#low angle is so tricky to draw but I think it turned out pretty good!
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I saw *the* most atrocious boots on the internet and decided they suited Gem and Grian perfectly.
Reference boots below the cut
#hermitblr#hermitcraft#hc s10#geminitay#grian#these two are very twin-siblings coded to me this season#low angle is so tricky to draw but I think it turned out pretty good!#Aris Paracosm art
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Cassandra x Maiden----Anonymity
Three months, two days and seven hours.
That is how long you’ve been in Dimitrescu castle for. If rumor is to be believed, you are well on your way to setting the year’s record for longest living maid. Well. ‘Maid’, according to their perception. Your mind always automatically corrects it to something more fitting:
Prisoner.
You did not choose to work for them. You did not choose to be in this godforsaken place, cleaning crimson stains off the floors, trying to convince yourself the wailing that sometimes reaches your ears is simply the wind. You never would have imagined your life’s end like this, serving wine –no, who are you kidding, it’s too crimson for that— to the Dimitrescus at dinner until one of them snaps and drives the nearest blade into your throat.
Probably Daniela.
It’s not unheard of. And stories of other maids’ murders are plenty.
Daniela has bitten one’s throat off for the crime of addressing her wrongly. Cassandra has left increasingly deep gashes, some of which resulted in deaths, for random offenses, like staring at her for too long. Bela, arguably the more merciful of the three, has snapped necks only when the staff disrespected her sisters’ names, or her mother’s.
You aren’t sure if you want to thank the older maids for this information or yell at them for the nightmares it has caused you. You are lucky to not be in the village, they say –everyone there must already be dead. You are even luckier to have been taken from the dungeon by the Lady herself. It means the daughters don’t know you and the castle is big enough that they may never spare you a glance.
You hadn’t believed it, at first.
Yet in the three months of your stay, you have never come across anyone other than Bela in the sections you were assigned to clean and polish. She passed you by the hallway like she did the decorations and the furniture –and you couldn’t be happier about it. You have caught scarce glimpses of Alcina Dimitrescu, too. Never the other two residents.
Not until the fateful day another maid disappears and the staff’s assigned posts change. You have no say in it and no power to object.
May as well keep my head down and continue to work as carefully as I have. That is the idea. Not to look too much, or think too much, or feel too much. Avoid mistakes because those in the castle are fatal.
It is a little difficult to remain utterly calm when the sound of swarming insects comes from far behind you, though.
Your blood starts to kick in your veins. Your heart wants to jump out of your chest and make a run for it. You lock your muscles down and summon all the willpower you possess to stay focused on your task.
Please be Bela, please, please, be Bela—
The buzzing dies down. Steps approach you in the otherwise silent hallway. They are too light to be Bela’s. You’re probably screwed, you think, but you keep cleaning the surface in front of you until it’s practically a mirror with how it shines.
The steps halt too close to you for comfort. Out of the corner of your eye, you realize they’ve left bloody imprints on the floor you’ve been polishing for hours now. Dainty, pale fingers are wrapped loosely, almost lazily, around a sickle dripping crimson.
“Never seen you around, before.” the sound of her voice makes you freeze.
You stop and turn— to face none other than Cassandra Dimitrescu. Her hood is down, brunette waves on point, the dried blood at her chin a terrible contrast to her otherwise attractive face. You… didn’t know she was that pretty, up close.
“I… I have been here for three months. On the opposite wing.” you say. Was I even supposed to reply? You’ll find out soon enough, if your tongue is still attached to your body.
Her eyes give you a quick once-over. “Bela’s been keeping you a secret, huh.” she tsks. Her free hand goes to the handle of the door next to you… and only then do you realize it must be her bedroom. You’re literally assigned to clean the wolf’s den. “Come wake me up when the sun has set, completely.” she emphasizes.
What.
“Uh—”
The crimson-dyed sickle moves until its blade rests underneath your chin, lifting it so your eyes meet hers. From this angle, under the pale lighting of dawn, they look more –stunning— blue than inhuman gold. “No loud sounds. No lights. Got it?”
How can you not, when your life depends on it?
“Yes, my lady.” you reply. You don’t even dare draw breath.
“Good.” In one swift movement, the sickle is gone, the handle turned and she’s already shedding her robe.
You catch a glimpse of a black corset and a narrow waist before you avert your eyes.
The door shuts.
...
Waking Cassandra up can be… tricky, the other maids tell you.
She detests light when she opens her eyes but she also doesn’t want it to be pitch black. You’re not supposed to talk but you can’t shake her, either. Which brings you to the very logical question:
“What the hell am I supposed to do, then?”
To which they have no answer.
They have no answer, you realize with a start… because there’s nobody alive to tell the tale of how to actually wake the brunette sleeping beauty up without simultaneously signing their own death sentence.
The hours pass both too slow and too fast. The sun sets over the horizon.
And you stand, riddled with nerves, outside Cassandra’s room.
A deep inhale later, you turn the handle. The door is left half-open so a bit of light comes in from the hallway. Her bedroom smells like shampoo, bath salts and spices. She must have taken a shower before she went to sleep. You approach the figure tucked under the silken sheets of the queen-sized bed…
Cassandra is lying on her side, one hand underneath her pillow, the other extended loosely towards the edge of the mattress. She probably sleeps naked, at least from the waist up, but thankfully the covers are wrapped around her chest. Their royal red color makes a stark contrast against the paleness of her skin.
Her face is so… serene.
She is a monster and a sadistic killer, yet right there you can’t deny she looks more like a renaissance painting.
Now onto the hard part.
“My lady… the sun has set.” you whisper, kneeled on the floor beside her. No movement comes. “Hey… I’m here to wake you up?” you try again. Still nothing. Shakily, you bring your hand up to the bed. Not daring to touch her, you leave it beside hers, over the covers. “Cassandra?”
She turns her face deeper into her pillow –no, no, you don’t think it’s cute, what’s wrong with you— but at least she’s finally reacting. You call her name one more time.
Her nose scrunches up a little. Long fingers flex –and they touch yours. She’s cold. A pair of blueish ambers blink open to regard you. Not with malice, or with annoyance.
“Good evening.” you speak, unsure of what else to say.
A smirk slowly curves her lips. She looks like a lazy cat pondering whether or not it’s worth it to pounce and that’s not good. It’s not good, not ‘hot’ like your mind suggests. God, you’ve been in this castle so long you are starting to get messed up.
“Mm, breakfast in bed.” she grins and licks her lower lip sexily. Your eyes fly wide open, but her hand is already gripping the front of your black shirt, trapping you there.
How could you ever find this psycho attractive?! you get mad at yourself. Is she hot now that she’s going to kill you?
But Cassandra only lets out an airy laugh and releases you. You fall backwards on your behind. “Breathe, darling, I’m joking.” She rolls onto her back and seems to wince from it. Her smile vanishes.
“…does… your back hurt?” you ask when you finally find your voice again.
“Ugh, a Lycan landed a hit on me. He’s pieces now, of course, but my muscles still pull.” she says it casually, like it’s a thing that happens.
Silence falls over the room. You take it as your cue to leave. You stand and bow while she’s looking blankly at the ceiling—
But she stops you.
“Wait. Come here.” you don’t like it when she gets that tone, like she came up with something she cannot wait to try. You’re already close to the bed, you’re not sure what she means. Until she pats the spot right next to her. “Don’t make me say it again.”
You won’t. You know what’s good for you.
Hesitantly, you take a seat on the –admittedly very comfortable— mattress. “Yes, lady?”
“Give me a massage.” she says like it’s your job, like she’s the rich woman in a spa and it’s what’s expected. She turns onto her front, bearing her naked back to you and you have less than five seconds to come to terms with the thought of straddling her.
Carefully, you bring your knees on either side of her thighs and pull the sheets so they rest low at her waist. You feel warmer than you should given the temperature of the castle. If she knows the fine teasing line she’s walking, she is loving every inch of it.
Cassandra loves being the center of attention and she loves being pampered, you realize.
It’s probably amusing to her to make you fluster, but this is also an opportunity for you to get on her good graces. She is a dangerous one and it’ll be a great asset for your survival if she’s leaning favorably towards you. Win-win situation. You just have to be good at your job. Like always.
By some miracle of God, you do know how to work the tension out of muscles.
The first time you touch her, you simply rest your hands on her back to warm it. She doesn’t seem to object, from the way lean muscle stretches out under your fingers. Cassandra feels cool, but not hard like marble. Her skin yields under your touch, soft and smooth.
As you apply more pressure to your stokes, she starts to let out little sighs that you have to mute in your mind before they start to affect you. You’ve been high-strung and without sex for too long. Your body all too eagerly intercepts this death-trap as foreplay.
Minutes roll by.
You alternate between all the methods you know. The one that really seems to get her is when you drive your thumb into the knots and end with a little circle.
Cassandra is –God help you— openly moaning every time you press more. It is a bit too much pressure you’re applying though and you don’t know if you’re hurting her and she’s just into it.
“Is this too much…?” you ask. Fuck, why do you sound so breathless?
“No, it’s good.” she husks back.
“Harder?” You don’t know what innocent means, anymore.
Cassandra sends that little smirk again over her shoulder. “Harder.” she replies and the extra flair she puts into it is enough to nearly fry your brain. And other parts of you.
You’re pretty sure you need a cold shower by the time you leave her room.
...
At diner, you hang back in the shadows, gaze downcast.
You do not need to know what the Dimitrescu family is eating, nor what they’re drinking. You do not need to see Cassandra or risk catching Daniela’s gaze. You love your anonymity in the castle. It has kept you alive.
But it is shattered like frail glass when you bring another bottle of Sanguis Virginis to the table. You’ve almost retreated back to your place, when Daniela’s eyes zero in on you.
“She’s the human!” she exclaims like she’s made the world’s most startling discovery. Bela seems to understand, but the Lady and Cassandra frown over their glasses.
“I am almost afraid to ask, love.” Lady Alcina says…
And she’s right.
“The one who made Cassandra go ‘harder’ and ‘yes, yes!’ earlier this evening.” she impersonates in her sluttiest voice and then breaks into a fit of cackles. Bela’s lip twists into a withheld chuckle.
Lady Dimitrescu nearly chokes on her wine.
Cassandra slaps the back of Daniela’s head. “You’re such an idiot.”
“Girls.” Alcina warns and glares until the table calms again.
Then, her eyes curiously fall upon you.
So much for your anonymity.
Ko-Fi
#Cassandra Dimitrescu#bela dimitrescu#daniela dimitrescu#alcina dimitrescu#lady dimitrescu#lady dimitrescu's daughters#cassandra x oc#resident evil village#resident evil 8#fanfiction#cass kills with her hair and nails on point she's the murder-princess type#you can't change my mind#I love her
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Eodwulf has splattered blood upon his uniform and not flinched, has seen the burning of his own kin and not swayed.
And yet, the second the brush touches his lid, his eyelids flicker, and he winces.
The brush is gone as soon as it had come, Caduceus leaning back, eyebrows furrowed in a manner of worry Eodwulf thinks is disproportionate.
(Momentarily, he's surprised Caduceus is not angry.)
"You alright there?" he asked, cocking his head to a side, carefully swept-back hair falling in front again, dusting across Eodwulf's chest.
Wulf pauses - then nods up at him. "It feels new. That is all." he replies, and readjusts the angle of his head.
In a hesitant motion, he reaches up to brush Caduceus’s pink hair behind his shoulders again - and the texture of it against his fingers is enough to elicit a soft sigh.
Every little part of Caduceus is beholden to such beauty.
He watches the gentle curve of Caduceus’s neck as his head follows the motion of calloused fingers, rouged eyelids fluttering.
It distracts Caduceus long enough that Wulf almost speaks up - but then he shakes his head a little, smiles, and leans down again.
The brush is wet, tapered enough to almost call it sharp– precise. It touches the very corner of his eye, guided by Cad's hand, and suddenly flicks upward in a practised motion.
"Does it-" Eodwulf begins as another line is drawn, joining its twin back to the corner of his eye, "is it unusual, doing it on someone else?"
Caduceus hums in thought as he draws more strokes, assumedly filling in whatever shape he's drawn.
"A little, yeah," he says, "the shape of our eyes are pretty different. But it's nice when you get something new to work on."
His eyes shift from his work to grace a glance at Eodwulf's wider face. Wulf wants to kiss him, in that moment.
"Well, this is the tricky part, unfortunately. It's gonna go juuust on the bottom of your lid. I remember it feeling funny on my first time."
Wulf nods, and blinks a couple times to prepare himself. He's about to inquire upon Caduceus’s first time applying eyeliner, but his thoughts go unusually quiet as Caduceus leans in a little more to focus.
One hand ever so gently steadying him on Wulf's cheek, he slides the brush over his waterline.
His own blunt nails dig into his palm and everything that matters is not letting his eyes water. It just won't happen, he won't let it, because—
"There we are." Caduceus hums, pulling back, and Wulf lets out a breath he had been unconsciously holding.
He's getting this wound up over nothing.
But he also didn't let his eyes run.
"Ready for the second one?" Caduceus asks, as Wulf blinks experimentally, gets used to the barely noticeable feeling of makeup on his face.
"Ja." Wulf nods.
Again, that smile down at him, and Caduceus sets to work on his second eye.
Surprisingly, Eodwulf's mind begins to drift - which is quite a feat, given the close proximity of Caduceus's face to his own, they're so close - ruminating upon the precision, the steadiness required for art upon the face.
If he remembered correctly from his research on firbolgs, then Caduceus has been doing that longer than Eodwulf has been alive.
Huh.
Another sweep across his waterline, and again, Wulf's breathing shortens, fists subconsciously clenched.
If Caduceus notices (which is not a question that usually needs posing), he doesn't point it out.
When he finishes, Caduceus is practically beaming down at him as he sheaths the eyeliner brush back in its pot, the brush itself acting as the lid.
"You look lovely," Cad tells him, with this quiet glee that forms a lump in Wulf's throat. (That easy.)
He dismounts from Wulf, taking to perch on the side of the bed, head distinctly turned towards the mirror.
It makes Wulf rather nervous, somehow.
He must either think that Wulf takes too long, or doesn't catch the note, so he says, "Take a look."
Wulf sits up, feeling rather dizzy from the entire predicament (makeup on his face, Caduceus putting it on for him, Caduceus so close to his face, Caduceus-) and turns his head toward the mirror.
"Oh."
Caduceus grins at him in the mirror.
"I look good." he says.
He can see the similarities between his and Caduceus's eyeliner, the black wings that flick upwards, sharp but elegant.
It looks… good on him. He can't deny it. It makes him look handsome, powerful, a statement of beauty that has a second face.
" … Master Ikithon always told us that makeup and such was frivolous. We didn't need it." Eodwulf explains to Caduceus quietly, because he's just been guided out of his comfort zone with a loving hand, and it's all he can do to reach his fingertips of recollection back into it.
"Huh." Caduceus simply replies, and it's a low, firm noise, full of disapproval that Wulf takes a secret delight in.
He turns his head this way and that, admiring the new volume to his eyes, and Caduceus's excellent work.
He wants to keep it on forever and ever – perhaps there's some magic that would keep it from fading.
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“I don’t think footprints are supposed to go across the ceiling like that...”
(kind of a tie-in to this set when arthur isn’t a part of the crime friend group yet - emphasis on yet)
“Be careful,” Mystery had warned them before they went in through the window, as he settled down on the balcony of the adjoining building. “There’s something else in there. Like you, but not like you.”
It’s too cryptic to make any use of right now, so Vivi and Lewis had put it aside for the time being. They crept silently through the occupied parts of the building, moving in sync without ever speaking, Lewis taking point as he followed the path his deadbeats had scouted out for them. Slowly they navigated their way into the vaults, where not even guards were permitted, and then they were able to relax and walk more normally.
It’s Vivi who breaks the cold silence, in a soft voice. “What did Mystery mean, d’ya think? ‘Like you, but not like you’?”
“Dunno how I’m supposed to know that,” Lewis answers. “Why?”
“Because, um.” She clicks her tongue. “I don’t think footprints are supposed to go across the ceiling like that...”
He stops and looks over at her, and then follows her gaze up. As she’d said, there's a pattern of boot-prints faintly visible on the darkened ceiling, like someone had tracked soot across it.
“Like you, but...“ With gifts like yours, but- different. He looks around, turning slowly until he and Vivi are nearly back-to-back. “I... I don’t think we’re as alone as we thought.”
For a while they both survey their respective ends of the shadowy hallway silently. There are paths that branch off from both, impossible to see down from this angle. Another person could have slipped down any one, and could be waiting behind any of them...
Lewis feels, more than hears, Vivi’s breath hitch briefly, and he can’t resist spinning half around. The hall seems still, from what he can tell.
“What?”
“I-” she shakes her head. “I thought I saw something. Just for a second - a shadow on the wall... but, I think I must have imagined it.”
He glances back up at the ceiling, taking in the direction of the prints. “Well, whatever- whoever it is, I think they’re headed the same way we are. Maybe we should just... keep moving.”
“Is there an alternate path we can take?”
A shrug. “I... we didn’t scout that far. I didn’t think we’d need one.”
“If it comes to a fight-”
“It’s two-on-one, we’ll be fine.”
“I know you don’t like to...”
“I think I’ll survive. And I’m not letting someone run us off this job.”
She nods, and relaxes from the fighting stance she’s crouched into. The two proceed down the hall again, this time more warily than before, checking every doorway before they proceed past it. Lewis can tell Vivi’s mind isn’t entirely on her task, but he keeps quiet about it.
“Like you, but not... that’s a weird way to put it, don’t you think?” she says finally.
He’d been thinking the same thing, kind of. “I know. Everyone’s Gifts are different. If they really are just another Gifted thief... any difference doesn’t seem worth drawing attention to.”
“But Mystery could feel, even from that far away...” she trailed a hand along the wall briefly. “Their magic must be...”
“Maybe-” he stops. “Wait, shh- we’re almost there.”
He inches around the corner slowly, focusing again on moving without making a sound. There’s the vault door, just as the client had promised, and the deadbeat had reported. But with a couple notable differences.
The client had sworn, up and down, that the door would be left open for them - it’s a requirement for hiring them, no tricky locks, because they’re good at what they do but they just don’t have a clean way to get past complex mechanisms like that. So the intimidating door is supposed to be open - and yet there it is, looking solid and impenetrable and extremely locked.
There’s also someone in front of it - someone he might have missed if he wasn’t looking closely, because they seem to blur into the shadows in a way that can’t be natural. Their back is turned, and they seem to be fiddling with a small part of the locking mechanism.
Lewis pulls back around the corner and takes a deep breath.
Vivi has the good sense to speak in a whisper. “Well?”
“I... think I found the one leaving the footsteps,” he relays. “They’re right in front of the door. It isn’t open.”
Her nose wrinkles, mouth curving into a scowl, and she smacks the wall lightly. “God damnit, what the hell?” she mutters, barely keeping her voice low. “They get to it before us, and now they’re locking it up?”
“I don’t think it was ever open in the first place. I’m... pretty sure they’re still trying to get in.”
“Maybe... we’re early? They’re the one who’s supposed to open the door for us?”
“Why would they sneak all the way in here just to open it for some more thieves later?”
She groans. “So the guy who hired us just didn’t follow through. Unless...”
“What?”
“Maybe this is a trap.” She gestures at where the door is, through the wall. “They bait us with a nice easy job. Thief number three jumps us, and they get to turn us in for the reward money.”
“We were never supposed to get into that vault in the first place. That...” Makes perfect sense. “...would explain what they’re doing here.”
Neither of them speak for a moment, both looking out towards the hall, thinking the same thing.
“So... what do we do? Turn around and leave?” Lewis says finally.
“...no. I’m not leaving. Like you said, it’s two on one. And maybe we can capture them, and strip the vault clean while we’re at it.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m up for it if you are.”
“Oh, finally,” says a third voice, making them both jump.
It’s light and hoarse and, much like the thief had looked, sounds only half there somehow. Sure enough, when they both snap their heads over, the thief is standing there. It’s the first time Lewis has seen them from the front, and now he notices their mask is carved into a pattern that looks like curling smoke, one eyehole lit with a pinprick of green light. They’re crouched in something that isn’t quite a fighting stance but still feels distinctly threatening.
“You’re outnumbered,” Vivi says, summoning her sword. “Make it easier on yourself and submit now.”
“I’ll give fighting a try, if it- if it’s all the s-same to you.”
Vivi needs no further encouragement to swing her sword, a surprise strike that takes care of half their enemies before the fight’s even properly begun.
But Green dodges, hopping back and up onto the wall as easily as if he was just taking a step back. He brings one hand up to the side of his face, and the one lit eyehole flashes, and Vivi’s follow-up is abruptly halted mid-swing as she stumbles back a couple steps.
Lewis realizes he doesn’t have time to be worried about her, and calls his own weapon forth, darting in at Green’s side. Once again, he jumps easily, now perched upside-down on the ceiling.
Meanwhile, Vivi shakes off the psychic attack, and snarls to give a warning that she’s back in the fight. “Not- good enough!” she shouts as soon as she finds her voice, and sends a hail of icicles towards him, which he shatters with a swipe of his own weapon - a long dagger.
There’s something about his fighting style that feels off, Lewis notes in the back of his mind. It takes him a moment to put it together, and then his gut twists. Blocking their attacks and dodging, but always moving back. He isn’t fighting to win - he’s just trying to escape.
Green’s dagger flashes in front of him as he blocks an attack, and without thinking Lewis catches the wrist in his own hand. Vivi takes the second of opportunity and lunges, knocking him back against the wall and pinning him there. In the dark, it takes him a moment to realize her sword’s pressed against his throat-
“Vivi, stop! We don’t want him dead!”
He sees Vivi’s posture shift a little, and both of them look over at him. He has no idea what Green’s thinking, but Vivi’s a mix of surprise and embarrassment. She eases off and gives a slight jerk of her head, silently indicating that Lewis should tie him up.
He tries his best to be gentle, though he knows the bindings burn. “Go for the vault. Then we’ll take the exit-”
An indistinct voice echoing down the hall quiets him, and he and Vivi dart a glance in its direction in unison.
“Shit, did someone hear us?”
“The- door’s open,” Green says, sounding half strangled.
Lewis looks to the vault door. “They must get an alert if someone leaves it...” he says as he realizes it.
“Shit,” Vivi repeats. “Okay, screw the vault, we gotta go, before we end up with a whole squad after us.”
He’s on her heels towards the hatch that had been promised as an exit - but a noise behind him makes him stop. Green’s backing up slowly, obviously straining against the flickering bonds, and oh, there’s no way he’s getting out of here before the guards arrive.
It’s surprisingly easy to scoop him up and keep running. It costs him a few seconds, and he hears shouting just as he’s at the hatch, but by the time gunfire peppers the walls he’s safely through the exit.
#characterdevelopementbutim#mystery skulls animated#the nemesis speaks#swift writes#its so damn late i should really save this to proofread but consider also: no#the saga of me fully ignoring the spirit of the prompt to fuck around with my own aus continues
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paint stains
part 2 of a motley crew, a series of nine (nein!) ficlets to celebrate the end of critical role campaign 2
(set between episodes 21 and 26)
Molly borrows Jester's paints, and Jester gets a preview of Molly's newest cards.
Molly and Jester having tiefling art club together was so much fun to write! you can find the fic on ao3, or under the cut.
It was not a nice day outside. One of the best things about Nicodranas, in Jester’s opinion, was that it didn’t get weather like this. And sure, Jester didn’t really feel the cold, but these sorts of days – wind making horrible sounds and knocking over carts, cold rain hitting the windows at odd angles – were still miserable, on principle. She liked spending them indoors. Anyway—the point, Jester thought, turning away from the window (closed tight) and back to her sketchbook, was that Nicodranas was way better than the Empire in lots of ways. Weather was only one of them.
She turned the sketchbook around on her lap, twisting so she could get a better angle, and she was working on a particularly tricky fold on a robe, when she heard a knock on the door. She paused – couldn’t be Beau, they were sharing and she never knocked – maybe Fjord?
“Come in!” she called.
The door creaked open, and a purple head poked in.
“Molly, hi! I thought you’d gone shopping with the others.”
Mollymauk pulled a face. “Not in this weather, darling. I let Caleb and Fjord go on their own. I’m not made for these elements.”
Jester couldn’t help laughing. “Me neither.”
“Anyway, can I come in? I need your help.”
“Sure!” Jester swung her legs off the bed, and patted the space next to her. Molly shut the door behind him and dropped onto the bed, coat fanning out behind him, a bright splash of colour. “What do you need?”
Molly pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket with a flourish. “Your artistic input!” he declared, grinning. “Also, your paints? If you can spare them, please.”
“Ma-aybe,” Jester said, just to watch the way Molly’s brows knitted together. It was kind of adorable. She leaned over to poke him in the side. “No-o, I’m kidding, of course! Can I see what you’re painting?”
Molly’s face brightened, and he fanned the cards out on the bed, flipping them over, one by one. “Definitely.”
Jester wasn’t too impressed with her current paint levels. Another thing Nicodranas did really well – or at least, that her Mama always made sure she had – was art supplies, but it turned out that finding paints while adventuring and going between middle-of-nowhere Empire towns was really hard. She was running low on blue and yellow, and she’d lost her last nice paintbrush somewhere in the Labenda swamp, and she’d never had to ration her supplies so carefully, but she had no intention of telling Molly that.
Anyway, it was totally worth it for the smile on his face as she placed the little pots in a neat row before him.
She watched as he picked up one of his cards – it had a sketch of two dragons, locked in battle with each other, all teeth and wings – and started painting one of the dragons red. “You’re really good at this, Molly,” she said, after a few moments, seeing the dragon come to life under his purple fingers.
Molly glanced up, briefly, grinned, then looked back at his cards. “I haven’t been doing it for very long,” he admitted. Jester was pretty sure he hadn’t been doing anything for very long, what with the whole amnesia thing, but she wasn’t gonna bring that up. “But I like the cards,” Molly was saying, “And I like, you know, being able to tell stories with them? So…” He looked up at her, shrugged. “Making more of them felt natural. And it’s fun.”
“I get it,” Jester said, and she did. It was sort of what she did with her sketchbook, too. Part of it was talking to the Traveller, but part of it was talking to herself too. Telling herself the story. “What’s that card gonna mean then, Molly?”
Molly finished off the tail of the red dragon with a flourish. “It’s called The Tyrant.”
They passed a good hour like that, together. Jester turned back to her sketchbook, finishing off the tricky cloak, adding features to the face, shading in the scales. Mollymauk hummed as he worked, snatches of tunes she vaguely recognised from their one night at the circus, finishing one card and starting on another. Outside, the wind grew wilder, the sky got darker.
When her hand started aching from making dozens of little scales, Jester stopped to shake it out, and looked up to find Molly watching her.
“What?” she asked.
Molly smiled, and there was something smaller, and softer, about this smile. “Did you know you stick your tongue out while you draw?”
Jester was definitely not somebody who blushed, so she definitely did not blush. “Yes, actually. My Mama always told me that.”
“It’s very cute,” Molly said, without a trace of embarrassment. “Anyway, what are you working on?”
Jester turned her sketchbook round so it was facing him. “Can you tell who it is?”
Molly pulled the sketchbook closer, eyebrows shooting up. “Fuck, that’s really good, Jester. Calianna, yeah?”
In spite of herself, Jester felt a swell of pride in her chest. “Yes! I’m glad you like it. What about you?” She leaned over, trying to get a look at the card on his lap, but he immediately flipped it over.
“Nope, nuh uh. Some of these are a surprise.“
“What, for me?”
Molly laughed. “Not just for you, darling. For all of you. You’re not going to see them till they’re done.”
Jester attempted her best pout. “I’m excellent at keeping secrets, Molly! I wouldn’t even tell the others.”
“Nice try, but no.” Molly glared at her, but the effect was slightly ruined by the blue paint-stains that had somehow ended up across his cheek and chin. “You’ll have to be patient. You’ll see them eventually.”
“Ugh, fine. You better finish them soon.”
Molly rolled his eyes. “I’m a busy tiefling, but I’ll do my best.” He pushed the sketchbook back towards her. “Now come on, if you’re that desperate for me to finish, let me continue.”
He flipped the card back over, pulled out the charcoal stick that was stuck behind one ear, and continued sketching on the card. Jester picked up her own sketchbook and stretched her fingers once more (still aching, she was never drawing scales again). Molly started humming again, and this time she recognised the tune as a sea-shanty Fjord had sung when he’d had too much to drink. He seemed engrossed in his drawing.
Slowly – holding the sketchbook up as an excuse in case she needed it – Jester edged closer to him, leaning over, little by little, until she could see the card Molly was (poorly) trying to hide.
It was a man, with long hair and a scruffy beard, holding a book open. There were spheres – lights, Jester realised, noticing the rays stretching out from them – orbiting him, and Molly was currently drawing a cat, winding between the man’s feet. It was just a sketch, but Jester could already tell it was going to be beautiful.
She couldn’t help the smile, thinking of what Caleb’s face would look like when he saw it. He’d probably go completely red. As sneakily as possible, she scooted back to her end of the bed, took one last look at Molly (he hadn’t noticed her snooping, excellent) and went back to drawing the scales, still smiling.
#critical role#cr fanfic#critical role fanfic#my writing#a motley crew#jester lavorre#mollymauk tealeaf#fanfic#the mighty nein
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The I in Team
Part 5: Trust
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
Rating: Mature
Timeline: season 6
Tags: Angst-ish, but veering toward legit MSR
Words: 2.2k (pt. 5)
A/N: Sorry it’s been a while! It was a tough week, and I got kinda sick on top of it. :( The format here is a little bit different than the other parts, but that’s because we’re rounding toward the end. I think maybe just one more part!?
_+_
A little after eight in the morning, he stood in front of her motel door, holding coffee and a bagged-breakfast, knocking gently with his boot. It took her a minute, but she appeared, wet-haired, in jeans and a black v-neck.
“Mulder,” she said, surprised. “What are you doing here?”
He held up the coffee and brown paper bag in explanation, little smirk on his face, nervous. “The motel breakfast is pretty bad, so…” He scraped his boot on the concrete. “Can I come in?”
She gave him a look, squint-eyed, like what are you up to. She blinked, then stepped back. “Okay.”
In her room he set their breakfast on the table—her coffee done right, a strawberry croissant, her favorite. “This one’s yours,” he said.
The Florida sun was just warming the early day, grazing the window blinds to stripe the table where they sat. She sipped her coffee and it was good: two creams, no sugar.
“We’re gonna go to the thing today, okay? We’re gonna do it right.”
“We are?”
“Yeah.” He said, looking at her with all seriousness.
She eyed him, unsure. He was chewing his own croissant. “Why?” she asked. “You don’t really want to.”
He shrugged. “I don’t want to listen to some corporate smile-guy telling me to assess my strengths and weaknesses, telling us to align our synergy, or to learn how to build consensus, or any of that bullshit. But we’re off the clock here, pretty much. The world isn’t ending. We’re here together, the sky is blue, there are no monsters in sight, and there’s a nature hike later today. Let’s just… be people. Okay? See if we can?”
She pursed her lips, watched him try to wrangle that obsessive energy and turn it toward whatever this was, hovering between them. He was twitchy. Anxious, she saw, like he’d spent all night working up the courage for this.
“Okay,” she said after pause. But she kept wariness and suspicion in her back pocket. Like a child who’d been bitten by a dog, she was reluctant to stretch her fingers out toward it again.
He surprised her, then, by touching her hair, her cheek, by leaning forward. “I won’t lose you,” he said. “I won’t.”
She just nodded and kept her eyes on the table.
---
At some point, Mulder realized, his self-indulgent pity had become his last refuge and comfort. In his room he’d sat with the taste of her still on his lips, half-hard from the remembered feel of her pressed to him, and thought how he’d do just about anything to have a chance with her again. To have her trust him again. He’d hurt her, though he’d not known how much until tonight. Self-flagellation had felt good: fucking Diana out of anger and the narcissistic desire to hear someone, anyone, say I believe you in that way, holding Scully away from him in self-denial. Except that it wasn’t himself he was hurting anymore. Hadn’t ever been, really. He’d thought he was punishing himself for failing, for losing the X-Files again, for never ever having the right kind of proof... But the whole time, every minute of his selfish, senseless behavior, he’d really been hurting her. And for that… Christ, what a fucking piece of work he was.
The way he saw it, there were two ways forward. He could continue his unsuccessful campaign of denying, hating, and torturing himself over what an asshole he’d been… or he could do something about it and try loving someone for once in his miserable life, no matter how vulnerable it made him feel.
He’d looked at himself in the mirror. He’d actually stood in the motel bathroom and stared at his own pathetic mug and told himself to grow the fuck up right here and now because she wasn’t going to put up with any more of his bullshit. That stupid thing he’d written down this morning when he was being flip? That thoughtless answer he’d given to what he appreciated about her? Wrong. She doesn’t put up with it, and she won’t, and she shouldn’t have to. He looked himself in the eyes and thought, for whatever reason, she actually cares about you, and this is your last godforsaken chance at something good in this life and you are NOT going to fuck it up.
Then he forced himself to get six full hours of sleep, took a shower, and went to buy her breakfast.
---
When she’d finished her coffee, after sitting there without words, listening to her own breathing, she’d looked up at him and said “Okay,” a second time, and then, “Thank you for breakfast.” And there, on her scrubbed and freckled face, he saw the smallest trace of something that gave him hope.
Now they sat back-to-back on an ugly carpet with a bunch of other saps, doing something called a “blind-drawing exercise.” She was saying words that made little sense—directing him to draw shapes on a page that would add up to a picture, and he was fumbling to comply.
“Okay, now draw a triangle coming out from the midpoint of the long arc.”
“Like touching it?”
“Yeah, so the arc forms the shortest side and the farthest angle is acute.”
He bit his lip, concentrating. “Um, okay. I think I’ve got it.”
“Now a smaller arc that’s more of a circle, coming off the longer one at the left end, but make it kind of bulbus.”
“Scully, what the hell are you having me draw?”
She laughed, and her head fell back to touch his shoulder.
“No peeking,” he said.
“You either.”
And for the first time in what felt like months, they were both laughing, and yes, yes, she left her head there on his shoulder, and it made his heart pound and his hand shake. He could hear the smile in her voice as she told him things like “now a small black circle” or “another very small triangle, about a third the size of the bulb shape” and eventually, he had drawn something that almost made sense.
“Hey, is it a bird?”
“Mulder! Did you cheat?”
“No! Look!” and he turned around and showed her and she was laughing at his terrible bird, but he was right, he’d done it right, and it was a small but beautiful triumph.
“Now it’s my turn,” she said, still smiling. “Can I borrow your pencil?”
When she turned around again to draw, balancing her booklet on her knees, she let her back fall against his and kept it there, the heat of their bodies meeting at a single point. He tried to concentrate and describe the basic shape of a tractor (“A big circle and a little circle… some rectangles”), but couldn’t stop thinking that he was, maybe, for once, getting something kind of right.
There was a peace settling between them, a quiet presence like a low hum. Familiar. He recognized its gentle whir, remembered hearing it first rising in a damp motel room in Oregon, thought of its electric buzz at dozens of hospital bedsides, or its low-cycling resonance on late-night couches where they sat shoulder-to-shoulder. It was the sound of them, he thought. It was the sound of whatever this was that they’d forged together and almost lost. It was their trust, most of all.
---
In the woods again, no mothmen. No life-draining bugs. Just a compass for one and a map for the other.
“Hey, Indian Guide, which way is west?”
He held the compass flat: studied, turned, and pointed. They hiked.
A blue bandana held her hair back and dirt smudged her nose. He wanted to wipe it, kiss it off. Wanted to back her up against a tree and show her just how grateful he was for this second chance. He settled for supporting her arm as she scaled a tricky pass, for brushing his hand against her back while he held up a thin branch of prickles for her to pass under. She didn’t tell him no, didn’t glare. He tucked these moments away in his mind as small victories.
Then, on a steep slope, his foot slipped and he fell back against her, almost knocked her down, but she held him, held steady. “Whoa,” she said. “You okay?”
“I got it,” he said, grabbing a nearby branch for balance. He stilled—they both did, and her hand remained longer than it needed to, pressed warm to his chest. Her face was almost level with his on the incline, and they were suddenly just… looking. Lost in each other’s curious gaze, two people suddenly face-to-face with each other. His own hand, he realized, was on her hip, fingers curling at the waistband of her jeans. The air grew thick around and between them, but Florida humidity it was not. “Okay?” he asked, voiced pitched low, almost raspy, and she nodded, just a tiny dip of the head. His fingers tightened on her hip.
“Mulder,” she said.
His eyes fell closed and he clenched his jaw. “I know.”
“You trust me,” she said, a question in the form of a statement.
“You know I do.” Her fingers hadn’t moved, and his heart beat hard against her palm.
“I trust you with my life, Mulder. But not…” with my heart, she thought. Not yet. She watched his eyes and saw him understand.
“I can’t forgive myself, Scully. I won’t. And it’s so unfair for me to ask you to try.” His fingers again, their slightest movement at her waist—a thumb, just at the edge of her skin, like a match-head igniting her. “But I’m going to ask you to try. Let me show you that you can trust me.”
Emboldened with his words, two fingers joined his thumb at her hip. She let her palm slip in an almost-caress to wander past his collarbone, around the back of his neck. He was sweaty there, from the hike and the Florida warmth, and she was similarly damp, the weight of her pack pressing a line of sweat heavy to her shoulder. They were warmer here, of course, than they’d been in Antarctica, but no less alone in these woods, where the deep thrum of primal want began beating between them again. She yearned, suddenly, to lick the sweat clean from his jaw, to push him behind the thicket, into the rocks and dirt, and swallow him whole. She wanted to stamp him as hers and make him prove that he loved her. It was crazy. It was possessive madness, but she could tamp it down no less than she could her own blood beating.
“Scully.”
“Yeah,” she said, wondering how her voice got that way, so low, so heavy.
“I’m going to kiss you,” he said, and she couldn’t have stopped him if she’d wanted to because her body moved on its own, her traitorous hips driving toward his in the green green of that forest. His mouth came down on hers like a hot iron and she was already pulling it closer, opening her lips and begging him with her tongue. She couldn’t help it. God, she couldn’t help it. She wanted him so much.
His left hand let go of the branch to hold her face, to massage his love into her cheek. Believe me, it said. Believe me, I love you, while the other hand had abandoned the world of fabric for more patches of soft skin. They shifted to angle their bodies closer until they were falling into each other, into the needy press of this elemental substance that drummed up from the earth and into their veins, their hearts, their skins.
And then they were really falling. A rock unmoored from its earthy clutch, and their feet went out from under them, slipping, crashing through the underbrush and thicket, sliding down the hill and tumbling into the leaves and dirt. Mulder grasped her to him, sheltering her from prickles and thorns until they came to a stop, filthy and laughing, gasping on the woodland floor.
“Oh, Mulder,” she said. “Are you okay?” She touched his head first, his face, his neck, from her position splayed across his torso. She pulled a leaf from his hair, but it was his arms that were scraped, three lines of deep red along his forearms, where the sticker bush had nabbed him.
“I’m fine,” he said, still smiling. He cupped her face. “You?”
She nodded. “Fine,” and seemed to realize how they were positioned. She looked down at their bodies, at their rumpled clothes, at their legs entangled, and blushed. Before she could comment, could gather her composure and set them rational and right again, a voice called out from several yards away.
“You guys okay?” it asked. “Jeez, we saw that fall! Do you need first aid?”
Not so alone as they’d thought, it turned out. “We’re okay!” Mulder called, then quieter, to her, “Time to get up.” But before Scully could climb off him, he tugged her down, quick, for a kiss. It was no chaste thing, but wet and hot with relief and the adrenaline-thrill of their brief misadventure. “I’ll show you,” he whispered at her ear when he’d let her lips go. “I’ll show you how much I love you.”
And then he was helping her up, brushing off, reaching for the compass in his back pocket, hoping it hadn’t been cracked. “This way.” He nodded back toward the path.
Dumbstruck, a little wobbly, she followed.
(end part 5)
Go to Part 6: Reciprocation
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Making Soldier 76′s Gloves: A Tutorial
Yay gloves! This is a walk-through that shows how I made them. I did make several mistakes along the way, but hopefully there is still value to be found in the process. Enjoy!
Warning: Ridiculously image heavy!!
As usual, I started by hoarding references. The 3D model I downloaded was very helpful for this.
Several months ago at the beginning of this adventure, I sat down and planned how all the costume components would be built. At the time I intended to use spray adhesive to tack down some type of stretchy, plastic-y fabric--probably vinyl. Later I learned that my library’s makerspace had a die cutter, so “stretch vinyl” was replaced with heat transfer vinyl. I did choose to omit the grey palm, but otherwise these are accurate to the game model.
The pre-existing gloves were a pair of these from Costco. In hind sight, they weren’t 100% ideal; see that seam across the knuckles? It’s going to cause trouble later.
Next I needed to make a digital cut file for the Silhouette die cutter. Die cutters are basically digital cutting machines... sort of like printing with a knife. You give them a file with lines, and a knife (or other tool) traces them onto materials like paper, fabric, and vinyl. The software requires vectors to cut, so I used Adobe Illustrator. If you don’t have access to this software, the open source equivalent Inkscape would work just as well. I began by very carefully measuring the gloves to make a janky but correctly scaled pattern. The red armor was drawn over the top.
Next, the templates were printed and laid over the glove to check for scale. as you can see, the guard on top of the hand is much too large. I made a few adjustments to the paper templates, scanned them, and modified the vectors to fit.
Then it was cutting time! Only the finger and knuckle guard bases were made from heat transfer vinyl. (If I didn’t have access to the die cutter, I would have traced the templates onto masking tape and used them as a mask for fabric paint.)
Next I wanted to make the knuckle guards. These could have easily been made with Sculpey, but I sit next to a 3D printer all day at work so I took the easy way out.
As normal with 3D prints, these had a distinct texture. I decided to take the opportunity and try out Automotive Filler Primer since it’s supposed to be the bee’s knees for smoothing 3D prints. Sanding PLA sucks, so I’ll jump on any possible opportunity to avoid it. In preparation for spray painting, the knuckle guards were stuck on a piece of cardboard with hot glue. A little clearance from the surface means their edges will be more clean, plus I don’t need to keep track of 8 tiny pieces of plastic. The hot glue will peel off cleanly later.
From what I had heard, you don’t need to sand filler primer because it self-levels. After one coat, I was not so sure.
Three coats in and the ridges were actually more pronounced, so I broke out the sandpaper.
Amazing!!! It looks awful but dang did it feel smooth and it sanded SO MUCH EASIER than PLA! 220 grit paper was plenty remove material.
After two more passes of spraying and sanding, the guards were looking pretty smooth. Here they are after their final spray:
Fun fact, that stuff will clog up your paper something fierce! Buy a lot of sandpaper if you have large things to surface.
Next up was painting. Normally I would spray paint or airbrush something like this, but the weather has not been cooperating lately so I hand-painted them instead.
Since the red paint is somewhat translucent, I gave the parts a thin coating of white first. Then red was layered on until I achieved full coverage.
The final detail for the knuckle guards was a thin, black line running around their base. Any permanent marker will do.
The knuckle guards still need weathering, but I prefer to weather everything at once so I moved on to building the hand guards. Using the paper template from Illustrator, I traced the main shape onto 6mm foam. You will notice some indents running along the flat surface:
Those were recreated by scoring the foam with an X-acto knife. When blasted with a heat gun, the foam will contract slightly to create a groove (pictures of this later).
I added a second layer to the guards with 2mm craft foam.
In order to emphasize the angles, I carved a teeny grove with my pen knife and removed the excess material with a pair of tweezers.
This channel helps the foam bend a little sharper. It might seem subtle, but the effect was worth it.
Next, I used a sharpened aluminum tube to punch perfect circles into the foam. You can find these at most hobby stores and sharpen them with a needle file--also to be found at most hobby stores. The holes were expanded into slots using my handy X-acto. This was surprisingly hard to do neatly; I wish EVA foam was a little more dense :/
The parts were adhered together with contact cement. I had to do this outside and it was dark, so I don’t have good pictures :( As a last step before painting, I used a heat gun to give them a gentle curve and emphasize those grooves. Unfortunately, I was a little liberal with the heat and you can see some low-key melting. Oops. Given the size of these parts, it was an interesting challenge to attempt without gloves.
For painting, I decided to use my airbrush. I was gifted a setup yeeeeeeeears ago and I hardly ever use it. Time to change that! I primed the foam with this all-purpose primer which claimed to be slightly flexible. This is a lie. Don’t buy this brand of primer if you need something to be flexible!!
Like the knuckle guards, I gave the hand guards a light pass with white so it would take less red to reach full coverage. Full disclosure, I kind of suck with air-brushes. See that weirdo blob on the left corner of the left guard? That’s what happens when you spray too much paint with an air-brush. They also had a funky texture which I believe was a result of too much paint at once.
For weathering, I used 400 grit sandpaper to remove paint from corners and edges revealing the primer beneath. I think it gives a pretty neat effect! Grime was a mixture of Mars Black, Burnt Umber, and water. Finally, a coat of brush-on varnish sealed the paint job.
It was only after applying the varnish that I realized it was glossy, so I misted the parts with Matte Fixative meant for sealing drawings. This is not ideal and you should be smarter than me and buy the right varnish to begin with.
Finally, it was time to add the finger pieces and assemble the gloves! This was done with an ancient (circa 1970′s) iron, a scrap of muslin, some cardboard, and sewing pins.
Note about the vinyl: There is such a thing as stretchy heat transfer vinyl. I didn’t know this when purchasing, but stretchy would definitely have been preferable. The fingers of a glove are constantly flexing and moving, so over time my regular vinyl will break down. I did verify that my pattern would stretch, but you should still purchase the proper variety if you choose to do something like this. Thankfully the pattern I cut allowed the material to stretch somewhat.
Once cut, the vinyl needed weeding. Weeding is the process of removing everything you don’t need from the piece to be transferred. While there are specific tools available for this task, I like using an X-acto knife. After you get a piece started, tweezers can help remove the rest. Be very careful during this step; sometimes the machine doesn’t quite slice all the way through and you can pull off the wrong parts.
With the parts weeded, it was time to iron them in place. Heat transfer vinyl needs to be pressed while perfectly flat. The fingers of these gloves have gussets on each side which equals a lot of fabric and seams in a small area. Such construction makes them form-fitting and comfortable, but I couldn't get them to lay flat. To remedy this I made an insertable cardboard finger and pinned the fabric in place. It was important NOT to stretch the fabric while doing so or else the vinyl would crumple when un-pinned.
With the fabric secured, I attempted to stick the vinyl in place using the mildly adhesive cover plastic. Alas, it just wouldn’t stay, so I used a snugly pinned piece of muslin to hold it down. 15 seconds of pressing with the iron, and ta-dah! Red decals :)
These gloves are two sizes too big for me in case you couldn’t tell :)
Remember how I mentioned that seam across the back causing trouble? Unfortunately it runs right through the middle of a decal. It was very tricky to iron without burning the vinyl and it’s kind of ugly. 10-foot rule will save me, but it could have been avoided by buying better gloves.
The last step was gluing the hand and knuckle guards in place. Because the fabric is stretchy but my parts are curved, I needed to put the gloves on Casey before gluing down anything rigid. Alas, I don’t have many images here because Casey didn’t feel like being a hand model and we were outside because of glue fumes. Each hand guard got a thorough application of E6000 in the center with hot glue around the edges. I wanted the strength of E6000 but needed the quick dry time of hot glue, so this worked fairly well. Overflowed hotglue was colored with a Sharpie and disappears from a distance.
More E6000 was used to fix the knuckle guards. Then the gloves were tossed into the Bin of Shame ™ to cure without fumigating my room.
After two days of curing, everything was finished! I'm really happy with how they turned out :D
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'Godless' writer/director Scott Frank talks 10 of the most stunning shots
Our critic Ken Tucker said it: Godless will make you believe in Westerns again. The Netflix limited series was 15 years in the making for writer/director Scott Frank, who — spoiler alert — builds the story to an epic shootout between a gang of outlaws and the women of La Belle, a showdown between the ruthless Frank Griffin (Jeff Daniels) and the redeemed Roy Goode (Jack O’Connell), and Roy’s solo journey to California to reunite with his brother. Along the way, there are shots so gorgeous, Godless may be the most beautiful TV series of the year. Here are the stories behind 10 of our favorite moments.
Frank (Jeff Daniels) delivers his own sermon (Photo: Netflix)
Episode 1: Frank preaches on horseback.
“The challenge is the horse has to hit a mark,” Scott Frank says of Griffin’s perfectly-framed warning to a church congregation not to hide Roy should he take refuge in their town. “The other trick is he has to duck and be able to not hit his head as he’s riding into the church, and that’s the actual doorway — we didn’t change anything into the structure. He rode in, and it’s full of people, and there’s a narrow path, and they just kept practicing with the horse. Because the platform he’s standing on is only so big, the horse wouldn’t overshoot the mark or it would be stepping off the platform. The platform was designed to stop the horse from going any further.”
Griffin’s gang makes a splash (Photo: Netflix)
Episode 1: Frank’s gang crosses the Rio Grande.
“We would scout locations and we knew where the sun would be. There are times where we would have to wait for the exact moment. When they’re crossing the Rio Grande and the sun is behind the water when they’re splashing — we knew we had an hour. It was 10:15, and we had to start shooting, and we would only get two or three takes before the sun would move and we’d lose the perfect light,” Frank says. “The other thing there is the depth of the river. The river changes depth depending on how much water they release upstream. So again, it had to be carefully planned so that it wasn’t too deep. The stunt coordinator and the wranglers all rode it before to make sure that the bottom of the river was okay.” Then it was the actors’ turn. “They were all proud of themselves that day,” Frank says.
Roy (Jack O’Connell) rides again (Photo: Netflix)
Episode 3: Roy rides out of the ring.
“You want to see this man who feels the most alive and the most free when he’s on horseback — the whole idea is, you don’t know if he’s gonna come back,” Frank says. Three shots make the sequence after Roy breaks a horse for Alice Fletcher (Michelle Dockery): The first is when her son, Truckee (Samuel Marty), opens the gate of the corral. “We’re on the ground as the horse bolts past us. Jack was aboard without any tack — he’s riding without a saddle or bridle or anything, he’s just holding on to the mane, and he’s at a pretty good clip. So we built a temporary corral out of metal fence right outside, so the horse would have to stop,” Frank says. “And on one of the takes the horse tried to wipe Jack off his back on the fence. Jack saw it coming and just bailed. He took a good fall there.”
For the next shot, chasing after the horse, they used an electric vehicle called a TOMCAR. “It goes about 40 miles an hour, and it has a 30-foot arm on it with a stabilized head for the camera, to keep the camera still, and you can move the arm up or down,” Frank says. “It holds four people, so you have your camera operator, the cinematographer, the driver — everybody can be in the car, and the camera’s pretty low to the ground, and we’re pretty close to the horse.”
For the third, soaring shot, they used a drone. “Sometimes it’s windy in New Mexico, and this was July and there’s a lot of storms, and it was very hard to control the camera the first time we did it, so we had to go back and shoot it again,” Frank says. “We mapped it out. We knew the exact route — how far he was gonna ride, where he was gonna start to turn back. You’re not only mapping out the path of the horse, you’re also mapping out the path of the drone and the angle. The camera sort of tilts up as he rides away from us, which is what makes it feel like off he goes. So you go from the ground where we’re tracking him, and then above him, when he’s a tiny little figure below racing across the ground. And then we let him go, and at the top of frame he does a hook and starts to come back, and finally he exits the frame. It’s a lot of work, but also, the music there is spectacular. It’s a big music cue.”
Frank illuminates his gang (Photo: Netflix)
Episode 3: Frank surprises Marshal John Cook (Sam Waterston).
There’s “a little, teeny bit of extra light” added to the shot when Griffin places the glass chimney on the lantern and he and his gang, lying in wait for the Marshal, suddenly come into view in the dark saloon, Frank says. But for the most part, that entire sequence is practical: “We knew we wanted the rest of the saloon to fall away into blackness, so that when he walks in, he doesn’t see anybody [but the bartender],” Frank says. “We went into the location and covered all the windows during the day and we kept testing different lenses on the lanterns, so that when you lower the chimney it does light up the room all around. That’s not an effect. We shot in there without any light. You can do that with digital.”
Alice (Michelle Dockery) and Truckee (Samuel Marty) sit in the doorway of their home (Photo: Netflix)
Episode 6: Alice reads the letter from Roy’s brother.
“We built that ranch and we built that house, and this was one of the main shots we were thinking about. I think about The Searchers or other great Westerns having the camera in the dark house looking out the door — it’s a classic shot. So we wanted to make sure that we had the horses and then the mountains beyond,” Frank says. “I always knew that for the big dramatic moments we would be shooting out that door. The bulk of the letter reads on her back, actually, because it’s so powerful with just the two of them sitting there.”
Griffin’s gang is coming (Photo: Netflix)
Episode 7: Frank’s gang rides to La Belle, and the dust flies.
“There’s no tricks in that — that’s 40 men on horseback strung out across the frame. The riders are all pros, so getting them spaced out is the easy part. The hard part is the timing — the time of day is really perfect for it, so you just wait for that — and knowing how far away from the men to be to get the exact background,” Frank says. “It was just picking the right spot. For a while they were saying, ‘It would be so much cheaper if we didn’t go back to the actual ranch’ — because they’re really riding by when [Alice] sees them. That ranch we picked because it was such a beautiful location. Everywhere else wasn’t as good, so I just keep saying, ‘It has to be where it actually is, because we picked it for that vista.'”
Frank and Roy prepare to draw (Photo: Netflix)
Episode 7: Frank and Roy meet in the meadow.
“Nobody wanted me to shoot there, because you couldn’t drive trucks into that location or you’d ruin the meadow — you had to park some distance away and take these little four-wheel-drive Gators into the location,” Frank says of the spot two hours outside Santa Fe. “It was really tricky to get the big crane in for that huge shot — that big, classic, corny shot of the two of them facing each other down in the meadow with all the white flowers and all the white snow on the mountains in the background. But once I saw the location, I couldn’t un-see it. So they were very upset with the production designer for showing it to me, I think.”
Roy gives his horse a rest (Photo: Netflix)
Episode 7: Roy heads West.
“We could’ve had a half-hour sequence of him riding to California,” Frank says. And we would have watched it. He credits second unit director Jeff Dashnaw, a veteran of many Westerns (The Magnificent Seven, The Hateful Eight, Django Unchained), with delivering most of the montage — including the sunset shot when Roy dismounts his horse to walk ahead of it for a stretch. “That is a spectacular shot, which they got at the end of one day. They showed me and I just knew. I actually gave that image as a gift to Jeff’s son J.J., who was riding the horse for that,” Frank says.
The series was filmed over five months. “Jeff and I were always on the make for locations and he was always showing me pictures. Or when we’re scouting other locations, even if we didn’t use them for a scene, we might say, ‘You know what? This’ll be good for the trip to California.’ We’d remember them for later — sometimes we’d shoot them four months later,” he says.
The antelope play (Photo: Netflix)
He remembers scouting for the flashback scene in episode 5, when Frank teaches young Roy how to lay down a horse and they almost get hanged. “It’s a working ranch, and there was a herd of antelope there, and so I said, ‘Let’s bring the second unit crew out and get a shot of Roy riding through the antelope as part of the California montage.'”
Roy sees the ocean for the first time (Photo: Netflix)
The first unit took over once Roy reached California. The final shot of the series finds Roy looking out at the ocean. It was another location, difficult to access with cranes, that Frank fought for. “We’d been looking forever and they kept sending me pictures. I always wanted to shoot in Big Sur, and they kept sending me pictures of different places, like in Santa Barbara and Morro Bay, and they were all much easier to get to but they didn’t have the same look. I knew I wanted it to be up high with raw coast in either direction. You had to come out of the mountains and come out of the Redwoods. Nothing looked right. He couldn’t be down low or it wouldn’t be very dramatic,” he says.
The crew was on the plane on a Sunday when they heard fog was expected Monday, when they were scheduled to shoot. “Everybody just looked at each other and we said, ‘Let’s go. Let’s just shoot today.'” In the end, they couldn’t get O’Connell ready in time with the aging makeup and beard, but they were able to rehearse the shot with the crane and with the double. “It was enormously complicated: he rides up and the camera comes around from the front of him and goes past him,” Frank says. “The next morning, we could shoot it right away because we had done it 15 times the day before. We got it before all the weather hit.”
Godless is streaming now on Netflix.
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Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
How ‘Godless’ pulled off that epic finale shootout
Review: ‘Godless’ will make you believe in westerns again
6 things to know about ‘Godless,’ Netflix’s star-packed limited-series western
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Challenge character number two.... Getaway. I’m so curious about this. Because I think I can feel him well enough to write a variety of scenarios, but pinning him down with words about how he works seems so much harder. It should be fun!
First, largely leaving the Tailgate thing out of here. That was a romance rather than a sex, and it was also a romance undertaken with a very clear GOAL driving everything. I’m going to stick to things more general than that, because otherwise I’d have to be clarifying every answer with an extra bit for ‘and if he and tailgate hooked up then--’ (something I’m also happy to discuss! but it would make this ask meme much longer, and much more unpleasant)
And okay, so a Getaway thing that’s going to be popping up throughout this is the idea of like... low instinctive empathy, which doesn’t have to be negative! Despite what he did with that in canon :P But where someone like Drift or Thundercracker is very deeply tuned in to their partner’s needs and is adapting to match and please, Getaway cares in a more intellectual sense. He can still feel very strongly, but the emotions don’t just hit him out of nowhere, the emotions are there because he’s decided to care about you. If that makes sense. I’m hoping I can express this reasonably in the answers :P
On that note, he isn’t especially a cuddler. He’ll stick around, he’ll be close and attentive and paying attention, but he isn’t going to go for full-contact affection time. He’ll maybe go for some light touching, like hand-holding, but for the most part he’s going to just stick to physical closeness.
B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)
Trickyyyyyy. Always, this one is so tricky. I’m going to say that when he’s with a person he really trusts and likes (like maybe Skids), he enjoys having someone hook their hands in his curvy shoulder things and move him around. When you’ve got a rope harness on your torso and someone grabs the ropes, they can MOVE YOU like whoa. I think he’d enjoy being manhandled in a similar way, but again, only with someone he’s very comfortable giving that much control to. and on other people, I’m going to say he takes a lot of enjoyment in what mouths can do.
C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)
Okay, oh man, I’m going to save this one for the O, but I actually have an idea I like a lot for this.
D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)
HMMM. I’m having trouble seeing him keeping... sexy secrets. Maybe he’d play it coy on some of the more extreme stuff he’s experimented with, or who he’s had as partners (and/or how many partners).
E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)
PLENTY. Not that he’s about all sex all the time. But sex is nice and it feels good, and you don’t have to be in love with someone to have sex. As long as all parties are having a good time, why NOT have sex? I will say that... probably not everyone he’s slept with has had such a cavalier attitude re: emotional attachment, and he’s proven that he knows how to perform romance very well. If he has something he wants, he can be plenty manipulative. But I don’t think he’s ever set out to use anyone for sex. If he was tuned in hardcore to reactions a la Drift, there would maybe be times he’d have pulled away sooner from someone getting invested or making calls that are clearly causing them emotional distress. But to a large extent, he thinks that everyone is adults, people are allowed to make their own bad decisions without it being his fault, and he hasn’t ever set out to cause harm through these hookups.
F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)
HMM hm hm. I want to say he likes riding someone, but I can’t say why. Or being ridden? Something about where you are in relation to the other person. Still with your arrays right together, but with enough space to see and touch without being pressed right together.
G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)
Not too-too serious, but goofy isn’t right. He’s got very dry humor a lot of the time, and I think he’d be pretty well in that space. He’s not going out of his way to be funny, but he’ll make little humorous asides, and keep things fairly laid back.
H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)
Definitely well-groomed! He’s a fancy boy. Not FANCY-fancy, but he’s got a nice Look going on and he knows it, and he keeps himself polished up nice.
I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)
Ahhh, this is where we get into tricky words things with the low empathy. Because he’ll be very close and attentive, even if he’s got no emotional attachment at all. Because it’s the best way to make sure the sex turns out good. He can do the motions of romance just fine, because it’s an easy script that makes it easy for the other person to react well. I want to say.... he generally doesn’t want people getting too attached to him. So he doesn’t act out romance if he thinks someone is going to believe it. And there are definitely some people who will enjoy it in the moment without taking it to MEAN things. But there’s a middle ground of people that he thinks can handle it and then take it very seriously. He’s gotten decent at calibrating for that with time, and he can usually manage the closeness without romance if he thinks that’s what a scene needs.
But if you are one of His People...... hmm how to words this. There’s a special flavor of really I-mean-this intimacy that fits into a romantic place, and isn’t romance. Like, let’s use Skids as an example. Getaway can be a little less tightly controlled and/or controlling, take his hands off the steering wheel, and be a bit more laid-back and open. He might be relaxed with most partners, but that isn’t the same as laid-back. He can communicate a little more of the cold reasoning of people-tick-like-this without it poisoning the scene or making Skids think poorly of him, because they’re already very comfortable with each other. I don’t know if I’m communicating that right, but there’s a layer of performance he can drop. That performance isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just a tool plenty of people have to make life go smoothly. But there’s a lot to be said for having someone where you can let it go and let things unfold more organically.
J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)
Honestly, I don’t think much, mainly because he’d rather seek out casual partners :P He doesn’t mind jacking off, but sex with other people is more rewarding on the whole, and he isn’t exactly putting emotional labor into it (and he’s trying to pick out people who will approach it from a similar place. one, because it makes his life easier. but two, avoiding hurting people makes his life easier, and he’s doing a kind thing, just with some very practical reasoning behind it).
K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)
All the kinks? :V No, but I can see him being pretty thorough in exploring the available kink space, and the way he thinks, I can see him finding an angle to be into just about anything. I can see him enjoying being tied up a lot, whether it’s about just letting the restraint happen, or about being a difficult-ass rope bunny who will get out of any tie and make things as hard as possible for his dom.
L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)
I’mmmmm going to say bedrooms, just for the sake of convenience. Sex in an empty meeting room is fun, sure, but in a bedroom there’s less chance of having your fun interrupted, there’s a ready-made place to relax when you’re done, and whoever’s bedroom it is, if that person has any toys, that’s probably where they’re stored.
M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)
Hedonism? :P No, but... sex feels good. He likes things that feel good. Why not regularly seek out this thing that feels good? His drive is probably a bit higher with one of His People than it is when he’s on his own, because he likes spending time with people he cares about, but he likes having sex on the regular in any situation.
N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)
I think he’s got minimal interest in being humiliated, because he has a hard time getting into it. Either he’s not believing the insults or they just feel silly, it’s just not clicking. And he doesn’t tend to enjoy doing the humiliation either, or any kind of serious negative patter. That little delay between instinctive and cognitive empathy can make it difficult to tell where the line for too-mean is, and it’s more enjoyable to have a scene that won’t derail than to have the other person red out (or have to make the call to end the scene yourself). He’s also probably tried the robot version of unsanitary and it’s not really for him, but he’s willing to give it a spin in the right circumstances.
O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)
WELL. He’s a little lacking in the lips department, so the easy answer would be to say he likes receiving best. And he does like it, but also, I invite you to imagine someone kneeling over him, either grinding on his face with their valve, or jacking off with their spike against his face. And either way, coming all over him. His face makes a very nice canvas for that kind of thing, and if he has a partner who wants to do that, it’s usually pretty great seeing their reaction when they look down at their handiwork.
P = Pace (Are they fats and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)
He moves at a decent clip, but calling it fast is a bit much. He’ll take his time with the more elaborate kink setups, because rushing through those is a bit of a waste. But especially if he’s not emotionally invested in the person he’s having sex with, he doesn’t see much point in drawing it out unnecessarily.
Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)
Quickies can be pretty darn hot. He enjoys them a lot, even if they’re not a total substitute for full-on sex. Especially since it’s hard to work real kink play into a quickie, and even if you do, there’s not much time to savor it.
R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)
Oh goodness yes, he’s interested in at least trying the full scope of everything, and he’s definitely experimented with some Weird Stuff in the process. Not all of it was for him, but he can find an angle to enjoy most things. And since he’s had positive experiences with experimenting in the past, yeah, he’s definitely down to experiment if anyone has something new to try.
S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)
He’s got good self-control, so he can last long if he wants to. If he has the option, he’d prefer to have a session with multiple overloads, just to get the most out of the experience.
T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)
SO many toys. He doesn’t use them much solo, because he doesn’t do much solo, but he’s plenty happy to either use them on his partners or have his partners use them on him. I want to say he collects toys to cover a large range of play options without being redundant, so like, not having lots of dildos that do basically the same thing, he’d rather get different toys for different types of play.
U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)
He very much likes to tease. You can get some really hot reactions out of people when you do that, and oh my goodness, someone begging is really, really hot. He enjoys the control and the types of reactions the control gets him. He enjoys this both from a partner-centric scene, where he’s edging them personally and is very involved, and for more distant scenes, where you’re just a toy, toys don’t get to overload. Perform well and maybe I’ll do you a favor. There’s so many variances on the basic teasing script, and he enjoys playing with all of them.
V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)
He’s mostly pretty quiet, but if you can break him down enough, he makes some PRETTY noises. He probably won’t clue you in on how to do that unless he cares about you on a personal level and trusts you a lot, but him offering you that information is a pretty nice gesture of trust, coming from him.
W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)
Okay, but it’s really funny to imagine him having a lot of experience with predicament bondage before his imprisonment on board the Lost Light. Maybe even with erotic de-limbing, given that these are robots and robots can do whatever you want them to do. But that prison setup pinged me as predicament bondage even before I started thinking about Getaway and kink things.
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Homework Assignment #1: Transformation Photo Album - Critiques
Check out the students' work in their first assignment of TDR Charm School 4! For this assignment, the girls had to take a photo after each step of their makeup application process. Let’s see how they did! To view their transformation photo album, click their name!
Erica Strada
Analyse: Hi, Erica! First off, I just want to say that you were maybe the most thorough in talking to Letha and myself while you were painting, and I 100% think that elevated your submission, because you were able to get that live feedback. Keep doing that and working hard, and you'll see so much growth!
Brow coverage can be tricky, and it's something that just gets better with time. I think I've shared most of my brow coverage tips/crits in your sisters' critiques, so make sure you read those, but like I said, it's just something to practice and find out what process works best for you.
Looking at where you're placing your contour, I'd definitely suggest raising it up the face quite a bit. I know we talked about this in PM, but it caused you to run into the problem that your cheek contour was so low and angled down so much that it kind of collided with your jawline contour and it wasn't clear exactly what was going on. You went back in with your highlight cream to clean up that line, which helped to clarify the intent of everything, but I think that trying a higher placement will definitely help to avoid that problem.
I think for brows, this is a good start. I like the brow on the left side of the picture a lot more, and I know sometimes the brows just don't want to match. It happens, and you just roll with the punches, but I think the left side (your right, I guess?) brow is definitely a good starting point. You might also play with some different products. Pencils are good and creamy, and personally, I'm a big fan of a gel for brows. ELF has some good gel pots for like $3 that you can use and then set with a powder. My general brow technique is that I'll kind of sketch the shape light with a pencil (using the connect-the-dots technique where you put where you want the brow to start, arch, and end, and then you connect them in a smooth line), then I go in with a gel, and then set it with powders.
I like that blush, but I think you could go super over the top with it. You said that Mimi Bobeck was inspiration for this mug (and I still think she is such a great inspo! She's basically a drag queen already lol), and you look at pictured of Kathy Kinney in that role, and they were not afraid of slatheringggg blush on her. I'd love to see you try a big dramatic wing, and maybe look into a darker liner (either a marker or a gel, if you don't want to go liquid). Normally I would say something about not taking the color all the way up to the brow, but knowing that Mimi was an inspiration for this mug, I'm not mad at it. Just make sure when you're doing a look that isn't this, you leave some white between the brows and the shadows.
Bitch, I love this lip! It's such a fun color, works well with the eyes, and looks very clean. You might play with overdrawing the bottom a bit more, but I really have no complaints for this lip. Werq. Anyways, I think this is a great first submission! Something I think that will help you as we go on is just working on getting your time down. As somebody who also likes to take my time to paint (my record during CS3 was 6 hours), I know how stressful it can be, but as you do it more, eventually your time will go down. It can also be helpful (and weirdly fun) to practice and be like "ok, I'm gonna get this done in 2 hours," and it usually turns out better than expected. For now though, feel free to take your time and really find what works for you! Congrats, and I can't wait for your test!
Letha: Hey Erica! I want to start off by commending how communicative you were with us throughout your painting process. You talked to us and you really took your time, and doing that (along with practice) will really help you to improve! Now, on to da mug! Starting with the brow coverage, I think she started off covered pretty well (a few more coats and some smoothing/pressing might not be a bad idea though), but by blending the eyeshadow too roughly on top, it disturbed the glued-down hairs underneath, so be sure to be very gentle. Using shimmery eyeshadows, as those appear to be, also won’t serve you well in trying to hide underlying texture, so you will want to stay with more matte colors, at least when working over the brows. The eyeshadows could also have more POP, you said your inspiration was Mimi and her eyeshadow basically hit you over the face, and yours isn’t quite there yet With your redrawn brows, I like the overall shape, but they’re a bit muddy/patchy in texture. I think using a more pigmented product with a very small brush would be better, whether you go for an ombre brow, a brow with hair strokes, or even a solid shape. With regards to contour, I do agree with Ana that the cheeks got a bit low and correcting them was a good idea, so good on you for doing that. The blush is a pretty color, but could be more blended up so it’s not as stripey. The forehead contour is a nice shape but I think your powder made it look a bit patchy, so I would recomend going back through with a large powder brush and dusting off excess/blending edges. The nose contour started off a bit tilted but you were able to improve it, watch out with taking foundation off the nose though, you can go back and reapply if you take it off by accident. With your lashes, I personally think they could be bigger, as well as being closer to your real lashes. If I were you, I would practice placing them (without any glue) as close to your real lashes as possible, or at least the inner corner. Some more dramatic liner/tightlining could help to hide the lash band as well. That lip color is very well done and easily my favorite part of this paint, you have that part down pat for sure! Overall, you have some points to improve on, but your willingness to learn is showing!
Kushboo
Analyse: Hello, Kushboo! I'm just going to follow along in your album and give my crits step-by-step as I see things! Brow coverage looks pretty good (until the one comes up :\ ), so good job on that and on fixing the problem when it did happen. Something that will help with that is to think of anything on top of brow coverage more as dabbing and pressing motions than swiping or side-to-side motions. It might help to use a sponge for that part to apply the foundation on top of the brow coverage.
This blending on the contour already looks so much better than what we saw in your audition, so I'm so glad to see that you're already taking all these things into account. Keep this up and you'll have an entirely new mug by the end of CS4! ALSO, I LOVE THIS BLUSH. And I'm sure you might be one of the first times in Charm School that Letha doesn't say "more blush." You might want to play with laying down some blush at the forehead contour, too. It just helps to really liven up the forehead. I'm also a big fan of just a tiny little bit of blush on the chin, but that's a personal taste thing, but try it if you want.
I think this is such a pretty color on the eyes. As Charm School goes on, I'd recommend you just try out different eye makeup shapes and techniques, because right now (even though it is a pretty color), it does just all kind of scream that one color. Add interest to the eye with different colors to make it look more dimensional, and as with most makeup things, make sure it's blended. These brows are a good starting point, and honestly my biggest issue with them is that I think that they can taper more on the outside ends. Right now, they look kind of blocky, so a more tapered end will help to soften and feminize them.
I like this lip color! I think it was a smart choice to go with a more subdued color on the lip when you had such bold colors in the eye makeup and the blush, but it's still got an interesting metallic quality. Going forward, I would make sure you work on just having very defined lines. (Also, watch out in your pictures that you don't show off the line on the lip where the lipstick stops. Your second to last picture, I think you were going for a pouty kind of look, but that was the first thing my eye went to). Overall, I think this was a good submission and already such a great improvement from your audition! It's very clear you took what Letha said in the the video and put it to use. Keep that up and you'll do very well in this competition!
Letha: Heya Kushboo! So I know you had trouble with brow coverage, but I can see you have potential with keeping them down, so really make sure to flatten/press them down and be super delicate around them (applying your foundation to them in dabbing motions with a sponge might help, instead of rubbing with a pan stick). The contour is sitting pretty high on the cheeks, which can work, but it doesn’t give you as much blending room. Until you pile on ten pounds of BLUSH that is. Is that a lot of blush? Yes. Am I mad at it? Hell no. I think it helps to blend out your contour nicely. But if you’ll note, you blended the blush under the contour, which isn’t the best for restructuring the face. Where the bottom edge of your blush is, THAT’S where I would suggest drawing your contour (and blending up from there). The edges of the forehead could be a bit more blended as well. That eyeshadow color is gorgeous and matches the blush really well, but make sure to soften the edges, as they’re a bit harsh right now. Blending with a white, translucent, or even light flesh toned powder could help with those edges. The new brows aren’t bad, a bit high though, placing the front end a bit closer to your natural brow would help you get more of an arched shape. I usually do a smoky eye myself, so the Kajal on the lid isn’t a bad choice, just make sure it’s darkest right on the lid and blends into that green. I would really try getting some lashes, as they can elevate a look and add drama, as well as adjusting the exaggerated proportions that you created. That’s a gorgeous lip color, make sure your edges are crisp though (if it’s a pencil you can sketch small strokes in, if it’s a liquid lipstick, you have to really commit to the line/shape). All in all, I can already see improvement from where you started, and must say that I LOVE this color combo, so good job!
Luna
Analyse: I'm just going to kind of go through your album step-by-step and make any comments about anything I see along the way, but I want to start off by commending you for talking to me and Letha while you were working on your mug, because tbh it's so much better to get that live feedback. Not only does it help your submission look better, but it also helps you learn *how* to fix certain things and *where* they went wrong, so kudos to you for that.
Your brow coverage looks pretty good. It's a learning curve and it gets better with more practice, but my recommendation is to try different techniques and find out what works best for you and your process. Back when I had brows to cover, I was a big fan of the swirling method and then licking the glue stick to smooth them out. Some people use the back of a spoon to smooth it down. Ultimately, whatever works for you, go with that.
It's very clear that you have a good idea of where/how to lay your cheek contour, so keep doing that. We talked a little about brows in our PM, but just keep playing with shape and placement. Right now they read a little Angry Eyebrows™, but sometimes the look can call for that. For the eyes, just make sure that how blended out the shadows are is even between the eyes. You can see in your pictures that on one eye, the shadow is blended out a lot further than the other eye, and that's just a matter of going back in with a matte white and just kind of doing that back and forth until you find the right balance. Also, while we're up there on the face, be careful with your shimmery highlight placement, because putting that shimmery highlight there kind of undoes the restructuring of the face and makes your natural brow bone very prominent (and also draws attention to any texture left behind by the covered natural brow). That being said, I like the placement of your other highlights. The peach blush is very cute and reads very like, innocent natural woman to me. Letha will probably tell you more blush, and tbh I wouldn't be mad at that. Also, I'm a big fan of blush at the forehead contour too for the same reason that it adds some life back into the face. I can't really tell if you did that here which either means a) you didn't, or b) it could use some more.
Like your contour, you seem to have a good idea of what you like with your liner. As you said in your PM, you prefer a straight out dramatic liner, which is fine and can look great; just remember that Charm School is about growth and we want to see you learning and trying new things, so it might be worthwhile to step outside of your comfort zone. Your lips are a cute shape, and I like that you have multiple colors on there. Like, I recommended in PM, I think a lighter highlight shade in the middle of the lip would add more dimension (especially since you are going for a very pouty lip), because even with the cherry red, the lips do still read pretty dark.
I love that you've come up with this stippling sponge technique to do freckles, but I think the outcome of it falls a little flat for me. It kind of reads as like, maybe some fallout landed on your cheeks. I think if you want it to read more freckly, it could help to go in and make sure you have some more variation in sizes and maybe a few shades in the same range. If you look at natural freckles, they're not all the same shade and size. All in all, I think this is such a strong first submission, and I got super nitpicky with these critiques because it's clear that you already are comfortable with a lot of what you're doing makeup-wise. Congrats on a great first submission, and I look forward to your test!
Letha: Luna, this is such a cute look! Your brow coverage is pretty darn good, as well as you leaving out the front remnant to base your new brow off of, so props to ya on that. The eyeshadow on top is well blended, but does catch the light and draw some attention to hairs that are there by making them shine. Your contour placement is also overall pretty good, I would work on blending the top of the cheek contour a bit more, as well as the sides of your nose, as they read just a bit stripey at the moment. Blush is nice, as is highlight. Lashes are well placed, and I like the liner shape, it’s not a normal wing but it goes with the “cutesey” vibe you were angling toward. I would suggest putting a bit more mascara on the lower lashes, as they look pretty bare at the moment. Lastly, I’m not huge on the big freckle trend going on, but it can work depending on the look, and with the vibe you have going, it works here. Up close they’re very convincing freckles. From far away though, they look a little muddy and might just read as “texture” to someone in an audience. Just something to keep in mind. This is a well done look and you should be proud of yourself, Luna!
Marina Lumiere
Analyse: Hi, Marina! I'm just going to give my comments on your album kind of following your step-by-step process. Before that though, I just want to give you a shoutout for rolling with the punches after you lost your pictures from your first try at the homework. TBH, so much of being successful at Charm School and TDR (and drag and life, I guess) is being able to adjust and adapt, especially when things don't go as planned, so congrats on that. Now, onto makeup!
I don't know many queens that cover their brows with spirit gum, so you're braver than most. I'd be interested to know if you've experimented with other methods of covering them (like glue stick or Pros-Aide)? Either way, I think you'll be helped a lot by setting your adhesive with a powder! I think the color story you've chosen for the shadows is very nice. Be careful that you're not pulling up brow coverage when you're blending the eyeshadows. When you're going over your brow coverage, it's helpful to think more of dabbing with the brush than necessarily swiping, and that will help to not pull up that coverage and reveal the texture of your natural brows. I really like this graphic undereye, and it's very trendy. I'd just work on making it cleaner and really defining those lines. The brows are cute! You might try going in with a white underneath them to add that highlight there. It'll also really help in defining the shape of the brow.
Your contour sits very low on your face, so you might try placing that a bit higher next time. I'd also suggest you focus on blending the contour up more as well, just to really have that gradient from your contour shade to your foundation shade. You might also want to try contouring your jawline and forehead. Harper Valley talks a little about it in this makeup tutorial about faux queens not typically needing to contour the forehead as much as cismen drag queens do, but I think if you added that, it would help to make the face a more cohesive mug and make it draggier overall. Also on the topic of forehead, I would add some blush along the forehead contour if/when you do that, just to bring some life back to that part of the face as well.
I can't tell if the lips are a little fuzzy because of the picture or because of application, but just make sure that the definition of the lip shape is something you're keeping in mind. A darker liner might be something worth trying out next time. All in all, I see a lot of positive things going on here, and I'm excited to see your growth throughout Charm School!
Letha: Immediately what drew me in were the eyes, specifically the bottom lash line and the eyebrows. I think those were definitely your strongest elements here and really suit your face/style. I also like the colors on the eyes, but they got a bit muddy when mixed in with your brow coverage. To help cancel that out, I would suggest using a very pigmented concealer over top to cancel with a healthy dose of bright white powder (I sometimes even use a bit of my beard cover under all of that to help cancel out the tones). Same blending over covered brow tips apply here, and I would suggest going under your NEW brow and doing a stronger brow bone highlight, then blending down to make more of a gradient and having a better contrast in color. I like the bottom lashes but I think the top also needs a good dose of lash as well, as it would pull the eye together and be more balanced. Your cheek contour could be a bit higher, as it’s a bit low at the moment, but I like the blush color. I like your natural nose shape and I think it could work, especially in the context of this look, but a light dusting of contour on the nose helps to add some more dimension to the face and not appear as “mask-like”. The lips are an okay shape, but your lines could be cleaner, so be sure to take your time, and even try going for more dimension by adding some white to the middle of the lip or darkening the outer edges. All in all, I think you have a cool look here, and one you can really work with, so keep these notes in mind and keep up the good work!
Nikita Nox
Analyse: Hi, Nikita! I'm just gonna go through your album step-by-step and comment as I go. Brow coverage is definitely one of the things it's clear you've worked on. My only comment on that is that you can see the cooler tones of the hair a tiny little bit through the foundation. You might play with color correcting that until you can upgrade to a fuller coverage theatre-grade foundation.
I think it's great that you have ideas in your head of queens you want to emulate. As a baby queen, sometimes that can be a great way to learn certain skills. Just make sure you don't latch on to one idea of "this is what I want this to be," and give yourself the space to explore and work on other skills. For the white on the lids, I think it's great to prime to lids to make the colors pop more, but I don't quite see it in these pictures, so a different product might behoove that process. I love a good clown white. A lot of queens use the Ben Nye clown white, but I've become a disciple of the Kryolan Supracolor clown white since Gluttoni Sinn suggested it to me. It's just creamier and blends easier.
I think brow shape is definitely something you can play with. Adding a highlight underneath the brow can help to clean up the lines and make the brow look a lot sharper. You might also look into other products that will help give you a fuller brow look, because using shadows can cause them to be a bit patchy. A real cheap one is the ELF gel pots, and they have a few shades of brunettey colors. You can also look into pencils if that's more up your alley.
Wings can be so hard to do, let alone get them to match, so that's something that will just get better with time. An easy thing that I think will automatically bump up the polish of your mug is going over the liner with a black shadow. It'll make it look a lot darker and less patchy, which will add to the overall drama of the eye.
With the powder contour/blush/highlight, make sure you blend that out a little more so you don't rock that Neapolitan ice cream look. Good job cleaning up the bottom side of the contour with your cream highlight. That makes it look a lot crisper. The rounded bottom lip reads almost cartoony to me or maybe clown, and I think that's just a bit of a disconnect from the rest of the mug, so I think it's worth playing around with different shapes. I would also love to see some more dimension in the lip with more colors and highlight. For the most part though, this was a great first submission, and I look forward to seeing your growth in this competition!
Letha: Hi Nikita! So immeidately what I noticed while looking through your album is that your brow coverage/foundation game are pretty strong, and that you have a good base to work off of. The contour shapes are quite good, s far as placement goes, and the blending is pretty good too. Could diffuse a bit more, but it’s a great start. The blush/contour aren’t quite melding though, ad they look like very separate creatures. One of the best keys to blending, whether on the eyes or the cheeks, is overlapping. It helps to make a gradient of color and really sell the illusion. With the eyeshadow, the colors are pretty but it all runs a touch muddy on the eye, there could be more of a defined blend/gradient, and more contrast in your color choice could add dimension. I like the liner shape, but try setting the shape with a black shadow or something more pigmented to make the black more uniformed. Love the lashes, they’re a great shape, make sure to do some tight-lining and add mascara to blend your real lashes in more (same on bottom). For the lips, I don’t mind the color, but do find it a bit sloppy. Not necessarily the shape, but the lipstick being a fairly satin finish and it being the only product you used, the only dimension there is from the lipstick catching the light, which isn’t the best idea when overdrawing. I would go in more with a lighter color to highlight and a darker one on the edges for more dimension. This is still a very solid effort though, good job girl!
Ophelia Waters
Analyse: Oh, hello, Miss Waters! I'm just going to follow along your step-by-step and jot down any comments I have along the way. Right off the bat, I can see you are IN DETAIL with your descriptions, which I love, because it helps us help you more!
You already commented on it, but try to get as close a shave as possible. The smoother the surface to work on, the easier the application is going to be. Brow coverage and color correction look good and work for you. It looks like maybe a little later you had some brow popping issues (just a little bit), which happens.
A lot of the problems that I'm seeing, you've already addressed yourself with the same solutions I would give you (like the cakey-ness and maybe not pressing as much with the powders. You want her ~beat~ and *set*, but you don't want to dig the powders in so much that more sticks than is necessary. As for the muddiness, you can always go back in with more of whatever you need and clean it up in your "wet" stages before you set it all, and I think that would've helped here.
For the eyes, you said you're using clown white (I assume good ol' Ben Nye). That's already a cream (albeit pretty thick), so I don't think you need to be mixing that to make it more liquid. I know I've mentioned this in a couple other crits as well, but the Kryolan Supracolor clown white is quite a bit creamier, spreads like butter, and blends SO easily. I swear I'm not sponsored. I just love this product (especially compared with the Ben Nye, but like, the BN clown white has it's own merits, so, do with that what you will).
Next time you paint, I'd like to see you try doing your whole foundation/contour/highlight routine first before moving on to eyes. I think it'll just help to have some whole cohesion in the look. There are some queens who don't do any contouring of the cheekbone and just roll around in blush and call it a day, and if that's the look you're going for, I think there are some things you can do to move it in that direction, but I guess I see the cheek highlight and the blush and so I expect you to be going for a cheekbone contour, but then it's not there. That was basically just a long way of saying "make sure your intentions are clear," which is a huge part of what charm school is about, so I'm excited to see the direction your face takes!
I have similar critiques for brows and lips, and it's that they can be a bit cleaner and more defined. I'm a big fan of connect-the-dots brows, but make sure that when you're doing that, it's a smooth defined line. Next time, you might try going in and cleaning that up with a white cream, and for the lips, I would love to see you work on just making sure those lines are super defined.
Overall, I enjoyed this first submission from you! I look forward to seeing which direction your mug takes as you develop and refine your techniques!
Letha: Hello Ophelia! So what I first notice is the amount of product you’re using overall. It’s a lot. With makeup, even as much as we wear, you only want to use the MINIMUM amount to get the job done. This is most evident with your foundation. I would suggest dotting a little around the face, blending it in/out and adding more when you need it to get even coverage. It will make the setting process a lot easier too, as you will need less powder to set the wet foundation. The contour/highlight get a bit lost, so I would suggest amping them up next time you practice. I do see the blend though, it’s a good start. I see some blush, but it’s a bit low on the cheek. With the eye makeup, it’s very cartoony/dramatic, which I can get behind, but with that graphic style your lines/shapes need to be clean/graphic, so really take your time with a small detail brush to perfect those edges (and use less white, as too much will cause that cracking effect). Lashes and mascara are a must though, so remember them next time. The eyebrows have a good shape, just be sure to keep the shape crisper (small brush, confident brush strokes). The lips ran into some trouble, as well. I know you mentioned your shaving troubles, so work on that for next time, but also if that does happen, then paint with the grain of the hair so the stubble doesn’t mess up your line. The lips also got a bit cakey, so I would suggest taking some of that product off. Overall, you have an idea of what you want to do, but definitely keep the “less can be more” idea in mind for future paints. Keep it up!
Shillelagh
Analyse: Hey, girl! I'm just going to kind of critique along with your step-by-step, so that'll be how my thought (THOT) process is structured. As a real natural woman who use to have big ol' man brows, I understand your struggle. It's really just a trial and error game, figuring out what works for you. There are a million different techniques you can find on YouTube (and some I listed in Luna's crits). Just make sure you're getting them to lay as flat as possible and then getting powder in there to keep it that way. I've found that it's helpful to kind of go over the whole brow with a little bit of powder first and then you can really dig in with more on top of that and press it in so it's flattttt.
Set your foundation. Get that good Coty Airspun powder (there are a ton of other setting powders out there, too, but Coty is pretty readily available. Like, I get mine at Walgreen's). That will help to make the whole face look more matte and less shiny, it'll set the wet product, and will also help blending 1000%. (Also, back to brows for a hot second, if you're not pressing a powder onto the glue, that could be a HUGE contributor to why the brows are coming up). You've blended in your cream highlight pretty evenly. I would try with adding some highlight to the middle of the forehead. Contouring the forehead can definitely help with rounding it out and making it more feminine.
I know you ran into a problem with your brows popping and that kind of messes with the eye makeup, and so that will improve as you get better at covering your natural brows. Something you might want to try out is a white highlight under the brow you've painted on. It helps to define the new brow and restructure the face. I love a good wing, and I think it's cute with this look. Eyeliner is another thing that just gets better with time and practice.
The lips are a cute color! A single matte shade on the lips can be cute and can definitely be a good look, but I'd love to see you work on adding dimension and definition to the lips (especially since you're such a fierce lipsync artist and the lips are such a focal point of your performances). I understand that you run out of lash glue and stuff like that happens. In the future, it'll be helpful to do a check before you start painting to see if there's anything you might need, because nobody wants to make a 3am Walmart run with an unfinished beat. Congrats on your first submission, and I can't wait to see how you apply this feedback for your test!
Letha: Hey girl! SO, overall, you’ve got a good thing going. But it literally all comes down to one problem. SET YOUR FACE. You can’t blend powders, eyeshadows, much of ANYTHING over a wet face, except other creams. Once you set, a lot of things will be easier. Setting brow coverage will make shadows go over them a lot easier, so you shouldn’t have as much disturbed hairs. It makes drawing new brows a LOT easier, since you’re not drawing precise shapes on shifting sands. It makes the cheek contour easier to reinforce with powder (though I do love the cream shape you already did, but that will wipe right off easily). That being said, I really like your liner shape and it works well for you. Get some lashes/glue and thats a good start to an eye! The lip color is really prettyyyyyy, but the shape could be cleaner on the overdraw, and more dimension could be added. So, shopping list- setting powder, highlight powder, contour powder, lash glue, lashes. Add these and you could really be on your way, so keep it up and keep practicing!
#erica strada#kushboo#luna#marina lumiere#nikita nox#ophelia waters#shillelagh#tdr#tumblrs drag race#tdrcs4#charm school#drag#drag queen#baby queen
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1-5 Reaction
Rules:
Q = Me, Quonit.
BF = Bardic Feline, the friend that made me spend 30 dollars on the game and whom I am messaging
I don’t use those when I send the messages close enough my username doesn’t appear.
Any typos (unless they are funny and part of the conversation) will be fixed.
Index
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Q: I'm doing the next one sorry for all of the messages
wow what was even that opening
what girl?
febuary 2017. I remember this month well.
Q: Who's this girl?
hey she looks like an adult! Second girl without her main feature being boobs :D
no mai is dead I took her spot though, she was in the tutorial level.
:D yay am I better
YES INDEED
yes phoenix please I like this girl a lot
i didn't know my name could also come with one m!!!
My name is Emma, I had no idea people could also be named Ema with one m
aww so she isn't an adult
I still like her though
phoenix please she's only like 10 years younger than you
BF: Hahahaha yeah, Ema is the Maya stand in for this case
BF: She returns for the fourth game, which takes place 7 years after the third game
BF: Still not very busty, even in her mid twenties haha
Q: :O Interesting!
I like Ema.
Q: What age of people did they think were gonna play this game? If kids then why does it seem they talk down to them so much?
I'll get back to playing
Q: oh so that beginning scene actually meant something
She's know Mia because she was kinda well known
okay why is she bad
how did she even get in teh office in the first place?
hahahaha no im not trading my badge for 50$
what do you mean ''yet''
Q: I LIKE LANA
HER OUTFIT IS GREAT
Q: it's obviously a coincidence that the two siblings are so alike, but if it motivates you then sure I wanna get to the second game
Q: you're telling it from the witness' perspective Lana. Do you remember what happened? What was your motivation?
Q: hi cowboy detective please don't kick me out
what
I AIN'T SCARED OF NO GUN LET ME EXAMINE
Q: why are we having this stepladder conversation again
Q: this office looks like Edgeworth
Q: maybe you wouldn't be low on money if you did your job
Q: five thousand???
MAN edgy must be rich!
BF: The stepladder debate is one of the running gags of the series haha
Q: interesting!
Q: that and Phoenix (and later Apollo and Athena) presenting his badge every chance he gets, and cross-examining non-human witnesses
Q: yaaaaay I liked cross-examining the parrot.
I still can't believe they let me do that
Q: wait a second the bundle doesn't come with the fourth game just the first 3
oh well it's still a lot
Q: examining the examined. This could be useful.
Q: yeah, no, just the original trilogy
Q: alright, makes sense. Are they still making games for it?
BF: the fourth game came out well after the original trilogy ended, and it only JUST got an updated port to iOS and the 3DS e shop
Q: great an adult woman with a main feature being boobs. I liked the other ones more.
ah, alright.
how good/bad is the anime I'm curious
BF: and yes! in the main series, there are six games total...five and six only came out in digital form for the US, no physical release
don't focus so much on the boobs, it's just drive you crazy
and Angel really isn't THAT busty, she's just got a bust emphasizing outfit
Q: huh, alright. If I feel like it maybe I could get them.
fine. I'm not eating whatever she just handed to me though, she doesn't seem very trustworthy
true I guess, not really as bad.
BF: she very much does that on purpose to put you off your guard, btw
she's not EVIL
but she's smart as hell, and she's not necessarily on your side right now.
Q: oh so it's intentional, alright that's more forgiving than the developers just wanted another boob-joke.
Q: angle please we're looking for evidence please stop freaking out Ema
Q: yaaaay edgy! I knew this was your office!
BF: hahaha yep
his office is as frilly as he is
Q: "this office looks like edgeworth"
why is there a dead body in your car
that car looks too dirty to be yours it isn't even purple
BF: oh and to answer one of your comments from last night when I was asleep...Phoenix/Edgeworth is an overwhelmingly popular ship, to the point where it can become a bit annoying if you ship either of them with anyone else.
or if you like any of the rarer pairings, period hahah
Q: edgy we know you didn't do it I'm on your side and always will be
except when you're not on my side
With how his dialogue was set up in that chapter I am not surprised how much of the fandom ships it.
Q: Phoenix that was a very cruel joke, remember the case two months ago? Very cruel.
Q: gumshoe isn't dead lol must be mia's fualt he randomly appeared in my head, same with maya
Q: ya why do random flashes of random people keep appearing
how do i investigate this
BF: hah...if it's the bit I think it is, that's just Phoenix connecting him to the INCREDIBLY NEAT AND CLEAN OFFICE
BF: which Gumshoe totally takes times out of his day to keep tidy because that's just the kind of stuff he would do for Mr. Edgeworth, pal!
Q: Well I bet the lunchlady and edgeworth and I'm investigating while edge is in his office.
possibly but phoenix actually commented on "why did i just have ___ randomly appear in my head". whatever I'll keep looking
I guess!
BF: gumshoe just a big old loyal puppy who loves Edgey
lol no that's the reason hahah
Q: gumshoe!!
still needs a better name
Q: I need to copy paste my reaction in a place I'll be able to easily get to later because this will probably be very valuable to me later on.
(Edit: Fuck me for making me do this)
Q: edgy tell me what the trophy thing is
no mumbling
edgy you did good why are you being so defensive over the shield
Q: well the fact it's broken could be important so please tell us
Q: oh ya! I can examine the examined now :D
Q: well 5:12 and 5:15 are very close to each other so this is important that they are so precise
who's this cartoony cop!!! he doesn't look like he's drawn in the same style as everyone else in the game!
Q: noooo i want the report
Q: Edgeworth in the Wild: A Documentary
Q: YABADABADOO
Ema why
Q: huh, so apparently phoenix doesn't just teleport? man that must be so annoying when I don't know where I'm going for them
Q: blue badger looks like a pokemon that is why he seems familiar
Q: yaaay i found gumshoe
ema knows too much
poor edgeworth indeed, I hope soon he can get a break
dance till you die
Q: "they make a good pair" so I guess this game isn't against gays, cool.
Q: well i mean the letter probably will get us somewhere if this game is going to progress
Q: oh so is Angel dating Marshal? What a turn of events
yaaaay i can get in now
...I just realized I can use headphones on a DS... Interesting....
Q: the music hahaha. Marshal theme song
Q: don't think too hard on cannibalism and you'll be fine
Q: Marshal is fun
BF: hee hee yeah, I like him.
Q: "well if phoenix showing his badge to everyone is a running joke guess I better help with that by showing it to everyone".
This case is pretty fun so far, not even a single irritating thing yet
BF: LIke Ema and Lana, Jake Marshall is actually deliberately made to be sort of a nod to another pre-existing character haha.
BF: and yeah, Rise from the Ashes is a good case! I remember finding some of the trial segments to be tricky, but overall, it's solid
tQ: "Noe to self: when finding evidence, think of Texas"
who is this pre-existing character?
BF: and it makes good use of the new mechanics that were introduced for the DS
Q: it does!
BF: you won't meet him until the third game haha
but yeah...Ema and Lana are clearly meant to be nods to Maya and Mia
BF: Jake, less obviously, is sort of a nod to Godot
Q: and thankfully this gets Phoenix motivated again
godot... who's that?
I should probably know
BF: Godot plays a MAJOR part in the third game, you'll know him the second you see him.
He...stands out.
to put it mildly.
Q: can't wait to meet him
when will the Y guy (shack guy DL-6) appear again he's already pretty interesting
that's probably spoilers
BF: Yanni Yogi? He only appears in that case, sadly.
though there's a background reference to him in one of the spinoff games.
BF: He's one of Zarla's faves
Q: I assumed... he seems pretty interesting, sad he had to leave so soon. As you saw I was REALLY shocked when a character zarla drew appeared that I didn't even know would be in the game... sad to see him leave so soon.
Q: forgot to talk with Marshall, maybe I can progress through this
oh yay the autopsy report
Q: tell me about yourself marshall, how long has your cowboy career been going on?
why would you kick out gumshoe!!!
D: I don't know if I should break the news to him or not
Q: well that isn't even an option so
the detention center doesn't even update ever
Q: uuuhhhhgggg I hate being stuck like this where can I goooo
Q: still stuck >:( It's been almost an hour
quonit
just let me gooooo
03/24/2018 (Two days later)
Q: FINALLY I DID SOMETHING there was a note in the trunk but it seemed to have done nothing... don't even know if the two people I can talk to would react to it.
as i suspected it did nothing >:(
I think the phone is the key but the only thing it will let me examine is the trap!!!
03/24/2018
Q: I asked my brother to help and he FINALLY HELPED
He found another scroll bar on the examination thing that I never noticed and found it :D
Q: no cowboy pls i really worked hard to get this far
Q: phoenix has a phone? how come we can never use it?
...what do i do with the phone?
how did my brother turn it
= and -... where are those buttons?
Q: going to my brother
Q: why not press the button again???
Q: where do i gooo
Q: i give up I need to draw
BF: hahaaha
BF: aaaah sorry I've been busy unpacking boxes
I wouldn't have even thought to tell you about those double screen investigation rooms!
there are like...at least two of those in this case.
the car park area and the evidence room
Oh, and because this took me FOREVER to figure out when I played it the first time: when you dust for finger prints, you blow the powder away by blowing into the mic on the DS
Q: I don't expect anybody to be on while I send messages. Do not worry, I do not expect responses immediately. Also packing boxes??? did you move :O
double screen investigation rooms? tell me more. If you mean ones where you have to move the screen I did do that a lot... and yet I still can't find much. I finally got the phone in my inventory and tried to check the last call but it still won't do anything
THANK YOU FOR TELLING ME THAT IN ADVANCE I GARENTEE I WOULD'VE GOTTEN STUCK
Q: Where I am si that I think I have all of the items in my inventory. A full page and then the phone on the next... am I missing something? I heard that Ema is supposed to tell me that I have everything I need
BF: aaah if you are in the car park, one place you need to check is the muffler of the car
Q: muffler? I got the paper that was in the back, I'll examine the car more I guess
BF: and yeah, the game usually gives you some hint when you've found all the things
BF: I forget if you can get it now or not, but there's some cloth shoved into the tailpipe of the car
Q: dont' think i can thanks though
I'll tell you what I have in my inventory and you tell me what I'm missing for the first part
Q:badge, id card, knife, shield trophy thing, parking stub, blue badge pannel, goddman's autopsy report, note from the back of the car, and cell phone
BF: hmmm....and you've shown absolutely everything to everyone and poked at everything on every available screen?
Q: yeeeesssss
:(
I'll try again
BF: (oh and to answer your earlier question, yes, I did move into my house today)
Q: yaaaaay
shouldn't there be a wiki or something for this that says what to do
BF: if you are absolutely stuck, I'd look up the Games FAQ walktrough
Q: :(
why does this game make me so stuck all of the time
BF: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ds/925589-phoenix-wright-ace-attorney/faqs/44304 here, this one is spoiler free, you just gotta get down to the right case
Q: :D thank youuuu
Q: :O HEY IT WORKED
HOW DID I NOT NOTICED THIS
Q: Lana why are you not on edgy's side
Q: of course you don't know everything going on here phoenix, if you did we would win but right now we don't win
this game but we know everything beforehand
Don't believe your client, just believe in them. got it.
Q: oh ya angle exists i forgot about her
BF: haha FIGURING OUT WHY LANA IS DOING WHAT SHE'S DOING IS A BIG PART OF THIS CASE
Q: BACK
I had to trim the grass in the front yard. We got an actual letter saying that we needed to so that was odd. It's done now though
angel will never stop talking, and Edge doesn't seem as annoyed as some of the others. huh.
oh my god judge can't you be a little more professional ARE YOU EVEN ALLOWED TO EAT RIGHT NOW
Q: you decline every offer phoenix until an impossible one pops up. Phoenix why
Q: If you hate prosecutors so much then maybe you could help me
please I'm begging
Q: wait you have more then one boyfriend
did i hear that wrong
ugh so she does
"care to join"
If that is what I have to do to get information out of you!
BF: hahaha
yes, Angel and her many boyfriends
Q: Ema's notes are funny
BF: this boyfriend, that boyfriend, the other boyfriend
you know, as you do
Q: "the yet another boyfriend is still open"
I'd like to know who is who
Q: wait isn't B block for defense attorneys not visitors?
Q: how she names them reminds me of the chicken 'mine'
"That's mine, that one's also mine, that's another one of mine, that one is yours, and that one is not yours."
we actually considered naming our chickens that haha
Q: Ema is learning my table-slamming technique.
Q: "my boyfriend worked in the photography division" WHICH boyfriend?
Q: "Prosecutors are, by nature, well-versed in the location of a man's vital organs" I already had to prove with twice Edgy did NOT murder anybody!
yes phoenix kill the egg
Q: okay so i learnt as much as I could while pressing, and there seems nothing wrong... I need to find the objection item
Q: THE LEFT-RIGHT HAND TRICK
ALWAYS WORKS
Q: EDGEWORTH
HOW COULD YOU SILENTLY SAY OBJECTION
YOU HAVE BERTAYED ME
ALWAYS OBJECT
Q: of course it was planned! We already established whoever the killer is planned to do it in edgeworth's car
Q: "mommy, are prosecutors bad people?" hahaha oh my god
yes lets tell the audience how to commit murder
edgy that pun was terrible and you know it
Q: Ema what is that note
you can't smell his breath from over here
what
I do have an objection!
Q: I'd like to know how she got into the food business
Ema you're on MY side
Q: remember?
Q: it's so rare when the thing I immediately think of and object with actually works and the characters see what i see
Edgy you look like you're on my side
Q: Ema do you hate me
Q: The person that seems most on my side in this case is f***ing edgeworth and he is actually the one pitted against me so you're all failures.
Q: >:(
I got so stuck at this part and had to retry a few times and I finally gave up and went to the tutorial and that isn't helping
FLOOR PLANS
WHY DON'T YOU WORK
Q: :(
Q: Why can't I just gooooo none of the evidence I have works at all
Q: I PROGRESSED AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I PRESSED
UHHHH
Q: OHMYGOD THE FLOOR PLANS FINALLY WORKED
WHAT CHANGED
Q: she'd lie because as I said she has a grudge
Q: five minuets???
wow that's a long time
Q: if you have evidence please tell me
how was this judge hired
WHY THE SHOE
WHY DO YOU HAVE HIS SHOE
what is this blood type
it could also be common
Q: why does edgy continue to seem like he is on my side lol
Q: that brings in the question: how many lunches do you actually have in there
Q: if it does how come she was blee- oh ya the hand injury
Q: ohhh to wash away the bloood okaaaay
now to defeat you edgy
Q: Okay so more then one photo, I NEED MORE PHOTOS.
Q: Mia thank youuuuu
oooo the fun music started playing, im onto something
Q: "Yeah! (I'll think later" is the best line in the game
IT SUMS UP THE THOUGHT PROCESS WHEN I PLAY THE GAME
Q: Salmon swimming upstream in a river of quicksand
ya sounds like Phoenix
Q: the muffler in the muffler
Bad feeling about following advice given to you by Marshell??? What a silly thought!
Is something wrong edgy?
why are you so upset?
what is bothing you Eedgy pls tell me
OH MY GOD ANOTHER SUPRISE CHARACTER
HOW
HOW IS HE IN ACE ATTOURNY
WHAT
??????????????????????????????????????????????????
is he just gonna stand there or...?
Q: Udgey... that's a new one
afriad indeed, terrified I might say.
Wrighto... also new
Q: when i send my live reaction to the game should i have more context to what is going on
Q: rereading it i think i should
Q: I've been taking more pictures of art I wanna send you but it still isn't doing anything
Q: Alright so i opened the Ace Attorney save file and I have no idea where i am. I'm pretty sure this is right after the first trial
tiny village... where am i and why
i think this isn't my file??
BF: I was about to say...
Q: ruinion and turnabout?
what?
something is wrong
BF: if you are in a tiny village, the only one I know of is Kurain. and you don't go there the first time until 2-2
yeah, you are in game 2 there
that's Maya's village.
Q: we fixed it!
My brother wanted to play and he mistook the game two save files as extra save files and he just decided "fuck it im not waiting for her to finish" and just started playing through
interesting :o
OH YA WE'RE TALKING WIT THIS GUY :D
swimming? why that specifically?
little worthy? is that a name?
DISTRICT OF THE POLICE
UH
NO I DON'T KNOW THIS GUY
aww so if he's number one he probably won't be on my side :(
damon gant, I like this guy
OH YA I forgot about edgeworth! Worthy haha didn't think of that nickname yet. I'll add it to the list. He must be very scared of this man
BF: hahah yesss Gant is great.
Q: so a muffler is a scarf? is that just another name for a scarf or is it a type of scarf?
he just keeps standing there and blinking
edgy back on this feet, finally stopped just sitting there silently in what I'm assuming is anger and fear
BF: it's a type of scarf. I can't tell you what exactly makes a muffler a muffler though. they just wanted to use the pun, though, I think
aaah the Gant stare.
Q: they seem to love naming puns, not just the people's names now.
"That's not fair!" There are a lot of things that aren't fair in this world, edgy.
Q: A WRITTEN APOLOGY
That kid from earlier in the audience: mommy is this how trials usually go?
Mom: no. I am not even sure what is going on.
BF: hahah trust me, the pun names get more intense with each game.
Q: I feel bad for edgy haha
I can't wait
oh my god SOMEBODY JUST OPEN THE KNIFE
Q: THEY ADDED A CLAPPING SOUND FOR HIM
I DID NOT EXPECT THIS
Q: ...the note may have something to do with this
but along with everything else i think of in this game it's probably wrong
nah okay
Q: time to look through my items another 20 minuets and hope the character see what I see
Q: when in doubt press on everything
Q: good job ema! I'll examine the knife!
Q: SL-2... something similar that wasn't a tag. again was it the note
OH MY GOD IT WAS THE NOTE
Me and gant both love 'objection'. I'm still mad at Edgy for that. I will hold it against him forever.
BF: hahaha NEVER FORGIVE YOU EDGEWORTH
BF: you and your habit of updating the autopsy report
Q: "Do you have evidence?"
"yes! (I'll think later)"
is still the best line in the entire game
a habit of mine? is that not something everybody does?
I feel so honored being told "I win, Wrighto!"
BF: heh
Q: :D He'll tell me about the knife now!!!
Q: I only get to hear bout one thing.... better choose wisely.
Where the victem was found could help, seems like it could work
How the victim was killed could be a little more risky but all of these are pretty good
When the victim died... it could also be 5:15, and I could find a way to show it was planned... but I'm not sure
there probably wont be any consequences though
I'll roll my di
Q: it's 1 so i guess we're going with that
Q: didn't we GO to the evidence room?
Q:
Gant: :long stare:
Gant: You two make a great pair!
I swear this is intentional. It's not even just that chapter.
Q:
Gant: hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Gant: :long stare:
Gant: Sure why not!
well alright then! I'm learning about it unofficially :D This is already very casual so why not
Q: why is the victims gender there
that is unimportant WE WANT TO KNOW ABOUT HE MURDER
Q: Gumshoe won't die Phoenix he was in the credits!
Q: alright now not only is edgeworth being called worthy he's being called little worthy
do these two know eachother???
Q: that id is the same as the one we have here >:O
Q: :D the fun music is playing
Q: EDGY REMEMBER WHEN HE SAID HE COULDN'T TELL YOU WERE THE CORPS WAS FOUND
IT'S ALL ON YOU EDGY
IT'S ALL ON YOU.
Q:EDGY WHY DID YOU JUST SHOO OFF MEEKENS
IT'S STILL ALL ON YOU
BUT MUCH MORE DIRECTLY YOU THIS TIME
Q: oh my god NOW WE'RE DOING NICKNAME PUNS
Q: hehehe FINALLY Edgy looks like the fool instead of me :D
Q: What i think happened is that they were killed, and their body was dragged through the back of their care, and brought here
oh boy angel's back
Q: Oh my god ANOTHER CASE
WE ALREADY DID DL-6
UGH THIS MUST AT LEAST HAVE AN INTERESTING STORY
Q: What I think happened: somebody killed the detective, put the body in the back of edgy's car, Edgy drove back to where he should, left, later the girl opened the back. something about her stabbing him.
Q: no that doesn't fit
screw this case
Q: oh no I'm defending Meekens now too???
Meekens just looks a lot more cartoony then everything else
Q: why did they let him bring a megaphone
Q: oh so goodman's the villain.
BF: uhhhh...nooot exactly, no
Q: i learnt that quickly
I found gant again!
he has his own theme song. Sounds like a king.
Q: Honestly I still feel bad for Edgeworth, hope he gets out of this.
Q: uhhhggggg I just got stuck i really wanna figure this out fast instead of wandering around forever. Not sure if it's just with me or if this game just needs better... instructions maybe?
Q: In court when your stuck press everything. In over world when stuck talk to everyone again, present every piece of evidence again, and examine everything again. Then still find yourself stuck.
BF: this case is one of the worst for that sort of thing, I'll admit. I've played it multiple times and there are still places where I forget how to proceed
Q: I don't like using the tutorial at all but I've had to use it twice to proceed, at least I have that. When this game came out people would just be stuck and never get to f***ing leave, and when they did they would be like "THAT WAS IT THE WHOLE TIME I MUST BE DUMB". Are the later games better at this?
Gant: If somebody just walked up to me and asked for 50$, i'd give them 50$!
in that case can i have 50$
Q: You know I want to get to the evidence room but why not let's just sit here and talk with Marshell for another 6 hours
Q: I can finally go the the evidence room yaaaay
Q: See, Gumshoe's got the right idea on those 50$
BF: it varies by case, I'm not going to lie!
Game 2 has some added trickiness because it introduces a new mechanic during investigation mode.
said method is a touch more refined in the third game.
Q: in your opinion what is the best game (random question)
general stuff happens, i didn't comment on it
Q: I'm sorry, the game wants me to go to the secret room, do all these things, get no sign that I found then all, and then go to edgeworth's office???
HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO FIGURE THAT OUT
Q: fine a little bit of a clue but this case really wants players to get stuck
Q: OH MY GOD WHY IS THE BELLBOY HERE DOESN'T HE WORK SOMEWHERE ELSE
Q: hahahaha I can see how you got stuck when the game told you the blow, It did NOT specify in the mic.
Q: non bloody prints???
I can't choose any of the fingers and all 5 are bloody!
what do you want me to do im stuck on this sceen
Q: my brother helped :D
BF: heh
BF: Um...my favorite...well, tough to say. Obviously, I'm particularly stuck on game 2, though on retrospect game 4 is pretty fascinating (both for what it is and what it could have been)
BF: Generally speaking, most people agree that game 3 is the best of the original trilogy, though (game 2 isn't hated, but it has this ONE CASE that is near universally hated)
BF: Of the spinoffs, I'm personally partial to the second Ace Investigations, though that one you can only play in English via a fanpatch
I'm still playing game 6, so I don't know how I'd rank that one just yet
and there are two spin off titles that I have no way of playing in English at all right now, which is frustrating. No idea where I'd rank either of them. but the animation for those is PRETTY.
BF: Oh, but if you get a chance, one game I strongly recommend that was created by the original creator of Ace Attorney that isn't an Ace Attorney game (though it is allegedly set in the same universe) is a game called Ghost Trick.
Q: Interesting! I'll be sure to check out ghost trick. I wonder if I'll be able to tell what the hated case in 2 is when I get to it...
BF: hahah I'm willing to bet you'll figure it out. I personally liked the case, but it has some issues for sure
Q: alright. I was gonna start playing again if you still want me to send you the endless messages that give you no context to where i am or what im reacting to
BF: AMONG said issues is that it does what no other case had ever done before it, and it has a couple of cross examinations where you can get frigging penalized for a bad PRESS
Q: oh no D:
BF: It warns you when you get to it, but it's still really annoying
taking away my ability to badger the witness without repercussion!
but yeah no, feel free to ramble, I'm just here working and rewatching episodes of the Maxx
Q: >:(
I saw a post and thought of the judge from this game. "The judge could sentence you guilty for murder wearing hello kitty pajamas under their robe and you would never know”
yaaaay
Q: About to go to the court thing. FINALLY lana is back it's been a while >:(
Q: oh yay lana gets to be a witness
nvm im a moron the cartoon guy i forgot his name gets to be
MEEKENS YOU'RE NOT THE KILLER
THAT IS NOT AN OCCUPATION RIGHT
Q: there seems to be a lot of talking down to kids in this game :(
Q: why do people let him bring his megaphone
same answer with the kid and his sword
Q: i mean i like the blue badger
Q: bet the tape won't help much
HEY ITS ANIMATED
well hey it was a little helpful
Q:
Edge: :slams hand on desk: What the hell was that wriggling piece of plywood!?
my new second favorite line
Q: the problems was he was wearing gloves
probably not that's what first comes to mind though
Q: or the light was already on
Q: gloves were rubber? how did i not notice that
Q: why would he need the gloves in there if he was goodman
Q: he could've stolen the card
who is the 777... card at the top
Q: WHY IS THE KID STILL IN THE AUDIENCE
WHY TO PARENTS TAKE THEIR KIDS TO MURDER TRIALS
I'D LIKE TO SPEAK WITH THIS CHILD AND EXPLAIN TO THEM THAT MAYBE YOU SHOULD'VE ACTUALLY WENT TO THE TRIAL WHERE I DEFENDED EDGEWORTH IF YOU STILL THINK HE'S SO BAD
Q: :D I think edge just complimented me, it's probably going to turn into an insult though so ill just enjoy it while i can
Q: fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck youuuuuuuuu
Q: the fake killed goodman not lana
no that wouldn't work
dammit screw you
Q: HEY GUMMY HOW ARE YOU
NO GUMMY STAY
HEYHEYHEYHEY
HEY WHAT
awww lana's finally being useful
Q: Ema don't run it's just a serial killer
Gummy why >:(
saaave pooiiinnt
oh my god Marshell i forgot his personality
Q: please provide me with a reasonable explanation why there were bloody handprints of yours in the evidence room (and no ID saying you signed in but i think i just missed something on that)
Q: somebody actually messes up in grammer in court and one of them yells objection but its about the grammer and they keep fighting about i
Q: edgy don't worry just let me get to my menu my lack of experience means nothing
wait is he giving me advice?
is he being nice???
Q: noooo just let him beeee
or not
his reasoning was okay though
Q: At first i was sad to find out it was his brother now im just thinking COWBOY PROSECUTOR THAT WOULD BE FUN
Q: what do you think happened to your brother jake
Q: MY DEFENDANT DID NOT KILL HIM AND YOU KNOW IT
YOU JUST DON'T ACKNOWLEDGE IT FOR MONEY
you know i could put that anywhere in almost any case and it could still work (with a pronoun swap but aside from that)
Q: ARRRRRGGHHHHHH
Q: OH MY GOD I FORGOT ABOUT YOU
YOU DO GET THIS IS PROBABLY ILLEGAL RIGHT
Q: edgy is being very nice to her yay
I MEAN EMA YOUR NOT USELESS YOU STOPPED HIM FROM GIVING THE VERDICT TWICE
THAT WAS SOMETHING NOT EVEN MIA COULD DO
HE GAVE THE VERDICT AND I BEAT HIM ANYWAYS THOUGH SO :/
Edgy is used to me making claims with the idea "I'll think about it later" in mind of course hes going to scoff at everything i say
I PROBABLY WOULD
YA THREE WHILE PAGES OF EVIDENCE
THAT'S A LOT
Q: hey hey jake's back i was wondering where he went
Q: "Just one moment! I will not let such far-fetched balderdash in my court room"
HAHA VERY FUNNY JUDGE. AS IF THIS IS THE MOST FAR FETCHED THING YOU'VE SEEN HERE.
YAAAY PHOENIX GOOD JOB
Q: why is everybody immediately blaming edgy again I already defended him from two murders WHEN A VERDICT WAS ALREADY GIVEN
Q: stop being so mean to edgy
Q: hi lana please help me
ocassionally what
what
i didn't understand what they said i need to know
awww how dare you now your going to get all three of us in trouble
Q: that kid in the audience actually as an adult took the weirdest trials hes been to and put his own characters in it and made it into a game
oh my god the noise of the crowed is so terrifying because it's on repeat i need to turn the sound off
Q: saaave
Q: good think ema isn't dead
Q: Ema it’s not yours its your sisters putting blame on yourself just leads to depression okay
Q: to lana. MAYBE SHE'LL FINALLY BE USEFUL
YAAAAY
Q: Deal with the devil as a minor so that when your older he doesn't have a legal claim to your soul.
that's unrelated and unhelpful but
Q: now to show you every single piece of f***ing evidence
Q: or not
HI MARSHELL
Q: do do do
do do ddoo
dodo doo dodo do doooo
ddo do dooo dooo
doDOdodoooo
(Edit: do do doooo
do doooo
do doooo
(now go reread it from the top with those last two as the start) )
Q: no marshel come baaaaaack
noooooo
Q: I just wanna get to 2-4
quonit
:D
Things are going well!
HE STARTED LUAGHING IM SCARED
LHIS LAUGHING IS TERRIFYING
Q: :D Thank you Jake!
Q: Well gant does make a good point
Also about you paying my rent Edgy
Q: I wonder if there are anymore choices or it it's just dialogue.
did I win??
Lana smiled at me :D
"stop it mah you're embaressing meeee" is how this dialogue feels like
Q: yaaaaay I win
Q: awww ema I she'll say she's proud of you too
Gummy you keep doing this
bring him back
Lana :D
Q: Maya will be very proud of me when she comes back
awww hugs!!!
wait edgy was hiding
why is he angry
aww ty
Is Lana making you scared
I'm pretty sure she was your boss at some point or something I forgot at this point
Q: oh nooo Gant make Edgy scared of who he might be in 10 years. Somebody teach him not to do that.
Q: Aww thanks Lana
the difference between you gant and vampire is that you have friends
doesn't that makes you feel better
Q: bye edgyyyy
Edgeworth you keep saying that and it's wrong every time >:( please stop breaking promises
what a storybook ending
OH HI GUMMY
couldn't you make edgy do it instead i don't have money
BF: Did you notice you could do fingerprint powder on the bottom screen during the credits?
Q: ya! Can i blow it too?
BF: Make bonus images appear haha
Yep!
Q: :D
After this i need to sleep this is fun though!
time for game two :D
Q: will blue badger get to stay though is my question
Q: Hey so Angel will be on my side, it will just be in the next game!
Q: I really do think the judge it wearing hello kitty pajamas under that robe
Q: credits done! That was very satisfying :D
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Review at Random: Lego Batman 3
Yeah, really putting that ‘at Random’ to work today, huh? The lego games are something of a guilty pleasure for me, I know I’m not the target audience but they’re fun, clever, sometimes funny, and the breadth of characters and moments of... almost lucid absurdity are great.
So, let’s talk about the most recent (if still kind of old) Lego DC game!
Presentation
One nice thing about the lego games is that there generally isn’t a lot of advanced geometry, so my computer can handle them well. Not a lot to say, really, the interactive objects are pretty consistently separate from the non-interactive ones, the characters all look good, and the voice acting is all pretty fine.
Now, there’s moments of shakiness in all those, and the occasionally inconsistent bug that can be annoying, but at the same time there’s a fair amount of extra flourishes that can be great. Characters have differing body language, elements are only rarely re-used between them even with the giant host of extra characters, and someone clearly went and had a lot of fun with the joker’s extra outfits. However, that mass of characters means that basically everyone you don’t get in the main story has very similar animations and (mostly) generic voice grunts with few if any lines.
The environments all look fine, every area custom-made and hand-designed, even the big(ish) open world planets have some variance to their layout (Barring Oa, which is just racetracks). The interactive elements often integrate with the static ones well, and the end result is that every area is a joy to explore the first time and interesting even afterward.
Other than that, the UI is fine and the sound design is nothing to write home about. Now, the occasional reference-tastic line of dialogue is great, but there’s a few other things that seem great for a moment but get old fast. The first thing that jumps to mind is the Wonder Woman theme playing when she starts flying, which is hilarious the first three times you do it and then agitating from there. Superman has something similar, but the mellow brass of the beginning of the Superman theme is much less agitating than the whistles and choir of the Wonder Woman one.
I didn’t even know Wonder Woman had a TV show in the 70s.
Other than that, the scan effect covers the entire screen for several seconds whenever it’s used, something that annoys me to no end. It was faster in the the LEGO Marvel game, I’m just pretty sure! Of course then LEGO Avengers (A different game) added a stupid minigame to it, so...
Final Presentation Score: A-
While more certainly could be done, it’s a solid art style with solid art direction and fairly good production quality. Nothing amazing, but I don’t require games to BE amazing. The main thing keeping it back is the occasional honestly annoying decision or bug, but nothing so big that I want to knock it down a letter grade.
Gameplay
Analyzing the gameplay of a LEGO game is a little tricky because you need to keep in mind the thoughts behind the game: this is not a game for you, this is a game for kids. It’s not a ‘puzzle game’ like you likely think of, it’s a game where the ‘puzzles’ are a mix of figuring which character needs to push which button where and then doing that and watching strange things unfold as doing that doesn’t always have the result you expected.
So, there’s little point in gauging the combat, it’s there to give kids something fun to knock around. The puzzles are overwhelmingly effortless, completion is a matter of perseverance over cleverness, and challenges are made to be novel over being thought-provoking.
That’s all well and good; this is a game for elementary school or middle school kids. Sure, others can still have some ‘shut your brain off’ fun with it but if you want to push yourself in any way and you’re conscious of some kind of job or educational degree you should be striving for, this game is unlikely to satisfy you. Maybe the races, but they’re less hard because of tight design and more because of varying amounts of nonsense.
Using the abilities is pretty reliable, the targets are reliably identifiable and nothing important is hidden away where it can’t be found. Sometimes placement can be a little hit and miss but all said and done it does what it sets out to do.
Other than that, if you’ve played a LEGO superhero game, you know how this goes: Break, Fight, Build, use, swap to the other character, go in in freeplay and do it again. Sure, one mechanic may be missing and another may be present in its place, but nothing extreme. If you haven’t played a LEGO superhero game, it’s like other LEGO games but with superheroes. If you haven’t played LEGO games... just look up about any gameplay footage from a modern LEGO game on youtube. It’s like that but with more green lantern. With the flying and the hard light constructs and the lasers. Yeah.
The main really unique thing this game has going for it is the suit system, and even that isn’t really new: In previous LEGO Batman games Batman and Robin had a number of suits they could swap between to accomplish required tasks, giving those two the kind of absurd flexibility they should have when it comes to solving puzzles. It works, and in this game they’ve stopped hogging it: Cyborg, Lex Luthor, and Joker get in on the fun, too.
The issue with these characters is that in Free Play they’re an extra button press or two to get to a specific ability. As a result you avoid them in free play, unless you’re messing around some or are honestly drawing a blank on who has that one power you need right now. The suit goons are reliably near the top of the character select screen and one of them likely has it.
And let me tell you, when you’re not in the mood to mess around most of those characters will get ignored. In the end you’re going to tend toward characters toward the top of the screen, where the storyline characters are, and the bottom of the screen where the DLC characters are if you have them. There’s a few reasons for this; the characters aren’t organized in any fashion I can think of and so knowing that a character can do something doesn’t mean a thing if you can’t find them on the giant grid. Ever since the beginning the LEGO games could have benefited from some kind of sort, search, or favorite function, and as the cast size increases this lack will be felt more and more (Lego Marvel 2 is supposed to have over 300 characters!).
Something that the people at Tt have caught onto a little but only after this game is letting the player know who has what abilities. As is, you’re going to have to experiment, and with a lot of abilities being situation-sensitive it’s not easy to do testing. This further encourages a player to find a small team of reliable characters and stick with them.
My personal favorite characters in terms of mechanics are (alas) both DLC characters. Bizarro has fire breath (the most powerful combat ability in the game) and can do almost anything superman can do. Joker (Nurse) has a rocket launcher, maybe the best explosive weapon in the game.
On the other hand, if you want to discover more about the DC universe, choose a character you don’t recognize from this game and look them up. Polka Dot Man, Azreal, Bat-Mite, Ambush Bug, Cyborg Superman, Heat Wave, Manchester Black, Vibe, take your pick. There’s some weird stuff here.
At the same time, if you are too familiar with the DC continuity you may occasionally stumble across something that should work but doesn’t for no reason. Like Wonder Woman and strength handles. Also, Braniac has an entirely new skillset. This just makes experimentation that much more needed... and in turn, it that much more aggravating that there’s no way to do it easily.
However, there’s a few LEGO game rules this game breaks; There’s a few characters that have an ability unique to them: Braniac, The Atom, and Plastic man. Personally I consider that more than a little low, forcing the player to unlock specific characters to go about certain things. In LEGO Avengers there’s something that basically only Ultron can do, but there’s three kinds of Ultron one of which is pretty cheap. Plastic Man they at least give you for free, but HIS gimmick is that he’s the only way to get power bricks. And THAT is even lower.
Oh, one more thing: I wish I could turn off the hints.
Final Gameplay Score: B
For a LEGO game, this is fine. For a LEGO game. Sure, there’s trip-ups enough that I won’t go easy on it, but still it’s a good time if you’re into this kind of game.
Personally, the single character in this game I want to see more of? The Fierce Flame. I’m a little tired of Speed Force speedsters, let’s get someone who’s fast but not absurdly so and without a risk of making a temporal paradox by breaking wind.
Writing
Once again, this story is not aimed at you. It’s aimed at kids. It’s basically middle school-targeted writing.
Not that the basic idea is bad, in the setting of the last two Lego Batman games (which are not really needed to understand the plot here) Brainiac appears above earth and (after some opening intrigue involving mind control and a mob of villains) reveals his intent to shrink the Earth for his collection using the different colors of the emotional spectrum to super-charge his shrink machine. From there the different lantern cores need to be brought together and coerced into fixing the earth... much easier said than done.
I make it sound more complex there than it actually comes across: the plot is fine (other than the occasional minor plot hole) and works well enough. The place were the writing suffers is the character writing: A lot of characters have one angle and lean on it. Sure, we weren’t going to get well-rounded characters from this in any case, but they could honestly have done better than what they did. Martian Manhunter referring to everyone by their title is lame. Cyborg was given the generic teen attitude. Not like he was in the Teen Titans cartoon (though he does say ‘booyah’ as a random quip) but instead as a fairly generic tech-savy teen. Other characters either have too few lines to get a grasp on them or are just straightforward in presentation.
And don’t even get me started on the emotional spectrum personality shifts. That just makes everyone involved annoying. Sakes alive...
But, all the same there’s a few times when some comedy honestly shines through, like Wonder Woman putting Cheetah in the magic lasso... and Cheetah telling her that she doubts Superman likes Wonderwoman back. Those moments are pretty good, but they’re not as reliable in coming as I would like.
Other than that... I dunno, the quest writing isn’t bad, forming little plots and getting characters to interact on occasion. Don’t expect anything to be as complex or as characterized as you’re used to, but there is not-bad writing here.
Final Writing Score: C
...but “not bad” is all I can say. More could certainly have been done, the few plot holes are jarring when you notice them, the character writing is okay at most and agitating at worst. I kind of like it, but that’s pretty clearly because I default to positive emotions. Someone more critical than I am is more likely to have it hurt their enjoyment.
Overall
Well, it’s a LEGO game. It works fine, even if the writing is lackluster, and I enjoy it despite really not being the target audience. I just enjoy OTHER LEGO games more. That said, if you’re not the sort to enjoy things aimed at middle schoolers, likely just don’t bother. You wouldn’t be missing out on any writing or gameplay of note.
On the other hand, it’s not solidly bad.
Presentation: A-
Gameplay: B
Writing: C
FINAL GRADE: B
If you like the LEGO games, you could do worse!
Awards:
Batman Flash Can Breathe In Space
Bizarro #1
Super LEGO Experience
#reviews at random#lego batman#lego batman 3#stuff i made#I'm 90% sure I could find someone else who could do shrinking#and in previous games clayface did the shapeshifting#so there's really no excuse for the exclusivity.
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