#or if that would only decrease the amount of notes the final one will get
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𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗷𝗼𝘀 & 𝗶. [𝟬𝟮]
synopsis. satoru knows you're the closest thing to a mother megumi will ever have.
contents. reader battles with a kitchen stove (it was funnier in my head), a lil' bit of megs/reader bonding, soft and tired toru
words. 1.1k
note. pls lmk what you think bc i feel like my writing has gone 📉📉📉 but anyways, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE LOML, THE APPLE OF MY EYE, MY GLORIOUS BLUE EYED KING 💕
comments and reblogs are highly appreciated! <3
previous || next
as promised, you're watching over megumi for the day. he's a quiet and somewhat shy kid who doesn't talk too much, but you're certain the little guy will warm up to you once he sees you around more often. you can't blame him; after all, you're basically a stranger in his home who's suddenly spending time with him until he passes out and satoru comes back home from work. you'd be a little reserved as well if you were in his shoes.
“so megumi, what would you like for dinner?” you kneel down to megumi's height and flash him a kind smile, head tilted to the side and hair framing your face.
megumi regards you for a moment as if he doesn't really want to say what he wants, but the smile on your face, the warmth you exude is enough for him to speak up. if he already gets to choose, he better make it count. “..macaroni.” he says, a pout on his lips.
“macaroni it is, buddy.” ruffling megumi's hair, you're quick to move through the kitchen, finding the noodles, preparing two pots and filling one of them with the right amount of water. everything goes as planned until you're faced with that fancy kitchen stove that does absolutely not work like the one you own.
damn satoru and the salary he uses to buy expensive shit like this.
you know it's a touchscreen model, but whenever you do put your finger down and the thing beeps..nothing happens. the stovetop doesn't even turn red to indicate that it's on and so you put your finger down a couple more times only for nothing to happen.
a lump sits in the back of your throat, cold sweat coats the tip of your finger. your heart skips a beat. if you can't even figure out how to operate your newfound nemesis of a stove, megumi would go to bed hungry and satoru would definitely be severely disappointed in you!
you can't let the attractive single dad think you're useless.
you cannot let megumi starve.
stuck in your own panic, you fail to notice how megumi has watched your..conflict by peeking over the countertop. even his dogs give you a somewhat confused look as if they could sense your emotional distress over a stove of all things. the boy walks over, nudges himself between you and your self-proclaimed nemesis and brings his finger down on the touchscreen of the stove like he's never done anything else in his life.
beep. beep, beep.
apparently, it's that easy to get the water to cook.
dumbfounded, you stare at megumi, then at the stove and back at megumi. you have to look hilarious with your lips parted into an o-shape and your eyebrows almost shooting up to your hairline if megumi's little laugh is anything to go by. “..that's amazing..how did you–”
megumi shrugs his shoulders, his usual deadpan expression back on his face. “i always watch dad when he cooks. it's not..that hard.”
you groan out loud, but a little chuckle laces into the sound. “..i'm too old for this stuff.” with pouted lips, you let megumi explain how to increase and decrease the heat, how to turn the stove off and on. it really is a lot easier than you initially believed.
when satoru finally comes home, the skies are already darkening. hues of dark blue and a hint of purple are slathered across the vast canvas, birds roaming through the air and seemingly returning home to their nests or whatever place they consider home for the night. for a moment, the bustling life of the city ceases to exist – at least until satoru would have to leave for work again.
no emails, no phone calls, no meetings.
clad in suit and tie, buttons opened and tie loosened, a sigh of relief sneaks past his pale lips when the warmth of his apartment welcomes him home. a place which was usually silent, almost void of any life since megumi would be in bed by now. but now, the scent of food lingers in the air, soft snores echo from the living room down the hallway and the tv dimly illuminates the cozy space. driven by curiosity and a grumbling stomach, satoru finds a plate of macaroni on the dining table. in front of it, a note is placed.
“i figured you might be hungry after work. all you have to do is warm it up :]”
cerulean eyes soften behind pitch black shades as they skim over the carefully written note and the silly smiley you drew at the end. you didn't have to do this. satoru could take care of himself, he's been doing it for as long as he can remember, but..in a way, it's nice to be thought of, cared for, even in such small ways you probably didn't put much thought into.
he likes it. likely, a lot more than he should.
satoru trudges over to the sofa in the living room, wanting to thank you for the food, but when he sees you passed out on the cushion, megumi cuddled up to your chest and the two dogs snoring at your feet, the ghost of a smile dances on his lips. you look absolutely exhausted, a bit of drool leaking from the corner of your lips and red crayon smeared on your cheek, but it kind of looks cute on you, satoru thinks.
the sound of disney's bambi on the tv is nothing but white noise as satoru's gaze shifts towards his son, his little bundle of joy. the boy who never had a mother appears so content with his little arms clutching his favorite plushie and his little face buried in the warmth of your chest, snoring just as loudly as the dogs. the kid is beat, just like you.
satoru has to shake his head. ever since megumi was born, satoru wanted nothing more than for him to experience the love of a mother. someone who would offer him unconditional love, attention, would care for him and his happiness in ways that only a mother can, but you are not his mother. you never will be.
in the end, you're still the cute neighbor next door who offered to lend him a hand out of pity and not someone who could act as megumi's mother.
and yet, satoru knows he made the right choice by accepting your help.
this is the closest thing megumi will ever have to a mother.
a sigh, heavy enough to be conflicted but quiet enough to drown into the late hours, slips past satoru's lips. with quiet steps, he fetches a blanket from his bedroom and tosses the soft fabric over megumi's and your sleeping form.
"thank you." he breathes out, voice barely above a whisper.
taglist. @torusmochi, @ayanominitrash, @erigaur
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Leo & Donnie, trick (Please no character death, thank you!)
This will make more sense if you read the previous trick or treat (the Leo and Draxum trick)
Unfortunately this has become. a whole Thing. I didn't plan for it, it just happened. I'm currently calling it the Sidelined AU
CWs: Internalized ableism, light passive suicidal ideation
---
Here's what being stuck in a demonic suit of armor for two days gets you:
Brittle bones.
No mystic powers.
Hovering brothers.
A catatonically depressed dad.
A catastrophic decrease in muscle mass.
Chronic fatigue.
A concerning amount of brain fog.
A bedroom on the ground floor (under construction).
Sensitivity to light and smell.
And a wheelchair. Apparently.
Donnie brought it in ten minutes ago, and he's spent that long infodumping about all the features he's built into it. Leo hasn't really kept up, because of the whole brain fog situation, and because he doesn't normally listen to infodumps of this length, anyway.
Instead he's been focused on keeping his lunch down. Something about the wheelchair twists his gut in a sharp way. It just feels so... final. Like if he sits down in that, he's officially given up.
Donnie is still rattling on. He's been smiling the whole time. Leo doesn't know what about his situation invites smiling.
(Some part of his brain, the less bitter and angry part, notes that it's the same smile Donnie has whenever he shows off new tech. Leo ignores that part of his brain.)
"Any questions?" Donnie asks him suddenly, and Leo blinks his way out of his own thoughts. Donnie is looking at him expectantly. Still smiling, his hands gesturing at his creation. The wheelchair. Leo's gut twists again and he swallows forcefully. Reaches over and sucks down the last of the water from his water bottle, and even that simple motion takes Herculean effort.
He's already forgotten what the question was, so he says, "No," because he feels that sums up all his feelings about the situation.
"Excellent," says Donnie, because he can't read a room to save his life. "Then do you want to take it for a test run?"
Leo stares at him so he doesn't have to look at the chair.
"No," he says again.
Finally, Donnie's smile falls. It morphs into something concerned, and Leo isn't sure he likes that any better.
"You said you were feeling alright," he says.
Sure, he did say that, because all he ever says when they ask how he's feeling is "alright." Well, that's not true. Sometimes it's "okay." Or "fine." Or, "Jeez, Raph, stop worrying about me before that chasm gets any bigger."
The point is, he did say he was feeling alright, but alright isn't good enough for... whatever this is.
He struggles over his words for a bit before finally getting out, "I don't need a wheelchair," which is the main point, as far a he's concerned.
Now Donnie's expression turns more frustrated. "Yes you do."
"No, I don't."
He sighs. "Leo, we've been over this. Your legs aren't strong enough to carry your weight, and you can't risk a fall in your condition. Do you want to be healing from a broken pelvis on top of everything else?"
He doesn't. But he doesn't say that, just stares stubbornly at Donnie to avoid looking at the chair.
"The wheelchair is only for now," says Donnie. "Once you've recovered enough, a walker, then a cane, or crutches. We've been over this-"
"I don't need a cane," says Leo, cutting him off. "Canes are for old people."
"They are not," Donnie argues. "They're for whoever needs them. Which includes you."
"I don't need one."
Donnie grumbles something under his breath that Leo can't hear, because damaged hearing is another one of the things being trapped in a demonic suit of armor for two days gets you. "Alright. Is there something wrong with my engineering?"
He frowns. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, is there something unsatisfactory about the chair that I can fix so you would be more willing to use it." He gestures at it. "It's okay if my design isn't to your liking. I have others."
Leo shakes his head. "This isn't about your engineering." This isn't about you.
"Well maybe if we make it about my engineering then you'll stop being so stubborn!" Donnie snaps, and Leo feels his hackles rising.
"Oh, screw you, Donnie."
"Screw me?" Donnie spits back. "Screw me for trying to help and not just watch while my brother lets himself waste away! Yeah, screw me."
"You don't have to watch anything," Leo snaps back. "The door's right there."
"What's your end game here?" Donnie demands, taking an angry step forward. "You complain about Raph carrying you everywhere, but you aren't doing anything to fix your situation. You won't exercise, you won't use the wheelchair - you're giving up!"
"I'm not giving up!" Leo lies.
"Yes you are and I'm sick of watching it!"
"Then leave!"
Donnie opens his mouth like he wants to argue further, but then he throws his hands up and turns on his heel. "I'm done," he says, then stalks out. He tries to slam the curtain behind him as he leaves, but because it's a curtain it just ends up swinging back and forth.
Which means Leo can clearly see as Raph and Mikey duck out of sight.
"Donnie, maybe you shouldn't have-" Raph begins, but gets cut off.
"I'm not treating him with kid gloves. If he wants to rot in bed then let him."
"He's having a rough time, so-"
"You can keep coddling him. But I'm done."
Leo hears retreating footsteps, then a heavy sigh. Raph is still right outside his room.
It takes him a moment, but he pokes his head in eventually.
"Heeey buddy," he says, adopting his baby voice, and Leo wants to scream but he doesn't have the energy. "Need anything?"
"No. I'm fine," he says instead.
"You sure? Because Raphie can-"
"I'm fine," he says again, tired, and lays down so he can stare at the ceiling. "I'm just gonna sleep."
"...Okay. Night Leo."
He's gone and doesn't come back. Mikey doesn't come, either.
Leo regrets his decision a few minutes later, because all that yelling made his throat dry and painful, but his water bottle is empty, and he doesn't have the energy to get to the kitchen, and if he uses the chair...
He groans, pulling his blanket over his head. Already, the brain fog is turning his thoughts to white noise, and the fatigue is pulling him down. Thirsty or not, sleep will come.
Another thing being trapped in demonic suit of armor for two days gets you: a cure for insomnia.
#dandy fanfiction#dandy trick or treat#rise leo#rise donnie#rottmnt#sidelined au#cw internalized ableism#I can't believe this#things will improve I promise
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Rest
Pairing: Wednesday Addams x reader
words: 1.6k
~~~
Wednesday notices almost everything happening around her, it's one of the things she takes pride in. Being observant comes at a price though. Sometimes there are things she wishes she hadn't seen. For instance, she noticed the light slowly drain from your eyes.
Wednesday took notice of everything regarding you. Anything that could possibly have an effect on you is something she took note of. Homework, sleep schedule, brainless classmates, lack of nutrition? Just a few examples she took mental notes of when it came to you.
She knew when you would get hungry, knew when you would get tired, and knew your preferred times to study. Wednesday had your schedule down to the second. She took small pride in that too.
When you were occasionally a few minutes late, she would chalk it up to mere inconveniences. Of course, she would notice how frequent they were becoming in the last couple of weeks. It was beginning to irritate her. Whenever Wednesday would ask about your tardiness you would dodge the question; immediately moving the topic to something that seemed more interesting. Wednesday took note of that too.
The time you were spending with Wednesday was decreasing, only by a minuscule amount but decreasing nonetheless. The knowledge you were spending less time with her made her stomach sink, she doesn't have the faintest clue making the feeling worse. However, whenever you were with her she took every opportunity to take you in — everything about you.
You appeared to have less energy than normal. Your appearance seems more disheveled, though to anyone else you’d look just fine. Your smile doesn't reach your eyes the way it used to. During class, sometimes your eyes would stay closed for just a tad too long for it to be normal. The circles under your eyes are becoming distastefully dark. When she was close enough, your breath always smelled like coffee. Your stomach growls more often. It seems like you were being secretive about something.
She thought of these things often — seeing as they're thrust in her face every time she looks at you. If she were being honest, you looked pitiful. A look she would savor if it were anyone else. But, you’re not 'anyone else'.
Wednesday doesn't know how to bring this up. Anytime she would insinuate something remotely similar you would rub the back of your neck and answer in a prevaricate way. It was beginning to infuriate her in a way she hadn’t known was possible.
You were always the patient one, waiting for Wednesday to think her words through carefully. You were never one to answer questions falsely. You never kept anything from her, you tried to answer any questions to the best of your ability. It's one of the things she appreciated about your character.
Wednesday had thought a lot about the situation. She had tried being delicate with you, even if doing so made her want to peel her skin. Despite that, she had tried because it was you. She wants answers, if being nice about it wasn't working then she'd approach it her way.
Wednesday begrudgingly adapted to your new schedule. One you've been using for the last couple of weeks. She sat in her dorm, counting the seconds until your knock disturbed the still air. Wednesday silently wondered if you’d break the record for how late you could be.
When your knock finally came, she took a moment. 714 seconds, a new record, it's officially the latest you've ever been. Wednesday stood from her chair and made her way to the door, yanking it open without care.
You stood on the other side, again, looking pitiful and miserable. It painfully makes her heartthrob. Her hands twitch to rub away the dark circles under your eyes. Instead, she settles for opening the door wider to let you in.
Wednesday watches you move around the room for a moment. Ordinarily, you moved around in a relaxed manner as if it were your room. This time you were sluggish, moving about as if you were barely conscious.
It didn’t take a genius to know you were tired. Wednesday had known you've been neglecting to take care of yourself since you started. It had been disturbingly obvious — as obvious as the sun on a clear day. She just didn’t know how you’d react to her confrontation.
Wednesday watches you stumble before deciding to step in. She walks towards you before grabbing your wrist to guide you to her chair.
"Sit down," Wednesday said breaking the silence. You turn to look at her before asking,
"You usually sit at your desk when we study. Are you sure you don’t want it?"
She sends you a glare, making you quickly avert eye contact. She watches you slowly sit down in her chair, noticing how your shoulders sag and your eyelids droop. It seems you were more tired than she had anticipated.
Wednesday feels herself get pulled into her head. Wondering how long you've been walking around in this state. She feels the need to drag you to bed so you can get some proper rest. But she's overcome with the need to scold you for doing this to yourself.
"You're tired," Wednesday says without thinking. Your eyes widen slightly before you nervously smile and rub the back of your neck.
"No, I'm not. I don’t know what you're talking about," you chuckle lightly before looking at her. Hoping your eyes will be enough to convince her to let it go.
"Lie to me again and I'll make you regret it," she said sharply. Her eyes swirling with fury.
Her words make you snap your mouth shut. You didn't know just how angry she was. You lightly shake your head, trying to clear your thoughts from how terrifying she looked. The action made you dizzy and made your head throb with an unforeseen headache, and you wince. Wednesday notices. Her anger flares.
"Imprudent," she says lowly. Her voice was thunderous in the quiet room. You open your mouth to refute, but she begins again before you can answer.
"Injudicious. Irresponsible. Ill-considered. Just how foolish can you get?" she demands, looking at you expectantly. Her gaze makes you tense. Wednesday had never looked at you with such conviction before. When she realizes you aren't going to answer she scoffs, "Well?"
Your mouth opens but no sounds come out. Your throat feels tight, making it hard for any words to come out. Your thoughts are loud. You were tired but there was too much happening for you to properly rest. Too many things needed to get done. Would Wednesday understand?
Wednesday watches you closely. Your eyes slowly fill with unshed tears and your parted lips tremble. She takes a breath to calm herself. Taking calculated steps towards you before kneeling in front of you.
"Hey," she says gently, breaking you from your thoughts. You involuntarily flinch at the close distance, it hurts Wednesday more than anticipated.
"It's just me. You're safe." she continues gently, reaching out to grab your hands. Watching as you move them away slightly before letting her hold them. Wednesday softly sighs at the contact, feeling a little calmer now that your skin is on hers.
"Why are you acting this way?" she asks softly, not wanting you to run away. She reaches her hand out to grasp your cheek when she sees you avert your gaze. Seeing the number of tears in your eyes makes her heartbreak. She brings her other hand to your face, ready to wipe any fallen tears.
"I'm just tired, Wednesday" you replied weakly. The way Wednesday is looking at you overwhelms you. Not expecting such a tender and adoring look. You squeeze your eyes closed, forcing the tears out.
Wednesday readily wipes them away. She watches you duck your head, trying to hide from her. She feels your body shake with unshed tears. It physically pains her to see you like this. As much as she'd like to move you to the bed to rest, she'd wait as long as it took till you were ready.
"I'm sorry," you said after a minute, forcing out a laugh; trying to lighten the situation. Breath shaking as you continue, "that must have been really uncomfortable for you."
"Don't do that," she said seriously. Her hands grip your face tighter, forcing you to look at her again. She doesn’t give you a chance to reply before she's standing and pulling you with her. When you see her destination you stop, "Wait. There's a lot of things-"
"I already told you not to do that," she replied, anger somewhat hidden in her tone.
"Wednesday-"
"No. Rest now. You'll have time to do your things later."
You sigh defeatedly, knowing she won’t give up. You let her tug you in the direction of her bed before she gently pushes you to sit on the edge. You watch as she kneels down to take off your shoes before moving to take hers off too.
When she stands up and sees you still sitting up she sends you another pointed look. She hums and nods when she sees you start to lie down. She moves to the unoccupied side of the bed before she lays down next to you.
Wednesday moves to wrap her arms around you. Letting you move to get as comfortable as possible, wanting you to get your much-needed rest. It’s not long before she feels your body completely relax and your breath even out. Wednesday lets the relief she feels overtake her. For the first time in two weeks, she lets herself completely relax.
tags: @alexkolax @rainbow-love4ever @o638 @tundra1029 @greyscxle-is-taken
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Oh hi. I heard it's gifs tips'n'tricks time.
View this as a little addition to this post I made a while back.
This time I thought I'd take you through my gif making process. It'll be very specific to Photoshop CS6 but maybe some of you will find parts of it helpful regardless.
And since our biggest nemesis appears to be ~The Tumblr 10MB File Size Limit~ I decided to go for the absolute worst premise for a gif: Lots of stupid wobbly particles and gw2 bloom and transparency effects. Because huge gifs love these.
Aah, a horrifying amount of those in this single scene. Perfect!
Let's start with a little timelapse video, and I'll get into the details with screenshots below then.
So this actually went smoother than expected? Not super much fiddling needed in the end, but here's how it went in detail:
Load the raw footage into photoshop.
You can do this in two different ways: What I do is simply drag & drop the video file into the program and it'll open with a video timeline and some rudimentary video editing options.
What you can also do is File -> Import -> Videoframes to Layers and select your source video, which will give you a timeline of separate still image frames instead.
It comes down to preference, I used both methods in the past but nowadays I find the video timeline more intuitive.
Cut the footage to roughly the right length.
From experience I know that most of my gifs are around 3-4 seconds long. This can of course vary depending on different factors. Don't get too attached to the exact seconds you selected, you might have to shave off a bit depending on how evil the file size decides to act.
Optional: Change footage speed
Depending on the gif and its purpose, I slow the footage down. I usually do this for the visual effect (especially nice for showing off animation details) but it also has the practical side effect that it can help with file size. Say you want a gif that loops after 4 seconds. At 100% speed your gif will move at your original framerate (in my case 60 fps); if you slow it down but keep the same length in seconds it'll logically use less frames. That's less data to blow up the size! Yey.
Crop the image.
Now this is probably one of the most crucial parts when it comes to your final file size, and your gif looking nice on tumblr. Since the tumblr dashboard displays images at a width of 540px, you want this to be your absolute minimum image width to ensure a crisp image. If I can, I'll make the gifs larger (I like starting at a minimum of 600px and then reduce the image dimensions if needed).
With that in mind.... choose your image crop wisely.
A "widescreen" image like this will be the most merciful in terms of file size, but might not always be what you want in terms of composition.
Given tumblr's very vertical nature, this kind of approach will look great in posts (if it fits your image composition of course), but at 540px minimum width tends to be a file size monster.
For the gif I'm attempting to make here I opted for a more square approach. The subjects of the scene fill out the image's space nicely, and it's still a nice size for tumblr posts overall. Let's see what the file size will say about this.
Replay your footage after cropping to make sure you didn't accidentally cut off any motion you didn't mean to cut.
Next up: optional colour corrections
I tend to crank up the saturation for gifs way, way more than I ever would for regular screenshots since I find that often the limited web palette can make them look fairly dull. But like everything else so far, this greatly varies depending on the scene you're showing.
Note that colour correction can increase or decrease file size depending on what exactly you're doing. The more different colours you have, the larger your file size will be.
Reduce image dimensions
Since my original video footage was fairly zoomed out, the cropped area only left me 575px of width to begin with. In an earlier attempt (that I absolutely did not fail to capture and therefore had to record the whole thing a second time) I tried to leave it at these dimensions, but the 10MB size limit did not like that so now I knew better and immediately reduced the width to 560px.
Note: After you've changed the video's dimensions it won't let you edit the speed anymore (for some reason), so make sure you've got that settled.
After all the adjustments are done it's time for the moment of truth...
File > Save for Web...
This beautiful window will open and...
Aww almost.
But honestly? That's not bad at all. I've had completely different disasters to deal with in the past (starting somewhere in the mid 20MB, good luck trying to make use of every size-reducing trick you've got up your sleeve).
Before I do any adjustments to shave off the last few KB though, I preview the gif to make sure it loops correctly. I want the Chak to sway seemlessly. Turns out it didn't, so I back out of the window to remove a few frames from the footage. And when I open the "Save for Web" window again....
Well that's anticlimatic. Apparently those few frames were enough to get the file size where I need it. (Note: Sometimes Tumblr likes to be a little b* and pretends your file is too big when you're this close to the 10MB limit. It be like that.)
While my gif journey theoretically ends here, I want to at least show you a few more things that could have helped if I had needed to get the file even smaller.
So this dithering thing I keep making a big deal of...
It can make or break a gif. In my experience this is so, so crucial to the final file size and quality of the gif.
In my own very amateurish words, dithering is a way to emulate colours that aren't actually part of the images colour palette. This is especially needed for in-game transparency effects like fog, glowy stuff, or smooth gradients. And that is part of why I chose this hell scene of all the ley line glow and the typical gw2 bloom that's particularly bad in this area.
PS CS6 offers you three different kinds of dithering techniques: Diffusion, pattern and noise.
My go-to is diffusion dithering, which has adjustable quality levels.
In my opinion it's generally the type of dithering that's often the least noticeable and creates the smoothest looking images. Unfortunately, it's also the one that creates by far the largest file sizes. Another downside is that it doesn't work super well with heavy DoF/fog etc. effects and is prone to really ugly banding, especially visible the more you decrease the quality. It looks awful for this particular scene. (Look at the glow around my asura's headpiece if you don't know what I'm talking about. Or... just the entire background.)
Both noise and pattern dithering will get you smaller file sizes, luckily.
I've never used noise so far (it tends to look messy in my opinion), but pattern gets the job done! Especially for gradient heavy gifs it's a lifesaver. It's definitely more noticeable than the diffusion dithering on static parts of the gif, but it absolutely makes up for it by not having any ugly banding effects. This is also what gave me the neat little 9.99MB file size in comparison to the diffusion dithering's 15.31MB.
Last but not least, if fiddling with the dithering or image dimensions doesn't help you get below that magic 10MB mark...
Limit the colour palette
You can either manually colour edit your image to use less colours for a more artistic approach, or you can let Photoshop limit the palette to its best abilities.
Additionally you can double click each individual colour to replace it how you see fit. (I've done that in the past when Petthri's yellow eye colour got erased and I had to bring it back manually.)
In this gif's example, reducing the palette from 256 to 128 colours has brought the file size down from 9.9 MB to about 8 MB. It can have a big effect, but doesn't always in my experience.
SHOW US THE GODDAMN GIF ALREADY!!!
Not the best quality gif we've ever seen on tumblr, but given the extremely unfavourable source material I think it turned out alright. I have to admit I'm actually surprised it worked at all.
Oh well! This got long (once again). I hope this was at least a little bit helpful to someone out there. Happy gif making!
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Is the Grass Greener on the Other Side? EP. 6
Summary: After meeting with Triple H, Y/N starts to evaluate her career and where to go next. So what happens when she meets with one of WWE's biggest competitors?
Word Count: 2.1K
Warnings: None I think, isn't proofread tbh
Notes: I FINALLY GOT INSPO AND TIME SO HERE IT IS
Links to other parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
August 31st
“Ms. Y/L/N, it is a pleasure to meet you.”
You smiled as you sat down at the table, across from the other person. “Likewise. I’m happy to have this opportunity.”
“I know you and I am just happy to be in a room with such a legend in the making.”
“Mr. Kahn, I’m sure you are surrounded by legends in the making every day.”
“Well, yes to a certain extent; but none of them have the charisma and charm that you possess. And please call me Tony.”
Could you complain about life right now?
HELL NO
You had a lot to be grateful for like this meeting with Tony Kahn.
Everything was going great after the meeting with Paul. You started to feel like your old self again; you made your first public appearance at a fashion show, you started becoming an ambassador for multiple brand deals, you went viral for sitting next to Rihanna and then became the head ambassador for Fenty, and you were a single pringle.
But most importantly, you began to wrestle and train more. Almost every day, you got in the ring and you saw vast improvements even from the last time you stepped in the ring (which was two months ago). And because you were re-entering the public’s eye, your career and where you would end up as people noticed your contract was almost up at WWE (and the fact they haven’t seen you since July). Many companies have been offering you different amounts for you to sign to them.
Now you were here….at AEW…WWE’s biggest competitor since WCW….just “looking around.”
“Well, Tony, I really do appreciate this hospitality. It just softens the blow when it comes down to business.” You joked, making him chuckle.
“Of course. Well, I would say that we are just like everything you’re used to, but we both know that’s a lie.”
“How would you say that you’re different?”
“A big example is creative freedom; we barely use scripts, it’s just a basis and talent says what they want. Gimmicks, ring style, and creative ideas are mostly from the locker room and then are tweaked to make sure it’s okay with our sponsors. I also would say we have a great checks-and-balances system here as well.” You nodded your head as that was your main concern as you didn’t wanna throw out the things that brought you to your status now.
Since hearing that, your heart rate has decreased. You wanted to be yourself and not have to worry about lessening yourself to make others look good. “But I’m curious, since you’re a hot topic and agent, how much have you been getting offered?”
You discussed the amounts that you have been offered from Impact, AAA, NJPW, and Shimmer. Then, you told him about the arrangement that WWE (specifically Hunter) presented to you. Tony’s eyes went wide as he spoke up again, “That is really a good deal. I think William Regal received the same offer. It seems that they only offer that to those they must really like.” You giggled as he continued, “If you want, we can extend the talk to next week so I can give you a proper figure estimate. Until then, we can roam around backstage and meet the talent.”
“That would be great!”
For the next hour, Tony dragged you around backstage, introducing you to many talents that you haven’t had the pleasure of stepping in the ring with yet. You saw some old faces of people you’ve met and were friends with. Some were happy to see you, others not so much. Either way, you caused a wave backstage, you could even feel the tension to a certain extent. Eventually, Tony allowed you to roam by yourself as he attended to some business, which is how you started hanging out with Daniel (who was surprised) yet again.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that you were coming here,” Daniel said playfully hitting your shoulder.
“Surprise? I didn’t want you to spoil anything, cause you know, you have a big mouth.” You said making him do a fake offended face. It was nice joking with him, it kind of helped relieve you of the stress and tension that you were feeling.
“How dare you?” He said laughing, he gave you a hug. You breathed in his cologne as he breathed in your perfume, both being delighted in the scents. You felt great being in familiar arms, especially of a man who you keep close to your heart. The same could be said for Daniel, he was legitimately grateful and glad to see you, as he normally is. “But I am happy you’re here. Now we can-“
“Y/N!” A voice from behind you cut him off. You broke away from the hug and turned around to see a fluffy-haired Hook with a wide smile walking up. Squealing you ran up to him and hugged him, excited to see him. “I heard that you were around, had to see it to believe it.” He said pulling away from you, allowing his hand to fall at your waist.
“Yeah, I’ve been sitting here catching up with Danny.” You smiled while motioning towards him. Daniel’s face became stoned real quick when Hook entered his view. His eyes traveled and landed on the spot where Hook’s hand was sitting on your waist. It bothered him. It bothered him that you are allowing him to touch you, let alone allowed your attention to go towards him. Daniel smacked his teeth in annoyance as Hook smirked.
“Garcia,” Hook greeted.
“Hook.” He responded.
Hook was loving this; he loved how jealous Daniel was getting and knowing he can’t do a damn thing about it as long as you were here. He loved that he was touching you like this and not him, no matter if it was a small gesture. “How are you, man?”
Daniel shrugged, not allowing his face to fall. “Good. How are you feeling?”
“Comfortable.”
“A little too comfortable,” Daniel said under his breath as Hook’s smirk widened. If anything, Hook tightened his grip around you before moving his hand further down to your hip. Daniel didn’t like that either, and he didn't like how you weren't doing anything about it, as if you were oblivious to everything. He cleared his throat, "So, how do you feel about your big match coming up?"
Hook shrugged and briefly flicked his eyes to you, "Nothing I can't handle."
"To be honest, I think it might be too much for you."
Your eyes widened, you didn't know what was going on but you didn't like the direction it was heading in. Hook squinted at Daniel, making his hand drop from your body completely. "What do you mean?"
"I just think you're biting off more than you can chew. Considering that you are just a rookie after all. Some prizes are just too big for you to win," Garcia said smirking as Hook was now stone-faced.
"Well then Garcia, what about your match?"
"Fine, I'm confident that I'm gonna win and everything that comes with it."
Hook chuckled, "Okay, but what if it's past your time? That you don't even have a chance anymore? Or that the opportunity for you has passed you by." He stepped closer to Daniel, who also stepped forward to the point that they were almost nose-to-nose.
"I still got my shot. I haven't failed-"
"Yet. That is until someone else better comes into play."
The tension in the air was becoming so thick that you couldn't even cut it….without a chainsaw. You couldn't even grab either of their attention as they were silently challenging each other. As the staring contest started between the two men, a stagehand came up to Daniel to let him know his segment was starting. Daniel, without any words, gave you a hug and left to go to the stage.
"What was that about?" You asked as Hook looked at Daniel's figure walking away.
"Don't worry your pretty head about it." Hook said, "Everything's gonna be okay."
September 7th
Today was a great Wednesday…a lot more fun and stress-free in comparison to last Wednesday. That's also probably because you were at a party. Not just any party, but Daniel's celebratory party for winning the ROH Pure Championship. It's been a long day for you as you were stuck in meetings all day, watched Dynamite backstage (which caused an uproar online), explored the locker room, and built and re-established bonds. You were tired, but you put that aside for Daniel because he deserves it; the title, the happiness, and everything else that came with it as he said.
But you still needed to try to get all your ducks in a row for the next major stage in your life. So you were, in the bathroom, on the phone with Mercedes and Trinity, catching them up on everything for the first time in a while.
"Well, this has been a very eventful month for you so far." Mercedes said, "But, hey, you deserve it. You're getting back on your feet and back out in society."
"You say that as if I've been isolated from society." You pouted.
"You basically have been, girl!" Trinity exclaimed, making you roll your eyes. "Now, go enjoy yourself at the party. You're supposed to be having a good time and here you are talking about work and stress. There will be a time for all that later."
Mercedes agreed, "Girl, go! I'm sure that Garcia would like to see you, especially with how you look right now." You were dressed in the best dress you could find with heels that hurt your feet so much.
You all exchanged goodbyes before hanging up. After fixing your makeup, you exited the bathroom to find your best friend on the floor like there was no tomorrow. His eyes lit up even more as he made eye contact with you. Daniel made his way to you, title around his waist and all. "Y/N! I'm so happy to see you! I thought I would have to cancel if I didn't see you!" Daniel said, having his words run together
"First Danny, congrats champ! Second, are you drunk?"
"Nope! Just buzzed, I think." He slurred and laughed, making you laugh. Daniel was so cute when before leaning down. "Do you wanna dance? It's boring without you on the floor."
Laughing, you took Daniel's hand as he lead you to the dance floor. The two of you danced to many songs, twirling and spinning around to the point Daniel gave Isiah his title belt to put away in VIP. You were having a great time, singing at the top of your lungs with him like old times, taking shots, taking various pictures and videos throughout the hour, and not once did you feel stiff or feel any tension. Soon the songs started to slow down, making the dance floor scarce. Daniel and you were still dancing as if no one was watching, but in the meanwhile, gradually getting closer to each other.
You wrapped your arms around his neck as his arms were wrapped around your waist, moving along to the beat. You were trying to look anywhere except for Daniel's eyes, which were glued on you. Soon, his hand lifted to your face, gently lifting your face up to him. As soon as you made eye contact, you could have sworn either Cupid shot you (and or Daniel) in the ass or you were drinking too much cause the way he was looking at you made you feel like you shrunk two sizes. Blushing, you were drawn into his beautiful brown eyes. You saw the same glint in his eyes that you saw when you first reunited. Despite the club having different colored lights everywhere, you could make out the emotions more clearly than ever before; admiration and lust.
As you looked into his eyes, you could feel those same feelings coming to the surface, or maybe it was the liquor coming to your mind. Apparently, that was clear to Daniel as well. "You are so damn gorgeous," Daniel whispered while looking back and forth between your eyes and lips.
"Danny, you're drunk." You said, trying to excuse his words and make the moment less
"Maybe, but that doesn't mean I don't know a beautiful woman when I see one. One especially that makes me feel…I don't know how to describe it but just know that I love how you make me feel nonetheless." Daniel finished as he pressed a kiss to your forehead.
"And hopefully soon, you'll feel it too." He muttered in your hair.
Taglist: @triscillal @wwenhlimagines @hooks-martin @hookerforhook @sheinthatfandom @zatarias-pandora @jess95laugh
#aew#all elite wrestling#aew imagine#all elite wrestling imagines#aew hook#aew hook imagine#hook x reader#hook imagine#daniel garcia#daniel garcia x reader#daniel garcia imagine#daniel garcia fic
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Fall Foraging: Pawpaw!
Pawpaw is a tree-growing fruit that is the largest edible fruit native to the United States! It's the most-northern-dwelling species of a tropical fruit family called the Annonaceae. If you are lucky enough to find some, you will definitely notice that they remind you of tropical fruit.
Check out the map below to see if you live in a pawpaw region:
(Image from Wikipedia)
I live near the edge of this fruit's range in Pennsylvania, so I was lucky to be able to find some! I heard about this fruit a couple of years ago, and early this summer I found some pawpaw trees in a nearby park. I've been keeping an eye on them ever since, and this week, they were finally ready to harvest!
Here is my haul of fruits, US quarter for scale:
Don't worry; there's plenty left for the wildlife! These trees grow about 30 feet high, so most of the fruit is out of human reach, but will be enjoyed by various species of birds and mammals when it falls to the ground. Here's a cluster of fruits just out of my reach, zoomed way in:
Here are some fruit clusters, non-zoomed:
You can recognize the trees because they have a slim trunk with smooth bark, and huge leaves. In early spring, they have purple-brown flowers:
(another Wikipedia photo).
The fruits start forming in late spring/early summer, and once the fruit is visible, there's really nothing else in this region that you could mistake for them. The immature fruits can be hard to spot among the leaves, but as they grow, they start to bend the branches down with their weight, and they become easier to see.
(Note: a tree that looks an awful lot like a pawpaw but doesn't have either fruits or nuts could well be pawpaw--in order to produce fruit, they need to be fertilized by a genetically distinct individual, so trees that are isolated or surrounded by their own clones may not produce fruit. The other common tree in the same range with similarly-sized leaves is the hickory, so if it has the big leaves but has small nuts growing on it, that's a hickory.)
Here's the park pawpaw patch from a little distance away:
The trees along the edge of the water, on the left-hand half of the picture, are pawpaws.
The fruits are ready when they start to feel a little soft, and easily break off the stem when pulled. Really ripe ones may fall of when you shake the branch. Here's how they look cut open:
Inside, there's a soft pulp and a lot of large, lima-bean-sized seeds. The pulp is the only edible part. Pick out the seeds, then scrape the pulp out with a spoon. It tastes sort of banana-y, and sort of like candy that's labeled "tropical fruit" with no further details. It's neat!
It's also a good reminder that most of the fruits we regularly eat have been modified by domestication to decrease the size of seeds and increase the edible part. There isn't a lot of "meat" on these guys--just a few big spoonsful from each palm-sized fruit. (You can get a little more by carefully sucking the pulp off the seeds, but I only did that with a couple of them, because they're very slippery and I'm not sure how bad it would be to accidentally swallow one. I decided to err on the safe side.)
You may have to be a bit lucky to find a fruiting pawpaw tree, but if you do, there isn't much chance of misidentifying it, so in that sense, it's a good species for beginner foragers.
If foraging on public land, be sure to check the laws and regulations--here in Pennsylvania, it's OK to forage "reasonable amounts for personal or family consumption" in our state parks, but it varies.
In terms of ethics-of-foraging, pawpaws are also pretty easy, because harvesting them does no harm to the plant, and there will probably be plenty of fruit that you/other foragers can't reach, and that by default is reserved for the wildlife.
(Additionally, the large seed size suggests that the pawpaw probably evolved a seed dispersal strategy based on extinct megafauna. It's likely that humans have been substituting for the original disperser species since the last ice age. All you have to do is put the seeds somewhere they have a chance of growing--i.e., not the garbage--and the tree has successfully gotten its seeds dispersed by a mammal, which was why it grew the fruit in the first place.)
(I found a lone, fruitless pawpaw tree in a different part of the park where I got these, so I thought I'd return the seeds there, because I am a conscientious mammal.)
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A Sparda x Eva fic I did last year, since I have writers block have a taste of my writing lol apologies in advance if there's anything confusing I promise I write better now 😅
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With the demon realm being sealed by what the demons may call "The Traitor", humans were, for now, free of fear of being brutally executed from said demons. The brave dark Knight that did away with the demons had decided to settle among the humans, trying to learn as much about them as possible, traveling around the world to expand his knowledge.
He had been traveling for many years, and during his travels he visits a city named Red Grave, he had planned to stay for a month before he would set off to travel again. As a couple of weeks pass by, the temperature decreases as a season ends and a new one begins.
The people around him now wore coats and jackets to protect themselves from the cold elements, however Sparda was the only one who didn't wear a suitable outfit for the cold season.
"Aren't you cold, sir?"
A stranger asked, Sparda would kindly reply with a smile and a chuckle "No no this weather doesn't affect me at all." In which people would find strange, but would quickly mind their own business and move on with their lives. Though it came to a point where too many people asked the same question to him, and he had to admit to himself that it did become tiring getting asked the same question over and over again, so he brought it upon himself to get himself a coat for the cold winter.
It was the next day after Sparda got himself a coat that it had suddenly snowed heavily, it was the first time it snowed so much in Red Grave after some years. You can hear children running outside and screaming with joy, as excitement filled their souls at how much snow there had been, their minds coming up with millions of ways to play with the snow to their heart's content.
Sparda had gone outside with his newly bought coat on, gazing at the massive amount of cold not-so-solid ice in front of him. He was glad he had bought a coat just in time, for he figured many eyes would linger on him if he hadn't gotten a coat and many would find him strange for it. As his gaze lingers to the snow before him, he quirks a brow, in his many years of traveling he hadn't seen anything like this. He wanted to linger a while longer to continue gazing at the white ice, but he wanted answers, as his thirst for knowledge never ceased to end.
The man starts to make his way to the local library, however upon making fast steps the poor man slips on the slippery icy ground and falls face first
"Careful, grounds slippery!"
A man shouted in the distance. Sparda groaned and got up, taking a mental note to be careful with his steps. He took some time once he finally arrived in front of the library, however to his dismay, it was temporarily closed. He sighs, as it seemed he would have to wait a while before he could find some answers. He turns and heads for a nearby park. Once he arrived he decided to take a walk, seeing the many people playing with the snow, children making snow angels, friends throwing snowballs at each other, and families piling large snow to create a snowman. It intrigued Sparda how much one could do with snow. After some time the man would decide to take a break and sit on a bench, and as he makes his way to the nearest bench, he stops in his tracks, seeing tiny white particles fall from the sky. He gazes up, his mouth partially opens from the sight, he slowly takes his hand out, the snow particles falling into his gloved hand. "What.. is this?" He asked, and though his voice was low, a child hears him and answers gleefully
"It's a snowflake, mister! That's where the snow comes from!" The child said "If you look real hard you'll find a really pretty snowflake!"
As the child runs off to continue playing, Sparda repeats the word "Snow…" before looking up again to gaze at the falling snow. As he looks down in front of him, a woman sits on the bench, her hair long and blonde while she wore a red coat, her skin as white as the snow before him and lips as red as a rose. Sparda gazes at the woman much like how he gazes at the snow in awe. The woman sat alone, and there was an open space to sit next to her, though the woman looked as if she was possibly waiting for someone. The woman glanced up, and quickly Sparda looked away. The man scolded himself mentally for staring, for he knew it was rude to stare. However the woman had caught his interest, and he was yearning for a moment where he could look at the woman again. Soon reality struck, and he realized he had been standing there for too long. He slowly looks to the opening seat that was next to the woman, his mind telling him he should go sit next to her, but there was another part of him that told him not to, for the woman looked as if she was expecting company of sorts, and he wouldn't want to cause any trouble to the woman's possible significant other if she had one.
Reluctantly, Sparda walks past the bench the woman was sitting and looks for another bench to sit on. However he made the mistake of walking too fast and once again would slip and fall face first on the ground. "Oh my!" He heard before he'd try to lift himself up. "Are you alright, sir?" The woman had ran to his aid, landing on her knees to help lift the man up. "I am- I am fine I'm just clumsy today-" he turned himself around to where now he was sitting on the ground and rubbed his head and as he gazed up his eyes locked with the woman's and was left completely awestruck "I…" speechless, all he could do was stare at the beautiful woman before him. As more snowflakes continued to fall, the woman had mindlessly been staring into the man's eyes as well "S-sir?" Her voice quiet, Sparda immediately said what was on his mind, his gaze not once leaving hers
"You are a beautiful snowflake."
The woman gasps lightly, in shock at his statement, and now it was her that was left speechless. Silence filled the air, and they were left to stare into each other's eyes. His first snow wouldn't be his last, and he was glad he would find a beautiful snowflake among the rest.
~End~
#dmc#devil may cry#devil may cry 5#fanfic#fan fiction#devil may cry sparda#sparda devil may cry#sparda dmc#LDK Sparda#Eva#Eva dmc#dmc Eva#Eva x Sparda#Sparda x Eva#writing#2022 writing#holiday writing#holiday fanfic#dmc writing#dmc fanfic#devil may cry fanfic#sparda#au#alternative universe#wholesome#romance#snow#winter#fluff
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An Ad-Hoc, Informally-Specified, Bug-Ridden, Single-Subject Study Of Weight Loss Via Potassium Supplementation And Exercise Without Dieting
Here's the short version: I lost 30 pounds in 6 months by chugging a bunch of potassium salt and exercising a lot. My subjective experience is that cranking my potassium intake way up made it possible to do a lot more exercise than I had been doing without also eating a lot more. Exercising more without also eating more led to weight loss (as one would hope!). I did not diet: I ate as I had been doing and as it pleased me to do. Do with the raw data as you please.
Losing weight this way is unusual and worth paying attention to because many things about increases and decreases in weight and obesity are very poorly understood. Many people would like their personal weight and obesity levels to be different, so anything that improves our collective understanding of how to make that happen is valuable. However, losing weight this way is an experiment: it's not necessarily safe to do what I did! Part of why I did it was to find out what would happen, and if you have any kind of existing kidney problems then you definitely should not do what I did. Note to other transfemmes: if you're taking spiro, that counts as a kidney problem.
I also don't want to overstate the significance of this experiment: what I've been up to in the last 6 months amounts to a single data point that happens to also be 1,100 spreadsheet cells. It's a data point that is highly suggestive, sure, but it would be extremely ambitious to say that it proves anything beyond "this worked for me" and perhaps "it's not impossible for this to work". I am writing about it because as far as I know, this particular experiment is something that nobody else has tried, and, again, anything that improves our collective understanding here is valuable.
The long version comes next: how I came to be doing this experiment, what I did in the experiment, what I plan to do next, and finally what I think about it all. The really long version is the ongoing conversation that this post is part of, starting with A Chemical Hunger, which is a book-length literature review about the 1980s–present global increase in obesity prevalence, also the posts about single-subject research where the same authors discuss the limits of what can be learned from experiences like mine, also the Experimental Fat Loss guy and his wide variety of diet-only experiments, also some critics who disagree.
How I came to be doing this
At the tail end of 2022, I noticed both that my BMI had hit 30 and that I had become very unhappy about my weight. There's a specific photo where I didn't realize until I saw the photo that my belly was hanging out over my waistband and it's vividly unpleasant in my memory. Around the same time, I happened to find the potassium-supplementation community trial that the Slime Mold Time Mold folks were running. The value proposition was "this will be easy, cheap, and safe, but also it might not actually work," and that sounded good to me, so I signed up for it and took a modest amount of potassium all through December and January. It kinda-sorta worked: I lost 6 pounds. Not nothing, but "it kinda-sorta worked" is the most one can really say about losing 6 pounds in 60 days.
The low-dose potassium delivered on all of what the SMTM folks promised, though. It was easy, cheap, and safe. So I kept doing it and, since I was already doing the potassium, decided that I should get an exercise habit going. I am a big believer in the idea that it's a tremendous amount easier to go from doing Something to doing More Something than to go from doing Nothing to doing Something. The low-dose potassium got me through the first step: once I was doing Something about my weight, it was relatively easy to do More Something. When the community trial ended in early February, I didn't have to worry about messing up its results by departing from the trial's instructions, so I started taking more potassium and building my own experiment. I also kept in touch with the SMTM authors, who were very encouraging. 🐯💕
By late March I had brought myself up to daily amounts of potassium and exertion that seemed good to me, and I stuck with those. This is the first time in my life I've focused on trying to lose weight, and I was not fully prepared for how demoralizing it is that the weight change from day N to day N+1 sometimes seems perversely unrelated to what you were doing on day N. Fortunately I have experience with spreadsheets, so I put together a tracker for myself that focused on the trailing-week average of my daily weight and exercise measurements as well as long-term graphs. Three months of data were enough to put together a chart whose trendline said very, very clearly, "what you are doing is working — keep it up!" With any kind of long-term project it's very important to create and sustain sources of feedback. All else being equal, the longer it takes before you can get a read on "is this going well or poorly?", the worse it will go.
I decided that my goal would be to get my BMI from 30 (the lower limit of "obese") to under 25 (the upper limit of "normal"). Happily, the math is very easy there: for my height, a BMI of 25 rounds off to 200lbs. I further decided that I was willing to spend all of 2023 working on this. That decision is why I'm writing this post now: halfway through a project is a natural time to pause and take stock.
What I did
By the end of March, my regimen was firmly settled and I kept at it through the end of June without further tinkering. The daily goals I settled on were 10,000mg of potassium and 1,200kcal of exertion. That amount of exercise worked out to be 90 to 100 minutes per day. For contrast, in 2022 my average amount of exercise per day was 15 minutes and my average exertion was 500kcal.
I used my smartwatch's exertion number ("how many calories are you using above the amount you need to burn to be alive at all?") and gradually walked up my daily goal, settling at 1,200kcal/day partially because it was working and partially because one hour of watch face equaling 100kcal was helpful for being able to read "how close to my goal am I?" without thinking hard about it. Most of the exercise was treadmill time, usually a brisk walk or light jog. Over the months I also did some running, some bicycling, and some hiking, but treadmill time was the reliable, unremarkable, do-this-every-day core of my exercise regimen. It took a while to ramp up to that amount of exertion and there were definitely days when I stumbled, for good reasons and bad. However, in general I hit the exertion goal and in particular had it absolutely dialed from early March to mid-April.
It was easier to be totally rigorous about the potassium-intake goal — it helped that that part only took a few minutes per day, instead of 90+ minutes! I used potassium chloride powder (whatever came up first on an Amazon search since all KCl should be alike) mixed with regular Gatorade (i.e. not the sugar-free kind) to make it taste okay (I recommend blue Gatorade, it's the closest to appealing when kaliated — the yellow lemon-lime was meh and the fruit punch red was awful). I added two heaping teaspoons of KCl powder to a 20oz. bottle of Gatorade and drank that. KCl is about 52% potassium and a heaping teaspoon of it is about 6500mg, so I rounded up a smidge and called that 6600-and-a-bit milligrams of potassium per bottle. On Thursdays and Sundays I drank 2 full bottles and on other days 1.5 bottles. I recorded this as 10,000mg of potassium on regular days and 13,500mg on Thursdays and Sundays.
Is 10,000mg of potassium a lot? It's a lot more than average! The SMTM potassium trial post contextualizes it helpfully:
For a long time, the recommended daily value for adults (technically, the “Adequate Intake”) was 4,700 mg of potassium per day. But most people don’t get anywhere near this amount.
In every CDC NHANES dataset from 1999 to 2018, median potassium intake hovers around 2,400 mg/day, and mean intake around 2,600 mg/day. In this report from 2004, the National Academy of Medicine found that “most American women … consume no more than half of the recommended amount of potassium, and men’s intake is only moderately higher.” Per this paper, only 0.3% of American women were getting the recommended amount. Similarly low levels of intake are also observed in Europe, Mexico, China, etc.
But in 2019, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine changed the recommended / adequate intake to 2,600 mg/day for women and 3,400 mg/day for men. They say that the change is “due, in part, to the expansion of the DRI model in which consideration of chronic disease risk reduction was separate from consideration of adequacy,” but we can’t help but wonder if they changed it because it was embarrassing to have less than 5% of the population getting the recommended amount.
In any case, recommended potassium intake is something like 2,500 to 5,000 mg per day for adults, and many people don’t get enough.
Potatoes are exceptionally high in potassium. A single potato contains somewhere between 600 and 1000 mg of potassium, depending on which source you look at. They are the 6th highest in potassium on this list of high-potassium foods from the NIH, and 9th on this old list from the USDA. If you do the math, this means that someone on the potato diet, eating 2,000 kcal of potatoes a day, gets at least 11,000 mg of potassium per day, more than twice the old recommended intake.
This explanation is most of why I decided to stabilize at about 10,000mg per day: because that's about how much potassium people were getting during the SMTM potato diet community trial. Because that community trial involved around 200 people, it was unlikely that there would be any truly heinous health effects from knocking back that much potassium, especially together with the anecdotal evidence that inspired the trial. Aiming for that amount also meant that it would be easier to compare my results to something that worked decently well and to ask questions like "is there something special about whole potatoes, or is it mostly the potassium?" If it's mostly the potassium, you'd expect my results to be closer to the full-potato-diet results than to the low-dose-potassium results — which is what happened.
I measured those results in a very basic way: ordinary bathroom scale, first thing in the morning, every day. Considering how much noise there is in weight measurement, there's just no advantage to measuring it more often. I kept the circumstances of the weigh-in simple and stable, trusting that that was good enough. I also measured exertion in two other forms — step count and exercise minutes — but that was mostly for my personal curiosity because both are basically downstream of exertion as such. Similarly, I tracked my sleep but didn't expect that to matter a whole lot.
While I was affirmatively not dieting, I want to make sure to talk about my food habits because I could be missing something that's easy for others to see as unusual but seems totally ordinary to me. My meals are heavy on pasta, rice, bread, and granola. I work diligently to get enough dietary fiber. I eat some meat but not a lot (eating a pound of meat in a week would be above average for me), and I enjoy coffee but not a tremendous amount of it since usually I make Chemex-style coffee and having a bunch of that in a day would be too time-intensive. My go-to snacks are cashews, pistachios, cherries, and granola bars. Like most people, I should eat more dark leafy greens than I do. I use a generous hand when measuring out olive oil. I believe that if you need either milk taste or milk fat, you shouldn't half-ass it, so when I need milk taste or milk fat, I rely on whole milk and heavy cream. Fats, generally, taste good. I eat more whole food and food I personally cook than I eat packaged and processed food, and I only infrequently eat restaurant food (weekly pizza night, maybe twice a month other than that). I really like sour candies but basically stopped eating them last autumn after some very patient coaxing from my dentist. Once in a while, dark chocolate, usually with the nuts and fruit.
I ate as I had been doing: I ate the food I felt like eating and ate as much of it as I felt like eating. If I felt like eating more or less, I did that. Since I wanted to keep the exercise habit going regardless of whether or not I lost weight, it was very important to me to not make the exercise any more difficult than it had to be. Going hungry would definitely make it more difficult, so I avoided doing that. One way in which I'm very sure my experience generalizes is, it's much easier to persuade people to try "add this supplement to what you're already eating" than to get them to try "replace all of your current food with potatoes," especially when talking about long-term or indefinite-duration changes.
What I plan to do next
I'll be thrilled if I can recapture something like the 7-week March/April streak I had going. Most days in this period (44 out of 49) were PB days (i.e. a day where my trailing-week-average weight was the lowest it had been since the start of the year) and no two consecutive days in this period were non-PB days (i.e. if a day wasn't a PB day, both the day before and the day after were PB days). I was losing almost 2lbs per week and exercising a lot and I felt great. However, my intuition is that that was the honeymoon period of going from mostly-sedentary to exercising regularly, and that I should expect further progress to be more difficult, to be like the less impressive results I got in May and June.
Still, the thing as a whole has definitely been successful enough that I'm going to keep at it until the end of the year, re-evaluating again in December (and maybe when I hit my weight-loss goal, which should happen around halfway between now and then). Since I'm using January 1st as my anchor date for the start of the experiment, it lines up nicely with the calendar if I just keep going all year and see what happens. Besides, I only need 6 months more to generate a year of data, while someone going from a cold start would need a whole year.
Given that I have a setup that is working pretty well, I'm reluctant to tinker with it. I might add one more high-potassium day in addition to Thursdays and Sundays, and I might start tracking some extra data — even though I'm not trying to change them, recording my food habits seems like the most helpful additional thing I could record.
If I develop health problems I'm gonna pull the ripcord (and post about it). There are already too many shitty fake weight loss regimens in the world that fuck up the health of people who try them, we do not need more.
What I think about it
Since I'm the one doing this experiment, I get to be excited about how it's working out for me personally, which is to say, very well indeed. Right now it seems pretty certain that I'll be able to reach my goal of losing ~50lbs in a long-term-sustainable way and just as importantly, getting myself to a much better baseline state of physical fitness. I feel pretty great about that part!
The experiment is not just for me, though: the reason it's an experiment rather than just "I'm trying to lose weight" is that I am keeping track of things carefully such that other people could carry out the same steps I did and get results similar to or different from mine and ideally everyone eventually comes to pretty firm conclusions about whether this — losing weight via potassium and exercise without dieting — works or not. My chugging potassium and Gatorade for six months to a year is the very beginning of that process, and I expect that the difficult parts of the process will be carried out by people with more expertise and resources than me.
I also expect that I have not tumbled to the One Weird Trick for weight loss that everyone else just overlooked. As someone with plenty of programming experience, I have a hearty suspicion towards "well, it worked on MY setup" stories. One obvious alternate explanation for my successful weight loss is "well yeah, you doubled your exertion and kept your food intake the same, of course you lost weight" — but I don't find that explanation satisfying. To start with, if it were that easy, people would do it more often. There are a tremendous number of people who would like to lose weight and a tremendous marketplace of devices, services, and professionals to help them use exercise for that purpose, and yet in a 20-year NCHS study, average exercise rose without obesity falling. It's also very, very easy to find fat people who exercise plenty — you will find them more or less anywhere you find lots of people exercising, as well as in places like sumo stables. A member of my family has taken up powerlifting in the last year, making him both fitter and heavier by quite a bit.
Additionally, there's studies like Keating 2017 concluding that short-term exercise intervention doesn't do enough to matter, or like the Wu 2009 work concluding that exerise-and-dieting isn't meaningfully better than just dieting over periods of 6+ months, and then there's the STRRIDE study, Slentz 2004, concluding that jogging 20 miles a week can get people to lose about 7 pounds over 8 months. The STRRIDE study caught my eye because it's pretty similar to what I did: they took obese mostly-sedentary folks, had them exercise more, and forbade them from eating less. However, once you do the math the results are much less similar: the average STRRIDE participant did around half the exercise I've done for at most a fifth of the weight loss (i.e. around 1lb/month vs. around 5lbs/month and around 3mi/day vs. 7mi/day). If someone else told me "Krinn, your naïve just-hit-the-treadmill exercise regimen is 2.5x as effective as an exercise regimen supervised & measured by professionals," I would want them to provide some compelling evidence for that.
If you tell someone you want to lose weight and would like their advice, it is overwhelmingly likely that the advice will involve exercising more. Everyone has heard this advice. And yet, as Michael Hobbes observes in a searing piece for Highline, "many 'failed' obesity interventions are successful eat-healthier-and-exercise-more interventions" that simply didn't result in weight loss. Even if we as a society choose to believe "more exercise always leads to weight loss, most people just fuck up at it," that immediately confronts us with the important question, why do they fuck up at it? and its equally urgent sibling, what can we learn from those who succeed at it to give a hand up to those who have not yet succeeded?
I find the SMTM authors' metaphor for this helpful:
[exercising more and eating less] is not an explanation any more than "the bullet" is a good explanation for "who killed the mayor?" Something about the potato diet lowered people's lipostat set point, which reduced their appetite, which yes made them eat fewer calories, which was part of what led them to lose weight. Yes, "fewer kcal/day" is somewhere in the causal chain. No, it is not an explanation.
Since I've been doing this for six months, I feel pretty certain that the potassium is doing something positive for me and I'm entirely willing to put in another six months to find out what happens for me. Finding out whether that generalizes is beyond my power: all I can do is explain what worked for me, one middle-aged Seattle housewife, and hope that it's useful to people who are in a position to do serious work about it.
One kind of serious work that's available is the very cool analytic techniques that other people in this conversation have used while looking at their data. If you are the kind of person to get elbows-deep in R or Matlab, feel free to grab my day-by-day measurements for that (I release this data under Creative Commons' CC0 if that's relevant to you). I'm not going to do that, though, partially because it's been a long time since I last used R but mostly because of the thing I said earlier about my whole experiment basically being one data point. If you have a data series, then yeah, get in there with some numeric interrogation, but if you only have one data point, that data point is what it is and statistical analysis can't really add to it. All I can claim here is that this is a new data point: people going about their everyday lives do not spontaneously increase their potassium intake severalfold and the background work from the SMTM potato diet and potassium community trials tell me that no-one's run a study looking directly at what happens if you do increase your potassium intake that much.
Do you want to increase your potassium intake that much? If you do, I have to re-emphasize the potassium community trial's safety warning: if you have existing kidney problems, do not try this. Also I'm gonna deploy the boldface again to make sure I get this across to other trans women: on this topic, taking spiro counts as a kidney problem! I am not a doctor and I'm extremely not your doctor, you should talk to your actual doctor if you have any kind of potential kidney issues and even if you're in good health and want to try chugging a bunch of potassium, you should titrate up gradually the way the SMTM writeup suggests (which is also the way I did).
In addition to a general spirit of responsibility, those warnings are important because otherwise just telling you that this is easy would sound like a recommendation. Did I mention that the experiment was easy? Easy easy. Piss easy. Lemon squeezy, etc. Of course building an exercise habit wasn't easy, but the potassium part didn't make it easier or harder, and the potassium part itself was pretty trivial. Mix this powder into Gatorade a couple times per day, drink it, done.
That said, if you do want to try this, godspeed and please write down how it goes for you. I recommend building positive reinforcement into whatever you use to track it; my personal spreadsheet for this is adorned with color-coding and happy emoji. I also recommend at least thinking about the following questions, whether you're going to do this, evaluate the results of this, or both.
How safe is it, in general rather than for me particularly, to chug this much potassium? This is the big one: "just mix potassium salt into Gatorade and drink it a few times a day" is so incredibly easy that even if the effect size is small, it could benefit a huge number of people, but of course it doesn't benefit them if it's not actually safe to do that.
Does this replicate? If it's not safe it matters a lot less whether it replicates, so the safety question comes first, but if it is safe, then one would immediately want to find out whether it works for 1% of people, 10% of people, or 50% of people.
How much do other mineral nutrients, particularly sodium and magnesium, matter for this? Maybe they need to be combined in some specific way, as this Twitter thread suggests.
Do sex hormone levels matter? I'm a trans woman and I've been having problems with access to HRT in this timeframe. Given how many things in one's body testosterone and estrogen affect, and given that previous obesity research has shown differences based on hormone profiles, that's definitely something to keep an eye on. Also because spironolactone in particular messes with renal function and potassium metabolism, I expect that it affects this. Digression: spironolactone is total bullshit as an anti-androgen of first resort. It sucks and I hate it and I should have switched to other anti-androgens even sooner than I did. If you're using spironolactone as an anti-androgen because it was the first thing your doctor tried for that, you really should try something else and see if that works.
I steadfastly avoided dieting. I like my existing diet just fine, and that's why I preferred the "what if I just chug a bunch of potassium" plan. All else being equal, I'd rather try things that let me eat what I like than things that require throwing my relationship with food into upheaval. But of course you wonder, what would happen if you did combine dieting and exercise and potassium? The ExFatLoss guy has been busy trying a lot of diet-only interventions and he's got a lot of interesting results. I am not the person to try it, but it's one of the obvious things to try, so I hope someone does try it.
How does this interact with the munchies? If you decide to try what I tried and you, like me, enjoy living somewhere where marijuana is legal, I think you should look at whether the potassium changes how you experience marijuana-induced hunger/overeating. One of the things I found very striking about the matter is that it was possible for me to chug enough potassium that the marijuana-induced hunger was drastically reduced. I expected the opposite since the potassium was causing me to eat less (relative to exertion) at other times. However, I have very strong habits about marijuana (exactly twice a week, edibles only, same amount every time) and I'm not willing to change them for this, so who knows how this aspect will work out for others. Definitely something to keep an eye on, though. Even if I wasn't losing weight, the potassium reduces marijuana-induced overeating enough that I'd probably keep going with it just for that effect.
Conclusion
I spent 6 months trying to lose weight with lots of potassium and exercise but without dieting. So far I have succeeded. Unless something disastrous comes up, I'm going to keep trying it for at least another 6 months and going to keep recording what I'm doing. I'm particularly curious to see where I'll plateau, since I assume at some point I'll start getting really hungry and/or tired instead of accidentally starving. I hope that my experience and the data I've recorded from it, are useful to people who are looking into questions about obesity and weight. Please feel free to use my data and my writeup (this post) for that. If you want to try doing as I've done, good luck and stay safe: this has worked for me but it is still experimental, it might be unsafe and/or fail to work for you.
#potassium#obesity#n=1#slimemoldtimemold#citizen science#achemicalhunger#more or less accidentally doing science and that's kind of a weird feeling ngl but I hope it helps someone <3#krinnposting
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[Vampire Knight] - If I'm to be reborn, I'll find you (again, again, again) - CHAPTER TWO: ruler of my heart (you outburn the sun)
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Summary: He hates her, he loves her, he hates her.
He misses her.
(The only place he can have her is in his dreams)
Note: Hopefully I'm getting better at this updating consistently thing but yeah zero's chapter. Next chapter is going to be kaname/yume focused again sorry zero or zeki enjoyers.
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He’s not the first one to hear of the news. In fact, he’s neither the second, nor third (and so on) recipient of the fact that Kuran Yuuki is dead. Zero doesn’t hear it from the Chairman, his teacher, Kaito, or even from one of the vampires. In hindsight, perhaps he should have been more suspicious, should have questioned the way paperwork always found its way to his desk unceasingly—leaving him with no time to focus on the outside world.
Zero simply hears of it in passing whilst heading out for lunch, through a conversation between two nameless hunters—discussing it like changes in the weather.
“Did you hear? Kuran Yuuki is dead.”
“Another pureblood gone, huh… Wonder if it was her brother that did her in?”
“The rapidly decreasing execution missions would likely clue you into the answer.”
“Right, right.”
It’s hysterically, laughably casual in the way such information comes to him.
(It can’t be real. It can’t be real. It can’t be real—)
The world seems to stop on its axis, and Zero wonders if he should’ve simply ignored his desire for shio ramen today. After all, it’s not like he has an appetite now. His stomach roils with discomfort at the thought of food, and his throat itches for a scant few seconds before it burns. A sandstorm swirls and tears at his flesh. Mind blank, Zero goes where his feet wish to travel, content to let his mind stay in a haze.
He ends up in the association bathrooms, throwing up nothing but paltry strings of bile and choking on his spit.
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There is too much work to be done. The vampire world, for one, was going through a massive societal upheaval. Zero simply couldn't do anything more than throw up into an association toilet before being fed an ungodly amount of paperwork as if he were some humanoid paper shredder.
And maybe it's because more than four years ago, just over a year ago—with Ichiru dead in his arms—he's finally refined a true and tried method for every loss he's been through. Every thought of her is locked behind a glass vault, buried six feet under, the key left behind to collect dust. Zero works through papers and decimates his targets with the same ease. Every stroke of his pen is enforced with the explosive sound of his gun, of ashes in the wind. Rinse and repeat, his days all blur together in their sameness.
Months later, on a job just like any other, Zero walks into a department store and sees a long coat, hanging neatly from the racks. Stupidly, he thinks, ‘Yuuki would probably say I should get it if she saw it.’ And then, oh, how it hits him at that very moment.
Yuuki is dead.
Yuuki is dead.
Yuuki is dead.
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Apparently, it had been the pureblood Shirabuki Sara. A pureblood through and through, she’d sent pawns to do her dirty work.
But she’d miscalculated the consequences of her actions, as all those high up on their thrones of arrogance were prone to doing so.
So she too, is dead, consumed by the pureblood king Kuran Kaname—he’s slaughtered more influential vampires than any hunter ever would in their lifetime. In the privacy of his thoughts, Zero thinks that had he the power and madness to do so, he would’ve too.
Sanity is both a blessing and a curse, because there is nothing else for Zero to turn to but his thoughts alone.
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Roaring water fills his ears, and Zero sits, unmoving on the wet shower tiles. Steam fogs up the room, blurring his vision. He watches the water run down the drain for hours, washing the grime caked on his body until his fingers are all pruned and his skin is red with heat. His stomach is growling at him, and the water bill is for sure going to shoot up with this, but Zero can’t bring himself to care much about the future right now.
(Any second now, she might barge into the bathroom to demand usage of the shower, to dramatically proclaim that he’s spent too long hogging it, to threaten to turn off the hot water in a minute even if she never ends up doing it.
But this apartment houses only him, and is far away from that Academy, far away from all those precious yet painful memories. The tiles aren’t even the right colour, beige, off-white, and an intense white that could be comparable to that of a strobe light. The shampoo and body wash he’s bought—the same one she always used in the Academy, a subtle floral scent of roses—only serve to highlight all the differences he can find between his current bathroom and the one in his memories.)
The doorbell suddenly rings, insistent and unfaltering like a military march. Zero is sure it’s been modified because there’s no way a regular doorbell could be so annoyingly loud like the one he has. With the way it’s blaring in his ears every second, it’s clear that whoever’s behind the door won’t take his silent refusal as an answer.
The water continues to flow into the drain, taking with it the numerous dissolving blood tablets strewn across the wet floor.
For a moment, Zero allows himself to be deluded by the idea that it’s her behind the door—-she’d always been as stubborn as a mule when she put her mind to it. But it is the sound of the doorbell that echoes in his ears, not an annoyed rat-a-tat-tat followed by the creak of an opening door. What follows is sandy blond hair and the glint of spectacles. They stare at each other for a moment, the headmaster and him. Nearby, the water continues to flow.
Even now, Zero can never truly parse the emotion behind those glasses of his.
“You know she wouldn’t want to see you like this.”
And even now, the headmaster’s words are as precise as his killing blows. Hearing them, Zero flinches. They stab into him, tearing open wounds until the pain is nothing but white numbness. But the mention of her, as always, pushes him to move on the legs of a shambling corpse. His hand slams against the bathroom tiles; the force of it is always degrees lower than it could be.
“How do you know what she would’ve wanted?” His words are acrid, angry in a way he doesn’t want to explain. “She’s gone. She’s not coming back.” Zero grits his teeth, looking straight at Kaien Cross’s eyes before he spits out a final bout of venom. “She’s been dead ever since she became one of them.”
Yet like always, the headmaster’s calm never wavers. “You know, that it’s always been her. No matter if Yuuki,” the sound of her name, said aloud, led to the tiles cracking under his hands, “stayed human or not, She’ll always be Yuuki. Maybe she changed and grew up a little—faster than I would’ve wanted or liked—but at her core, she was always, always Yuuki. She didn’t die that day. You knew that fact as well as I did.” And here, Zero feels the weight of the executioner’s blade above him, about to drop. “Otherwise, why do you try so hard to keep them as separate entities, even now, when she’s truly dead and gone?”
Zero drops to his knees painfully, leaving marks of destruction behind on the walls. He covers part of his face with a hand, contemplating further denial with the truth laid out so plainly before him.
“I never…”
“You never told her your true feelings, and now she’s gone. Because it was easier to accept it if you felt as if you'd already mourned beforehand.” The headmaster’s voice is soft, almost as if reminiscing a similar scene. He crouches down and puts a hand on Zero’s shoulder. “Let it out, Zero. It’s only me and you now.”
There are no tears left for him to cry, but his throat tightens, and Zero hiccups out words all the same.
“I loved her. But she chose him.”
A ragged breath cuts his words short before Zero finds the strength to continue.
“I still loved her, even to the very end.”
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The sky glows with a mix of different vibrant, brilliant colours—it’s an intensely beautiful scene, so much so that Zero wants to throw up. A cacophony of emotions welled up in him, knowing that such a view would be forever denied to the girl who was the most like the sun. He almost wishes that a storm would suddenly start, right at that moment.
But the sun continues to glow with a detestable radiance, and the days continue to go by relentlessly. The world does not wait for one man’s grief.
He goes back into his bedroom and sits on his bed. Afterwards, he brings out Bloody Rose.
A click, and he watches as the empty magazine drops to the ground with a heavy thunk. Mechanically, Zero goes through the familiar motions of reloading Bloody Rose. The gun hangs loose in his hands. When it’s done, still holding Bloody Rose, his arm raises, up, up. Its silver muzzle points under his exposed chin without even the slightest tremor, pressing firmly into the soft flesh.
He thinks about a girl, who, long ago, had rushed into a different room and wrenched this very gun out of his hands. Thinks of a life preserved for reasons he refused to believe was out of love. Thinks of a life, gone because it was loved so dearly.
The sunlight pierces through haphazardly closed curtains. A clock ticks in the background. He lets both the gun and himself fall on the bed.
His door is still closed.
(She’d wanted him to live)
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Her blood still resides within him. But it lies, still, silent. Not a single iota of warmth flows in his body; it is ice in his veins in contrast to Kuran’s acidic poison. Were Zero to close his eyes and attempt to delude himself, he would simply fail from the get-go. Because Zero has always been faced with hard truths; so many times, he sees them over and over again—in the mirror, in the way he used to bite himself by accident and in the hunter’s bracelet on his desk.
She is gone and he must swallow down that bitter truth like the way he mindlessly consumes blood tablets.
(They scrape his throat, going down and making it uncomfortably dry; it tastes of overly sugared cough syrup; and he doesn’t want to, doesn’t wish to accept a world without her in it.
But her blood still lies.)
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He dreams of her. Not always, but sometimes he does. On those days, when he wakes up, Zero can’t seem to muster up the strength to get out of bed. It’s easier to bask in the what-ifs and could-beens, or the has-beens and bygone halcyon days. Breathing is easier, living feels easier, being carried by fantasies and memories. He always has to stop himself from getting too carried away—because ultimately the world does not care. Time continues to march forward, the Earth continues to spin on its axis and around the sun.
Sometimes Zero wants to curse at her. Because no matter how easy it was at that moment, reality would always settle in as an infinite weight, caving his lungs beneath him. But he could never stay angry at her, no matter what she did, or what she became. Before, he had sworn to kill her—but really, he wouldn’t have minded had she put him to rest instead.
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"Zero? Did you fall asleep in the stables again? Geez, what's with you always showing up late for the transition periods!" She punches him forcefully in the back a couple of times, unrelenting even in the face of his annoyance and mild pain. (He wouldn’t have it any other way)
“Ow, ow, ow, ow—! Oi, would you quit it already?” He turns to slap a large hand over her forehead, pushing her away from him with great resistance on her part. “I’m here now, aren’t I?” Zero doesn’t say it, but her puffed cheeks and flailing limbs make her look as ridiculous as she is cute, and he’s almost tempted to flick her in the forehead for good measure.
“Yes, yes, alright now stop pushing me!” She glares up at him, arms folded in annoyance. “Don’t forget that as the prefects, we have an important job to do—which means, stop being late!”
“By important job, you mean stopping a bunch of idiot classmates from throwing themselves into the slavering jaws of humanoid beasts?” Zero raises a wry eyebrow, watching her face gain a mildly exasperated look. When he turns to jab at the inevitable mass of lovesick, occasionally fanatic day-class students to further make a point, Zero finds that there’s no one there.
Right.
He turns back to look for her, but there’s no one there.
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When Zero cooks breakfast for his birthday, he takes care to watch his food burn, forces it down his throat and makes sure it stays put. The eggs are rubbery, the toast is burnt, and the bacon is like chewing wood, but somehow he devours it with as much eagerness as a regular bowl of shio ramen.
She used to make such god-awful food.
(Zero finds vials of blood on his doorstep that day.
He practically guzzles the pills instead.)
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"Hey Zero, I think this would look pretty good on you." She takes out the long coat with a flourish, holding it up next to him with a contemplative expression. Zero stares back blankly at her, knowing little about the intricacies of what was his “colour”, or what “went well with his eyes”. Sure, he has some preferences, but he finds that he doesn’t mind watching her pick out his clothes for it.
(It’s oddly domestic in that way, and he dreams of what could’ve been—had they been normal, had they not had destiny and duty looping around their necks like a noose)
The next day, he goes and buys himself another coat. Staring at its dark colours and its simple design, Zero wonders if this could’ve been something she would’ve chosen for him.
(He never wears it. Dust collects on the cloth, tints the fibres grey and overrides the fresh store-bought scent, but he never wears it.)
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"Zero, we can stay together for the night, just like before—I’ll watch over your dreams, and you can watch over mine, ok?" Under the warm covers, she whispers this to him, and their fingers intertwine together. Her hands have always run colder than his, but even so, her hands are freezing—as cold as the dead.
When he wakes up, the space beside him on the bed is cold.
It has always been cold.
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There is no grave, no stone marker, but he supposes that the Kuran Manor serves well enough as a reminder. The rumours don’t paint a pretty picture—the king of beasts, almost mad in his sobriety; the king of beasts, living only for memories and promises; the king of beasts, someone who’d crush you underfoot for his dreams without a second thought.
Standing in front of the tall, dark and rusting iron gates, Zero can almost choke on the overpowering scent of roses. They’re everywhere, in full bloom, mere buds, wilting or decayed. It’s a smell that only reminds him of what could have been, and what he let go of, of that fateful night in the academy.
Were it him, he would’ve planted sunflowers instead.
(Zero doesn’t enter. He knows how much Kuran hated him entering any space deemed as his own. It wouldn’t change now, half-mad as they both were.)
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Violence is, perhaps, the only outlet that Zero knows will never let him down. There is release to be found when he hunts down level Es; there is no need for emotion, only cold, pure logic in which he can execute his duty as a protector (that he’d already failed so many times before). With every shot of his gun, every blast of the hunter’s sigil and every vampiric body blown apart into dust and ash, Zero puts to rest the grievances of so many others—but never his own.
Kaito no longer makes any sort of comment about such trips, only there to stop him from presumably losing his head and forcing the association to find yet another leader (or so he says, but they both know part of the association would be thrilled to find a reason to off him). Sure, Kaito mindlessly chatters about the surroundings and his day, but they both know that saying anything about her—no matter how sound his reasoning could be—would create a one-way ticket to the end of their friendship.
He tried, once. (“You can’t keep doing this to yourself. You have to accept the fact that she’s gone and that she didn’t choose you.” He’d paused then, reproach evident in his face before he continued. “She was a pureblood first.”
“She had been human.”
“Had.”
“And so had I been, once.”
“…Just don’t get yourself killed.”)
It’s nice to have someone stay. But he’ll never say it. People can’t stay simply because you want them to. Their decisions have always been their own.
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Perhaps the universe had an ironic sense of humour if he was back to teach Cross Academy’s Day Class ethics of all things. The headmaster clearly made a mistake in forcing him to do what he flippantly called a “much-needed change of perspective”. Somehow Yagari, of all people, seemed to think that it’d be good for him to take up such a position in addition to his duties as both a hunter and the president of the hunter’s association.
“You’re a good kid, but you need a better head on your shoulders,” is all Yagari says on that matter, and off Zero goes into once more dealing with teenagers—this time as an adult rather than one of their peers. He half expects it to be just like before.
But it’s not.
Revealing the truth of the Night Class to the Day Class means that there are no more barriers between the vampires and humans of Cross Academy. Without the distance, there is not enough room for worship, and what is left are only two kinds of being, all simply trying to live in a new world.
Teaching ethics really means “filling in the gaps” so that vampire-human relations will go more smoothly. Unlike his mentor though, Zero thankfully doesn’t need to use either express or implied threats of violence to get his students to listen. And he finds that, with the truth revealed, the Day Class students now behave in much calmer ways—ironically, the truth had perhaps “humanised” the vampires for them.
They listen carefully to his teachings; Zero does his utmost to drill them into their heads, complete with drawings that are only marginally better than her toddler scribbles. He’s sure that when he’s out of sight and earshot, they laugh about it, just as they laugh alongside the vampires they’d once thought of as unreachable.
Watching it all from a distance, it almost feels unbearably nostalgic yet melancholic—because this had not been his world. Had she and Zero never been torn apart from the natural way of things, reborn and reforged in blood, they would have never met.
(He wonders if he would’ve dismissed her as nothing but a monster. If their old classmates would have thought of her as another pseudo-goddess to worship.)
Zero watches two worlds meld, and is not quite at peace, but at the very least, the memories, the “what ifs” here do not hurt.
However, it doesn’t take long for him to resign. In the end, Zero is better cut out for other things, rather than becoming another face in the crowd of the headmaster’s rampant eccentrics that he calls teachers. But, sometimes, seeing the world that she wished for, finally, slowly, starts to be created… The air is a little lighter, even as his throat aches. She would’ve liked to watch the two different classes fumble through cooking on their own.
Maybe he’ll make ginger pork stir fry tonight.
-
It’s years before he meets Wakaba Sayori again. Zero nearly forgets about her wedding, were it not for the Headmaster’s, and Kaito’s constant, unceasing reminders via letters and spoken words. The final nail in the coffin is the wedding invitation itself. If he doesn’t attend the wedding, he’s sure that someone will come to physically strong-arm him to the event.
The wedding itself is a rather small affair, given Sayori’s background and what he remembers of Aidou’s proclivity for dramatics. Maybe it was Sayori who’d wanted it. Or maybe it was a joint agreement. Zero doesn’t know either of them well enough to say, but he prefers it this way.
Staring at the happy couple—in the back of his mind—Zero morbidly wonders if death will also do them part earlier than expected. He’s quick to shut down that train of thought as soon as it appears. He wouldn’t wish such a feeling on anyone.
-
After the event, Zero keeps his copy of the wedding photo, keeping it safe with the other one that marked his first year of high school. Against the glossy sheen of the new photo, that one looks all the more faded; the new photo always feels as if it’s missing something.
She would’ve loved to see the wedding; would’ve been the maid of honour, lovely in gentle pinks and a happy blush on her cheeks.
He startles at the vision, dropping the photo book with an unceremonious thud.
-
The burn in his throat has never gone away since that fateful night of snow. But it’s now a familiar constant, easily relegated to the back of his mind. What does it mean? Zero doesn’t know, only watching as society changes, and as people grow to create a world where there could be true peace.
But it feels easier to breathe for himself, even as he continues to breathe for her. Zero isn’t sure if he’ll ever stop breathing—living—for her. It’s alright this way, and the dreams now leave him feeling more…fond rather than wanting.
-
It’s only a glimpse, but years and years later, Zero gets a chance to see how Kuran Kaname now fares in this still unfamiliar world. Despite his achievements and the iron-clad grip he has on the rest of the vampires—key in fostering the new partnership between humans and vampires—he rarely shows his face. Does the smell of roses, in its various stages of life, cling to him like a parasite? Or maybe it’s the other way around, with roses built within everything he owns, everything that he is.
As Zero contemplates, he thinks back to the regularly replaced sunflowers in his office and his flat.
When he sees him, Zero gets his answer.
Lounging on his throne, the smell of blood, dust and decay is attached to him like that of a rose with its thorns. Kaname Kuran stares emptily at everyone and nowhere, only occasionally opening his mouth to send orders. Within his hands is a resin-encased rose, looking worn and smooth from the years. His clothes don’t quite fit what he’s supposed to be, refined King of the Vampires. Rather, dressed in loose clothing, the apathy in his gaze, Kuran almost reminds him of—
(Zero tries not to think about it)
After so long, even hate will cool. They both loved, they both lost. It is a reality of the world that they live in. That she could not ever see the dream she wished for come to reality. In fact, looking at this sombre, cold, alone figure… He almost pities him. Kaname Kuran, top of the world but with no one left.
Could they see what Zero sees? The old Night Class no longer stands nearby, but at polite distances, looking almost weary. It was the kind of weariness that he was most familiar with.
After all, the hunter association had always looked at him this way.
Zero at least has the headmaster, has Kaito, has his teacher. Kuran has no one at all.
Even beasts could be pitiable.
(Yuuki knew that best, didn’t she)
-
Maybe it’s only fitting that he’ll die from protecting a child who looks so much like Yuuki. Not quite in the flesh, but more so in spirit—and wasn’t that the most important, most beautiful quality about her? Especially now, memory half-baked and succumbing to erosion over the years. In the face of time, it all crumbles to dust, just like his body is now; not even sure whether it is his or the bodies of mad vampires he’s slain.
Zero can see her crying, tears wetting his shirt, mixing with the dust in a way that he’d be mildly disgusted by were he not currently dying. “It’s alright,” he says, reaching out with hands that only smear more dust into her hair. Zero isn’t sure if the garbled sounds reaching his ears are truly words or not. Maybe the girl is speaking, maybe the girl is simply sobbing.
Or maybe he is already dead.
When he closes his eyes, Kiryuu Zero dies before a young girl’s eyes, leaving nothing but a pile of empty clothes and a silver gun.
-
The incessant ringing of an alarm is loud and annoying enough to cave metaphorically his skull in with its shrill noise alone. Grumbling, Zero burrows deeper into his blankets, covering himself fully in an attempt to block out the noise. It doesn’t fully work, but a partial solution is better than no solution at all, so Zero gets right back to falling asleep.
The heavyweight landing unceremoniously on top of his body puts an abrupt stop to that. “Zeeroo! We’re gonna be late for school again!” Ichiru whines, digging his pointy elbows right into Zero’s sides, knowing full well the exact location of his arms. He’s lucky that Zero loves him.
“Gerroff me, Ichiru,” he groans, the sound muffled by the blankets, gently shoving away at the incessant prodding. “We don’t even have to wake up until ten minutes later.”
“How do you even know that?” Questions Ichiru, switching up his tactics and physically smothering Zero in another attempt to force him out of bed.
“I pay attention in class rather than daydream about the divorced neighbour next door.”
Just as Ichiru is about to retaliate with a few choice words, the bedroom door bursts open to herald another arrival. “Zero! Get up, we're gonna be late!’ Kuran Yuuki rushes over to drag him out of bed with strength contrary to her small size. “Get up you lazy bum!” She promptly drops him on the ground, ignoring his affronted yell and Ichiru’s snickering in favour of rifling through his wardrobe.
“Good morning Yuuki!” Ichiru cheerily waves at her from Zero’s bed, delighting in the extra chaos and suffering added to his brother’s normal routine.
“Morning Ichiru!” She absent-mindedly chirps back, piling the different pieces of Zero’s uniform onto one arm. Halfway through, Yuuki looks back at Zero. “Oi, get up Zero! Aren’t you supposed to be the one with the best attendance record out of all of us?”
“I shouldn’t have messed with your alarm,” Zero grumpily mutters, not bothering to get up from the floor. From above, Ichiru barely attempts to stifle his laughter. “Stop laughing, Ichiru.”
Unfortunately for Zero, Yuuki could hear him perfectly well. Her body snaps around just in time for Yuuki to let out an outraged cry of, “You what?!”
At that, Zero groans, and Ichiru only laughs louder and harder.
(He wouldn’t trade this for anything else in the world)
#my writing#angst#vampire knight#fanfiction#zero kiryuu#kiryuu zero#tw grief#tw: suicidal thoughts#cw: suicidal ideation and an attempt#i really did not expect zero's part to get so long#but tbf this has been happening to my writing#i just keep thinking i could flesh out some parts more and then boom another couple hundred words or even 1k added with just one scene#radiant zeki#zero goes through it but it's arguably not as bad as with kaname because he has people to pull him back and tell him he's being dumb#and he knows it too#unlike kaname who literally has no one else who can tell him he's being stupid without fear of being killed
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I'm having an autism moment but the quality control decline at Jellycat makes me feel very autistically frustrated.
Some points:
Prices are getting higher while quality is decreasing. We've seen it, Jellycat has acknowledged and commented on it, and we know that JC isn't the only one who's guilty of this. But what frustrates me a lot is knowing that, despite JC's comments on their quality control and their promises to "do better," they haven't really been sticking with their word. I feel like there's been a consistent uptick in posts on the Jellycatplush subreddit of people complaining about quality even after they made their statement in January of this year and for good reason- their final products just aren't meeting the price tags anymore.
I suppose some of this has to do with the increase in popularity they said they had experienced in 2022 that they struggled to keep up with, and I imagine they're trying to keep up with the demand by loosening quality control to get more product out, but I think they're really shooting themselves in their feet for this because JC was once revered for their quality. I know I myself have said in the past that I thought the price of their products were totally worth it because I truly believed that the quality lived up to those price tags. Nowadays I can't say the same thing about them anymore.
What sucks further though is the fact that all of this product is just going to waste now. Many people have said that they were so disappointed with what they got (especially when you consider how much money they have to fork out per plush these days) that they ended up returning it to JC, which ultimately ends up being tossed in some landfill somewhere. Polyester and plastic fabric isn't exactly the definition of environmentally friendly!
Ultimately, these factories are going out of their ways to produce subpar products under what I imagine are more strict codes to get more product out, which end up being returned by the buyers because they're so disappointed in the quality control and thrown into the garbage. Or if they're not returned by the owner, then they'll still probably end up there anyway because they're defective and not as likely to last as long.
What I think should be done instead is offering discounts on defective products- within reason of course, nobody's going to want to pay any amount of money for a plush that's practically falling apart, but minor defects I could see selling fine enough because A) customers won't have to pay the full amount for a subpar product, and B) they also will know exactly what they're getting and not being set up for disappointment. I'd love to buy defective jellies, so long as I'm not paying the price of a high quality one!
But understandably, I think the above point could have a bad affliction on their reputation as a company, that they'd have defective plush to sell in the first place, which is why I don't think they do it. They've already built their image on being a higher-end plush brand, so I feel like advertising products that exist to be defective would be bad publicity.
Side note: I fear for the safety of the literal babies chewing on their toys if their quality continues to dwindle. There are specific safety protocols that toy manufacturers need to adhere to in order to produce toys for babies- the 3+ age rating exists for a reason! I don't think it's quite gotten to that point yet, but it's in the realm of possibility if JC continues down the road they're on.
I could end this by saying something about the effects of late stage capitalism on product quality control and, eventually, environmentalism and safety, but I don't imagine anyone is following a blog about children's toys to hear political commentary which is understandable so I'll save it for now.
#journal#Partially inspired by that one Reddit post I saw earlier about someone wanting to sell secondhand defective jellies at a discount
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Patches
I'M MAKING PATCHES! HAH! YEAH! Anyway, I'm a bit excited presently because not only have I found a way to make E patches at home that give 200µg/day (each), it's actually very easy to do and relatively cheap (and should give similar yields if testosterone is used). Okay, so, because I love starch so much, it (again) is starch based (please note however, while corn starch may work, it is relatively low amylopectin, so it will likely work worse than potato starch or tapioca, so keep this in mind when you attempt). While I'm still working on refining the recipe, here's the gist of what I've gotten to work so far:
Make a powder of starch and estrogen with 2/3 – 3/4 teaspoon of starch per milligram of estrogen. When calculating how much estrogen you put in, estimate how many days you expect to keep the patch on in the same place (I would do no more than 3), take that number and multiply by 200µg (0.2mg) and then again by the number of patches you intend to make from that batch, and finally add 0.2 milligrams extra. So, 2 patches that I want to last me 2 days would simply be 2•2•0.2 which ends up with 0.8 milligrams, plus 0.2 getting us up to 1 milligram. Since it's really hard to weigh out that low of an amount, I recommend mixing a measurable amount of estradiol with your starch in either this ratio or simply a ratio that allows for easy serial dilutions into the concentration we want.
Mix glycerol (glycerine) with water in a 50/50 ratio such that the final volume is roughly equal (or slightly above) the volume of the dry mix you are using.
Take the desired amount of dry mix and mix it thoroughly with the appropriate amount of wet mix. Spread this evenly onto a 3.5x3.5cm piece of cloth (can be cut out of an old piece of clothing), put the cloth piece on top of a piece of paper that is just slightly larger, then put it in the microwave (paper side down) to heat for 10 seconds. It should come out quite hot and very sticky.
Once it cools down enough to put on your skin, you can do that, and that's it. You now have 1 or more patches that should stick to your skin for up to 4 days (likely only 3). And aren't watertight, so unless you want to cover it in cellophane/plastic wrap, you probably can't wear it in a shower, so be sure to clean yourself in other ways or make it with less estradiol so each patch/batch of patches lasts you one day and put it on immediately after you shower.
FYI, the dosing information for transdermal E (patches) is such that the µg/day is roughly equal to the amount of circulating E there is in your system in pg/mL (the normal unit for measuring E levels in a person). And to add to the complexity, the amount passing through the skin changes depending on where it is. You get the best yields where skin is thin and soft (more often than not), but worse elsewhere. Good locations include: under the arm (anywhere from armpit to end of your ribs but on that under arm space), your rear, your abdomen, the under side of your knee (though a lot of movement may decrease how well it sticks). Bad locations include: upper thigh, arms, and your shins or below. Be safe and happy transing that gender!
#diy hrt#hrt#estrogen#patches#transdermal#transfem#starch my beloved#good luck#another very good place in terms of amount that gets into your blood is genitalia but it seems really uncomfortable#so yeah#i hope this helps someone
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Black Eagles/Super Danganronpa 2
A note: Personal skills change after either remnant-esque reveal during route or post time skip
Hajime Hinata/Izuru Kamakura (House leader):
Personal Skill: Amnesiac: All debuffs applied to him are shrugged off at the end of the round
Post-reveal Personal Skill: Ultimate Proficiency: Doubles weapon growth during battle
Proficiencies: Faith & Reason
Class they would excel at: Gremory
How you recruit them: N/A
Noble/Commoner: Commoner
Crest: Crest of Hope
Crest Effect: Chance to heal adjacent allies heal for 10% of their maximum HP after initiating combat
Crest: Crest of the Ultimate
Crest Effect: Chance to do one of the following after initiating combat: conserve weapon durability, heal to full hp, and deal damage to adjacent enemies after the combat ends
Crest Relic: Sword (Magic): 1-2 range. When Crest of the Ultimate triggers, randomly chooses one of the other effects and adds it to the activation. Also, if an attack with this weapon puts the enemy under 50% HP apply the Rattled effect.
Nagito Komaeda (Class second):
Personal Skill: Jinxed: If something can go wrong, it does.
Post-reveal Personal Skill: Jinxed: If something can go wrong, it does (but only for his opponents).
Proficiencies: Lance & Riding
Class they would excel at: Commando Knight
How you recruit them: N/A
Noble/Commoner: Noble
Crest: N/A
Crest Effect: N/A
Crest Relic: N/A
Akane Owari:
Personal Skill: Voracious Appetite: Consumable healing items do not take an action to use (once per turn), all consumable healing items get a free extra use while in her inventory and heal for 50% more.
Post-reveal Personal Skill: Vulture: When landing or assisting with a final blow, heal for the amount of HP the opposing unit had at the beginning of the combat. Cannot use consumable healing items.
Proficiencies: Gauntlets & Axes
Class they would excel at: Reaver
How you recruit them: C+ Gauntlets, give her at least two smoked meats, and invite her to the dining hall for at least one meal of her favorite food.
Noble/Commoner: Commoner
Crest: N/A
Crest Effect: N/A
Crest Relic: N/A
Chiaki Nanami:
Personal Skill: So Sleepy: +5 Mt. when wielding a martial weapon but cannot double. Opposing units also cannot double.
Proficiencies: Axe & Heavy Armor
Class they would excel at: Guardian Knight
How you recruit them: 16 Dex (20 if playing as the Male MC), give her a pillow (lost item), If playing Femc attend a class sleepover
Noble/Commoner: Noble
Crest: N/A
Crest Effect: N/A
Crest Relic: N/A
Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu:
Personal Skill: Baby Faced: Decreases opponent hit by 10 until he attacks them.
Post-reveal Personal Skill: Underground contacts: If takes no action except wait, all allies within 2 tiles of him gain +5 Mt. and +15 gambit hit rate.
Proficiencies: Gauntlets & Authority
Class they would excel at: Boss
How you recruit them: Save the suspicious merchant during either a quest or an auxiliary battle & 15 Authority.
Noble/Commoner: Commoner
Crest: N/A
Crest Effect: N/A
Crest Relic: N/A
Gundham Tanaka:
Personal Skill: Blessing of the Devas: If adjacent to a mounted ally, they heal 20% Hp at the start of the round.
Post-reveal Personal Skill: Fury of the Devas: When a summoned ally deals damage, heal for 25% of the damage
Proficiencies: Faith & Reason
Class they would excel at: Summoner
How you recruit them: Visit the stables and gift at least 5 carrots to the horses/pegasus there, also have at least one mounted unit in your party.
Noble/Commoner: Noble
Crest: Crest of the Beast
Crest Effect: Chance to inflict Burn for three turns if struck with a magic attack
Crest Relic: Staff: Grants access to a special summon of a Manteke unit (leveled to the parties average). Additionally grants +5 damage when using a Dark magic spell.
Hiyoko Saionji:
Personal Skill: Light Feet: Grants a canto-like effect after dancing for someone. Allows her to take another (non-dance) action if range permits.
Post-reveal Personal Skill: Bloody Feet: Grants +10 Crit. After landing a final blow may freely choose a target to grant a dance regardless of range
Proficiencies: Daggers & Faith
Class they would excel at: Dancer
How you recruit them: Win the White Heron Cup (Hiyoko is not allowed to participate after sweeping the last three years)
Noble/Commoner: Noble
Crest: Crest of the Vitriolic
Crest Effect: Chance to apply a debuff to Def. & Res. after saying something during combat.
Crest Relic: Daggers (her fans): 1-3 range. +5 Crit. After dancing for an ally, grants the effect of both a Rally attack and a Rally magic.
Ibuki Mioda:
Personal Skill: Cacophonous: Rallies and other buffs applied to her have double the effect.
Post-reveal Personal Skill: Death Note: Allows her to perform a special song that affects all enemies within two tiles of her with the rattled condition. Each enemy rattled this way heals her for 1/20th of her HP.
Proficiencies: Lance & Faith
Class they would excel at: Diva
How you recruit them: Attend one of her concerts, Participate in at least one jam session, and Find her guitar pick (lost item)
Noble/Commoner: Noble
Crest: Crest of Sonic
Crest Effect: Chance to move again after performing a song.
Crest Relic: Microphone: +10 Def. and extends range of all songs by 1.
Kazuichi Soda:
Personal Skill: Womanizer: Gains +5 hit and crit when next to a woman (regardless of if they are friendly or not), suffers -5 hit and crit when not next to a woman.
Post-reveal Personal Skill: Destructive Personality: If he has only moved during his turn, gains access to a special action that can remove one bit of cover, wall, or shrubbery.
Proficiencies: Axe & Sword
Class they would excel at: Blacksmith
How you recruit them: Make at least 2 upgraded weapons at the blacksmith & C in Axe
Noble/Commoner: Commoner
Crest: N/A
Crest Effect: N/A
Crest Relic: N/A
Mahiru Koizumi:
Personal Skill: Frozen in Time: Successful hits with a magic spell applies Seal Movement to the opponent struck for one turn
Post-reveal Personal Skill: Dark Memory: Being damaged by (or killing) an opponent grants a stacking +5 to hit (and an additional +5 to hit if she gets the final blow) for all enemies that share a class with it (resets at the beginning of every battle).
Proficiencies: Faith and Reason
Class they would excel at: Chancellor
How you recruit them: Reach B support and rescue Sato during an auxiliary battle
Noble/Commoner: Noble
Crest: Crest of Memory
Crest Effect: Chance to double Hit and Crit. if she has landed the final blow on someone that shares a class.
Crest Relic: Strange Picture Taking Device (Camera): +1 range on spells. If using the same spell on a different target, and her last target is still alive, will cast the spell at both.
Mikan Tsumiki:
Personal Skill: Purposefully Clumsy: +30 Avo. if the last action taken was a support spell
Post-reveal Personal Skill: Bye-Bye Ouchies!: Allows for healing magic to be used offensively. Grants Magic +10 when doing so.
Proficiencies: Faith & Riding
Class they would excel at: Bride
How you recruit them: Reach C+ support rank with Hajime and at least one of her other classmates, Talk with her about medical stuff at least once, Take her out for mission assistance at least once (and have her either heal you or heal her yourself), and give her at least one Hunting Dagger.
Noble/Commoner: Noble
Crest: Crest of the Devoted
Crest Effect: Chance to boost healing based on support level (1.0 at none, 1.5 at C, 2.0 at B, 2.5 at A, 3.0 at S)
Crest Relic: Sword (One [very large] needle): Magic weapon, 1-3 range. When using healing magic offensively, boost it by 1.5x. Additionally, grants a stacking chance to conserve spell use when a healing spell is used in this way (resetting every time a charge is conserved and increasing in increments of 25%)
Nekomaru Nidai:
Personal Skill: Boisterous Assurance: When rallying, rally all allies within two tiles of him.
Post-reveal Personal Skill: Unleashed Potential: When a rallied ally gets a kill, grants +1 Mt. and +5 crit until the end of the battle.
Proficiencies: Gauntlets & Authority
Class they would excel at: War Monk
How you recruit them: 20 Str. & Win at least one Tournament
Noble/Commoner: Commoner
Crest: N/A
Crest Effect: N/A
Crest Relic: N/A
Peko Pekoyama:
Credit to user @ lesbiankakyoin for the idea of giving Peko a crest.
Personal Skill: Fierce Devotion: When next to someone of noble birth, they get +5 Avo. & Peko gains +5 hit & +5 Avo.
Post-reveal Personal Skill: Unhinged Mastery: Will always double when initiating combat and deals damage to enemies within one tile of her opponent.
Proficiencies: Sword & Dagger
Class they would excel at: Trueblade
How you recruit them: At least C support with Fuyuhiko, B+ Sword, gift her a Ceremonial Sword
Noble/Commoner: Commoner (Crest implanted in her by Fuyuhiko’s parents to better serve him, he is unaware they have done this)
Crest: Crest of Servitude
Crest Effect: Chance to Teleport to Fuyuhiko’s location and defend him when he is attacked. Increases in likelihood the lower his HP gets, capping out at 75%. Also grants +5 Mt. and +10 Hit (while using a sword) or +10 Crit (while using daggers).
Post-Paralogue Crest: Crest of Defiance
Post-Paralogue Crest Effect: Chance to halve any damage taken, triggers based on dex. Prevents her from being moved by enemy effects. Also grants +5 Mt. and +15 Hit (while using a sword) or +15 Crit (while using daggers).
Crest Relic: Sword (Katana coded): 1-2 Range. Immune to weapon triangle effects and grants +10 Crit when she initiates combat. Grants a chance to reflect projectile attacks at the opponent (based on Dex).
Sonia Nevermind:
Personal Skill: Foreign Dignitary: When struck by an attack, boost Hit and Crit of all allies within one tile of her by 5
Post-reveal Personal Skill: Royal Guard: Will always start combat with a full battalion of Novoselician troops in addition to her other equipped battalion. The battalion cannot withdraw from combat and can use both the Wave Attack and Resonant Flames gambits.
Proficiencies: Authority & Sword
Class they would excel at: Rigain
How you recruit them: B+ Authority, Attend a Novoselician dance (in Novoselic), and win the respect of the Novoselician military.
Noble/Commoner: Noble
Crest: Crest of the Noble
Crest Effect: Chance to emit a healing burst (2 range, heals allies for 1/10th HP) after successfully hitting a gambit.
Crest Relic: Crown: Doubles the effectiveness of spells when they target non-nobles. Grants spell range +1 and movement +1.
Teruteru Hanamura:
Personal Skill: Self-Gratification: -5 to hit to every female unit within one tile of him but receive +5 hit for each female unit within one tile
Post-reveal Personal Skill: Cannibal: When within a tile of a slain enemy, replenish one use of all healing items for allied units within two tiles.
Proficiencies: Reason & Riding
Class they would excel at: Dark Knight
How you recruit them: Cook with him at least 3 times & have at least one female recruit. If playing as Femc, will ask to join when you first talk to him (and every subsequent time until you say yes)
Noble/Commoner: Commoner
Crest: N/A
Crest Effect: N/A
Crest Relic: N/A
The Ultimate Imposter:
Personal Skill: Faceless: Nullifies the effects of the weapon triangle
Post-reveal Personal Skill: Multifaceted: Nullifies the effects of the weapon triangle when they are targeted, doubles the effects of it when they initiate combat.
Proficiencies: Gauntlets & Lances
Class they would excel at: Sergeant
How you recruit them: Recruit every other (recruitable) member of their house.
Noble/Commoner: Noble
Crest: Crest of the Vacillator
Crest Effect: Chance to copy one item from their opponents inventory
Crest Relic: Weapon (appears as a shapeless blob of metal in the inventory screen): When initiating combat, morphs into the weapon that is strongest against what the enemy is using. Also provides the ability to counter-attack when targeted with magic (Bow if ranged, Gauntlets if close).
Masterpost
#hajime hinata#izuru kamukura#nagito komaeda#akane owari#chiaki nanami#fuyuhiko kuzuryu#gundham tanaka#hiyoko saionji#ibuki mioda#kazuichi souda#mahiru koizumi#mikan tsumiki#nekomaru nidai#peko pekoyama#sonia nevermind#teruteru hanamura#ultimate imposter#DrV:FE3H
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Writober 22 - Autumn/Fall(1)
Original fiction - Lights Music Magic
Summary: Fall has come to Symphon once again, and with it starts the routine of qualifying for the Harvest Fest. Holly Silverstone knows better than anyone that she doesn’t have a chance in hell, but she finds herself signing up anyway. Why? Fuck if she knows, and honestly fuck if she cares.
One thing’s for sure... the universe is down for her trying. So she’s going to put whatever’s left in her for one final shot at a dream that should have died a long time ago. What’s the worst that could happen?
---
For once, Holly got up before noon on a day she didn’t have work.
Maybe she should have taken it as a sign as she found herself staring up at the ceiling, blank faced and picking out the shiny pieces of tape she hadn’t removed years ago. It was catching the early morning sun in a way it normally didn’t when she got up, reminding her that the world was indeed a weird place.
Her back ached as she sat up, rubbing her eyes and yawning. The house was quiet – her mother and brother were both at work. That meant she had the place to herself as she managed to get out of bed, knee aching as she stood.
So far, her ache count was somewhat low. Maybe that was what happened when she got up early.
Yawning, she found herself in the kitchen with a can of soda and an empty head as she scrolled her feed. The great thing about not having friends was that she didn’t catch any drama on her feed, but the downside was that things got boring fast. That morning, she was facing the latter as she scrolled right down to what she had been reading the night before.
Harvest Fest Auditions
Seeking applications for the feeder round of the capital’s district competition. Interested parties can apply at the Well for the upcoming open mic. The best three will go on to the district round of the Harvest Fest.
“Huh… guess it’s that time again…” Holly frowned as she glanced out the kitchen window. It didn’t look like fall yet to her thanks to the fact the leaves on the tree were still green. She had to note it didn’t feel that way either – usually by late fall, she got tired easily and sought her bed more often than not. It was still summer in her mind, which meant that thinking ahead to the country’s biggest competition just felt wrong.
Then again, she didn’t tend to think ahead… that was probably why she was in the state she was in.
The half-elf stared down at her phone screen, a frown still deep on her face. It was the last day for applicants if she was counting right, which meant if she got dressed and headed out she could still make it in. That would leave her a couple weeks to get a song ready, practice it, and prepare for the judging.
“Do I want to do it?”
What little logic she had in her brain said no. After all, the judges hated her at the Well. More than that, she had never placed better than 4th, and that had been years ago. At best, she could graze the top ten and be left clenching her fist behind stage as she watched the winners go on to represent their little group at the district. Sometimes, they even got further… but usually they never made it to the finals. Hell if she could remember the last time somebody had won from the Well round.
More importantly, was she in the mood to get judged by people she hated and who shared the same feelings?
Truly, Holly wanted to say no. There was only so much frustration she could take those days, and the amount was decreasing with each meeting. Her tank felt empty as she sat there, staring down at her can of soda in her quiet kitchen. Maybe it would just be better to forget the whole thing and just go back to bed…
But she didn’t
“Come on, damn it, you know how this is going to end.” She groaned and ran a hand through her hair, wincing as she caught a knot in the process. It took her some time to work it out, but she did. “You’re going to get up there, look like an idiot, and then watch someone else win. Besides, you can’t do magic… the next round would destroy you.”
Holly knew that better than anyone after watching round after round of Harvest Fest while growing up. Only magic users made it to the finals and got countless people tuning in to watch them sing for the country. Everyone else got pushed to the wayside, even if they were better musicians and had more interesting songs.
It… pissed her off honestly.
“No. You barely have a song…”
Yet the half-elf knew as she stared down at the table and her can of soda that she wasn’t going to be able to turn it down. Something deep inside her was making her want to get up and go down to apply. Worst of all, that part was in control of her body, making her get out of her seat and head back to her room to change clothes.
A tired face stared back at her in the mirror once she was done. Even Holly could tell she looked bad as she adjusted her jacket and did her best to put her hair in order. If someone had called her the walking dead, she really couldn’t have argued about it. Maybe scared them a little, but that wasn’t exactly an effective debate strategy.
She was lucky if she wasn’t about to be laughed off stage for even thinking to apply.
“This is so fucking stupid…” Holly sighed as she shook her head, grabbing for her bag. “Why am I even doing this?”
Spite, maybe? Didn’t feel right as she locked the door behind her and headed for the bus stop. Spite had its own feel, a hot bubbling in her stomach that helped her get back on her feet when the universe kept punching down. It certainly wasn’t confidence – that had run out before high school had even finished. Honestly, she wasn’t sure why.
But whatever it was, that fucker was strong. It made her get on the bus and go down to the Well, where a few people were waiting in line to register outside. Holly knew most of them, had gone up against every single one of them at one time or the other. Most of them ignored her, preferring to focus on getting their names down. In a weird way, she was glad for that as she sidled in.
It also pissed her off a little, mostly because she hated everyone there and could only hope the feeling was mutual.
Focused on that, the line went quickly. Before long, Holly was at the front. Much to her displeasure, she knew the human at the front. The Well had employed one of its standing judges to take applications, and they had for some reason selected the one that hated her.
The universe clearly hated her, and this was the sign.
“I guess you didn’t learn from the last time you did this.” The woman watched as she scribbled her name down. “What did you even place last year, 12th?”
Holly shot her a look as she finished. “9th.”
“My mistake, you think it would be hard to forget someone like you.” The scorn dripped from her lips. “Should I assume you’re going to go on solo and without any magical accompaniment to your set?”
Well, unless she somehow suddenly gained magic during her set…
The judge took her silence as an answer and shook her head. “You’re ridiculous. If you had any brain at all, you’d stick to recording for YouTube or whatever mundane performers do. This isn’t your field. It’s sad, because I have to agree with my fellow judge that you do seem to have some talent for guitar you’re wasting here.”
The half elf finished and handed over the form. “Well, at least I can piss you off in the process of making myself look like an ass again. See you at the open mic, then?”
She didn’t wait for the answer. Instead, Holly left the Well behind and started walking. Usually, if she was in town she’d head to work – but she didn’t have that until tomorrow. There was nothing she needed to get, and nowhere she really wanted to go. The smart thing to do would be to head home and work on her song…
But Holly had never been smart.
Instead, she found herself walking along a road that would take her to a small park that the druids like to hang out in when they weren’t bothering her boss. The old tree was popular among them for some reason – she assumed drugs. Druids to her always seemed high off something, and if anyone knew where to get it, she would guess it would be Juniper. It would at least explain the locked room, but in the end she didn’t really care. It wasn’t her business.
Thanks to the aching in her knee, the half-elf sat down at the nearest bench. It was quiet due to the fact that people were in school or work at that time. She could see some druids doing… druid shit… off in the distance, but other than that she had the place to herself. If the leaves had been changing color it might have been pretty… but it was too early for that. So she sought quiet under a canopy of green leaves, staring out blankly.
Even though she didn’t want to, her mind went back to the judge. As much as she hated the woman – and she did. A whole lot of hatred hung out there – she had a point. If Holly had any sense in her head, she’d give up and just go off to do something else. Enough experience showed her she didn’t have what it took to take the stage for Harvest Fest. After all, she had no band, she had no magic… she had no chance.
But admitting that hurt far more than she could ever admit. It was like a knife, stabbing her in a heart she had thought she had long since put to sleep. Apparently, it was awake enough to still bleed, even though she couldn’t see it staining her jacket.
“Fuck.”
Holly sighed, closing her eyes and resting her forehead on her knee to both relieve the pain and give her a chance to ignore the day. Normally, these thoughts hit her when she was alone, at night. It felt almost out of character to have them in the middle of a bright day with plenty of sunshine and green trees around.
Was that a sign it was getting worse?
“Universe, you showed me that reminder for a reason… should I take it that this is the last shot you’re giving me?”
Now, Holly didn’t believe in gods. She was an atheist after all. Despite that, some weird elven side of her still held to the feeling that the universe could put things into play when it wanted something done. Most of the time, she was pretty sure it ignored her, but at the moment she swore she could feel the countless eyes upon her back, watching her every move.
She could feel it in her gut as they stared down upon her. This was the last change she was going to get for this. What came after… she didn’t want to think about. It wasn’t anything good, she knew that much. But there was no doubt about it as she sat there on that bench, eyes closed and back aching.
The universe didn’t answer her question, but she hadn’t expected it to do so. After all, it had more important things to do in the grand scheme of things. But with that thought in the back of her mind, Holly got up and started to walk towards the bus that would take her home.
She had a song to work on. After all, there was only a handful of weeks until the open mic night. There was a backing track to record now, which meant writing out the bass and drum parts. Then it was the guitar line…
It was going to keep her busy. But maybe that was for the best too. After all, if she was focused on that, then she couldn’t think about the things that kept her up at night. In a way, it was a small favor.
So was the leaf that fluttered down to land at her feet, a bright crimson color that nearly matched her hair. Holly bent down to pick it up and realized it had come from a nearby tree, parts of it turning red and gold amid the green of its brothers.
“Huh… first leaf of fall.” She glanced down at it. Something about that felt… purposeful, though for what she didn’t know why. Maybe that was why Holly didn’t toss the leaf and instead carefully put it into her pocket. Once it was home, she’d stick it on her desk to dry.
Was that the universe telling her she was making the right decision, or that she had set in motion her own calamitous end? When it came down to it, Holly had never been big on interpreting symbols. In the end, it was a nice leaf she was happy to take home.
Sometimes, thinking about that shit didn’t pay. Besides, she had other stuff to worry about, like a drum line and getting into a studio during the run up to the prequels to record everything. That was going to keep her busy for sure as she saw the bus approaching.
If it was going to be her last run at this, she was going to go full force all the way. After all… no way she could rest easy if she did anything else.
But… damn. She was bad at writing bass lines. And lyrics. Yep… she could already feel the headache coming on. She should’ve just stayed in fucking bed…
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Are Cake Carts Bad
Cake carts have been popping up all over the place in recent years, and they've become increasingly popular. People love them for their convenience; after all, who doesn't want a delicious cake just steps away? But there are some drawbacks to these convenient carts - are they really worth it? In this article, we'll look at both sides of the argument when it comes to whether cake carts are bad or not.
We'll discuss the positives that come with having access to cakes on-the-go, as well as the potential negatives associated with carted cakes. We'll also examine what other options people have if they don't want to get their cakes from a cart. By exploring all aspects of this topic, you can make an informed decision about whether cake carts are right for you.
Pros Of Cake Carts
Cake carts can be a great time-saving and cost effective option for certain occasions. For instance, if you are hosting an event that requires the serving of cake to many people in a short amount of time, having a cart is much more efficient than having servers hand out individual slices. Cake carts also allow guests to serve themselves at their own pace without worrying about running out of servings.
Another advantage of using cake carts is that they reduce the need for additional staff members or hiring waiters which can add significantly to costs. By investing in a good quality cake cart, you have the ability to reuse it multiple times over several different events, saving money while still providing your guests with delicious desserts.
In addition to being convenient and economical, cake carts make your event look polished and professional as long as they are well maintained and organized. Guests will appreciate the convenience of being able to go up to the dessert table and choose whatever type or flavor of cake they prefer instead of waiting for someone else to bring them something specific. With all these benefits in mind, it's easy to see why opting for a cake cart is a great choice when planning an event or gathering.
Cons Of Cake Carts
Despite the many benefits of cake carts, there are some drawbacks that should be taken into consideration. One potential downside is the use of artificial ingredients in order to make cakes shelf-stable over long periods of time. This can lead to a decrease in flavor and nutrition compared with freshly made desserts. Additionally, it could lead to health risks if not properly labelled or stored safely.
Another disadvantage is the environmental impact caused by having large fleets of cart vendors travelling around cities. These vehicles need fuel and produce emissions which can contribute to air pollution. Furthermore, they may have difficulty navigating through tight streets and high traffic areas, leading to further congestion on already crowded roads.
Finally, it's important to note that although cake carts offer convenience for customers, they also provide an opportunity for unhealthy eating habits. With so many snack options available at one place, people may be tempted to overeat or choose snacks with high fat content without understanding their effects on their bodies. It is therefore essential for consumers to be aware of what goes into these treats before indulging in them too frequently.
Alternatives To Cake Carts
Cake carts are not the only option for those looking to serve dessert at a special event. Cupcake towers provide an excellent, eye-catching alternative that is sure to please guests of all ages. The cupcakes can be arranged in tiers with different flavors and decorated with colorful frosting and sprinkles. Plus, they take up far less space than a full cake cart set-up would require.
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Health Considerations
Cake carts can be both a blessing and a curse. While the convenience of having cake readily available at events, such as parties or receptions, is undeniable, there are health considerations to take into account. Eating too much processed ingredients from cake carts could lead to an unhealthy lifestyle. Additionally, using sugar substitutes does not guarantee that these cakes won't contain large amounts of calories and fat.
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The Bottom Line
Cake carts have been a popular way of selling baked goods for decades. But in recent years, there has been some debate over their safety and environmental impact.
When it comes to bakery safety, the biggest concern with cake carts is that they are often uninsulated and don’t provide any protection from bacteria or food-borne illnesses. Many cities require vendors to use thermal carriers that keep cakes at safe temperatures during transport and sale. However, these regulations aren't always enforced, leaving customers vulnerable to potential health risks.
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All things considered, while cake carts may still have a place in certain markets where hygiene regulations aren't strictly enforced, they should only be used responsibly and in accordance with local laws regarding food safety and environmental sustainability.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Ingredients Are Typically Used In Cake Carts?
Homemade cakes are often the preferred choice for cake carts, as they can be customized with a variety of icing flavors to suit any occasion. From chocolate and vanilla to more creative options like lemon meringue or salted caramel, there is something to please every palate. The ingredients used in homemade cakes vary depending on the type of cake being made but typically include flour, sugar, butter, eggs and baking powder. These basic components can then be flavored according to individual preferences using extracts such as almond or coconut, zests from citrus fruits or even liqueurs like amaretto or rum.
How Long Do Cake Carts Last?
Cake carts are a popular option for those who want to purchase cakes, but it's important to consider the cost and health concerns associated with them. Cake carts typically last anywhere from one year up to five years depending on how well they are taken care of. For example, if you store your cart in an environment that is too warm or humid, the lifespan can be greatly decreased. As part of your cost analysis, you should factor in frequent replacements due to wear and tear over time. Additionally, you may need to consider any potential health risks such as food safety issues when using cake carts.
Are There Any Environmental Benefits To Using Cake Carts?
Cake carts are an eco-friendly option for transporting and displaying cakes due to the materials used in their construction. Many cake carts are made out of upcycled materials, such as wood or metal, which can be reused multiple times before being recycled. Furthermore, many cake cart manufacturers use sustainable packaging that is biodegradable and recyclable. By using these materials, businesses reduce their environmental impact while still providing a quality product.
Are There Any Special Regulations Or Permits Needed To Operate A Cake Cart?
When operating a cake cart, there may be special regulations and permits required. Depending on the area you are located in, licensing requirements or food safety regulations may apply to your business. It is important to check with local authorities before beginning operations to ensure that all necessary licenses and permits have been obtained. When in doubt contact your local health department for more information.
What Type Of Maintenance Is Needed To Keep A Cake Cart In Good Condition?
It is important to follow proper maintenance protocols when operating a cake cart. This includes regularly sanitizing all surfaces, as well as ensuring that baking methods are up to regulation standards. Additionally, the equipment used for making and displaying the cakes should be checked periodically for any signs of wear or damage to ensure that it is functioning correctly. Taking the time to properly care for your cake cart will help keep it in good condition and make sure customers have an optimal experience with your product.
Conclusion
Overall, cake carts can be a great way to serve delicious treats. They are easy to maintain and there is no need for special permits or regulations. However, it's important to take into consideration what ingredients you're using in them as some may not last long and could affect the taste of your cakes. It’s also essential that regular maintenance is done on the cart so it remains in good condition. All these factors should be taken into account before deciding whether a cake cart is right for you. I'd recommend doing plenty of research first - but if used properly, they can make a fun addition to any occasion!
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Pitch Black, Devlog #12
I've got a lot to do, but I'm blastin' through!
Yes, although it was quite a struggle to set up the game's page for Steam with it's such high standards, I was still able to make a lot of progress!
Gameplay
The next monster is pretty much finished, I just need to give him sound and get him to appear all around the next puzzle area.
The next thing to work on is a new system for the candle, making the candlestick last for a limited amount of time. Whenever you put out the light, you'll also need to use matches to relight it, making you think more carefully about putting it out when you need to hide. I'm not 100% sure this feature will make the game fairer, but it'll give the player more incentive to search chests.
Atmosphere
Soon I'll also improve, in general, the sounds and ambiance. Currently, most of the time, there is complete silence, but I want a sort of very (and I mean very) subtle whistling wind sound through the caves. And then, on top of that, you would occasionally get a larger gust of wind blowing through in larger areas.
Optimizations
Another big thing I've been working on is improving the game's optimization, like how I recently figured out that Godot (the engine I use for my games) allows both '.wav' and '.ogg' files, but I had no idea how much smaller Ogg files are to Wav. I've now decreased the game's size from over 150 MBs to just under 50 MBs just by turning all of the music files from Wav to Ogg. The best part is that they're almost identical unless, of course, you see it's "songfile.ogg" instead of "songfile.wav." On top of that, I've been improving Memory usage by making some files only load when they're needed, the biggest culprit being (just like with storage) music. This is because I had all the in-game music 'preloaded' when the game started (including The Monsters Wait, Caves I, and Caves II), and I just switched between them. Now they only load when they're played, which will also help when I add the rest of the music.
Game Page + Final Notes
And now, as a reminder, I have set up the game page for Steam. If you use Steam, please wishlist it! I still plan to release the game on GameJolt, but only if my Marketplace Account gets accepted. Since I'm now on Steam I will try to start posting all future devlogs there, too.
One more thing I'd like to mention is that there are now a total of 4 ways to die—yay!
So that's all for this post, it'll be a lot longer till the next Devlog post, and there're mainly two reasons for that. First: the game is still so far from being done, that I'm going to be focusing most of my time on the game itself, with less focus on small improvements, music that I can finish later, and anything that I can put off to the side so I can get this game to a finished state. Second: I have three different platforms to publish these devlogs to; give me a break. Don't worry, though, because I will still let you all experience pitch black very soon...
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