Fuel/Miss text, and "total damage". Unfortunately, the other DB icons (showing the △🞪☐ highlighted) cannot be replaced as far as I can tell. The battle UI textures (the 17 or so textures of the same thing in varying hues) shows them on it, but changing them in each one of these textures does not change the icons. It does not pull from these specific texture dumps, in other words; its just one of those that doesn't dump, like the circular compass texture.

⬆ In working on the Walk/Gear icons I wasn't sure exactly how I'd go about doing it because the original is literally just that tiny. So I had the idea of putting a little Fei & Weltall in it, outlined by the same grey. Thought it might be weird in the other party members' menus, idk, and I don't like changing things too much from the original, so I decided to just use Fei/Weltall as the grey silhouettes instead. Ill keep the Fei/Weltall one as an alt option if anyone wants to use it.

⬆ And the minimap. Kept B&W so that the colored dots (indicators of where all you can enter an area) aren't difficult to see. I do have a colored version as an alt, though. Credit to Adelinold for having ripped the 3D maps and made a bird's eye view "minimap" esque screenshot of the world map some years back because it is absolutely perfect for use here.

~~~~~

Now onto portraits, the main bulk of the work. This includes dialogue portraits, menu portraits, and gameplay portraits. I go through each one individually, find the highest quality version of the art, and clean it up manually, painting over it to get rid of any jpg rot, scanning artifacts, or print dots from scans while keeping it as close to the artwork as possible. In order to keep colors consistent across the board (because scans of the artwork can vary) I'm picking from the sprites. One portrait typically takes 2.5+ hours, not including testing them in-game. Each one needs to be tested in-game and edited to make sure semi-transparent pixels around the portraits don't result in black or white pixels in the area that should be transparent.

⬆ Direct comparison to the sprites. I'm not too strict about how I match how much of the art is shown, but in instances like this I like to show more of the character than the pixelated portraits allowed for. However, this wouldn't work for everyone as Fei's default portrait is also used when Kim is naked from the hips up.

For the Captain I specifically wanted to get his pipe within frame. Typically the portraits end just behind their ear, have the eyes at 1/2 to 2/3 height, and end just above the clavicle.

⬆ Some portraits like Kim and Elly have no artwork equivalent, but were pretty basic to make with the artwork of Fei & Elly that we do have.

⬆ Other characters have no artwork equivalent whatsoever, like Stein and Wel-Gear Hammer. For Stein I had to take the collar from Stone's artwork and paint something from scratch using Stein's sprite as reference. This one was more fun to do than I expected because its a special case, entirely different from all of the other portraits. For example, usually the artwork has 4 colors for skin- base color, shadow color, deep shadow color (usually seen directly under the chin, used sparingly), and a highlight color for on the nose or lip. But with Stein his skin had many different colors you could pick from the sprite and no equivalent artwork to limit yourself in how many there actually are. So in trying to get it looking just right it took something like 7 different shades of varying pink, red, and orange. It clearly has more dynamic shading compared to all of the other portraits.

For Wel-Gear Hammer... I did my best given what all I could see was even happening in the sprite.

⬆ I made a close eyed Elly portrait as there is no artwork of it and a bomb collar Fei and Hammer portrait using the bomb collar in Rico's art. Its fun playing around with them when there is no equivalent artwork.

⬆ Made an unsmiling Citan to mirror his unsmiling dialogue sprite vs his smiling menu sprites as well as alt Krelians to better match the expression of his mouth that the sprite has vs the artwork. (sprites are always a bit stretched compared to the artwork, btw. even when you rip them from the disc)

⬆ I'm also working on alternate versions, like a two-eyed Bart I did for fun.

~~~~~

It is finished! 1.0 anyway. Right in time for the North American 25th Anniversary! I just gotta get it uploaded somewhere.

I'll continue to work on the ones that I think still need more work, but for now even the ones that are in rougher shape are passable.

Ill have two versions of the mod- one with stretched and cropped portraits that work in 4:3 (much like the sprite portrait bmps in the base-game that end up looking fine in true 4:3. they kind of end up blurrier due to stretching the artwork) (with Crop Overscan set to None) and another version which isn't stretched or cropped so its as crisp as I could get them, but in order to get them to display the image exactly as they are in-game without squishing you need Crop Overscan set to Static (removes horizontal padding) which makes it just slightly off 4:3. Honestly, to the untrained eye its hard to tell it isn't 4:3. 🤷‍♀️ The only thing you might notice it really affecting would be the animated cutscenes.

I'll make a master post for the mod itself, separate from this. This'll end up being a bit of a time capsule for me.

#Xenogears #xenogears spoilers #Xenogears texture mod #texture pack #modding #Playstation 1 #PS1 classic #long post #oh cool this was my 100th post huh lol #updated 10/14/23

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submerged-into-clouds · 5 months

Text

So. This is the mer!Hound fanfiction I wrote for @montyuh . I haven't had a chance to properly revise it due to a difficult university semester, — up until now, — but I'm just going to drop it here and skitter away like a cockroach.

Premise:

Mer!Hound / Little Mermaid AU

What to expect from the work and the work itself are under "read more".

What to expect:

I haven't written for purposes of online posting in years, so it is very likely not as refined as it could be.

English is not my first language (a classic, but true)

No dialogue

Written in third person, but mainly revolves around Hound’s thoughts and experiences

Human character is incredibly ambiguous, and is referred to neutrally.

Some other characters get mentioned, but it's left up to interpretation as to who they are

Angst (?) primarily, but has a happy ending

Pure vibes

The flow relies on time skips, they are indicated by underscore separations.

🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟

When the dawn descends upon the crescent shore, shunning away the grey remnants of the early morning, the quiet splashing of the waves is no longer the only sound that hangs in the air. As if on cue with the first rays of sun, a few shallow squawks of seagulls cut through the air; even the wind seems to pick up its ceaseless run bringing upon the smell and sounds unknown from just beyond the lip of the cove.

When the dawn comes, usually he enjoys the shimmering of sun from underneath the surface of the water in the safe haven of a mangrove forest, should he choose to stay by the land, or face it among the reefs where he could bask in its warmth openly. But a limp figure sprawled across his forearm felt like the heaviest anchor this very morning.

Hound is a mer not cowardly, but curious — perhaps against his better will, — and only once his back grew warm and dry did he avert his eyes from the form of the human to gaze at the horizon and the shiny trail of light on the ocean's face. It's much past dawn.

They aren't dead — Hound met dead people: bodies floating in the water, as recent as last night. This one doesn't have the bloated and heavy appearance, and no human blood found its way onto the sand, and in the back of his worried mind he proudly considers it possible with his input.

His memories drift back: the metal massives cutting through the waves with their sharp noses, gliding along. On nights like this, he was invisible in the dark.

He would jump and cling briefly onto the side of the metal ship. Rare crevices and indents in the metal he would bury he clawed fingers in, and stalk around the portholes to take a peek inside.

Their sub nautical vessels had more of everything. More texture, more angles, more means of propulsion and protection. In comparison, human ships almost appeared bare to him, like a crustacean with the most unremarkable and newly formed chitin, marked by nothing but a rarely experienced scuffle; or perhaps an eroded rock that no life found itself perching upon.

But did those giants carry treasures!

Unlike what was generally known or observed of humans, what ended up in the ocean was an indication of life beyond just the theorised schedules and behaviours. Who had an unopened can of fruits with them? Who lost their embroidered coat? Who was the author of a drawing lost to the sea? What were the numerous orange cat phones?

Items like these carried character and mystery so alluring!

So Hound learned to stealthily follow around and scale the rare ships and boats to see where all of these treasures came from, although unlike this night, he never did it under a stormy sky. Never had a ship begun to sink, either.

__________

A mammal's skin felt so unlike what he yet got to touch! Not stiff, like his cartilage, yet not as smooth as the gelatinous surface of a sea jellie. Their hands look like they've seen work.

The sea calls him to retreat, but Hound spends his last few minutes on the surface hunching over and squinting: their eyes are still under the eyelids, and their lips gave grown blue and skin — pale; he stalled on having them be left slumbering at the water's edge.

In a few moments after the sun has finally touched their cheeks, the colour gathers on them — a most positive sign of their blood still flowing. And suddenly, like the breeze itself had brought a faintest sound, he heard a groan, originating unmistakably from beneath him.

With a jolt, and dropping them rather unceremoniously, Hound all by jumped back in the ocean. Waves splashed together above him, and the space around now locked into the serene quietness of the ocean, and nothing else was heard. The water filtered through him like a roaring current, and yet it felt that he could not inhale enough as he recalled how their eyes only began to open.

__________

Hound half-listens when the one called Sea-Witch speaks to him the terms of his deal — tail split in two in favour of a pair of prosthetic limbs; how to sustain himself his bottom would be encased in that armour, like a man half-built.

Not unheard of it was, of course, but any self-respecting scientist would deem the proposed methods dubious and undeniably dangerous.

In a dark and remote cave he found them, where the volcanic formations layered one atop the other, twisting this terrain into a wiggled maze; the red polyps thriving in the heat of the hydrothermal vents, outstretching like a palm leaf, and so many of them were there that the deeper he went the less light there was. It was a place many knew stood, but few sought, as why else would one carry a title of the Sea-Witch in not for a warning? With no directions, no

And should the object of his affection not be willing or unable to find a way to help upkeep this construct — it will inevitably be rejected by his flesh, and he will remain helpless, abandoned by both sea and land, he hears them continue.

In return the Sea-Witch asks for his translator and he gives it up eagerly. Their eyes are many and they shine with an indiscernible emotion as they tell him they know he'll be back to ask to be able to swim in the sea again, that none but them would be able to stitch his tail back to its function, and then he'll be forever in their debt.

When the dawn comes that day, Hound wakes up with a burden in his chest and a splitting pain in his lower half.

__________

Metal prosthetics are heavy and sturdy, holding his weight up diligently, but his newly acquired joints ache. When he stands in the shallow waters on an unfamiliar shore, he feels nothing akin to a gentle touch of a wave — the feeling is empty and flat, more a suggestion than an experience, and Hound finds himself longing for it.

But then the human shows up, and the smile on their face and the sound of their voice is sweet and soothing, like a sea rocking him in its arms and singing him deep lullabies, and Hound finds that whatever wound starts forming in his heart at the memory of his home heals itself in their presence.

His scales aren't as smooth above fhe water, and he finds he needs to cover himself with a protective lotion more often than not — lest they begin to flake. Hound isn't human — just humanoid. He, who now stands on two mechanical legs, can feel the breeze and the sun just like humans do, even if his hearing is impaired and his joints hurt more and more day by day. Whatever was done to him — maybe magic, but more likely incomprehensible to him science was wearing itself thin.

He was lucky he was found by them, and even beyond lucky that the reaction they had didn't happen to escalate into something that would compromise him.

___________

He wishes he could understand them. Without a translator, all of the human's words are hopelessly lost to the melody of their voice, and he can't make his mouth approximate the sounds of their language to even try expressing his thoughts. Only at that point does Hound think back to the one called Sea-Witch briefly: would they have anticipated the barrier in communication that would form once Hound has parted with his device? Did they need the translator for their own purposes? Or to make sure he fails? Or both?

Whatever the answer may be, and however bitter the feeling is, it doesn't really matter now, Hound reasons.

__________

Time after time they attempt to tend to his legs. Hound can't discern what they speak, yet sits patiently when they take time to inspect the properties of the construction — it's metal, partially circuitry, partially hydraulics, and the rest happens to be beyond him. He wouldn't dare to pry open this set-up, of course. Maybe a creature small like them from their perspective would see something he missed? Maybe this person happens to be an engineer in their own human life? He wishes he could ask.

The repeated search yields no results to their liking, it seems. Human body language is so expressive, Hound thinks, with all the pants and exhales and sighs that leave their lungs, they would have raised a storm of bubbles underwater. And in those bubbles fish would play…

He fantasises about it more than a creature in his position should, perhaps. Humans can't go underwater, and their lungs aren't built for it. The few divers he happened to observe from far away, have relied on the bulky weight of oxygen tanks. This accommodation, he supposes, is justifiable. What are his bought legs but an accommodation tool for the terrain he isn't built for? Wouldn't there be a joy to be had in trying? Maybe they couldn't swim as swiftly as him, maybe they couldn't breathe underwater or even hold their breath for a time that would matter, maybe the pressure deeper in wouldn't suit them.

He would help — he is so ready to! If he ever returns, that is.

__________

He does wish at times he was more like the human who visits him, or suitable to their stature at least. It's inconvenient to try to take in their features as a person of his height, as it is even harder to make it subtle. But when he brings his face closer to theirs to look in their eyes — they don't seem to mind. So he does it again. And again. And until they all but lay in his embrace, until when they breathe he can feel the faintest touch of warm air on his skin — he does so. But never further. He keeps himself content with looking at them, deep in thought.

__________

One of his most prized possessions back in the ocean was a human book. Clearly handbound, it held up well to his and others’ surprise. Even wet and salt'd, what they figured out to be an oil based ink clung stout to the paper, which was, perhaps, the weakest part of the entire piece.

How sad, he thought back then, when something so fundamental as pages erode away. The ink won't wash, but chip away, the waxed linen threads will hold on tight, but all that is around them will slip into obscurity.

One day, he sees the human write something in a book that maybe lacked the same intricacy that the one he had, but was a book nonetheless.

He pointed at it. Gently, almost shy of his own movement he laid his hand on the page. The human, after a few short moments of contemplation, shifted where they sat, and suddenly Hound found himself with the book on his metallic lap. He notices the left page covered in sporadic notes, indiscernible from his height, and as he trails his gaze along to the empty page on the right, he feels them open his fingers to put their tiny stylus into.

He turns his head. They say something. He stares. They giggle and gesture in a way he sees as welcoming to an empty page.

At first, he wrote his name. It's a script different from the one on the left in many ways, but deep down there's a flutter of hope in him that maybe they happen to know it. But they just stare curiously at it, take their finger to it, clearly trying to tell the symbols apart, maybe grasp the grammar. Of course not.

So, clumsily, he draws a datapad. An approximation of a base. His favourite fish.

The way their face lights up is worth a thousand broken pencils, and this activity continues long into the evening, until the pages are done and Hound's spine aches, until the human begins to shiver in the wind and swat at a few insects.

__________

He sees their eyes glowing from under the water surface at night. Those like him. Some he knows, some he does not. Those unfamiliar to him would look upon his form with an intensity unmatched, but they wouldn't utter a word. Time would pass, and they would leave, and so quite were they that if he could sleep as easily as he used to, Hound would consider them remnants of a fleeting dream.

Those he knows — they speak to him. Their voices carry tongue he hasn't heard in cycles, but their words are filled with pain and worry. They tell him to leave and seek a person who can help, a mer or a human, doesn't matter. They tell him to hurry. Some break and judge his apparent incision and apathy.

He smiles gently, cups their faces, touches their shoulders, as he kneels in the cold water where they meet him. He assures them that it will turn out alright, and with a sad smile he shuts down their requests to abandon the human that visits him. Their tails beat foam in the water, and they beg him still, until the dawn begins to shine. Only then they retreat.

__________

Today the human stayed much later than they usually do. They huddled close to him, cloaked in a warm sheet. They held his clawed hand — and oh they are so small against him. Their face contorts into emotion that Hound hopes is worry, but fears is disgust: day by day his scales shelk, and no doubt his body has lost its colour alongside its lustre.

Before he uttered his agreement back then, the Sea-Witch left him with a parting gift of a question — why? In that moment Hound thought to himself briefly, remembering the eyes of the person who nearly found their rest amidst the bottom dwellers — it was the first time he saw a human up close. Now when they lay across from him so close, he sees that shine again, a body full of life, a head full of knowledge, and all they've shown him, and all he discovered for himself — the songbirds, the flowers, the bound books, the sound of surface music, the soft and warm touch of a body when they suddenly lay a comforting palm on his cheek and it feels like an embrace yet to be given. It's curiosity that brought him here. And while, regrettably, he can't tell the stories of what he's found out, of what he thinks and feels, he doesn't regret it.

So he closes his eyes in content even when their hand slithers back to their side.

__________

He was so sure he wouldn't open them again. His body broke out into a fever the next morning, and that brought upon him the weakness and hurt he didn't think possible.

The human cried, he heard faintly, as if the kilometres of water laid above him again, and it was only his head and legs that were on fire. He felt every bone back then, it seemed, and the seam along which his tail was once split felt akin to a metallic zipper on human clothes.

________

He would awake weakened and bruised, but alive, in what he could only describe as a tub, sunlight pouring through the large open window. He was feeling much lighter than he remembers being in this last short little while.

Looking down at his legs, he instead finds a tail again — pale and sickly-looking, stitched and held together by the methods unknown to him; and the shock he experiences could only be rivalled by the pain shooting through him when he involuntarily jolts, and fear that mayhaps the Sea-Witch did get to him after all.

But with his gasps the water fills his lungs, and he feels himself grow calmer. And there must be chemicals put into this liquid, for the fluttering of his heart and his fins would otherwise be unrestricted.

Outside the glass wall he sees a room, clearly fit for a science team. A bit away, he sees a docking pool and the water splashing in it, and the grumpy gaze of another mer like him staying away from the bigger commotion.

Lastly, he sees his human, and past that the sound and visuals are a blur, as with a child-like joy he realises that he understands them. They talk out of breath at him about all that transpired, they apologise for involving the team of scientists they knew, they express relief that he's alive, they apologise again and again, and they speak so sincerely Hound isn't sure they know he can understand them yet. He gently touches the part of his skull where the translator would have been attached — and sure enough, it's slightly sore with the presence of a newly installed apparatus. No doubt that's what that lone mer was here for.

They speak and speak, and their voice flows in and through him with so much meaning, and the sheer comprehension of it is making his head spin. They haven't left, and just like he has them, they sought him out.

So when his tail grows back, marked with a scar, when his scales lay even again, when his soul and consciousness settle from their flutter, when he eventually gets acclimated to the ocean waters once more and swims in it, he knows they will meet again.

In the moment, out of breath, they ask, and he eagerly tells them his name. Smiling, they tell him theirs. And in the sunlit glory of the water their face shone bright.

🐟🐟🐟🐟

#i may one day revisit and rewrite this one #i may be anxious about it #but it is also nice to practice writing again #maccadams #mer!hound #tf g1 #transformers fanfiction #merformers #sonne rambles

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loopy777 · 6 months

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Spoiler Thoughts & Reactions: Azula in the Spirit Temple

This is the stuff I had to leave out of my other post because it's spoilery, mostly concerned with Azula's character arc. It seems the fandom is having mixed reactions to this, but I think it moves Azula forward in a big way as a character, even though very little changes about her general situation.

The thing I'm most struck by is that this thing has the exact same character arc as the 2-chapter vision question I sent Zuko on in Traitor's Face, complete with the protagonist seemingly rejecting redemption at the climax by attacking the spirit in what is actually a symbolically self-destructive reaction to becoming consciously aware of the abusive they experienced from Ozai- an awareness that may lead to better choices in the future.

I love that Azula actually talks about Ozai here, and the flashback to her discovering her Firebending is perfectly illustrative of her dynamic with her parents. During her spirit visions, Azula claims to no longer support Ozai because he failed and lost his Firebending, which seems to be a change from how she was still taking his orders in 'The Search.' After 'Smoke & Shadow' was loudly silent on the matter, we see that she's truly taken a step forward in her characterization and is no longer consciously trying to win his approval. I had suspected as much, considering her obsession with Zuko, but it's good to see it given confirmation and focus.

At the start of this story, Azula is definitely diminished, though, running around the fringes of the Fire Nation committing petty acts of sabotage, no longer attempting any grand plans to manipulate Zuko but rather just generally antagonizing him. This is a change from her professed mission in S&S to supposedly make him a better Fire Lord by teaching him the power of fear over love.

My own speculations are that that she either wasn't serious about her true motivations in S&S (which I think would be a retcon), she's now lashing out at him in revenge for his rejection of the lesson, or she's just taunting him with her own continued survival and freedom in order to show him that his belief in love can't accomplish everything.

Getting back to Ozai, I was stunned to find that this comic actually has her admitting that her father abused her and she feared him. That is a huge step forward for her, acknowledging the part he played in her troubles. And yet, at the story's climax, when she goes to attack the spirit who has been troubling her and giving her visions, she proclaims herself the daughter of Ozai (not Ursa, unlike Zuko at the climax of 'Zuko Alone,' despite Azula also admitting some real truths about her mother), gives him the title of the Phoenix King, and uses it as proof of her claim to the Fire Nation throne. That seems to be a huge reversal from the earlier acknowledgements, and she explicitly frames it as a rejection of the possibility of redemption- a rejection even of the need.

This would seem to be a rather meta sign of what we should expect next for Azula, that there will be no Redemption Arc and she will remain a villain. But I'm not so sure.

Because Azula is not being honest.

The spirit, after it takes its final monstrous bug-like form, describes itself as a mirror of Azula's inner-self, a monster just like her, and the consequence of rejecting redemption. Azula attempts to destroy it with her lightning, a symbolic act of self-destruction. She seems to once again be embracing Ozai's worldview that human connections are a weakness. And the symbolic self-destruction seems to indicate that this will not end well for her.

But I would say that the final pages are not definitive about what is next for her.

For one thing, the spirit is not destroyed. When Azula continues her journey through the forest where she found the spirit temple, the first panel puts an insect of the same type and color as the spirit's final form in the foreground. So she's mistaken about that, and if we continue to say that it's a symbol of her inner-self, she didn't succeed in destroying it.

When she finds the Fire Warriors -- who she initially said she would hurt for leaving her to go rescue a captured member she had given up on -- she observes their close friendship and chooses to walk away. She covers this by saying, out loud to no one, that they are unworthy of her leadership. Who is she trying to convince? This directly parallels the feelings about Ty Lee and Mai that were explored in her visions. So clearly she's in denial about what she's feeling, attempting to talk herself into a more palatable justification, and has grown from wanting to hurt the Fire Warriors for their disobedience and having what she wants.

Then, interestingly, as Azula walks away, she says she'll find a new place to rule and new followers, and that she always does. This is despite her earlier talk about being the rightful heir to the throne.

I've long said that the dumbest, least interesting way to use Azula in any AtLA sequels (including fanfic) is to have her trying to usurp the title of Fire Lord from Zuko. It plays into the rivalry taught to them by the way Ozai played them against each other, but in the context of the setting, it's a fool's errand. Even if the Fire Nation accepted her, the rest of the world wouldn't, not if she's going to antagonize them. Restarting the war is a no-go, as the Fire Nation has lost its colonies and captured territory in the Earth Kingdom, and now it no longer has a military or technology advantage. I can't buy that someone as smart as Azula would want to put herself into an career dead-end like that.

But it seems, thanks to those final pages, this comic has advanced Azula enough that even though she wants the throne, she recognizes that it offers her nothing in either real power or personal satisfaction. If she really is looking for somewhere else to rule, she's no longer interested in fighting with Zuko over a token that their father had dangled over them all their lives. She doesn't even care what Zuko does with it.

(That's not to say she won't fight with Zuko over other things! Which I would be fine with.)

And she's off to find something worth fighting over, even though she's still very flawed and in denial about a lot of it.

So I think this comic opens up a lot of possibilities for Azula. Maybe she'll continue being a villain, but for smart stakes. Maybe she'll eventually work her way to a true redemption. (I especially like that the dialogue ties redemption with apologies; it's not enough to stop being bad, a true redemption requires acknowledging past wrongs and attempting to make up for them.) Or maybe the continuing AtLA story will do what I like to play with when I write Azula:

Just find a way for her to achieve peace with herself.

Anyway, the more I think on this comic, the more I like it. I'll be crushed when the animated Aang movie makes her a generic villain again. XD

#azula #azula in the spirit temple

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