#I do think I've got a certain composition going though

[alfhildr-the-word-weaver]

So! I've been working on the My Home(TM) kitchen in Design Home, and I've got it juuuuust about perfect (or as much as it can be within the limited options of design home), but I keep going back and forth on which rug I want. And then I thought, why not ask tumblr? So, behold:

Option 1:

I've always wanted a yellow kitchen, but there was no option to make the walls yellow in design home, so a nice bright yellow rug seems like a good compromise. However, my yellow/multicolor floral accent chair doesn't shine as well against this background.

Option 2:

The blue complements the rest of the kitchen well and gives my table and chairs a solid background to pop against. However, I worry it makes the room too dark and the color palette too cool for my goal of a bright, sunshiney kitchen.

Option 3:

Purple is my favorite color (quelle surprise if you know me at all, lol) and it's a good inbetween tone-wise I think. However, I worry the pattern of this rug is a touch busy.

If you pick the fourth one, you're legally obligated to tell me what rug you're thinking of. Also legal disclaimer that I am not bound by the results of this poll and I'll probably make up my mind on my own eventually, but I'm curious to see how things shake out, and also I lowkey wanted to show off my home designing.

Yeah I'm a gamer (*spends hours playing a home design game on my phone*)

#Design Home #my home kitchen #specifically it's the #main home kitchen #polls #vote now! #you can critique other elements of my design if you want I guess but at this point I'm not changing it most likely #I'm really pretty happy with this but none of the rugs feel quite perfect #mobile gaming #interior design #I could almost call this art or something but I don't want to spam too many tags ;) #I do think I've got a certain composition going though #but yeah opinions welcome! (be nice) (or the laser cats will get you) (I am not legally responsible for the actions of the laser cats) #lol #color theory #hehe #but I do have kind of a purple/blue/yellow palette going‚ which isn't a proper triadic palette technically but I dig it #I do love design home... I might be a little too into it but it's fun #the hgtv kid to wish I owned a house pipeline. oof lol #anyways look at my pretty kitchen. love my pretty kitchen with me #even in the tags i ramble

[therealgchu]

Late Snippet Sunday - To the Shore: Reflections

i'm late cos i deciced to scrap the whole first section of this chapter. it was just too contrived and not organic at all. i started re-writing it on saturday, and finally got enough up to post up a snippet. it's not likely i'll make my publishing schedule for friday, either, as this chapter is going to be long and involved, and i don't have another thing queued up (unless something pops into my thinky-blob between now and wednesday).

progress is never linear.

if you want to read To the Shore from the beginning, or missed a chapter, check it out on ao3.

i've also started a backstories companion called Anamnesis, also on ao3.

finally, sneak peekage

Cora looked up in wonder, “This was your mom's? Grandpa said he didn’t save anything of hers.”

“He didn’t. I don’t remember much, but I know at some point he threw mom’s stuff away. I think he wanted to get rid of the memories…” he trailed off, then looked at Hwa. She could see in his eyes the unfinished portion of that sentence, like me. He shook his head, “It looks like he saved her camera though.” He picked it up, examining it. “Yeah, it’s pretty broken. But, I bet we can fix it.” He handed the camera to Cora. “Would you like to try?”

Cora’s eyes shined and she nodded, taking the camera gently from her father’s hands. She examined it carefully, analyzing what was broken and where. She nodded again, “If I can find the right parts and tools, I’m certain I can get it working!”

“May I see it?” Hwa asked. Cora handed her the camera. “You’ll need some speciality tools. Some of these parts are small and delicate. I think I have some, but otherwise, we can probably find some at a jeweler.”

Sam grinned, “Sounds like a project for the both of you!”

Finding the tools was easy as Hwa and Cora repurposed computer repair tools; sourcing the parts, however, proved to be a challenge as there were very few actual film cameras in existence. It was Walter that delivered the goods for the spare parts, film, and chemicals for developing the film. Apparently, antique film cameras were one of those trendy hobbies for the people he regularly hobnobbed with, namely wealthy people of leisure.

It took about a week of intermittent work to get the camera in working order. Sam and Barrett helped set up a dark room in the basement of the Lodge, clearing out the spare storage room. Once the work was done, Cora started photographing everything and anything she could find. Walter, once again, was instrumental in assisting her new hobby, as he was her source for acquiring film. He felt it was a good investment as it “recorded Constellation’s endeavors for posterity.”

She had a good eye for composition, but it took time to understand the mechanics of things like aperture speed, film grain, and lenses. And, there was both a craft and an art to developing the film. It was a couple weeks before decent enough photos were produced, for which Cora showed off proudly to the members.

The first batch she showed to her dad, especially one photo of which she was particularly proud of, and thought he’d like. It was of him and Hwa aboard the Razorleaf, with Hwa holding onto his arm and laughing. 

“Oh, gum drop,” Sam said, a little choked up, “this is beautiful. My mom used to show me pictures like this. Can I have this?” he asked. 

“Of course. I can always make a copy from the negative.”

“Thank you so much,” he whispered to Cora, and hugged her tightly. He let her go, sniffled, and wiped his nose. “I want to get this framed. Have you shown this to Hwa yet?”

“No, I thought you’d like to show it to her.”

Sam smiled widely, “That I would. This is the best gift I think I’ve ever received.” He gave Cora another hug. “Do you know where Hwa is? Is she in her room?”

“No, last I saw her, she was downstairs working on her armor.”

Sam headed down the stairs, two steps at a time, and found Hwa was tinkering with the Mantis helmet, head down and goggles on, soldering servos. He walked over and put his arm around her waist when she stood up. Hwa jumped a little, but calmed when she felt him kiss her neck. “Cora’s first batch of photos are done. I wanted to show this one to you,” he said, and handed her the photograph.

She briefly glanced at it. Her body went rigid and her breathing stopped. She dropped the picture, and removed his arm from her waist. Without a word, she left the basement, leaving Sam flabbergasted.

#starfield #sam coe #fanfic #space husband #fanfiction #hwa kim #to the shore #space cowboy #coemancer #spacefarer #therealgchu writes #snippet sunday #i'm late #it's monday

[morrak]

Untitled Wednesday Library Series, Part 114

Today's feature has been riding pine since Part 2 — I've glanced at it sidelong every week for two years and change, but the time has never felt right. It doesn't feel right now either, but I recently gave it a reread and might as well get it over with while the memory is fresh. This is a personal pseudo-favorite and probably one of the only things I own that could be called infamous (though admittedly only by a certain type of guy), but it's not especially easy to sum up.

A New Bacteriology, right? Originally published in 1980 as Introduction à la nouvelle bactériologie by the University of Montreal Press, this text has probably saw more distribution in this 1983 English translation under Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Inc. The frontmatter cites the whole 'staff for this book'; like last week I'll include a photo with the cover shots.

Evidently there exists an ISBN for a clothbound edition, but I’ve only ever seen the paperbacks.

The How

I probably first encountered the title in a David Quammen book or something, but I didn't hunt down a copy until I made friends with a former professor in the philosophy of biology. He didn't/doesn't work on systematics, but somehow or another this got mentioned and I found a used copy on eBay. This has never been reprinted and scans are scarce; these days the online secondhand market seems spooky. As always, let me know if you want a look inside and I'll hook you up.

The Text

I can't say much about either author — Panisset died in '81 and I frankly haven't bothered to track down any of Sonea's other stuff. Microbiologists both, of course, working while the field was in profound flux. Endosymbiotic theory had only been substantiated by Lynn Margulis in '67, and Archaea weren't defined until a decade later, in the early stages of this book's composition. Both of those are important here.

This is not a gentle book. It's a manifesto with several interests, most salient of which is the argument that various modes of horizontal gene transfer, limited local genetic information, and co-evolution of bacterial 'teams' makes all 'bacteria' (these days we'd say prokaryotes; the usually mean to include what we'd now call Archaea) parts of a global superorganism. Under this view, species are bunk; bacteriophages are less virus and more a tool of bacterial evolution; most microbiologists are basically close-minded. Oh, and because of all of that, the Gaia hypothesis is correct. There's a lot going on here. Lynn Margulis wrote the intro to this version and is mentioned several times throughout, if you can imagine that. I do not have enough space here to say all I want to about that and her, so let it suffice that it makes complete sense she went to bat for this.

If the book is interesting for anything, it's the way it goes about structuring its arguments. It is basically a philosophical artifact; there's no new wet work going on at all, and appeals to, say, numbers and novel observations and discrete mechanisms are sparse. That it works like a philosophy of biology book but is aimed at biologists as such is probably its greatest rhetorical weakness (if you’re not counting the usually Gaia stuff). There are some fascinating rhetorical slants going on around gene transfer mechanisms that I'll mention exist; say so if you want to hear more.

If their gripes about their field hold any water, there are some deep and complicated implications for the rest of biology in light of work done since the 80s. The conclusions drawn here are often silly, mostly toothless, and politically a bit dicey, but some of their insights have (through other channels, usually with different flavors) come to widespread, if tacit, acceptance anyway. I think I'm comfortable calling this recommended, but certainly not endorsed, reading.

The Object

Eh. Small publishing house doing what it could with a rather complicated job. The typesetting and printing is completely adequate but a little frustrating in the way that basically all biology writing is. The early 80s were especially bland in scientific publishing; absolutely no frills or risky moves. A bit of a shame, but I'm used to the disappointment.

This copy needs repairs, but not so urgently I'll likely have them made any time soon. It's stable, at least for another decade or so. Interestingly a previous owner made notes in French.

The Why, Though?

Because I expected it to give me complicated feelings and also because it did. As a bonus, if I ever need to launder my sympathies for systematic radicalism as a passing academic interest, having a slightly ratty copy of this on my shelf will probably do the trick.

#images #untitled wednesday library series

[hoardlikegoldenirises]

whoa, hey, finally finished this lol — Advanced material suits for Scratch (Seth), Electrojet (Annie) and Geckonyx (Naomi).

i considered whether grouping multiple sets together would be a good idea (i don't even have the other ones drawn, though, just these three) but I think i'll just do them three at a time...

closeups:

Scratch v2:

I designed this one a little while ago actually, and you can see the original sketch for it (here). I don't know that I've ever necessarily said what Seth's powers are but the short version is: they have spiritfire powers. soulfire. life force. what have you. thus the little "is suit fireproof? idk lol" note — incorporeal fire does not burn corporeal materials, so Seth doesn't need to be fireproof technically. This flame only burns psychically. or... psionically... or whatever. ow, my emotional turmoil!

eventually i wanna doodle some stuff showing some of their less obvious powers... (ability to see souls...)

Anyway, sleek horned helmet etc. Taking my original sketch and trying to figure out what in the fuck was happening in the grille was challenging but I really like how it turned out, personally.

The whole suit I wanted to like... both make it significantly smoother and sleeker while also having hints of like, Seth's experience with hand-to-hand combat, so I ended up reinforcing the knuckles and fingers instead of the big padded kind. Like it's probably got some kind of gel lining or something inside that fancy science mumbo-jumbo exterior, but idk what 😂

And I wanted to do a nice gradient of pastel colors esp since their flames are like, a mood ring and change color based on emotional states so... it seemed nice. yellow on the knuckles to match the yellow on the shoes at the end of the gradient and ofc a fire color. i tried some other colors but it didn't look as good.

see, shoes. the stripe twisting up from their heel like a curling flame or wisp of smoke perhaps... some nice thin flexible sport shoes but still with some toe protection... and some lugs i bullshitted for traction LOL

the back is pretty simple.

Electrojet:

Here's Annie. Her homemade costume is pretty bulky and not very stylish, because she is a very practical person, so for the advanced suit aka the more "superhero-y" approach, I tried to balance the practicality with a more sporty and sleek, stylish aesthetic that still communicated the kind of aviator look she has going.

This helmet is also like. Not even a little bit secret identity-friendly, now that I think about it... but there's a chance she doesn't have one after a certain point... idk...

I figure the advanced suits also have very advanced insulation so I don't think she has to worry about getting cold even in just the skintight jumpsuit but I wanted to include the jacket cause I thought it would look nice. so she can take it off and go without, or have that extra bit of protection.

idk why the circle though. i think annie maybe just isn't very good at "branding."

Annie works for NASA (as an astronaut) and she was in the ISS when she got blasted, so her powers are like... a little more aurora themed. flight with ionized trails, usually blue-white but can be more colorful depending on like... altitude... atmospheric composition... etc. oh also she has electrical powers and the ability to magnetize and degauss things including herself (but she's no magneto lol). capable of mach-1 but really anything over 600 mph is dangerous for her.

She gets a snoopy cap cause, again, astronaut. idk who she's communicating with as Electrojet but it's part of the aesthetic lol... I doubt the microphones work particulary well when she's going like... 500 mph... I guess I COULD have given her a full-face visor but eh, in the spirit of superheroes: *handwaves* it's whatever.

Also in the spirit of superheroes is giving her a very obvious choking/neck-breaking hazard but I just thought the long aviator scarf would look nice if she's flying. what is a scarf but a really skinny cape that's wrapped directly around your neck.

anyway if i'm running w/ the magical girl transformation thing for everyone (which is me saying: "i don't want to think about how anyone stores their costumes") it doesn't matter that much cause it can just dissolve if it gets caught.

shoes. i will be honest. these are just carhartts with some minor modifications LOL (and a completely made-up hybrid sneaker sole) — does she REALLY need boots in this fancy suit when all her powers are things like flight and electricity? probably not, but, you know, the aesthetic.

Geckonyx:

Okay I already made an Entire Separate Post for Naomi since I designed like five costumes for her, so if you want to read all about those you can do so: here.

tl;dr: Geckonyx is a wallcrawler and now also has a poison touch, and her costume is very sparkly. Oh, and carbon nanotubes.

I also updated the OG post in a couple of spots cause as you can see I added a tiny bit of texture to the green fabric of this costume.

helmet vs. mask, full glove vs. fingerless, etc.

#nadiart #not fanart #arghdesign #shiny art #scratch #scratchverse #electrojet aka annie #geckonyx aka naomi

[z0urcherri]

Not really a full review but just the thoughts at the forefront of my mind If they'd of just cut some horror references (Shining elevator especially) down into shorter scenes (it'd also work as an unobtrusive background element) AND made it easier to tell apart future and past characters that happen to be in the same scene together, this film would honestly be damn near perfect. It was still an enjoyable experience, though. Alot of scenes genuinely come close to freaking me out, like the respawn terminal failure. Having a fully voice acted cast and some custom models was a treat, i just don't see why some were custom and some were just Scout with a mustache slapped on. Plus, in the funeral scene, it's too noticeable how detailed Redmond and Blutarch are compared to everyone else in the room. I joked at one point that they blew the character budget on those two and couldn't afford to detail everyone else. The voice direction also felt lacking, with certain actors (excluding Scout's and Soldier's bc DAMN i actually asked a couple times if they got Rick, posthumously, and Nathan to do the voice work) focusing more on sounding as much as they could like the original mercs than the actual performance. Mind you i'm not saying they did a BAD job, they did after all do a fantastic job with the emotional line deliveries. Usually, you would complain about the cartoony art style of TF2 clashing with someone's high-end attempt to make the shots photorealistic or so, but since Fortress Films went to all the trouble of touching up everything with grit and keeping it consistent throughout scenes, it honestly works well even if non-TF2 models end up being used. The contrast actually fits. The plot...honestly, again, this is where i wish certain horror tropes got cut way down. Did we really need a whole scene of zombie mercs doing stereotypical zombie things? I don't even think it added anything to the plot, it just happened and was pretty easy to forget right after they're all killed. It's just how it never gets referenced again once it's over. I'm...also not really a fan of the shoehorned Christian imagery around the end. It's basically another trope and again it added pretty much nothing. It's also fun trying to figure out who can and can't actually die. This, ironically, might be the only thing from the zombie scene worth any salt, if the implication is RED mercs zombify after some time while BLU just infinitely respawns (Jules wouldn't be dead and therefore would not need saving if this were the case, which is inch resting) The attention to detail otherwise is fantastic. I keep finding parallels i didn't catch the first time. Along with shots that are legit drop-dead GORGEOUS, or even cutting-edge as far as cinematography goes and are incredibly rare to see in other SFM animations, the mo-cap is some of the best i've seen. It's rough sometimes and makes for some funny facial expressions, but when it works it WORKS. The theatrical feel is just...unmatched. You almost wonder if Valve themselves produced this because of how good the scenes look. I was also really impressed with the sound design, and also the fire and water effects, prominent throughout the film. Obviously, i think the film was really, really good, it's just that some parts feel like this project started as a shitpost animation, before getting stitched together with the parts where the team decided "no, we need to put actual effort into this". I also don't understand why, if the soundtrack is an original composition, the artist couldn't be credited anywhere. Anyway, go see Emesis Blue and come back with your own thoughts.

#me stuff #emesis blue #fortress films #tf2 #team fortress 2

[solradguy]

How do i find the motivation to practice art? I have so many shitposts that’ll never come to fruition because my skills plateaued ):

No one else is going to draw my ideas and I'm too broke to pay someone else to do it for me. For better or worse, I seem to approach a lot of things from a "gotta do everything myself around here" angle haha

Honestly—and I won't lie to you—doing art studies is a real pain in the ass, I hate doing them. I never do them unless I've got major art block, and even then I still hate doing them, but it's like taking medicine and I know doing them will make me better. Every art teacher I've ever had's grilled me about this, "solradguy, you need to do 15 studies before the end of the week to get a full grade this quarter." Blah blah blah.

I guess for some people doing studies could be fun, not having to think about pose or composition, whatever, just putting lines down on paper and focus on your reference. One time, when I was still in college, I had to do a certain amount of studies in charcoal so I booted up Red Dead Redemption and drew landscapes or objects from it that I kinda liked. It was enough. I told my professor it was from my grandma's farm hehe

Art memes can be a good way to practice too, especially those ones about drawing in different styles or drawing a character in different outfits. They combine fun with tricking you into drawing things you might not normally draw. Emulating different art styles is the only art study method that doesn't make me want to fall asleep. Don't forget they're just art games though, and especially don't forget:

👉If You Already Feel Burnt Out Don't Feel Compelled To Complete Every Art Meme You Start👈

As you get better at art, you start noticing improvements less and less because they become more subtle. When you're really new to art, figuring out stuff like basic anatomy or shading is REALLY obvious because they're foundational parts of art. Hang on to your really old stuff and look at it every now and then and I guarantee you'll have improved way more than you thought you had.

I get the impression you've probably been at art for a while now, and I don't want to come across as patronizing, but sometimes refreshing the basics can help overcome a plateau too. Drawabox is usually what I recommend to people just getting into art, I really like their approach. Here's a link to their introduction lesson: drawabox.com/lesson/0 And here's one that skips to the actual art stuff: drawabox.com/lesson/1

While it's probably beneficial to actually do the exercises in the lessons, just skimming through reading them can be good too.

Something I've noticed a lot of my artists friends (and artists online) do is try to make every single drawing a finished piece, and I'm like "damn, no wonder art feels like such a chore." My sketchbook is 99% scribbles done in pen:

I use Pentel RSVP fine point ballpoint pens so if I make a mistake I'm forced to deal with it. Doing these rough sketches before starting a bigger piece is something I recommend with my entire heart. Just get a pack of shitty $0.99 pens and doodle like it's high school math class. I like the cheap pens because you can get faint lines drawing lightly and can coax them into darker lines with a bit more pressure (and if you lose/break one it's no big deal).

The best way to get better at art is to keep putting lines on paper. Even if it's just silly pen doodles, you're still improving coordination/pen control, improving construction of basic shapes, exploring concepts, and thinking about art, which will lead to more new ideas and further inspiration.

Sorry this is long and meandering haha Hopefully something here helps at least a tiny bit.

#asks #I get so hopelessly passionate about art. I want to shake everyone by the shoulders and shout #IT'S MAGIC. IT'S ACTUAL MAGIC. NO OTHER ANIMAL ON PLANET EARTH CAN DO THIS LIKE HUMANS CAN!! #It's a shame contact with sapient alien species won't happen in my lifetime. I want to see their art #They probably won't see colors the way humans can. Would we even be able to understand each others' art? #What if they painted in colors only visible in spectrums humans can't see? #But also what if they saw colors the same as humans #Can you imagine sending an alien lightyears away a painting of Earth flowers and receiving one in return of alien flowers #If their sun was different from our Sun... imagine how that would affect the palettes and compositions of their art... #An alien species without vision that makes art through textured sculptures and sounds... #I've been reading a lot of Ray Bradbury lately and spring is around the corner so I'm going a little bananas #long post

[kuliak]

Below the break: a way-too-deep explanation of the behavior in this patch, and an alternate version:

Hey there! It's been a minute since I've had something to share. Life has been pretty crazy these last couple of weeks. Honestly, it may be spotty the next month and a half or so, but I want to make and share things when I can. It's one of the best things.

This patch has a lot going on. The first half is pretty simple: further exploring pseudo-complex oscillator setups with Banshee Reach and Ts-L, and compelling harmonic compositions with Bloom and Bard Quartet. A lot of this section is just "what I've done in the past, but better. I'm finally using a buffered mult to keep the carrier and modulator oscillators with a consistent ratio instead of half-assing it. Ts-L's sine is modulating BR's frequency, and wavefold is going to PWM - both attenuated to not drive the sound crazy. Envelope controlling a VCA on varishape output into Ikarie, which I now have FM'd by BR's sine output. It's all about the relatedness in this format after all!

I do want to say that as fun as it is patching up such behaviors, I totally understand the appeal of ready-to-go complex oscillator modules. This just eats up cables and space.

Now, the fun and more compelling part: the rhythm going on here. This patch was inspired by a conversation with my friend about wishing Data Bender had a "repeats" gate output, like Mimeophone and Nautilus do. As we talked things out, we figured that you could probably use some kind of boosted envelope follower on a mult of the output to create a gate, and friends, it works! Mostly.

I'm using a stackable to run the right channel of Data Bender's output into Strega's gain circuit and envelope follower, then sending that to the trigger in (1) of Tyso Daiko to trigger the kick. Now, this doesn't work every time. But I've found that with Data Bender in Micro Mode with saturation at about noon, it creates interesting sub-rhythms at quite a handful of time/repeats combinations. You can get it more or less reliable by scrubbing through the buffer (break knob in Micro mode) but there's no one setting there that works for every combo.

Since the signal needs to be just repeats (100% wet) to get this to happen, I had to use the full mixing capabilities of Cockpit as well: Desmodus (receiving the signal from Ikarie) is multed to both Cockpit and the Data Bender inputs. Drums of course go directly to the mixer as well. Of course, this is working as intended, but the nice thing about mix controls is I can usually be lazy and run a single voice through a single fx chain.

The initial experiments sounded great, and got me thinking about how much better this could sound with some additional percussion which is related but not so closely constrained by the DB parameters. I quickly threw this together, using IDUM as a rhythm generator by feeding it a clock and setting it to break mode at 100% probability. Additional percussion comes from Akemie's Taiko and Daiko(2) through Sinc Bucina (the latter two are on separate sequences for more complex sounds)

Honestly, I don't think this sounds as good in this recording, but has the potential to sound far better. In the primary recording featured above, I'm really playing the parameters as I feel out what does and doesn't work. It's constantly changing, but with oh-so-many sweet spots. With the added percussion though, it feels stagnant so much faster, and I'm overall performing the patch less. With a few more things added, a bit more variation programmed into the percussion voices, and a more complex pattern, I think this concept could far surpass the original. Sadly, it's already getting late and I need to un-patch to clear the desk for work tomorrow, so that's that for now. I'm certain to revisit the core concept in the near future, and I hope to really take it to the heights it deserves.

...So, why did I write so much for this patch? Part of it is that it's been so long, and I love writing these patch notes, so I need to make up for lost time. The other part is that this isn't just some normal patch, or more fundamentals - this is an original patch programming idea that I was through from conception to execution. It's so satisfying, and exciting, and everything I love about this format. I want to, and will, do more of it, and it's so exciting that I'll keep getting better.

#modular synth #modular synthesis #synths #eurorack #gearporn #glitch #glitch art #glitch music #music #electronic music #idm music #patch notes #long post #flashing gif #gif #aesthetic

[binarystargames]

Thinking about (a very broad definition of) quarterbacking, especially as it relates to TTRPGs (part 1)

This is going to be a bit meandering and I'm not going to have answers at the end of this post because it's already too fucking long. Bear with me.

Disclaimer/preface: I'm mostly spitballing based on my own experiences as someone who has both seen and done this. I'm sure there are better terms for what I'm saying and that I'm probably reinventing the wheel. I'm fine with that. I know about the killer/explorer/socializer/roleplayer model for multiplayer games already, it's useful and there's definitely an intersection point on a venn diagram of where it interacts with this but it doesn't 100% map to where I'm going with this.

As I mentioned at the end of my post on diceless ideas for APOCALYPSE FRAME, I like the idea of resource-management-based rather than randomness-based methods for tactics games, but I am slightly worried that it would increase the prevalence of quarterbacking.

Typically the definition used for this in this context is: in a setting where everyone is on the same team, one person (the "quarterback") tells everyone else in the group what to do. I'm expanding that definition here into generalized situations where people are telling seemingly-equal peers what to do during a game or even to some degree when people feel pressured/coerced into taking certain kinds of game actions. I like to think of this on two levels:

Strategic. The kind of decision that's made at a high level, usually before anything that actually happens takes place. Quarterbacking here takes the place like someone having to pick a specific class or character or role. If you've ever picked the party cleric because nobody else wanted to be a healer, even if nobody told you to or even suggested it, that's what I mean. The more defined player roles are and the more essential they all are, the more this comes up, but it can also be reflected in things like equipment loadouts.

Tactical. The kind of decision that's made at a per-action, per-encounter, etc level. "Go over here", "do this", "cover X other player", "spend this level of resources but no more", etc. The more important a given action or resource expenditure is, the more this comes up.

Tactical is mostly what I'll get into because that gets to what made me think about this, though I'll probably get back to Strategic later a bit in part 2 because I have a few thoughts there.

Where does this show up?

As much as I'd love to say sports, in seeking a useful definition, I've actually defined it here in such a way that kind of crowds them out: in American football, for instance, it's not intended to be an equal team of people making play decisions: roles are predefined, a play is passed down from a coach to the quarterback to players, and it's up to them to stick to the spirit of the play while interpreting the best course of action along the way. In the context of non-sports, you can see it a lot in video games, board games, and RPGs.

Online games are a big one that comes to mind. There can be a lot of coordination involved and if you're in a group of randos you will inevitably run into someone who decides to tell everyone else what to do. They'll probably start being real shitheads if you ignore them too! Co-op board and card games have this too (I'll get into this more below). And of course, TTRPGs, that's what brought me to the dance after all and got my brain spilling all over the page about it.

Is this actually a problem?

Maybe! It depends! It's a really broad thing I'm outlining here so it's hard to answer.

I think it's a function of expectation going into it. For a lot of groups maybe this is how they like to do things: the strategy person gives out marching orders and everyone else goes along with it, everyone decides party composition ahead of time, etc. If one person is just not as good at using the tools at hand, they might ask for suggestions and that's good! If someone's obviously floundering, suggesting a way out of it is probably also good as long as they're cool with it.

I'm going to use the cases of TTRPGs especially for cases where I think it can be a problem because I reckon there's a few kinds of expression going on that can be at odds. I'm going to make some terms up so bear with me, I'm sure someone way smarter has come up with a better distinction but this is how I'm thinking about it:

Game state expression. This is the "trying to win/lose" or "trying to solve the puzzle" layer. This is where quarterbacking makes the most sense! If you're coordinating to win then coming up with a strategy together, maybe with someone setting it all out, can definitely make perfect sense.

Narrative expression. When you think about an action scene or a fight, usually there's one of two things happening. One, there's a major plot point that's getting resolved by it. This is where you get like "boss fights" and "setpieces". Two, and this is more common, they're pretty low-stakes but are used as a way to show off how characters prefer to do things. Does a vulnerable character keep distance or put themselves at risk? Does a bruiser character pick targets to keep friends safe, to take down easy pickings, or to go for the biggest thing they can see? Do defensive characters mostly keep themselves alive or protect others? This is where I think TTRPGs can really shine. Sub-optimal play isn't strictly necessary for this, but situationally, it can be a way to express this. Quarterbacking often steps on those impulses, but not always: maybe characters are willing to put their personal ways of doing things aside for the greater goal, and that can be narrative development too! But I suspect that's not going to be the response every time.

Personal expression. Sometimes people don't like to do a certain kind of thing, you know? Maybe someone doesn't like their characters having less than half health even if it's like, fine. Maybe someone never wants to spend more than half of their resources "just in case" even when that makes no sense. Maybe someone always goes full auto instead of using bursts because it feels better. Maybe someone only prepares AOE attacks instead of individual-target ones. But it sure would be better for everyone else if they did things that made more sense! This is the one that quarterbacking can really clash with because it's often strictly suboptimal behavior.

I suspect you're going to see quarterbacking be more accepted and less of a problem in video/board/card game scenarios because Win The Game is a lot more emphasized in those, so there's more acceptance of taking some direction from others in order to succeed because that's why we're here. Personal expression still crops up for sure, but aside from like roleplay servers or the more nebulous early phases of an MMO - Dan Olson's example of a WoW player who always stays shoeless and always walks outside of combat and eventually draws the ire of their guild is a great example of that transition, for example - I don't think there's honestly too-too much in the way of narrative expression for multiplayer video games. Your "verbs" and goals are necessarily much more actively restricted too, which furthers this - no matter how you feel about your character or whatever, at the end of the day, W or L is in many cases the thing the game expresses, so that's what folks will aim for. (Some games are, of course, better at this than others.)

Now, this is not to say that I'm drawing a "rollplay vs roleplay" distinction. I would really hope we're several decades beyond that. (I know we're not actually but I like to be optimistic.) What I'm saying is that in a given situation, someone playing the game is going to have several motivations pulling them in different directions, and in a lot of cases any of these can lead to folks telling other people what to do or feeling like they have to do something they don't want to. I mostly think this is a game state vs. other motivations thing but it can definitely happen from narrative or personal angles too: if someone has ever told you that your character probably wouldn't do something, for example, there it is!

Why does turn-based make this more of a thing?

There will almost certainly end up being "correct" decisions, and when there are "correct" decisions, there will always be a frustration in some players when others aren't making them. You can correlate this extremely strongly with the margin for error for victory/etc narrowing: as soon as there's a perception that a binary win/loss is at stake, people will start to do this more. And the longer a game lasts, the more likely this is. The idea of playing a co-op game for 4 hours and losing kind of sucks - much less a campaign that lasts a year and is on the brink of ending in a TPK or whatever!

For turn-based games, you have much more of an opportunity to draw out a turn and figure out the exact optimal thing, and do an "are you sure" or "please do this instead" when someone says the "wrong" thing. In contrast, for a video game that's real-time (and especially one that's remote!) you don't really have a chance to second-guess anyone's course of action, they're just going to do what they're going to do and you can either scream obscenities at them for it or not. Depending on the game, they may not even be able to hear it!

Why does removing randomness also make this more of a thing?

Let's imagine a three-person combo: Person A sets something up with one ability, Person B primes it in some key way with another, Person C finishes it off with a third that ends up as something far greater than the original. Great! This is what co-op tactics games are made of! It's cool when people contribute. We love to see it.

If this works every time, if all of them can be guaranteed to be able to happen, then setting things like this up is the play, no question. If you're Person B, you're guaranteed to be decreasing the value of your actions by doing something that isn't bridging that gap between A and C unless there's a situational reason not to do that. If you can't guarantee any part of that combo happens/will work, though, the value of being able to set those combos up decreases or they'll be much shorter/more conditional to account for it.

This isn't to say it's useless when there's more uncertainty, but there's way more latitude for not sticking to the plan when things have an increasing number of ways they can go off track.

Can't we just solve this by talking it out.

Yes. I feel the need to emphasize this, yes. I've done it in the past. You can always talk to a group of friendly folks to fix almost anything. It's always correct and valid to just talk to people if there's an issue if that's an option. Talk to your friends.

Now that that's out of the way, I think it's a bit of a thought-terminating cliche. Of course you can just ask your friends to knock it off...but that assumes you're playing with friends, and often if you're playing with someone you aren't that comfortable with it's way harder to do - doubly so if that's how they've always played and they're not sure what they're doing wrong. And especially if you're time-limited, like at a con game! "Suddenly become an extrovert" and/or "figure out how to confront people you don't know" is a little beyond the scope of this topic, and if you can teach people how to do that, write a book about it or something.

Ideally I'd like to design and run games so it doesn't feel like it needs to get to that point as often or as quickly. For instance, a game that's wildly poorly designed and unbalanced requires a lot more pulling punches and intentional spotlighting to keep things even-keeled than one that isn't, you know? For traditional GM-centric games it puts a lot of work on them, and even for more distributed-role games it adds a ton of work that doesn't have to be there and expends a lot of energy that could go elsewhere. As such I think there's value in figuring out design and play tools to help myself and others with this (and luckily, there are neat examples to pull from).

Next time.

#ttrpg #ttrpg design #game design

[fearandhatred]

Gonna spam your inbox with these get ready :) for the fandom questions 30 & 43 and for the fic writer questions 17 & 24

sonny these questions are HARD

ask game || ask 1

30: what inspires you to write?

everything and nothing ngl ideas come to my head whenever the hell they want which sometimes is very rarely. but One thing i can say for sure inspired me in general was a little life by hanya yanagihara. yeah i will not shut up about this book. i feel like my writing style actually changed so much after reading it and sometimes i just go back to the book and read some random pages for inspiration because i love how hanya writes

43: is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you?

not in particular actually... i do admire the creators in this fandom in general and i've read very very good works (yours included btw!!), but there's no one particular person that is inspiring in the sense that my work reflects something that i've taken away from theirs like i explained in the previous question. but there are moments where i read a fic or a comment and i feel a burst of motivation to write lol

17: if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

alas i am not one of those people who have been writing since young for some reason, even though i have historically enjoyed writing compositions and fiction assignments for school. i didn't even think i could write and a year ago i would NEVER have thought i could write a multi-chaptered fic. idk if it's because i got more time/motivation after i graduated from high school but that's only when i really started getting ideas and inspiration after reading or watching something. so advice for my younger self would be uhhh:

just Write. sometimes i'll think i don't have an idea or i won't be able to write a scene in the way i want, but once i actually start it just happens naturally!! like half the metaphors i come up with are just me saying shit i made up on the spot and sometimes it makes sense

write down anything you come up with even if it's just a word or a setting. i have certain phrases in my good omens fics that i pulled from random lines i wrote down like three years ago because i liked how they sounded. and other times i look back at my notes from a week ago and i have no idea what i meant by it but at least it's funny (once i just wrote "swivel chair" in my notes and to this day i don't remember why)

24: have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

omg i'm so boring but not really LMAOO i think it's because when i come up with fic ideas that i actually want to write, it's mostly about exploring relationships and how relationships and a character's history affects them as people (it's the sociologist in me). so plot isn't really my thing—which is why i never thought i would be able to write multi-chaptered fics because i used to write short reflective pieces. even for transitional heart taxidermy, the plot i came up with was secondary to what i wanted to write about which was crowley and aziraphale's relationship lmao

at most i'll go back and really analyse the source material to make sure i get the facts right. like dialogue and scenes and layouts etc. for the bible fic i... read the bible lol to see diction and pacing and how the verses were formatted. and for blood in my eyes i joined the discord to find a layout of aziraphale's bookshop for Accuracy

#fearandhatred #fearandasks #fearandfics #again thank u bestie for the ask <3 #good omens

[noxious-fennec]

PLEASEEEE tell me about the symbolism in your drawing Oh i am dying to know

HII why thank you for asking!! I'll try my best to answer concisely but Tl;dr I'm not normal about either cwilbur or flower symbolism :) it also must be noted that a lot of my decisions are entirely based on my personal cultural experience so I hope if anything you find it interesting.

For an overview, The peice is inspired by art nouveau, namely alphonse mucha and henri privat livemont, and is mostly based on this hamlet production poster by the former. The composition however is not based on said illustration, and is slightly inspired in part by stained glass and fences of the movement. The clothing cwilbur is wearing is from the edwardian period, if I've got my references correct it's earlier in the period, though not any year in particular. It differs drastically in the fact that the colors are very vibrant (I can't help putting cwil in shades of red, ho16 permanently changed my brain chemistry), and that the Cape part of the inverness cape is entirely too short. Otherwise I've attempted to keep the general silhouette accurate.

Now the plant symbolism:

First: Arabian jasmine (which fun fact are not actually the same as the 4 petal vine yasmine, has a different name, Full (فل), and they grow on shrubs) and the Damascus rose go together because of two reasons: 1) i didn't know other flowers to put there and 2) they're very closely tied in my brain. If you try to find their symbolism you'll find a lot of things about beauty and purity, as is common with any white flower or rose, but my reasoning differs. Without going into too much detail, I intended for them to symbolise community and belonging.

Daffodils (the ones depicted are the ones most common in my region, they may not resemble the expectations but they are indeed daffodils) mean death rebirth and hope, its a flower i generally associate with cwil. Same meaning goes for the white lilies. And poppies have a heavy association with war and generally symbolise remeberance and hope for peace, and thus, l'manberg association.

The next five are flowers that represnt certain characters strictly based on cwilbur's preception of them, but they can be applied to others as well, i just thought these were most important:

Freesia: especially when yellow, usually means thoughtfulness, trust and friendship. represents cranboo.

Orange/tiger lilly: pride, hatred, status, tenacity.  Cquackity

Lilly of the valley: cmon we all know this one, ctommy

Boat orchid: virtue and morality, a gesture of respect and friendship. Ctubbo

Gladiolus: diminutive of gladius(sword); strength of character, moral integrity and rememberance. ctechno

pomegranate tree and fruit: pomegranates have a very different connotation in Western media, from what I can glean, as opposed to what I'm used to them being perceived as (I won't derail this but I can elaborate if needed). In short, I've chosen to take advantage of this double meaning and so its here to represent life death and resurrection while the tree is for family and home.

On a side note, I was originally going to do night blooming jasmine (مسك الليل) but it wasn't working, the symbolism of it however still stand: its a flower many love and think smells amazing, but rarely do they actually want the burden of having it in their own yards because of how deathly strong it smells. I was intending on using it to symbolise the complicated nature of cwilbur's relationship with the important people in his life.

And finally, the olive tree: aside from its meanings of peace and friendship, olive trees also mean olive oil which is a product with many healing properties that is not too easy to make and requires a lot of work. i chose it to mean healing and the process thereof.

So yeah that's it, hope it's up to expectation and thanks for the interest means a lot to me <33

#sorry for the late answer my sleep schedule is not doing great #but i hope you enjoyed this little explanation i hope i conveyed my ideas well #there's a solid month's worth of wracking my brain trying to come up with something good here so yk it's very over the place #i didnt give certain characters like fundy or phil their own flower because i felt the symbolism of family was enough #considering how many flowers here are just like family associated for me #oh and the sword so yk i think it's fair #if you think i neglected an important character uhh give them the closest flower in here #no villains cus it was an appreciation peice alright #also sorry to others that asked i figured it'd be too redundant to explain it to each individually #you should know ive put none of my thought process here which took far too long. also didnt mention the 4 peice orignal concept #i gave up on that one but i still have a lot of drafts and poetry i chose to go along with it. thats where the line of poetry is from #anyway i ramble to much peace and love if you read this whole thing i am giving you a kiss #secret message to meow meowjoy you're like my favourite cwilbur artist im very honored <333 #fennec .ask #fennec.art

[honnojis]

Hey Xumi, how did you learn to compose music? And is there like another skill you have to learn to give it a shot?

Lotsss of trial and error by just trying shit out. The post ended up a bit long, so I'm gonna have more under the cut!

I had some music knowledge from having taken a few music theory exams and took guitar/vocal lessons for a while, but that was about as far as it went, so I had no actual experience in, well, composing anything! It REALLY showed with some of my earliest compositions. Some of which are still in the game, by the way! Saki's Hijinx, Despair Desert, Painful Truth are the oldest songs I've composed for Rejuvenation that are still in the current build. Goldenleaf Town is also one, but has received a remaster since, so that one doesn't really count I think.

I started out with a trial version of Mixcraft (of which I reset the trial........... several times. because i was able to do that for some reason. very cool), then later decided to 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️ FL studio 12 LOL. That's kinda where I had to start actually making my own beats, chords and melodies since I initially relied on a sample library that was included with Mixcraft to do most of my work before then. A lot of the old songs I mentioned previously actually were made using those samples, hence why they sound a little repetitive. The switch to FL was rough at first and you could tell I had like 0 experience with mixing anything (go listen to the oldest version of the rival theme of Xenogene, it's the first song I ever made in FL), but i eventually figured out how to make stuff sound more stereo, got better at writing my own melodies and chord progressions, got access to better VST's and just generally started to get better at the whole music composing thing!!!!!!

Tutorials have definitely helped! Youtube is good. You can find a lot of ideas in different corners. For instance, one of the recent tracks I've made I actually got some ideas from watching a jazz piano chord tutorial!! There's some really cool chord progressions in jazz music and it's been really helpful to get out of the habit of sticking to the same 5 default chords hahaha........... Tho I think the thing I've had to look up the most was how to do proper mixing in production. I'm still not satisfied with my skill in that regard 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠 kms

mixing is a fuck

My biggest problem was that I just kinda... never practiced composing/actually working in a DAW enough until recent years. I used to compose music based on whims of inspiration, which is a bit of a bad habit when you're trying to get better at something, but I think I've kiiiinda gotten out of that now? I'm able to sit down and just get started on music more often lately even if I don't have any direct ideas.

I think I really started to take things more seriously since I've started making more tracks for Rejuvenation, which is subsequently how I figured out I really want to start doing music as part of my actual work now! Funny how that works, isn't it? This is the second time I figured out that I wanted to do a certain thing for a living thanks to this game LMAO

Definitely gotta give a shout out to DM Dokuro though, that man's work is so incredibly unique and has been a huge inspiration for making me want to get better at composing. The music he's composed is what's driving me to try out more new approaches to song structure, chord progressions and the likes! If you for some reason haven't listened to his work yet, do it. now. you will absolutely not regret it

#zumi answers #as for a skill i'd like to learn........ actually fucking learn how to play the piano properly #i'd kill to be able to use my midi keyboard more efficiently because it'd save half the time of having to write stuff to a piano roll #pokemon rejuvenation #anonymous

[jazzywazzy89]

aw bless, i understand. fandom can be intimidating, especially ones that are active and considering you didn’t watch tvd when kai first appeared, i can see why it would be daunting to write a fic. with that being said i love all human AUs for bonkai and a You inspired fic would be *chefs kiss*. and honestly i’m always here for any bonnie ship but the reason i ask about that particular one is because i truly felt like the writing was heading in that direction but a certain showrunner got wind and changed gears. the potential for any bonnie fic is there but idk something about bonkai always felt like it was supposed to work and we’d get a fleshed out, dark bonnie plus the chemistry and dynamic between the two would have worked very well. but as usual the writers couldn’t let my girl have shit. plus, they would have really fit the enemies to lovers trope tbh

Right! Most of the time the fandom is really gracious so it might not even be necessary to worry. But I still have some hang ups and even though the Bamon fic I posted went over well I will never forget the pressure I felt to make Bamon endgame for my fic The Gods of Viriginia because of how vocal people were. I think it might be easier if I'm writing for just that pairing as insatiable got mostly postive feedback but then I also got feedback saying it wasn't dark enough. Lol So you can't please everyone tbh.

Though I wasn't actively watching when Bonkai was onscreen I did watch the scenes as I said and do think they would've fit the enemies to lovers trope. The problem with TVD in terms of Bonnie was that any time she got any attention or any pairing gained traction with the fandom it was shot down by JP and even if they had write themselves into a corner, sacrifice plot and continuity, or ruin someone's characterization to not go with a story or pairing for Bonnie or to give it to one of the other female leads instead they did it. That's why Klaus's character was sacrificed for KC, that's why DE was drawn out for so long even though Bamon had better chemistry and the story would've naturally developed there, and that's why Kai was killed off in the manner that he was. And JP had no problem with doing the bare minimum to capitalize on the Bonnie fandom's viewership so we got things the Bamon friendship and breadcrumb scenes for pairings like Klonnie, Kennett, and Bonkai. But when it came to actually pairing Bonnie off on the show they only ever did that when they wanted to keep a character on screen and relevant but didn't have anyone else to tie them to so they stuck them with Bonnie, which was why we got B*remy and B*nenzo. But anyway JP and TPTB on TVD didn't care about organic storytelling and definitely didn't care about story at all when it came to Bonnie outside of her suffering or providing a magic fix it when everyone else was in need.

Moving on, you should definitely watch the film Beast if you get a chance. It's so good! As for the You AU, I think it fits well, the problem with Joe though is his insane inner monologue and I wouldn't be able to sit in that head for an entire fic. I think if I tackled it, it'd be sort of how I did Notes on a Scandal, with the inner monologue being in snippets that break up the actual story narrative that's told in third person. I've thought about it a lot actually and I see Bonnie as a sort of composite character as a combination of all of Joe's love interests. Because I can see a bit of her in Beck, that need to be loved and that desire to be seen and wanted. But there's also and edge that Candace has and I could see in a AU Bonnie being an aspiring musician because of Kat's talent. Also I could see Bonnie sort of cultivating this outside image that hides and inner darkness the way that Love does and I always like to play around with Dark!Bonnie, and their sort of frantic love/hate cat and mouse thing would fit Bonkai as well. I could also see Bonkai having a sort of affinity for one another and points of connection the way that Joe does with Marienne. It'd be a hard one to tackle but I do feel like it'd fit. I've brainstormed about it more than once. Not sure if I'll ever actually write it but it'd be a fun one to try.

#anons #replies #bonnie bennett #fanfiction #bamon #bonkai #klonnie #kennett #fuck jp forever tbh

[devsgames]

Mech Game Concept

Trying something new!

Generally I think sharing a 'game idea' is tacky and a bit of a meaningless gesture. After all, ideas come and go; I've had a gazillion 'ideas' for games and really only ever got around to making like 1/100th of them.

That being said, occasionally I'll have an idea that might feel like its more attainable or within scope, interesting for me to develop and (most importantly) feel like the intentions for everything are in the right place - these are usually the ideas I tend to give the most merit.

So I figured I'd try documenting one of them on here for posterity/fun!

Note: While the wording here sounds absolute and definite, that just makes it easier for me to write. Design is never (or at least, should never be) figured out from the get-go so everything is subject to change.

The Concept

'Untitled Mech Game' is a action-strategy game where you gather a squad of mech pilots and lead them against an army of hostile mechs in procgen battlefields.

The Gameplay

'Untitled Mech Game' is a hybrid FPS strategy game. On a macro progression level I imagine its similar to that of Bad North, where the player fights back increasingly difficult armies of enemies through discrete battlefields. There would also be some sort of time pressure like Bad North or FTL that forces the player to pick and choose certain battles over others.

Enemies would become progressively more difficult during a campaign, starting with weak archetypes and gradually revealing stronger ones as the fight goes on. The final enemy of a run would be the hardest, and enemy composition in a battle should on some level affect what allies the player chooses to bring into combat. Upon completing runs, players could unlock new mech types, cosmetics, or difficulty levels.

Though I would stray away from mech 'customization' in terms of weapon loadouts and such, I imagine there would be a few different 'styles' of mechs, each having different advantages and disadvantages (light, medium, heavy, etc). The player, allies, and enemies could use these different types of mechs, carrying with them the advantages and disadvantages. I don't imagine an ally could switch mechs during a run, but it's possible the player coluld.

On the moment-to-moment level when fighting battles, you play the role of a mech on the battlefield fighting and commanding allies - think Mechwarrior, but with incredibly simplified mechanics and interactions.

The player can use various weapons like rockets, lazers, and machine guns, as can enemies. There are objects in the world that can be knocked over and destroyed, and while piloting the mech the feeling of being a huge thing in a small landscape should be paramount. However, the player's actions don't determine the outcome of the battle as much as the actions of their allies do.

There wouldn't be complex systems like hardpoints/power levels etc. as you might expect from mech games, as the focus is less on personal mech management and more focused on managing your team and surviving.

The levels that battles take place on could be a simple procgen where a terrain is generated and buildings/landmarks placed on top of it. Battles could be on islands surrounded by water to avoid players wandering freely, and keep the combat focused.

Allies

As you fight through battles you have the potential to unlock 'Allies' who you can then use in subsequent battles. Allies can be ordered simple commands like 'attack' or 'go here' to give a layer of strategy to combat. Allies could have proc-gen portraits and say things during battle to help you keep tabs on them in a very anime-esq way (e.g. "It's not looking good…" when dying or "We're doing it!" when the battle is being won).

Allies also have 'stats' which heavily influence their personalities in combat and can have a positive or negative effect, and act as a command consideration for the player.

Stats can have positive and negative effects and should tend to be affected by circumstances of the battle itself. For example, an ally might have a stat like 'Boldness' could give them a chance to go ignore orders when they're hit by an enemy. Conversely a stat like 'Fear Resistance' might prevent them from running away when near death. No matter what the stats are in actuality, the core intention of this system is similar to XCOM wherein your allies should feel like real people you're fighting alongside, want to keep alive, and to see them grow over time.

On the macro level, if an ally dies in battle there's a high chance they will die and become unusable for the run. Allies' stats can be influenced by earning currency by winning battles, which a player can spend to alter their stats and make them stronger over time, rewarding the player for keeping an ally alive.

Art Style

I imagine the art style to be more cartoony/comicy and low poly, with bright but simple textures. Somewhere between a Gamecube game and a PS1 game, with a bright and saturated colour palette and cartoony effects.

(Image: "CyberLancer")

Allies could have simple lowres proc-gen portraits made up of a combination of various pieces to help the player develop a sens of who they are.

That's all the ideas for the game I really had! I think the biggest unknowns would really be the procgen terrain and some of the progression stuff. Would definitely be a lot for me to handle alone, but could be a fun thing to chase down the road - who knows! 🤷

Anyway, thanks for reading!

#game dev #gamedev #indie game #indie games #game development #devlog #gamedevelopment #idea #ideas #concepts #concepting #mech #mecha #gundam

[copypastejunkpile]

My cameras

Alternatively titled "oh god I'm starting a camera collection"

So this past year I've decided to get into film photography, for reasons I'll explain in a paragraph or two. What's followed is me spending a stupid amount on film and the like until I got to where I am now, with enough cameras that I need to figure out where the hell I'm gonna put them.

Instead of doing that though, I want to show them off and talk about them, because God knows that I'm probably gonna buy like 2 more cameras before I figure out what my actual plan is with them. I'll present these in order of ownership:

Canonet QL17

This rangefinder is the first film camera I owned, coming into my possession a few years ago but initially set aside to either sell or gather dust while I figured out what to do with it. When the thought came to it again last year, I used it as an opportunity to get back into photography, a hobby I had refused to let myself enjoy for a little while. I concluded that while I liked it, I wanted to get an SLR so I could have finer control of the composition of each shot, which lead to...

2. Canon FTb-n

I got it for pretty cheap (~30 bucks after shipping) on ebay in early December and have had issues with it, but I still really like it. It initially came with a 50mm prime lens but the 35-70mm zoom lens on it now arrived recently and I look forward to toying with it. The whole time I've owned this camera I've been troubleshooting it. At first I wondered if there was an issue with the light seals, but now I've realized it might be something to do with the film advance. The thing that hooks into the film can and lets you wind it back hasn't always been rotating for each wind, and I've noticed just today it's notably bent. I either need to get brave and see if I can fix it myself or find someone to hand it off to for repair, or else I'm just going to keep having shots not turn out on each roll.

3. Canon Photura

This is a goodwill find! I went in on a whim the other week and found 3 different point and shoot cameras, and had a good feeling about this one when i cracked it open only to find an old roll of kodak gold still wound up in it (battery was dead so I had no way of telling there was film in there). Tracked down a battery for it, and it works! for the ten bucks I paid I think I made out pretty good, as it honestly feels pretty nice to shoot with. Very touristy feeling, and its certainly strange to say that this camcorder looking thing is actually a stills camera, but I like it.

Now at the end of the list, I feel like I ought to say I'm not trying to collect canon cameras (though I do really want to get my hands on a t70 to round out the arrangement). I want to get my hands on a couple different nikon cameras, and I've been holding myself back from buying certain techy minolta cameras I've seen on local listings. This is just what I've had the fortune of finding for cheap. Thanks for reading!

#especially long post #cameras #EDIT and then i proceeded to look at camera listings for 3 hours after posting

[tiikerikani]

Slightly different

2024 Apr 05 – Espoon Kultturikeskus (Tapiolasali), Espoo

When I got off the metro I went to the random (broken) piano in the bus terminal and played a few songs (on the off-chance somebody recognizes what they're hearing but probably not).

Mirror selfie was better today:

A groupie couple whom I don't have a nickname for (but we have spoken to each other several times) was next to me. The gent is usually in some dress shirt with a busy floral pattern, I think. We had a good conversation going waiting for the thing to start. It helps that I actually had something interesting to talk about (new job!!!!) when folks ask how I'm doing. (I said he could add me on Facebook so he did. Finally collected a groupie on my Facebook.)

Most of the familiar faces that I recognize only came to this show, except for the Superfans, who were one seat away from me yesterday and a bit farther back today. (The Thursday show was added later.)

I don't think I have yet collected a picture of this gesture:

Markus was wearing fun socks again but they were different socks. I couldn't make out what was on them.

No but seriously Markus's smile though

My pictures usually suck from just not having a good camera and having slow reflexes for this sort of thing, but I try to compensate by making them compositionally interesting? There's parallels to how I compensate for my lack of (formal) singing technique with body language, or leaning into composition and vibes over technical precision in my painting.

Anyway I digress.

Well. I filmed the song but the camera was on potato mode. The audio is fine but this is what home video was like in the 1990s. The 90s is considered retro and "in" now, right? (I feel extremely old writing this.) The solo sounds improvised; I'm almost certain it's been different every time I've heard it.

(You may note that this is also a good demonstration of what I mean about getting my wild gesticulation habit from him.)

WHAT is going on between the two of them back there (they have a little choreography where they're whispering to each other and miming things.)

The conversation with the groupie couple continued after the performance and we weren't in a huge hurry to get out of the hall, so the roadies started distributing set lists to anybody who was still around. They took one.

(the set list is slightly different from yesterday, just like my outfit. and the guitar solo.)

Maailma palaa

Kohti sydänpeltoja

Intiaanit

Jee jee

Ilman mua

Tummilla teillä

Samaan mutkaan kaatunut

Exodus

Tanssimaan

Paviaani

Kiljut riemusta

Reppana

Faarao

Kolme hyvää vinkkiä

Kanto

Onnellinen mies

Hetken ikuinen

// Ei voittajaa

// Kukaan ei koskaan

// Arlandan portailla

[Concert write-up archive and master calendar]

#music #concerts #vesterinen yhtyeineen #set list

[darkspace7]

Overture

"A plucked note, a half familiar tune, it's okay if you don't remember the words- you will soon."

(Or in which Ichigo has a bad day, meets a guy with personal space issues and who looks way too much like his zanpakuto to be comfortable, and finds out reincarnation is also apparently a thing?) Words: 10572 Rated: Fiction T A/N: This is actually very old wip that I found in one of my old journals and simply decided one day to finish on a whim. I've always been rather fond of reincarnation stories and figured it would work out rather well here. Also honestly I just wanted to have an excuse for Ichigo being a salty little shit to someone. Anyway, I do not hold the rights for either DGM or Bleach because -let's be honest here- would I really be writing fanfiction if I did?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Overture"-noun: an orchestral piece that serves as the precursor to a larger musical composition; the start of something much bigger. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Sixteen…"

With a flash of steel viscera flew away, shattering into nothingness before it even had a chance to hit the ground.

"Seventeen…"

The thick blade of the khyber knife slid through flesh and bone with little effort, carving a path of destruction in its wake.

"Eighteen!"

The teen hefted the massive blade onto his shoulder and cast a glance back at one of the (un)fortunate few hollows that had managed to escape from the carnage. ' Though not for long… ' "Oi Ishida!" He called out suddenly, "That's eighteen now, how many have you managed so far?"

A bolt of blue soared past him, just narrowly missing by a small margin as it went on to pierce the mask of one of the more opportunistic hollows who thought they might be able to get a cheap shot or two in while he was distracted. "Perhaps you should focus on the task at hand instead of asking inane questions like who can kill the most hollows in one go Kurosaki." The bespectacled Quincy replied in a droll tone as he leapt back, ducking quickly in an effort to avoid the clawed swipe a low-level adjuchas before launching off a volley of arrows in retaliation. "And it's twenty-three if you must know."

"Damn." Ichigo turned away with a grumble but still felt the need to retort,"Yeah, well, you know we wouldn't even be out here in the first place with if a certain somebody hadn't shoved me back into that crate of hollow bait!"

"I already told you that was an accident! My arms were so full of stuff that I couldn't even see over them! How on earth was I supposed to know you were right behind the door? I may have talents that span across many fields, but you will be hard pressed to find being psychic among them." "Uh-huh, yeah, sure." Ichigo nodded entirely unconvinced, "Tell that to the hand you messed up!" He flicked said appendage toward the other teen. An action of which merely caused the other to roll his eyes. "It was just a small cut Kurosaki, stop being so melodramatic." "Melodramatic?!" The teen cried, "You're not the one who ended up taking an entire shelf down with him! I got dirt and god-knows-what in this damn thing. Do you know how much bacteria is in that shit? I'm lucky if it doesn't get infected!" A shout quickly cut both of them off and not a moment later it was followed with a large hollow being sent sailing past the taller teen. He blinked and turned to the source. "Hey how you holding up Chad?

"Fine." Yasutora Sado -or as he was known to his friends- Chad replied. "I managed to get thirty so far." His armored fist crashed through the skull of a still-twitching creature. "Though I think that was the last one."

The deafening sound of a garganta tearing through the night sky drew their attention upwards. Twin sets of bleached bone hands accompanied by the massive visages of their owners peered out of the void-like spacial tear. They stared up at the newly-arrived gillians for a second before Chad spoke up once more. "I might've been wrong." Uryu pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh.

"You know…" Ichigo eyed the gillians with a discerning look, "This feels suspiciously familiar for some reason." He turned to face his Quincy companion speculatively, "Didn't we have to do something similar to this the last time you decided to be an idiot?"

"Ugh, don't remind me." He grumbled, shooting the teen a gimlet stare. "Don't tell me you're thinking of rushing up and trying to knock them down from the bottom-up again are you?"

'Er well maybe not from the bottom-up anyway.' The substitute shinigami thought with a flush. "That was one time! And from what I remember, its not like your plan was any better!"

"Excuse me?" Came the indignant response. Ichigo's look was as dry as his words, "It involved tying my sword to your head and trying to shoot the damn thing down Ishida. I think that counts."

"Ichigo."

"What?" The teen turned to his tall friend who in turn made a silent gesture towards the general vicinity of the massive hollows, the other's gaze locked on something in the distance. Curious, he traced the path only to spot the telltale glow of a cero beginning to form on the leftmost gillian's lips. "Oh…shit." With that he moved.

Shifting into a shunpo, he flickered up and over to meet the threat. Zangetsu out and at the ready, he sent forth a nameless arc of energy directly into the large beast's face. The light of the cero dissipated as the gillian was knocked back from the sheer force of the attack. Incensed, the being let out an ear-drum shattering screech.

However, not giving it a chance to recover, Ichigo launched himself forward and swung. A fearsome cry ripped loose as the blade cleaved though the hollow's mask and eventually the being itself. "That's nineteen." He slid back, allowing the dissipating reishi of the newly purified beast to filter around him as he made to survey his newest target. "Now let's see if we can make it twenty."

A faint shimmering glow began to encapsulate the zanpakuto as wisps of power rose up to meet their king's demand. Slipping one foot back, he settled into a firm stance, braced the charged blade with a strong grip, and then uttered the two damning words, "Getsuga Tensh-?!"

It was then, at that very moment, he felt his power surge. Taken off guard by the unexpected ferocity he jerked and involuntarily released the charged attack. However he only had a split second to process this before it all went to hell. It was… odd, he thought with a detached air. There was the vague sense of his half-called attack coming forth to strike the unfortunate hollow with enough force that if the blast itself hadn't destroyed it then the resounding shockwave would have managed that thrice over. A searing throb pulsed through his arm as ringing echoed with an omnipresent chime in his ears. He thought if he strained hard enough that he could maybe make out the disant voices of his friends and the rush of wind flowing past him as he flew. And then suddenly the world shifted and he was falling and everything was beginning to lose focus and then- Darkness.

-------------------------------[ - XIV - ]------------------------------------ … … …? **…? It.. me, ****. Ca. ..u …r m. ..t? ***** y.u …d .. get up! ***..?!

"Damn it Ichigo wake up!" -------------------------------[ - XV - ]---------------------------------- Warm brown eyes flickered a bit as the lids hiding them cracked open- only to clamp shut seconds later with a pained hiss. He opted to remain like that as he took stock of his situation. He was obviously still alive if the general ache that seemed to run through every part of his body were any indication (and shit if it didn't hurt) and from what he could tell, he was sprawled out on on something hard and cold - the ground- presumably. His hand twitched and brushed up against something at his side. Curiosity taking precedence for the moment, he hazarded a glance around until his slit-eyed gaze happened upon the thing. It was his sword, somehow he had managed to keep his grip on the blade despite being tossed about like a ragdoll. Good to know.

"Ichigo!"

His head tilted towards the shout and the tension bled from his frame when he caught sight of who it was. "Hey…you okay?" The teen managed to grit out. 'Because I sure as hell am not.'

"Kurosaki." There was a flicker of relief behind metal-rimmed frames that was quickly asked by annoyance. "I think that question would better be directed at yourself." Reaffixing the sliding pair of lenses he continued on, "Seeing as I'm not the one in the crater right now."

"Ishida!" It was at that moment that Chad had finally managed to make it to the scene. As his attention flickered from the Quincy to a vaguely irritated-looking Ichigo then to the surrounding destruction he came to a conclusion of some sort and finally let his gaze come to rest on the fallen substitute shinigami. He took a step forward and asked, "What happened?"

With some difficulty Ichigo managed to push himself into a semiseated position. He looked up at the two perched upon the lip of the impact site with a pensive scowl. "I'm… not entirely sure." He admitted honestly, a hand raked through disheveled locks as he thought.

"It looked like you exploded."

"Yeah? That's a bit what it felt like too." The whole peculiarity pf the incident had left him with a bitter taste in his mouth (although that might've just been blood.) "It was weird. I was just doing as I normally do when out of nowhere my power just sort of… skyrocketed. Next thing I know that hollow is on death's door and my ass is being sent flying halfway across the city."

They were all silent for a pause, each lost to their own thoughts until Ishida decided to break it. "We should head on back, perhaps that shopkeeper can shed some light on things."

The black-clad teen snorted, "If you somehow think you can get him to drop that cryptic bullshit for two seconds then by all means go for it." He slowly began to pull himself up, grunting quietly from the effort.

"Do you need some help?" Chad -ever the reliable friend- offered.

"No, no. I got it." He waved him off and slowly managed to heave himself upright with Zangetsu acting as a sort of makeshift crutch. He successfully made it a step-and-a-half forward before his legs decided to give out on him and he crumpled. "Um maybe I don't have it…"

Ishida's brow hiked up slightly, "Oh really? I honestly couldn't tell." He drawled, earning a glower from the other teen. The bespectacled youth chuckled slightly as he bent down and carefully perched himself on the rim of the crater, his hand extended out towards his sometime friend/rival. Grumbling under his breath, the boy clasped onto the proffered limb with a firm embrace. And then it happened…

One moment everything was fine and the next second, right as Ichigo's made contact, the other's sleeve seemed to just disintegrate. A startled yelp escaped the Quincy as he jerked the limb from the other's grasp, the sudden loss of support sending the teen back down flat on his ass. He stared in a sort of horrified bewilderment as the other clutched at the pained limb and from where he was sitting Ichigo thought he could spot a welt of red stand stark out against pale skin. Appearing almost as if it had been seared there. His gaze flickered down to his bandaged hand, watching as the appendage trembled slightly when he made a fist.

What in the actual fuck?

Pain momentarily shunted to the back of his mind, he scrambled up the pile of rubble, taking care to maneuver around the duo as he hefted himself up and over the ledge. Wordlessly he met their troubled flickers with an uneasy gleam of his own. The same unspoken question passed between them: just what the hell was going on? Thankfully they were spared the issue of dwelling on it for too long when a distinctly familiar presence decided to make itself known. "Oh my, you boys sure know how to make a mess." The clack-clack of wooden sandals slapping against concrete came to as stop as their owner cast an impassive eye at the trio, namely a certain swordsman. "Well I suppose it's a good thing that my ability to conveniently appear at just the right moment is as impeccable as always. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Urahara-san, as much as we would love to stand around and discuss your frankly stalker-like tendencies don't you think there are slightly more pressing matters to attend to?"

The man's attention flickered briefly to the injured Quincy before shifting back to Ichigo. "Yes, I suppose so. Exposition time it is then." He affected an almost put upon sigh before sobering so fast it could've given a person whiplash. Leaning forward with his cane as a support he began, "I'm certain you can recall the actions of young Kurosaki-san of a few months prior. How in a desperate last ditch effort he employed the use of his final single most powerful technique in order to stop Aizen and ultimately save out collective asses, in spite of the supposed cost brought about by doing such a thing."

"Except that didn't happen." Ichigo said slowly, "The cost that is."

"Precisely. Which is in where lies the problem." The man's steel eyes glinted slightly, "With the use of that technique you should have immediately undergone the process of losing your spiritual pressure -and with it your powers- the moment you released the attack. But you didn't. Somehow the process was… circumvented -for lack of a better term- allowing for you to pursuit a third option and keep both your abilities and your spiritual energies, albeit in a slightly diminished state. Naturally, phenomena such as this bore further examination and I have to say," He pushed his hat back allowing for a better view, "The results were rather interesting and, sadly to say, inconclusive."

"These results wouldn't happen to involve things like, say, random power spikes and straight up disintegrating shit would they?" The brown-eyed teen asked lowly.

The blond nodded, "From what I have been able to gather I'd say its a bit something like this: imagine if you will, a system of pipes and valves. Normally you'd twist on the tap and water would flow through them with no trouble right? Now picture that those valves, for whatever reason, up and decided that they simply don't want to work properly anymore. What happens when suddenly there's all this extra water and nowhere for it to go? It begins to back up and flood the system, naturally."

He almost didn't want to ask but he needed to know, "And… what happens when the system is completely flooded?"

"Over time the pressure produced would escalate to a level far beyond that which is in any way safe and eventually the backlash would destroy the system entirely-" The blond's gaze traveled significantly to Ishida who continued to clutch at his wounded arm, "- along with everything else within a fourteen kilometer radius." The teen felt his blood become ice. "Oh." A bead of sweat dripped from his brow, "That's…not good." Was all that he managed to get out.

It was a bit before anyone could figure out just how exactly they were supposed to respond to that little proclamation when Ishida -ever the pragmatist- asked, "Is there any way to fix it and make it so that doesn't happen?"

For a brief second he dared hope but when the man simply shook his head his heart sunk, "While I do have some theories that could potentially bear merit, I'm rather reluctant to implement them, at least not until I can manage to extrapolate the underlying cause of all this."

As the incredulous disbelief, which had been progressively mounting throughout the duration of the the conversation, finally deigned itself to drag the teen into its murky depths a thought occurred to him and much like a lifeline he clutched onto it. "What about my body?" Could he even return to it in this state?

The man hummed thoughtfully, "You probably could try to go back to it, but unless you want first-hand knowledge on what its like to inhabit a body that's in the process of slowly being torn apart from the inside by its own spiritual pressure, then I'd advise against it."

'Well that answers that.' The teen grimaced, it was not a pretty picture and in all honesty he kind of felt like he was going to be sick. Having your own abilities suddenly decide you would look better slammed into the concrete and then being told that you were essentially a ticking time bomb that could potentially level half the damn city simply by existing would do that to a person he supposed. "Ichigo." He twitched. Raising up to meet the gentle giant's silent concern, they locked eyes for a moment before he looked away, unable to answer the question held within. Was he okay? Good question.

"I-" He swallowed thickly, noticing how his hands tightened around Zangetsu's grip. Only then he realized he had neglected to sheath the blade and immediately set about rectifying this. He hoped the others were unable to see the way his hands shook as he did.

(They probably could.)

He… He needed some space. To be alone so he could just think and attempt to process whatever the fuck was happening right now with his body, with him. And this is pretty much what he told the others. (And if he was alone then at least he wouldn't take anyone with him.)

Urahara met this with a nod of understanding, hands drifting to his pockets. "I have something for you," He dug through them, pulling out a stick of gum and a rubber duck to which he quickly dismissed and tossed away. "It's only a prototype at the moment-" An innocuous looking green stone of indeterminate construction (it almost seemed to contain an unearthly glow) quickly joined the pile, "-but-" followed by a traffic cone and a stop sign (How did that even fit…?), "-if it works…" then a ball of multicoloured rubber bands and a roll of bandages (which were spared a moment's glance then lobbed over to a thankful Chad), "-it should be able to open up a portal to Hueco Mundo for you to go through," And, finally, out slipped the palm-sized device. "You know, if you, well…"

He trailed off, finger hovering above the sole button on the device for a second before he pressed down. "The portal will only be able to stay open for about a minute on this end but that should be long enough for you to make it through if you hurry."

Ichigo nodded and shifted so now that his friends were the ones in sight instead. He opened his mouth to say something but got cut off before the words had ever reached his tongue. "Go." The tallest of the trio said, "We'll take care of things here." He made certain that they could see the thanks in his eyes before he turned away. Taking a fortifying breath the substitute shinigami stared straight ahead. Only a minute huh? He could handle that.

"Ah well I suppose I should be getting back to the shop. Come along now Sado-kun, Ishida-san."

A beat, then two, and then suddenly he was standing before the static-filled void between worlds.

"Urahara-san aren't you forgetting something?"

He took a step. "Huh? Oh right! Wouldn't want to litter would we? Now let's see, there's this and oh wow! Forgot I had that and… huh? Could've sworn there were two…"

The last vestiges of conversation drifted from awareness with a crack as the mouth of the portal came down behind him and he let out the breath he hadn't known he had been holding. Mechanically, he started forward, legs automatically propelling him towards that land of eternal night. Maybe on the way there he could think of some way that he might just be able to pull his sorry ass out of the proverbial fire this time, and maybe, just maybe there would be no one around to hear his frustrated scream.

------------------------------------[ - XIV - ]--------------------------------

The rhythmic patter of footfalls and unsteady breaths trailed along as he ran. The solitary sounds in stark juxtaposition with the oppressive nothingness was what had finally allowed for the shock to break and everything else settle in. How long had it been now? It was as if he had been on a treadmill, running endlessly yet never getting anywhere. But surely that couldn't be so, he must've made some progress right?

… Right?

He wondered if they managed to make it back to the shop yet. (He tried not to remember deep red in the shape of a hand -his hand- to not picture white-and-silver-and-blue wracked in pain -that he had caused- or recall warm brown, kind yet tinted with a solemn silence and it was his own fault goddamn it-) He hoped they had. In his distraction the walkway he stood upon began to slip back into the ether and caused the teen to pitch forward a bit until he managed to right himself and continue on. It was just a bit before thoughts once more began to drift.

His family…

A niggling feeling of guilt wormed its way up his chest and settled heavily in his throat. He had promised to watch his sisters since their father was out of town for the weekend but now how was he supposed to do that if he couldn't even get near them (or anyone else for that matter?) What if they weren't able to fix things and he'd never be able to see any of them again? Something cold slithered down and joined its fellow in the depths of his heart. He wondered if anyone had went ahead and even bothered to tell them anything. 'Oh god they haven't had they?'

(With a dawning horror he imagined the two girls waiting for him to come home as they always did only to come to learn that their older brother just simply wouldn't be coming back this time and probably never would again. Yuzu would be devastated which would set Karin off because nobody gets away with upsetting her twin like that and then she would try to hunt him down so she could kick his ass and he'd completely deserve it too because what kind of brother does that to his sisters? But it'd all be in vain because he'd be dead and-) He tripped and caught himself once again.

"…" This was taking a very long time. Surely he should've made it somewhere by now shouldn't he? Did he manage to get himself lost on top of everything else? Had Urahara's sketchy invention been a dud? He did say it was a prototype. (Or maybe it was never meant to take him anywhere in the first place and the bastard had left him to die like-)

He shook his head. Well wouldn't that be just perfect, being forced to spend the rest of eternity trapped in the void until either his power tipped past critical and took him with it or he went irrevocably insane from the the fact that he just couldn't seem to find the damned exit- oh.

As if summoned, a bright light slipped onto his visual radar and seemed to grow nearer with every passing second. He quickly stomped on the breaks and screeched to a stop just before it, having came this close to missing the mark completely. Taking a step back, the teen carefully peered out into the distance at the sea of sand below. Very distant. Man he was high up. "Hn a fall like that would've- oof!"

Something slammed into his back, knocking him off-kilter and sending him flailing through the open portal. Suddenly he was falling and those 'distant sands' didn't look quite so distant anymore.

Ichigo screamed. -------------------------------------[ - XV - ]------------------------------- … A****. … Wh. .re … ..ing? …? Yo. ..n't .. ..mfor…le ..ke .h.. .. .et up. (…Nngh.) Co.. .. .ow ..u .ren't ..ving up on m. .r. y..? (W-Who?) Do… yo. re…ber? (I don't…?) Sta.. .n .our ow. ..o .eet Al***, kee. m…ng for..rd wit..ut hesi..ti.n. Eve. .f .ts jus. one st.. at a t..e, walk. .ow enoug. lyi.. aro..d. Get up. (What?) Get up All- --------------------------------[ - XIV - ]------------------------------------ He inhaled sharply and was instantly rewarded with a mouth full of sand. Sputtering, he noted how this was starting to become a pattern. One that seriously needed to stop. He shifted around to lay sprawled out on his back, eyes clamped shut as his breathing evened out. Ichigo took a moment to just stay like that. God, everything hurt. With head turned a bit to the side he finally decided to open his eyes…only to find a face a breath away from his own. He swore.

"Well that's one way to wake up." The figure remarked dryly. Ichigo's mouth opened slightly before he paused then slowly let it fall shut. Brown eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he took in the figure that stood before him only to widen again when he drew back in confusion. '…Tensa?' He blinked. No, that… didn't make any sense. For a number of reasons, actually.

The first of which being the fact that -if his surroundings were any indication- he was not currently within his inner world at the moment.

(That is to say, if the place hadn't up and decided one day that it wanted to look exactly like the Hueco Mundo for no other reason than to simply make him confused.) Sure, there was the possibility that the spirit had decided to manifest into the physical realm for whatever reason but that just gave rise to even more questions. Like why was he even in that form to begin with? The last time he checked he hadn't entered bankai or anything like that so there was really no reason for him to be that way. Unless… whatever was going on was affecting his zanpakuto too? Hn actually… now that he looked closer there was a slight difference or two between the being before him and the spirit of memory. (But still the resemblance was uncanny.)

… And the guy was staring at him. Had he zoned out?

"You okay? You didn't hit your head there did you?" An eyebrow hiked up slightly but the expression was otherwise impassive. Yep, he had. But that was besides the point. The awkward silence stretched between them for a bit longer until the other finally asked, "You just going to keep sitting there?"

"Um…" He replied smartly.

Not-Tensa rolled his eyes and huffed. Hand extended, he proffered it for the other to grasp. When he made no move to do so he leaned forward"

"Ah don't-" -and firmly clasped it in his own. …What?

He hefted the balking teen up with ease, lips curved into a bland smirk as if he hadn't done something that which by all rights should've been impossible. Ichigo was certain he was gaping at the moment but seriously what the actual hell man? The way the other's eyebrow raised, as if to say 'what of it?' certainly wasn't helping matters any. Just who was this guy?!

Apparently either completely oblivious or someone who simply did not give a fuck to any kind of social convention if the way he now dragged him along was anything to go by. "H-Hold on a second! What the hell?! Let go!" Ichigo finally had the good sense to start struggling against the other's grasp but alas was unable to break free. Damn, the guy's grip was like iron. "Where are you dragging me?" That was definitely not a note of panic in his voice, nosiree. But the other merely ignored him as he hummed under his breath. The fingers of his free hand tapping rhythmically against his pants leg, as if they were sketching out a melody that only he were privy to. (He wondered briefly what that strange melody would sound like if it were played across the set of a fine ivory keyboard before he shook his head. Now wasn't the time for such things.) Abruptly the humming cut off. Then-

"What the hell is that?!" A doorway of ethereal white had flickered into view amongst the desert sands. The man's grip tightened as if sensing his suddenly renewed desire to abscond the fuck out of there and slowly began to drag him toward the light. It was at this point the teen began to struggle in earnest. Because okay, yeah, no. There was no way in hell he was going to let himself be placidly dragged along into whatever-the-fuck that was, weird zanpakuto doppelganger notwithstanding!

"Hey! I'm not-" A sharp tug had him nearly biting his tongue as he stumbled forward. Just barely able to catch himself in time and avoid a nasty spill he shot the man's back a dirty glare that sadly served to do little to help his predicament. He wasn't quite sure how but he thought he could feel the faint amusement bleeding from the man's frame. Asshole. And it was with that the struggling youth disappeared into the doorway of light. -------------------------------[ -XV- ]--------------------------------------- White.

That's all that he could see.

A empty town with white cobbled roads, white stone doors, white window frames, white wooden floors. Down a white hallway that lead to a white room with a white piano across from a white couch next to where he now stood. No matter where he turned there it was, that damned colour -or rather- lack of it. It sent a shiver up his spine. (A flicker of memory crossed his mind of a white moon in a dark sky across endless white sands; of long -short- red -black- hair and brown -black- eyes, crying, crying; of black cloth and white stone and white hands stained red red red- "Ichigo!" "*****!") He blinked. How had he even wound up in this situation again? Oh right, that asshole. He strained against the vice-like grip with a huff. Suddenly the death hold was dropped as his kidnapper made to brush past him. The man padded across to where the instrument lay and promptly claimed its bench as his own. Upon having been seated he turned and gave a gesture for him to do the same. He did, keeping his eyes trained firmly on the other as he slowly shifted Zangetsu from his holster to rest conspicuously upon his lap. The action and its clear intent seemed to evoke a small smile from the other.

"Way you were thrashing I would've expected to be held at knifepoint sooner rather than later."

An utterly flat stare. "It's kind of hard to hold someone at knifepoint when the one with the knife is the one being dragged along through god-knows-where by a weirdo with no concept of personal space boundaries. But something tells me you already knew that." He drawled.

A conceding nod. "But not impossible if one was truly inclined." Not- Tensa added, looking over at the blade with an almost appreciative eye. "Not that it would have done much with your current state being what it is at the moment." Bright eyes gave the teen's hastily bandaged hand a significant look. Ichigo -refusing to rise to the bait snorted. He shifted forward, letting the damaged limb splay against the flat of the blade and met the other's gaze.

"And just who are you to care about a thing like that?" The man smirked.

"Well, truthfully I've held many a title over the years, some being more…creative than others. But I suppose something to best suit the current situation would be…hm yes. You can call me, ****!"

… What?

A bead of sweat dribbled down the young teen's spine as the heavy feeling of something utterly foreign and cold settled down upon him. The man had clearly said something so why couldn't he…? Quickly schooling his features, the teen then asked in as nonchalant of a way as he could manage: "Could you repeat that? I didn't quite catch it the first time."

The other's brow furrowed, a faint glimmer of something flickered through his eyes before it was gone. Ichigo watched as he did as he was asked, observing how the man's lips went slowly through the motions again to say his name and…nothing.

Complete and utter silence.

Even though he should've been able to, even though he could almost taste the sting of syllables on his tongue, he just couldn't make out a sound. The other's expression was inscrutable, a carefully bland mask as he observed but the teen paid it little mind because that thing right there? That's what did it for him. More than the other's inexplicable resistance to whatever weirdness that was going on with him, more than the strange portals to stranger bleached ghost towns and their unnerving (familiar) emptiness, it was that: the silence where it should not have been. That was what scared him.

"Well, this is a problem." The man sighed, "Although not much of a surprising one." And then in an undertone, "You always did like to make things unnecessarily difficult."

That last little bit drew the teen up short, successfully dragging him out of the beginnings of a downward spiral that he nearly found himself in. At least for the moment anyway. "You make it sound like we're already well acquainted." 'And I know I've never seen you before in my life.' He thought to himself. 'So there's no way.' Right?

"In a way, yes." Before Ichigo could ask what the hell that meant the man suddenly sat back and slapped his hands together, startling the boy. "I have an idea! Why don't we play a round of twenty questions?"

Okay, what?

The confusion must've been apparent because he went on to explain, "Understandable that you would have questions about any number of things. Things that I may or may not hold the answers to, so what better way to solve this little dilemma than with a bit of back and forth hm?"

"Okay first off: I'm…pretty sure that's not how 'twenty questions' works-"

"Semantics."

"-and second, something tells me that you'd be getting a lot more out of this deal than I would." And I'm not quite sure how I feel about that to be honest.

It was brief but he caught the faint flicker of something in the man's eyes before it was gone with an apathetic shrug, "Fair enough. But honestly, what have you really got to lose at this point? I mean with your condition…" The other trailed off with a significant look and that made his hackles rise.

'Oh I can think of a few things.' He thought, having to bite back the retort. His hand twitched faintly at his side. While it was true that he could perhaps get some of his many questions answered such as: 'How was it that you were able to grab me without a thought while my friends couldn't so much as touch me without getting hurt?' or 'What exactly are you because I know for a damn fact that there's no way you could be a normal human being or even a spirit for that matter with that creepy vibe you're giving off right now,' and his personal favourite: 'Why the hell can't I hear your name?' but was it worth it?

Some nagging feeling in the back of his mind whispered no; that giving this zanpakuto lookalike could potentially do more harm than good. This was further exasperated by the sensation that he felt emanating off of the man, something not too dissimilar from the one that he received from that damned shopkeeper. And if there was one thing that he had learned for certain it was to always be on your guard whenever that mad scientist was involved. But, that being said…

"Alright." He shifted forward with an acquiescing tick of the head, "Let's see what you got."

The man visibly brightened, "Knew you'd come around eventually. So why don't I start us off with something nice and easy like… oh, how about your name?"

('My name? Oh, why it's-')

…? The teen shifted slightly, settling back into the stiff fabric of the cushions. An orange brow hiked up just a bit. "Shouldn't you know already?"

"Of course, but it'd be rather rude not to allow you the chance to introduce yourself don't you think? After all it is usually the first introduction upon which one usually draws their opinion of another is it not?"

"I guess?"

"…" A blank smile. Slender digits traveled along the flat of the knife, an arrhythmic beat tapped along in their wake. "…" "… Well?" "Well what?" "Aren't you?" "Aren't I what ?" "Going to introduce yourself?" The other stated plainly, as if pointing out the obvious.

'Seeing as there isn't much of a damn point why would I?' He thought with a sort of blank incredulity because surely the man had to have been fucking with him, but no, from the expectant gaze trained upon him he realized that the guy was dead serious. Weird. He vented out a huff and proceeded to -in the single most sarcastic and utterly done voice that he could muster- say, "Hello I'm-"

('-A***n ***k*r-') "-Kurosaki Ichigo and I'm-" ('-an Exorcist-') "-a Substitute Shinigami. I think its been a real pleasure to have been able to hang out in this creepy colourless ghost town with only my zanpakuto's weird doppelganger for company, how about you?" "…Somehow I doubt all that." Said doppelganger deadpanned. "And what do you mean weird?" He added as an afterthought. Blatantly ignoring this the teen plowed on, "My turn, so where are we anyway?"

The man ceased his muttering and turned to look at the boy, "Just for the sake of clarification: do you mean in general or-" a gloved hand waved vaguely at the space around them, "-the room we're currently in, or perhaps even-"

"Just answer the damn question!" Ichigo barked, his patience finally having snapped.

The man seemed to blink and give him another one of those curious stares before finally something shifted and his eyes lost that playful glow. It was a subtle change but a definitive one, having the teen subconsciously sitting up a touch with a slight frown as the sobered air settled upon them. A brief irrational thought had him wonder if, just perhaps, he might have said the wrong thing but he pressed on. After all, he deserved at least that didn't he? Besides, he had seen all kinds of weirdness so whatever the man threw at him couldn't be that bad compared to some of the other things he'd witnessed. Probably.

The other leaned forward, carefully pressing the fingertips of his gloved hands together, "Tell me boy, are you familiar with the story of Noah?" "'Noah?'" He questioned, tasting the syllables as they rolled across his tongue. "Vaguely." Was the orange-headed teen's answer, tone contemplative as he flicked through old conversations in his mind's eye. "It's a story from the bible, isn't it?" Upon the other's look he elaborated, "My friend, Chad, his grandfather was born in Mexico and raised to be Catholic so when Chad was younger the two of them spent a lot of time together at the local church where they would pray and sometimes read from the scripture. Apparently that story used to be one of his favourites. I remember him telling me about it."

Chocolate eyes lifted to meet tarnished gold and he had to blink, had they always been that color? There was something haunting about those eyes that held him. A soul-searing pair with an intense otherworldly quality, not quite unlike another pair that he knew of, albeit, without the inverted scelera and the wild madness he knew that lie underneath. Hopefully anyway.

Shaking off the mental image he continued, "It was about this guy, Noah, right? God was apparently pissed at the world because humans -unsurprisingly- turned out to be a bunch of jerks all except for this one dude. So god then tells the dude to build this giant ship thing and to load up his family and a zoo on it because basically god told him he was gonna go to town on everyone else and didn't want them caught in the crossfire. And so everyone but them died and the world reset or something like that." His brow furrowed a bit as he thought back to remember just what had been said, "Sorry, it's kind of been a while since I heard it." Plus there had been a bit of paraphrasing too but he had gotten the gist of it more or less. And what if I were to say that story, or at the very least an unbastardized version of it, was but all too real?"

He was silent for a moment, "I'd say: all stories have to start somewhere. More often than not it's the craziest ones that have a basis in fact." A pause, "And would it be wrong to assume you had something to do with it?" The following silence was confirmation enough.

"Would you be willing to share then?" As if sensing the stirring of uneasiness he quickly added, "If not everything, then what you can?" He knew first hand what it was like to have things that you wanted to keep to yourself, painful insidious things forcefully locked away so that you never had to see-think-hear of them ever again in the light of day. He understood. But conversely, he also knew the danger of silence.

"In time, perhaps. The past is… complicated. For more reasons than you know." He murmured quietly, appearing for a moment as if weighted down with some great unfathomable burden. And then it was gone, replaced with what was beginning to become a familiar mask. "Back to your previous question, this place-" a gesture to the space around them, "-was once our home, among other things. 'The Ark' we deemed it, home to the clan of Noah. And this very room in which we now sit?" A faint smile flickered into being as he turned back to face the piano, hand running gently over the ivory keys. Shadowed eyes stared into the mid-distance, attention snagged by something that only he could see. "Its center-" Golden irises side-eyed him from where he sat, "-or Heart, if you will."

Ichigo felt his bandaged hand twitch faintly as his own heart decided to stop and skip a beat. This gave him a moment's pause as there was no rhyme nor reason for the action. "Yeah?" He said with a mental shake of the head and attempted to distract himself from the peculiar behaviour, "And what did you do in here?"

"A bit of this and that. Play piano." The man shrugged, "Other stuff."

"This 'other stuff' wouldn't just so happen to deal with anything that might bring about the apocalypse now would it?" He had honestly been half-kidding but when the other didn't respond he felt a minor spike of alarm. Seriously? The teen cleared his -suddenly dry- throat and, as if without any input from himself, the following escaped his lisp, "Just what is the Ark?"

The Noah froze, hand poised above the keys before slowly it retracted and fell limply back to his lap. "It's… The best way to describe it would be 'a world between worlds'; a sort of in-between place with many 'doors' that could lead to anywhere and anything that your mind could think of, and even some it can't." His lips curved into a little half-smirk, "I suppose you could compare it a bit to something like the Dangai with a couple of senkaimon thrown in but better looking and with marginally less things that would try to kill you at the moment."

'Like a doorway…' Chocolate eyes widened, "That white gate thing in the desert." "Mhm." He nodded. "Then…that thing you were humming…the way your fingers kept twitching…" A keen gaze trailed along to the only other thing with them in the everpresent white. 'As if you were playing a song…' "The Key."

Ichigo looked at him, "Key?" "An audi-visual system directory entered into a specific frequency only accessible via the correct pattern being paired with a certain physical device i.e.: a musical instrument for example." "So play the piano open the door." He summarized.

"Basically." The Noah shot him a vaguely amused look, "What? You didn't think this thing here was just for show did you?" "Ah, no." He coloured faintly. Not gonna lie though, he had been kind of wondering what its deal was though. "So, like, can anyone control it if they had the passcode or is there something extra that makes it user-specific or something?"

He quirked a brow, "Why, curious?"

"No." Yes. "I was just wondering if you had to be a pianist or if anything else would do." A small shrug.

"And just what's wrong with the piano?" Was it him or did the guy almost seem…affronted? He returned this with a blank stare and a vague gesture to said instrument, "I can't play for shit. Any instrument really." He thought for a second, "No wait, I can play guitar. Sort of. Chad's been giving me lessons."

The musician matched this with a blank look of his own. "…Right. You know? It's not that hard. C'mere I'll show you." Ichigo almost got up to follow until he remembered his current predicament. "Actually, it'd probably be a better idea for me to just stay over here ya'know?" He absently toyed with the frayed fabric that wrapped around his left wrist. There had been no time to find a proper bandage so he had used a strip of Zangetsu's cloth and he hoped the sword hadn't minded too much, it had been kind of an emergency after all so probably not.

The Noah stared him blankly for a second before a light seemed to click on. "Ah right, I suppose some other time then." Yeah, if he could ever get that random disintegration under wraps then sure. But until then he was better off staying away from important looking things, or anything alive for that matter. He'd probably wind up accidentally burning some poor bastard's skin off when they tried to touch him like what happened to Ishida and…wait.

"Hey, how did you grab me?" Seeing the look of confusion he clarified, "Back in the desert, you dragged me here. How?" Because by all rights he shouldn't have been able to do so. Not-Tensa tilted his head to the side, "You mean how did I escape injury via that ridiculous and unstable mess that you call your spiritual presence? Oh don't look so surprised, it'd literally be impossible not to notice." Gold eyes watched the teen keenly. "I assume you have some clue as to what is going on?" "I know what its doing-"

(a surge of power, the sharp crack of a body hitting pavement, burning flesh and a scream-) "But not why." The Noah finished. "I might have a theory." He pointed to the wrapped fist, "But I'm going to have to see that first." Dark brown eyes turned wary as their owner gave a hard stare, finally -lips taught- he followed with a slow nod. The cloth came off with little trouble, its purpose having been fulfilled and thus reabsorbed back into the spiritual fabric from where it came. This continued on until the very last little bit peeled off to reveal- "What the actual fuck?"

Bizarre. That was the only way to describe it. That long messy cut he had received what felt like a lifetime ago back at the shop had sealed over with this strange thing. He could see small flecks of it scattered around the back of his hand, sinking into the tan flesh, corrupting it . Hesitantly he felt along the edge, taking in the smooth almost glasslike quality and ethereal sheen. It felt warm, almost- (Innocent) A set of gloves gently took his hand. He started. "Its just as I thought."

Ichigo tore his eyes away to gape at the Noah. "What?" "That-" A nod to the hand, "-right there is the reason for all your problems." He shot the hand a look as though it had personally offended him somehow. "The sporadic power swells and blockages, mood swings, hell even the fact that you've still been able to galavant about as a patron of souls in the first place. Its all because of this." He gave the stone a tap, eliciting a shiver. The teen was torn between asking how he knew this and telling the man to back the hell off because he was too close but was cut off when he began to speak again, "You've probably been subconsciously syncing with it for weeks and all it needed was a single opening and bam you're an Accommodator."

"Okay." He carefully pulled his hand out of the other's grip, "So what am I supposed to do about that?" He sat back on his haunches and appeared to think it over for a bit before pulling a face, "Well there's nothing for it." He sighed, scratching the back of his head with a gloved hand. "Unless you want to spend the rest of your short existance in isolation -haunted by the weight of your failures as you begin your slow but assured descent into madness and subsequent self-destruction- you have to synchronize with it." The resigned way he said it, as if he were being put upon by something truly bothersome, made the teen twitch just a bit.

"So saying I do this thing, what happens?" "Well, it should allow for things to reach a stable equilibrium…" "But?" He prompted. "I'm not going to lie to you, once you choose to do something like this there isn't any going back. Because if you successfully manage to come out of this there's a strong possibility that things are going to be…different. You're going to be different. Different in ways that not even I could foresee."

"I see." He shut his eyes for a moment. The faces of his family and friends flashed though his mind in an instant. Silently he clenched his fist. 'No going back huh?' His focus shifted to the blade sitting on his lap and he remembered the spirit's words. To hesitate and he would be stuck here, trapped at a crossroads until time claimed him. To go back was a death sentence for certain. So that only left one thing, to move on and keep walking forward. He opened his eyes and met the golden gaze head on with a level stare. "What do I have to do?"

"Just try to focus on your left hand. Now, do you feel the swirling energies there in the center trying to mix and incorporate with your own?" "…Yeah?" "Let it. Don't try to fight it. Accept it." It hurt. A gloved hand reached up to cup the pained teen's cheek and he opened his eyes (when had they closed?) His hand burned with something fierce wrenching soul-deep and he felt his breath get caught on molten gold and warm skin bleeding into inhuman grey. The Noah shot him a rueful smile. "Then you say the magic words."

Lips moved unbidden with a memory long forgotten, "Innocence: Activate." And the world flashed a dizzying whirl of grey-blue-green-white and then went dark. --------------------------------[ - XIV - ]------------------------------------ "It's time to get up now my little nephew, you've been asleep long enough. Get up Allen. Wake up." --------------------------------[ - XV - ]------------------------------------Waking up somewhere with a head full of memories that one had not had prior to falling unconscious was a hell in of itself and suffice to say he currently had the mother of all headaches. If it were not for the fact that he had sworn off alcohol both in this life and the last (and boy wasn't that a thought) he could've sworn this was what a hangover felt like. He bit back a groan. Where was he anyway? The last thing he remembered was the moonlit sands of Hueco Mundo before being dragged upon the Ark by his insufferable arse of an uncle. Who also knew that the Ark's reach appearantly extended into the afterlife and neglected to tell him. He'd have to talk to him about it when he was less annoyed at him of course because the Noah was kind of on his shit list at the moment. Afterall, not only had he somehow managed to disguise himself and convince him that he had been a sword spirit of all things, he had done so all the while binding up the true essence of his powers. Thus allowing for things to escalate so out of hand that he couldn't successfully hold back the flood anymore resulting in their impromptu powwow in the Ark. A perfectly reasonable excuse to be mad at somebody, right? And, okay so he might not've actually remembered him or his penchant for pulling shit like that at the time but now he did and it was the principle of the matter and seriously who the hell does stuff like that?!

"Someone who actually has a sense of self-preservation, unlike yourself."

The youth started. Well 'started' is a bit of an understatement, more like: jerked up and awake with a yelp before getting immediately slammed with a vicious wave of vertigo sending one careening head-over-heels to the floor. He cracked an eye open and stared blearily up at the ceiling. Allen (or was it Ichigo now? Urgh, this was gonna get confusing…) stared blankly at the familiar walls painted black in the pre-dawn hour. His room, he was in his room and that was his bed that he had just fell off of like an idiot. Vaguely he felt the Noah's amusement filter through the back of his mind. The bastard was laughing at him right now.

Muttering a few choice words under his breath, he leveraged himself up and ran a hand through his already disheveled hair with a sigh. Had he woke anyone else with that little spill just now? He froze, taking a second to listen and see if he could hear if either of the girls had stirred. (Sisters! He had sisters!) Hm, seems like they were still asleep. Good, it was still kind of early after all. Satisfied with his assessment he allowed himself a moment to simply not think and just take everything in and confirm that, yes, this was indeed his room that his mortal body was now currently in. How did he even get back here anyway? He had the sneaking suspicion that his uncle had something to do with it. Well there was no sense beating around the bush. "Neah?" He asked catching the other's attention, "Did you do something to me?"

"Now what makes you think that?" He made sure the other could feel the flatness of his look. "You honestly think I would take advantage of your indisposed state to 'borrow' your body for my own personal use? Why Allen I'm almost insulted-" Yes, because you've done it before. Multiple times. "-really, have you no faith my nephew? For shame."

"Neah what did you do ?" The youth asked with a growing sense of alarm.

"Oh, nothing." A nonchalant shrug, "By the way did you know Kisuke's shop has a rather impressive stock of sweets? Some of them I haven't even seen in centuries! Apparently Tessai likes to custom make them in his free time, not something people really take the time to do anymore these days you know?" Whatever alarm he had felt had multiplied tenfold as the other blithely went on. "Oh he left you a note by the way."

"What?" "On the back of your hand -no not that one the other one- yes your right." He flipped the limb over and blinked at the messy scrawl in what looked to be (and knowing the blond probably was) permanent marker pen. From there he began to read: "'Ichigo (or whatever relevant name you may now go by), after you left for your understandable and completely justifiable alone time it was brought to a general concensus that I, being the bright and incredibly humble shopkeep that I am-" He had to snort at this, "- would be the one to help find a solution for your little problem. (It should also be said that your friends can put up quite the convincing argument expessially when aided by Inoue-san's intriguing and -dare I say it- somewhat terrifying imagination.) And I was all set up to do so until -imagine my surprise- I found that the problem had up and resolved itself! Naturally my curiosity was piqued and it was only with the apperance of a certain somebody that the questions I had were oh so graciously answered. He was even willing to indulge the curious scientist in me for a bit!-'"

"What?!" The teen hissed, stopping himself for a second as narrowed eyes stared down at the scribbled text. The Noah of course offered no explanation and he sighed. Resigning himself to a month's worth of paranoia and check-overs in order to see if the two madmen had done anything else to him.

A mental nudge drew his attention back to the note, "'-So it was upon further examination that we found with the assistance of the substance (of what I'm now informed is to be known as Innocence - fascinating stuff really-) now present in both your physical and spiritual bodies there was created a sort of stabilized equilibrium so that you are no longer in danger of a catastrophic meltdown, congrats! Oh and I'm not mad at you for what happened to my shop and the Innocence samples, the data you provided was more than enough to cover what you owed for the damages.'" He twitched ever so faintly.

"Don't forget the post-script!" 'There's more?' He flipped it over to his palm, "P.S. Tell your uncle I said hi! He's given me such great ideas and that Tessai's always willing to talk over tea again. Oh and enjoy the new hair, it looks quite good on you! Bye-bye~ Kisuke'" He let the hand fall. So he wasn't a ticking time bomb anymore, that was good. But the thought of his uncle and the dubious shopkeep being anywhere remotely near one another caused him to shudder.

"Oh come on, he's not that bad." His uncle chided.

"Yes he is and so are you. You're both horrible, horrible monsters who thrive on chaos and destruction and proceed to drag anyone unlucky enough to be within blast-radius down with you via your own personalized brands of insanity." He intoned flatly, "And what did he mean hair?!"

"Now before I say anything I don't want you to freak out. It was a bit of an unexpected side effect from the transition but don't worry you look fine. And, hey, it's not like you're a stranger to having weird hair." "Neah you are terrible at reassuring people now what happened to my hair?" He attempted to tug at the short strands to no avail. "You might've gone a bit prematurely grey but like I said its not that much of a big deal. It isn't completely white, just… most of it." He was quick to offer.

"My hair's white?" Again? Damn it all, of all the things to carry over. He'd already been through this once with certain people (who shall remain nameless) calling him 'strawberry' he didn't need to be 'beansprout' as well. He groaned softly and flopped back, arm shielding his eyes. At least he hadn't been cursed with a lack of height this go around like a certain snow-headed captain that he knew.

He lifted the arm and stared at it. Tired eyes traced the contours of the reddened flesh as he slowly flexed, watching as the embedded stone glimmered with its own quiet light. A small frown graced his lips. This was quite the fine mess that he had gotten himself in wasn't it?

What was he supposed to now? Sure he could always dye his hair but what of his arm? Long-sleeved shirts and gloves would only work for so long and what of his personality? You can't exactly hide a whole lifetime's worth of memories and experiences forever, not without having those close to you start to worry. And it'd be an icy day in hell before he let something like that happen. So they'd have to come up with something to keep them from freaking out…and then what? Once everything was said and done where did they go from there? What was there for a once-exorcist turned-substitute-shinigami and the Noah that he housed who just so happened to be his past incarnation's adopted uncle? "Well whatever there is we'll just have to persevere through it for better or worse. Besides it isn't as though you haven't had your own fair share of problems before, now have you?"

He had a point. He just had to keep walking huh? The youth's lips curved into a bittersweet smile. Yeah, he could do that.

#DS7's Log #-carefully adds to the archive- #Bleach Fanfiction #D.Gray-Man Fanfiction #Second Verse Same As The First AU #Just reposting this because I feel a little less self conscious about my work than I did back when I first took it down. #Also this seems to be actually pretty popular??? Which is absolutely wild if you ask me. #Playing fast & loose with canon because I can and will do as I damn well please and may my only own hubris and eventual pc problems stop me #Honestly the whole reason this exists is because I love weird reincarnation crossovers and that Tensa tangentially looks like Neah. #And there's no reason /whatsoever/ that Neah/Tensa so happens to resemble Yhwach. Mhm definitely a coincidence yessirie! #>:3 #Neah and Urahara get along like two territorial feral cats that would just as well as set the world on fire for kicks. #Don't worry. Actual Zangetsu is still there. #He was just sort of in the background taking a long nap from their stint with Aizen until that Innocence smacked him awake. #When once it finishes sealing the gaps in his power he is going to have some /words/ with Neah.