Lina Inverse

bombdibandit @ 2006-08-13T04:04:00

2006-08-13T11:04:15Z

SO ONCE UPON A TIME I had like. All seventy million songs from the various Slayers soundtracks. But at the time I was thirteen or fourteen and over the years I've gradually weeded that list down to all but my absolute favorites.

Now that I'm playing Lina I imagine I'll go on a nostalgia trip and dig it all up again at some point. But for now? Here are the songs which have with stood the trials of the ages.

FYI unless otherwise noted? It's PROBABLY SONG BY HAYASHIBARA MEGUMI who happens to be. You know. Lina's seiyuu.

Get Along - Opening for the first series of Slayers. Looooooove this song. While Give A Reason is largely regarded as The Best Slayers OP (and yes, okay, it IS) I honestly find Get Along no less enjoyable. It's just fun and has a nice feeling to it. It helps that it brings back many good memories though. Mm |D

Give A Reason - Yah okay. To me this song is just... everything that is Slayers. It is always the first song that comes to mind (and the last to leave it) for Slayers related music. I don't know. It's got fun and excitement and determination and a certain kind of raw power to it, and it's really probably still my favorite anime OP ever.

Give A Reason (Remix) - The previous song! Only REMIXED! I like this more than the original, honestly. It.... sparkles. Keeps the beat better. I dunno. I just do.

Breeze - MEET THE BACKGROUND SINGER LADIES. You will find them in many songs to come! They used to annoy me now I look on them with some fondness. Fortunately, they only like to show up at the beginnings of songs.

ANYWAY Breeze is the OP to Slayers TRY the third season of Slayers. And like the previous two OPs? It's very good. This one is more wistful than Give a Reason, which I think kinda fits with TRY pretty well. It still makes my heart ache a little (TRY was a very uh. bittersweet season) but it's really a beautiful song. I love ALL the songs I'm pimping here, so it's hard for me to say "If you only download three..." but really? You are a sham to the anime fandom if you aren't at least familiar with the three Slayers OPs. They're so widely spread I tend to assume people just know what they are, but I realize Slayers isn't in hit's hay-day anymore SO. You have no excuses! Chop chop and download.

Ganbare Necromancer - I have NO IDEA what that title is meant to imply but this song is horribly cute. Normally Megumi sings in the "Lina voice" which is much sharper and more happy. This is a lot more relaxed.

Gloria ~Kimi ni Todoketai~ - You know it's hard to think of stuff to say about music when I can't talk about the lyrics? Not that I ever actually LIKE japanese lyrics but that's not the point. So. Good song. I like it. Etc.

Going History - Now I'm not going to claim that Megumi is the most original artist ever. Cause. Well c'mon, she's a japanese idol, she sings what she's told to sing. BUT her songs have this tendancy to start out very rhymtic and pump up toward the middle, which is the main thing I like this. It really punches at the chorus and makes it fun. That and the "we can we can" or whatever she's singing there that just stands out.

In The Limitless Desire - So there are four songs I'm going to pimp here which are just... different. I mean. I LIKE nearly all Slayers music. But these four I love as songs, not as enjoyable bringers of happy memories. Cause while Slayers music is, I think, better than MOST anime music. It's not what I consider very... uh. Real music. But these four? Totally are. Give A Reason is one of them, this is the next. It's a little strange, a little mysterious, a little passionate. I've always loved it. I THINK this is an ending... to either a OVA or TRY? Can't remember... Probably a OVA, since those always get really good quality EDs.

Midnight Blue - This is the ending to the Slayers Motion Picture aka Slayers Perfect (which is the same as any other Slayers OVA just with better animation). I've always loved this song. Just download it D=

Reflection (Last Summer Remix) - I don't have a non-remix version of this, which means I liked this version a lot more than the original and got rid of that. Anyway. LOVE THIS SONG. Does that snappy rhythm thing, only to a more extreme extent (kinda reminds me of Hamasaki Ayumi's Evolution in that sense?) but has sassy background singers from In The Limitless Desire |D Anyway. This song always feel really defiant to me, so I associate it more strongly with Lina than the others (which might be SUNG by Lina's seiyuu but doesn't always have that flare of Lina-ness). Badass song. Tons of fun, get.

Run All the Way (Fireball Groove Mix) - LIKE IT SAYS, IT GROOVES.

Don't Be Discouraged - I'm running out of things to say! It's good. Get it. I kept it for the past seven years for a reason. Etc.

Exit Running - This title is hilariously Lina... and uh. Just about everything Slayers really. Man they run away a lot of heroes. ANYWAY. Another good song. Get it.

Slayers 4 the Future - OMG A SONG NOT SUNG BY MEGUMI. Not... entirely anyway. This features the entire Slayers cast (and by entire I mean Lina, Gourry, Amelia and Zelgadis) and it's. You know. Fun |D If yo'ure curious the singers go Lina > Gourry > Lina and Amelia > Amelia > Zelgadis > L & A > Amelia > Zelgadis > All > BRIDGE > Amelia > Zelgadis > L & A > Lina > Gourry > L & A > Lina > Gourry > All

Also actually a good song, even if Gourry can't really sing.

We Are - ZELGADIS SONG, still with background singers~ I love this song. It's totally sexy to me, even if I'm sure Zel is emoing about something in it. Actually, as I recall it's kinda hopeful but whatever. ZEL IS HOT OKAY? And this is a great song. And the boy can actually sing pretty decently. SOMEONE APP ZEL D=

Also, Nuriko-mun lovingly pimped these earlier this week. But it was under a cut. So for the sake of anyone who missed it? Some NEW Slayers Music. I understand these were made to celebrate Slayers' ten year anniversary. One new song and some remakes~

Give A Reason (Ballade Version) - Give A Reason. Only slower. A la ballet. I don't care for it much myself, but worth a listen to if it sounds like your kinda thing.

Meet Again - ALL NEW SONG. I like this song a lot, it contains a lot of Lina's inate chipper spunky cuteness. I think people get really caught up in the fact that Lina is a crazy tempermental redhead who will set you on fire. But REALLY? The core of Lina isn't that she's violent. It's that she's HAPPY. And that she's cute. But mostly that she's happy. The girl always has a positive outlook and she will occationally kick you in the ass if you try to rain on her parade JUST BECAUSE she can be happy if she wants. HAH! And what the hell is up with everyone wanting to be an emo kid anyway? When did that become cool? Etc. And this song is happy and cute and determined and has that certain kind of spunk that tends to make people like her. IMO an EXCELLENT song to give us for the anniversary.

Get Along (SelfTag Vesion) - OKAY so you know how the remix of Give a Reason (the one listed WAY UP THERE that I said that I like more than the original?) kinda pumps up an already good song just a little more? This is like that. And so I really think I like this more than the original. I COULD do without the "oooohing" background singers. But I like the remix a lot. Also, I think there are some new lyrics in here? NOT SURE. Would have to pay more attention.

Randomly, I was singing along with all of these while making this post. Now, while it's a given that I WASN'T GETTING THE WORDS RIGHT. AT ALL. It's still weird to see how much I still have these songs 'memorized' >D

Random Facts Meme

2006-08-09T20:29:35Z

Random Facts About Lina From Both Canons And My Fanon

- Lina's a badass singer. This was inspired by someone pimping Slayers singles. Slayes is to this day the only anime to make multiple singles that I really like, and while most of the characters had some good stuff (Zel especially) Lina was most emphatically the best. TO SALUTE THIS? Lina tops karaoke. However she doesn't ACTUALLY sing that often, but if the opportunity arrives? She's good, teh end.

- Lina's 5'1"

- Lina's most powerful spell is called the Giga Slave, it draws on the power of The Lord of Nightmares (re: the creator of all things, re: god) and is capable of destroying the world if she casts it wrong. The spell gets sealed in canon, and while I haven't read that far INTO canon, I'm going assume that's already been done anyway. So NOW her most powerfuls spell is the Laguna Blade, which also draws from the Lord of Nightmares but is much more controlled than the Giga Slave, but also takes up more power due to the amount of control required to crush the power of L-sama into a wieldable blade.

- In the Slayers 'Verse master sorceror/esses are acknowledged by their community by given color titles: Damia the Blue, Rezo the Red Priest etc. When Lina made Master (I think she was 12 or 13?) she was given the title Lina the Pink. She turned it down because Sorcerors are expected to wear robes the colors of their titles to identify them and hell if she was going to wear pink every day for the rest of her life.

- Lina has an older sister named Luna. Luna is waaaaaay more powerful than Lina. She's a Knight of Ceified the Dragon God. She works as a waitress in their hometown. Lina is terrified of her because before she left she kiiiiinda sold what amounts to naked photos of her sister and her sister was mad and uh. Lina doesn't want to go back and face the consequences. As I recall, this is what started Lina off on her adventures to begin with.

- Lina has canonically time traveled.

- Lina doesn't know Naga the Serpant is Amelia's older sister. ...infact, I can't even remember how WE know that. It's something I found out in fandom years ago but it never appears in the movies or anime that I've seen. It's probably mentioned off handedly in one of the novels that hasn't been translated yet.

- Lina thinks in terms of food. A lot. It's hilarious. When walking through a room in which fifty or so mercenaries have been slaughtered brutally she thinks in terms of things like "blood stew" and "guts soup".

- Lina isn't aware of ever having accidentally killed someone with her random displays of magic prowess. She IS aware of incurring MASSIVE PROPERTY DAMAGE and is outlawed in more than one Kingdom because of this. But by some amazing luck, no innocent bystander is ever caught up in the blast.

- She will mess your shit up if you damage or disrespect money.

- She will mess your shit up if you talk about her boobs being small. How polite/joking/rude you are about it determines if she'll merely slipper-thwack you or if she'll set you on fire.

- Lina is not capable of putting a good, still living person 'out of their misery'. Where as she will casually off anyone bad without issue.

- ALL of Lina's spells require an incantation. But it's canon for her to whisper them quickly and quietly. With most of her easier spells you won't even notice she's doing it unless you're a magic type and know to listen for that kinda thing.

- Lina's not a very picky eater. While better food is certainly ... better she'll eat more or less anything without complaint as long as there is a lot of it.

- Lina actually avoids fights with everyone but bandits. It irritates her when people start fighting around her in inns because A) it usually get blamed on her (it's usually her fault) and B) it interrupts her meal. But if someone approaches her looking for a fight she'll usually take them up on it unless she has something immediately better to do.

- She doesn't care if you hit on her. This applies to everyone, man or woman, whatever age. She's gotten pretty much all of it to SOME degree. The only think she hasn't gotten is a man that honestly is in love with her. But guys like Roy who are just the type to flirt harmlessly? She's gotten that. Guys who are smarmier and with a side of evil? She's gotten that. Guys with rotten teeth who talk about tying her up and having their way with her? Yaaaah she's gotten that too. None of it really impresses her, but it is a little flattering when the guy doing it isn't a complete sleaze.

- Lina wears four pendant type things. One at each wrist, one at her neck and one at her waist. These represent each of the four demon lords; Ruby Eye, Death Fog... and two other guys. In the anime they're represented as red gems but I think they're each supposed to be a different color. Anyway, these allow her to, with a spell, temporarily increase her magic capacity by... a lot. She conned Xelloss for them.

- And overall her outfit is all very sorceress-y. Her sword has gems studded into the handle, her shoulder guards too, her clothing has runes sewn/etched/enchanted into the trim. Basically if she's wearing it you can assume it has some magical something on it. As I recall, her headband on it has a strong enough enchantment on it that she can take an arrow to the forehead without getting hurt.

- Lina can't use her magic when she's having her period. While technically her period is very regular, I'm sure I'll never keep it figured out exactly. Thus I can say she's having her period whenever I feel like it.

Everything About Lina Ever Meme

2006-07-11T20:01:00Z

Everything Meme

1) What are your character's basic stats?

Name: Lina Inverse

Age: 16

Birthday: Unknown.

Bloodtype: Unknown.

Height: Short. 5'1" for the purposes of my playing.

Weight: Around 100 lb.

Medical Info: Nothing very specific. Due to magic healing abilities Lina's hurts are always healed completely. So despite having incidents of broken bones, large gashes, bad burns and other near-death experiences, she has no scars or weaknesses.

Eyes: Brown

Hair: Auburn

Physical Traits: Lina is very small and has no figure is on the bony/wiry side for a girl. She is flat chested, no hips, but she is decently muscled because she travels a lot and is a sword fighter. She has two black moles on her forehead, just under her hairline ~~precisely where a demon's horns would grow~~ and she keeps a black bandana over them pretty much all the time.

2) Some Canon Stuff

Actual Canon: Nooot much specific details are known about Lina's world. The world itself is unnamed. The area she travels in is a continent with many countries spread across it, but it is trapped under a barrier for the first half of the series. (which is why barriers don't perturb Lina that much)

What we DO know is about the religious/magical aspects.

Lina's universe exists in what they call the Sea of Chaos, which is itself a great Demon Lord (like a God, only not supposed to be nice) called the Lord of Nightmares. Out of this Sea thrusts four 'staffs' and a world rests upon each one much like a cap on a mushroom. Thus Lina believes the world is flat and slightly curved.

Anyway, to each of these staves there is a demon and a god. In Lina's world the demon is The Demon Lord Ruby Eye'd Shabranigdo, and the god is the Dragon God Ciefied. A long, long time ago Shabby and Ciefied warred with each other. Eventually Ciefied split himself into four dragons and fought back against Shabby and succeeded in reducing the demon lord into seven pieces, which were put into a deep slumber.

A couple of the pieces of Shabranigdo have since awakened. One was stopped by one of the four dragons of Ciefied (The Water Dragon King) and another by Lina herself. But for the most part, this is fairytale back-story and only what people believe about the world they live in. There is no proof.

Anyway. The entire Slayers universe is based upon this balance of Dragons, Humans and Demons. Humans are more or less as you would assume humans to be in a magic based society. It's difficult to ping where they are technologically. More or less everything is driven by magic. So while electricity has not been invented, there are still huge, stone built cities, indoor plumbing, highways, boats which cross seas regularly, a reliable economy, and a bustling society which has jobs ranging from mercenary to scholar to entertainer to inventor to sorceress and no obvious gender or even age bias.

Demons are... a little complicated. Mazoku are the main ones you will here about, these are the most powerful of demon kind and they typically exist on the astral plane. While the more powerful among them can exist and fight on the mortal plane, they cannot by hurt by physical or most magical means. For example, a fire spell, while magic, is still just fire, and will not hurt a mazoku. Think of it like trying to set a ghost on fire. Yes, you can see them and they can toss shit at you, but you can't hurt them. There are ways to hurt Mazoku though, but we'll get to that later. Xellos and Phibrizzo were both Mazoku. Though Hell Master Phibrizzo was one of the four demon lords appointed by Shabranigdo and Xellos worked for one of the others; Beast Master Zelas Metallium.

However, aside from the Mazoku there are other demons, these are your typical big nasties that can be raised or summoned, and while some are immune in the same way as Mazoku, others aren't.

Dragons really aren't relevant to this write up. They appear later in canon and there are (as I recall) two races. Black Dragons and Golden Dragons. The race of black dragons was exterminated some while ago by Xellos, and Filia ul'Copt was a Golden Dragon. Dragons are considered 'holy' in the same way that demons are 'evil', without any requirements to actually be good or bad.

The reason I bother to mentions any of this is because Mazoku tie very heavily into the magic system of Slayers. While it's true we know virtually nothing about the lands or cultures or governments of Slayers, we know a hell of a lot about it's magic system.

First of all, there are three branches of magic in Slayers: Black, Shaman and White.

Black - This is Lina's forte, and there are very few black magic spells she can't cast, and most of those are simply because she doesn't know the spell. Black magic tends to be either outright destruction, complete with massive and searing explosions, or curses. Lina doesn't really jive to curses and tends to stick with explosions.

Black Magic derives it's power from Mazoku kind. Mazoku have incredibly large magic pools to draw their power from, and can toss about spells that humans have no way to even consider casting, they also have a lot of spells that humans don't know because their a much more ancient race. Anyway, because Mazoku, at their raw potential, are so powerful, I doubt they notice any magic drain from humans casting black magic in their name. But that's exactly what it does. Lina's most famous spell, the Dragon Slave, draws on the power of Ruby Eye'd Shabranigdo, who is widely believed to be the most powerful mazoku in existence. Here is the incantation for that spell:

Darkness from twilight
crimson from blood that flows
buried in the flow of time
in Thy great name
I pledge myself to darkness
Those who oppose us shall be destroyed by the power you and I possess!

The Dragon Slave has enough power that it can easily destroy half a city. Anyway, because the Dragon Slave calls on the power of Shabranigdo, it's good to use against nearly any Mazoku, because they are all weaker than his power. Similarly, most dark lords have individual spells that call upon their power.

Shamanism - Shamanism is actually subdivided into five categories: Fire, Water, Air, Earth and Spirit. The first four are pretty self explanatory. They manipulate the elements they are named after in some way. Keep in mind that these attacks won't hurt beings on the Astral plane, but they do a good number on anything that lives in the flesh. Despite not being a master of Shamanism, she's pretty darn good at it, and cast all but the most difficult spells (and we find out later that the only reason she didn't master it was because she had to choose between Dragon Slave and Ra-Tilt, the most powerful Shamanist spell, and went for Dragon Slave cause it was flashier). Lina prefers to use fire or earth spells the most. Fireball, Flare Arrow are her most common attacks. And then she's also very fond of Dil Brando, an earth spell which explodes the ground at someone's feet and sends them flying into the air.

However, then there is Spirit. Spirit attacks are similar to Black Magic in that they will attack something on the astral plane, the difference is that they will only hit something on the Astral Plane. A Ra-Tilt will not hurt a human because their soul's presence on the astral plane is too weak to be hit. Where as the Dragon Slave will blow shit up on both planes of existence. However, Spirit based attacks are also ideal for hitting mazoku, as you don't have to be able to draw on the power of a higher level mazoku to do damage. Shamanist spirit spells draw their power from living things on the mortal plane, and will subsequently be stronger in say, a forest than in a desert.

White - White Magic is not Lina's forte, mostly because you have to become a priest or priestess to be able to cast any of the really good spells. White magic draws from the power of holiness or 'gods', aka, The Dragon God Ciefied or any of the four dragons he later split into. White magic is extremely powerful, and spells like Resurrection, while not cable of actually bringing someone back to life, can bring someone back from the brink of death, including restoring lost limbs or internal organs. Lina's own white magic spell arsenal consists of the basics: healing spell, sleeping spell, lighting spell. White magic also has the most powerful defensive spells, which again, Lina can't cast.

That's pretty much it for races, world structure and magic. All that's really left is to say that Lina's life consists of wandering. She looks for treasures, information, adventure and bandits. Lina rarely has any long term goal unless it's shoved down her throat, and while she has saved the world on a number of occasions, she really doesn't go looking for these situations.

While Lina tends to travel with people, she tends to not get attached to them, which is why she isn't bothering much that Gourry isn't at camp. It's not that they aren't her friends, it's just that she is first and foremost an adventurer and is aware that friends come and go. More than anything she's annoyed that the Sword of Light (a mythical artifact in Gourry's possession) is out of her line of sight. But she also is an optimist and tends to believe she'll run into all of her old companions again, and that they will be going about life the same as ever. In the mean time, she's only sixteen and tends to enjoy herself, regardless of who is or isn't with her, or what she is or isn't immediately doing.

What Audience/Otaku Characters Can Mention To Her: I would prefer to avoid people Lina hasn't met yet. Currently Lina is from the novel canon prior to fighting Hellmaster Phibrizzo, since that is where the translations stop. As I get more books to read, I will just add the knowledge and experiences to Lina, and I doubt anyone will notice. But otherwise? Feel free to tease her about whatever. Lina is hardly unflappable, but no matter what you say she'll still sleep fine at night.

3) What skills or powers does your character have? In particular, list any skills or powers that could be used in a combat situation.

Magic and sword fighting! Lina describes herself as a first rate swordswoman, which is probably true. Beside geniuses like Zelgadis or Gourry, maybe she doesn't look too impressive. But Lina regularly relies on her sword just as much as her magic, and she's more than capable of disposing of ten or so thugs without ever resorting to magic.

And then, of course, magic. The main reason Lina knows sword fighting is because while every magic spells grant the user a barrier while they cast, MOST of these barriers aren't strong enough to deflect the blows of a competent enemy. However you don't have to be standing still and waving your arms to cast magic in most cases. Thus in a one on one fight Lina will use her sword to defend or parry while chanting a spell's incantation.

Lina has a wide variety of spells, but won't use most of them at camp. For example, she won't use Fireball much because camp is in a forest, and Fireball will set the forest on fire. Her typical range of fighting spells are flare/ice arrow, which are precise and cast quickly, Dil Brando and Mega Brando which will throw an enemy or a group of enemies into the air, and Lighting which is almost and instant cast and will blind an unsuspecting opponent. She really rarely breaks out the big stuff unless she has Gourry around to act as her meat shield.

4) Quick List of Friends and Foes.

None and none! Lina doesn’t make friends very easily, though she makes pleasant acquaintances all the time. Similarly, foes tend to find her, not the other way around. If she doesn't like you she'll blow you up and then forget about it. Right now, Lina is most interested in Roy, mostly for his alchemy, and has enjoyed talking with any number of people, but hasn't connected to anyone and probably won't.

5) Other

Can I shapeshift/bodyswap/spit at/step on/etc?

As far as anything that requires me to be there for it and/or involved? Ask but presume no. I'm not very big on bodyswaps, and currently have no interest in that kinda stuff with Lina. Similarly, please refrain from turning into someone 'important' to Lina without asking me.

Otherwise? Go for it. Lina can handle herself if she is attacked, or insulted or hit on or whatever. Just keep in mind that if you annoy her she's very likely to magic at you, and if you attack her seriously she will kill you seriously, as that's the law of the land where she's from.

Maim/Murder/Death: You can attempt to hurt or kill her if you want. If you're someone actually capable of killing her or dying from her, you'll probably want to talk to me about it first. I don't want her dying, injury however is a possibility.

Notes for the Psychics: Nothing specifically. Telepathy is a known ability where Lina is from. Understand that Lina's mind is very frank, and she actually holds back a lot of her snide thoughts at camp (or anywhere). However, she doesn't spend much time thinking about anything other than what is going on right now, or what is for dinner.

A lot of information here is cited from Slayers Universe which is the best resource for Slayers info ever.

Ask Me What I Think Of Your Character Play Meme

2006-07-06T18:33:27Z

Okay, I think the title of this meme covers it fairly well, BUT because I'm aware of how touchy these subjects can be, let me clarify.

1. I am notoriously honest. I don't mind this trait of myself, but sometimes it makes me come off as uh. Mean. I really, really don't mean to be. If I'm intentionally being mean you'll be able to tell beyond a doubt. If it seems to you that any concrit I offer is harsh? Then yes, it is harsh, but please don't take it personally. There is currently no one in camp I have anything personal against, thus you can be absolutely sure that these are simply my opinions on your play, and not a personal attack against you.

2. I am notoriously honest. Do not ask me what I think of how you play your characters if you don't seriously want to know. If I think you play wonderfully, will I say so? By gods yes. But there are chances I will have something to critique, and there is even the chance that I will think you are utterly and completely OOC. Though that last bit applies very, very rarely, understand that it is a possibly. If finding that out will hurt or upset you or make you angry with me or just generally not be received well? Don't ask. I'm looking to give the people that want it an honest opinion. If all you can handle is a hearty pat on the back, I will see you in the next "I love my fellow players" meme.

3. Comments are screened, my replies will also be screened. This makes it difficult for you to comment back to me, but if you really WANT to discuss whatever I say, you can find my on AIM or e-mail me. However, it also keeps things private, which is the point.

4. This isn't a Concrit Aviy place. This is a I tell you what I think if you want to know place. Concrit on ME goes here.

5. Please state which characters you want me to comment on. I won't comment on any characters not asked about. Also, understand that you may just get a general 'no opinion' response if I don't watch your character at all, and thus have nothing to say one way or the other.

[NOT AN AU]

2006-06-28T19:05:27Z

*totally knocking on Roy's door sometime after lunch*

Any~body~ hooome?

Iconning in Photoshop Guide

2006-06-20T06:17:18Z

Hay there kids and welcome to Iconning 101.

I've decided to write this for a couple of reasons, mostly because I thought it might be helpful, and partly because I'm bored.

So briefly, what this guide will cover:

--How to screencap anime or videos for icons.

--How to set up your workspace.

--How to crop, resize and sharpen icons.

--How to use levels to clean a manga icon.

--How to change the hues and levels in a colored icon.

--How to put boarders on icons.

--How to make an automated action.

--How to use automated actions on a batch of icons all at once.

--Random useful tips.

Please note that this guide only covers Photoshop. I do not have an upload of Photoshop for you guys, but I'm sure if you ask around you can find a hack somewhere. I suggest getting Photoshop CS or CS2 if at all possible. But Photoshop 8 is what I use, and as far as I know all versions function more or less the same.

Also, while this guide does not cover Paint Shop Pro, which is a decent photo imaging software, a lot of the details on how things work is more or less the same across the board. If you prefer to use Paint Shop Pro, this guide will probably still be able to help you with some minor translations.

Also note that I will be using a lot of screenshots, so under the cuts it might get a bit image intensive.

How to Screencap Videos-

For screencapping, BSplayer is my player of choice. You can get a download of it here.

I'm not going to go over, in detail, how it works, since I think we're all used to poking around these things.

Just go to preferences, which is the far right icon that looks like a hammer. From preferences click the YU2Y formats box. Under that you can select what directory you want your screencaps to go into. And under that you can select file format. I suggest jpeg.

Basically, all you have to do is hit "P" whenever you want to cap whatever is showing on the player. It will only cap what is playing in BSplayer (you can set it up to cap the entire computer screen if you want through). You can arrange things so different keys will do that though. I personally have it up so either space or double-click pause, and have my middle mouse button screencap.

Anyway, this way you can just watch through an entire episode while periodically capping stuff.

How to Set Up Your Workspace-

It sounds silly, but this is rather important. There are a lot of features with Photoshop, and what you need is very limited. It's also quite customizable, so you might as well use that to your advantage.

This is my layout.

See how in the bottom right box, the tabs Navigator, Info and Histogram are all in there? Typically History and Actions are also in the same box like that, however with simple click and drag you can separate them. I switch between History and Actions constantly, so I suggest giving them their own boxes.

Typically, these are the only windows you will need. If you're doing flashy pretty icons, you may need the Layers tab open, but since in CFUD we usually just use screencaps, I won't cover that.

To bring out these tabs go to Window on the top toolbar and make sure you have the same things as me checkmarked.

Actions, History, Navigator, Options and Tools. Tools is the vertical bar you see the left of the screen, and Options is the horizontal bar at the top which should be anchored there.

Options bears a bit of explanation. It's a versatile bar which changes depending on which tool you have selected. For example, in the screen cap of my layout, I have the Move Tool selected, and the Options bar is full of choices like "Auto Select Layer" or "Auto Select Groups", which only pertain to the Move Tool.

FOr the most part, you won't be using the Options bar. Mainly if you need to erase or draw on an icon, you'll find resizing and opacity variables for the brush or eraser up there. Also the Options bar has some useful abilities when using the Crop tool, which I'll explain later.

Another thing to point out is the background color for my canvas. The black area all around Ed there is the background. On default it is gray, which is probably what you see. But in the case of icons I find it more useful to make it all white or all black.

To change the background color go to the foreground color box on the Tool bar, in the image it's the bright pink box.

Double click the box and the Color Picker will appear. By adjusting the slidebars you can pick your color. Once you have the color you want hit Okay and close the window.

Now go to the Paint Bucket Tool on the Tool Bar and select it.

If you cannot find the Paint Bucket Tool, it may be under the Gradient Tool.

Right click the Gradient Tool and select the Paint Bucket Tool.

Now just hold down shift and left-click anywhere on the background.

And presto chango~

Incidentally, if you are the type to use Photoshop for other things, you can save multiple workspace arrangements so the right windows will automatically be there for whatever you want to do.

Just go to Window >> Workspace >> Save Workspace on the top tool bar.

Once you save the workspace, it will appear under Window >> Workspace. As you can see "Closed - Right" is a saved workspace of mine. You can click any of your options at any time to have the right windows appear in the right place.

And that's about it for setting up your workspace.

How to Crop, Resize and Sharpen Icons-

Okay, here are the most basics of iconning. Most of you probably already know cropping and resizing. So I will move through that quickly. I'll put more detail into sharpening though, since there seems to be a general lack of sharpening out there.

So here we have Sasuke looking bitchy as usual. And we want to icon him cause hay, he's still sexy.

Select the Crop Tool located on the Tool bar.

If you hold down Shift and left-click anywhere on the image, and then drag, you will create a perfect square with your Crop Tool. If you let go of shift, you can make any shape or size of rectangle you want. But since icons are ideally 100x100 pixels, I tend to habitually hold down shift.

There are several things to note about this image.

First of all, the part of the image you are cropping is obviously within the box, the darkened part is the "shield" and is what will disappear once you crop the image. If you look on the Option bar, you can change the shield to whatever color you want, you can also make the Opacity whatever percent you want.

You can grab and drag the edges of the cropping box to change the size of it. But if for some reason you don't want to crop after all, or you want to start over, look in the upper right color. The "NO" sign there will cancel your cropping selection. The checkmark next to that will okay it. If you don't cancel your crop or okay it, you won't be able to do much.

Once you have decided on the are you want to crop, either hit the checkmark or else double-click within the selected area.

Now that you have the area you want selected, it's time to think about sharpening.

There are basically two ways to get a clean icon.

You can either
-Crop
-Sharpen
-Resize
-Sharpen

or you can just

-Crop
-Resize
-Sharpen

It's not necessary to sharpen prior to resizing on many icons, and on others it's very useful. Because the base for this icon is large and not very detailed, sharpening it first isn't necessary. On an icon with more detail, sharpening prior to resizing will hel keep you from losing that detail when it's reduced to 100 pixels, and will help make the icon less mucky.

Nice it's not really necessary on this icon, we'll skip it.

To resize an image you want to go to Image >> Image Size on the top toolbar.

And up comes the Image Size window.

What you want to look at is the 'Pixel Dimensions' area. First of all, the chain image on the right should show that width and height are linked. If it doesn't look like this image, click that icon. This will make sure that the height and width stay relative to each other.

Also, you want to make sure the drop down bars say pixels. If it says percent, change it.

Now just enter 100 into width or height and hit okay.

You now have an image the size of an LJ icon.

Now, I know a lot of you would go "oh that's pretty" and hit save and upload it. DON'T DO THAT! If you do I will be sad. Unsharpened things are not pretty, they're hard to make out and they hurt my eyes.

So here is what you do.

Go up to Filter on the top toolbar, then down to Sharpen.

For now you want to pick the "Sharpen" option, but I'll explain briefly what all of these do.

Sharpen - Basically, it reads the colors of the pixels and makes the ones that are next to each other and of a similar color the same color. This is a good way to make a file smaller, as each image is composed of less information. It also makes things much easier on the eyes when in a small size like a 100 square pixel icon.

Sharpen Edges - Same thing as Sharpen, only more... selective? It basically tries to keep the area to hard edges in the picture only. I never use it as it's not actually that 'intelligent' and tends to look back.

Sharpen More - Roughly the same thing as hitting "Sharpen" twice. You'll only ever need this on VERY fuzzy images.

Unsharpen Mask - I will cover this in more detail later. It is basically Sharpen only you can precisely vary options, and subsequently group colors more, use less or more colors and make things more or less sharp.

Smart Sharpen - As far as I know, only Photoshop CS2 has this option. It's an addition to Unsharpen Mask, which allows you to vary the Opacity of the mask you're applying.

Anyway, select just regular old Sharpen.

And check out the difference.

Clear, right? Not as distracting either and is less work for the eyes. If you want to find out how to add a pretty boarder to this, keep going.

How to use Levels to Clean a Manga Icon-

Okay. MOST scanslated manga has always been cleaned by the time you get it. But assuming you are scanning your own stuff, or working from raw scans, the images you are working from won't be black and white so much as a whole lot of gray.

Here we have a nice gritty picture of Namine.

Note that it isn't icon size yet. You almost ALWAYS want to play with levels or any any variation options, on an image that hasn't been minimized. This is because things can be editted in much more detail if you have more detail to work with.

Now, first of all, note that she isn't ACTUALLY even in completely gray values. You'll be hard pressed to find any grayscale manga that are naturally gray when you scan them. If you are partial to completely desaturated icons, then go to Image on the top tool bar and down to Adjustments and then click Desaturate.

And what you get is this:

Not a huge difference, but it bleached out some of those blueish tones. I personally like having a bit of color in there, gives it more flavor. But up to you.

Now on to actual levels.

First of all, make sure you are on a RGB or CYMK color set up. RGB stands for Red Green Blue and basically means that every color you see is a mixture of a certain amount of Red, Greed and Blue. CYMK stands for Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and blacK and means the same thing as with RGB. CYMK will allow you to ultimately have a greater range of colors, but it also takes up a LOT more space (an icon left in CYMK mode and saved as *.jpg will push 700kb). Thus you want all icons saved as RGB or Grayscale. However, I personally like to put my icons to CYMK while I'm editing them, as you'll get greater effects.

Up to you what you wanna do. But go to Image at the top tool bar again. And this time go down to Mode, there you see all the options you have available to you.

Now, once you are on a channel which will allow you to play nicely with levels. Go to Image >> Adjustments >> Levels... and you will get the following box.

This is your level adjustment box.

You can actually do a whole fucking lot with this box. I don't even know how much detail you can get into with it. So I'll just cover the most basic parts.

The "Channel" drop down menu at the top should be on RGB or CYMK, depending on which you're working with. This means it will effect all of those colors equally and at once.

Now, look at the graph I have here.

See the arrows under the box? There are three. One is black, one is gray and one is 'clear'. These represent at which point on the spectrum that black and white start, and how close to black or white the midtones are. It's hard to explain so you're better off just toying with it yourself, you'll get it.

Now see on the graph the large black spike toward the right? This means most of the pixels in the picture are toward the whiter end of the spectrum. Where I to inverse the Namine image, it would be more dark than light, and the graph would show a large spike on the left instead.

And do you see the way that the graph tapers toward the left? And how it doesn't even START until a good ways in? This not only shows us that the image doesn't have many dark colors, but that even the darker grays are still a far cry from being actually BLACK. Where there any true black in this image, the graph would show right over the black triangle.

Cleaning an image with levels is pretty simple. What you want to do is tell the image to shorten the spectrum of color available to it. Basically, by moving the black arrow toward the right, it will steadily make all the dark grays darker. By moving the white arrow to the left, it will make all the light grays lighter.

Now you can see for yourself. I moved the white arrow to the left, the black arrow to the right. Most of the lightest grays in the picture, which were making up the background of the image, have been turned white. Meanwhile the darker grays that made up the lineart have been darkened more. I also moved the gray arrow over to the right slightly. This means that more of the midtone grays would go darker instead of lighter, making the lineart look more solid.

Also, remember that channel bar from before?

Well, I'm too lazy to explain how it works in detail. But BASICALLY a channel is each color that goes into making a picture. In my case Red, Green or Blue. By hitting the drop down bar you can select one of these colors and adjust the Levels of just that one color.

It gets complicated because if you were to say, move the Black arrow over while on the Green channel, you wouldn't be making it a darker green. Black represents "lack off" so what you would get is less green, with more blue and red showing through. Play with it if you like. Similarly, moving the white arrow would amount to giving the image more green.

How to Change the Hues and Levels in a Colored Icon-

In the last section I covered Level's pretty well. So in this one I'm going to cover Hues and combine them with Levels a little bit. But if you want to see HOW I did what I did with Levels, you'll have to read back.

So here we have Lina with an awesome expression. Only... she's in the dark. She's also purple. Let me tell you. I learned a lot about hue since picking up Lina, who's always in weird lighting in the movies =\

First of all, let's take her out of the dark. If you want to, you can use Auto Levels, which is right under the usual Levels options:

Sometimes this works really well. In a situation where a character ISN'T in dramatic light like this, just in slightly too dark lighting, it will usually lighten and brighten things nicely. I will usually hit Auto Levels to see how it looks, and if I don't like it, just go back on my History tab.

But since here she's in lighting with a lot of contrast, the Auto Levels make her skin way too bright, and if I were to minimize it she would look like a shiny blob with hair. Purple hair.

I went into levels and manually lightened it just a bit. Enough so that the whites of her eyes were... more white, but not so much her skin started to glow. The icon will still have dramatic lighting, and still be a little on the dark side, but as long as you can see Lina's expression I can live with that.

Now what we need to do is play with the Hue. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, Hue is... the color part of the color. When I say the word color you probably think of things like red and yellow etc. In fact, every color is made up of three components: Hue, Value and Saturation.

Hue is the most saturated and unadulterated version of any color. That is to say, the most red of red, the most blue of blues. The most lime green of lime's greens. What I mean is when you change JUST the Hue, you will not make a color darker, you will not make it lighter. You will not make it more or less saturated or 'gray'. You will only make it more red or more orange or more green or what-have-you.

That said. Go to Color Balance under Image >> Adjustments >> Color Balance. (Incidently, if you have the time, play around in the Adjustments menu. It is your god. You can do just about ANYTHING to an image by toying with those bad boys).

The Color Balance menu looks like this:

Okay, here is a brief lesson in color.

Red, Orange and Yellow are "warm" tones while Green, Blue and Purple are "Cool" tones. If you put warm tones and Cool tones together, they're going to gray each other. By gray I mean the colors won't be as vivid or saturated. If you put cool tones with cool tones they will saturate each other. Each color on the color wheel has an exact opposite. The 'opposite' of red, for example, is green. Opposite colors gray each other most specifically. So if you were to mix equal amounts of red with equal amounts of green and if they were both of exactly opposite hues while exactly the same saturation, you would get gray.

This is why Lina's hair is not at all saturated in this picture. The warm brown (which is a dark orange) has been overlaid with a dark violet.

Now people are almost always warm. In anime they might have blue hair, but skin tone is still warm. And I don't mean yellow. Skin isn't yellow. If your skin is yellow you are in desperate need to add some red hue.

Which brings me to where the Color Balance bars. Not now currently each "Color Level" is on zero. This is relative to the picture you are editing. It doesn't mean your picture has no red, it just means you haven't yet added any red.

Also note the three bars. Cyan - Red, Magenta - Green, Yellow - Blue. These are placed opposite each other because they are opposing on the color wheel.

For an extreme example, here is what happens if I move the arrow on the Cyan - Red bar to the left.

That's as much Cyan as I can get when the Color Balance set to midtones.

If I undo that and set it to Highlights instead, you can guess what happens.

Cyan only gets added to the brighter colors.

So what you need to do for this icon is take what you know about how it SHOULD look (brown hair, palely tanned skin) and how it DOES look (lavender skin, purple hair) and what you know about color to make it look right.

In this case, the picture is too cool. It's safe to say we need more of EVERY warm tone, so I'll adjust those.

Closer, but now it's too pink. Maybe the Magenta wasn't the kind warm we wanted.

And now that I think about it, using more Green instead of Magenta did a great job of canceling out a lot of the Magenta that was making up the purple. Also, though I don't snow it. I went through and put yellow and green into the shadows, and red and yellow into the highlights. With the exception of the highlight in her hair, which still has a slight purple cast to it, you can no longer tell Lina is sitting in a dark room lit only with purple light.

Now that that much is done, I apply an unsharpen mask (because I like them, most people wouldn't even notice the difference) and minimize and sharpen again... and then add another unsharpen mask cause it was still too fuzzy for my taste.

Here you can see the final product vs how it would have looked if it'd only played with the levels to brighten it up. Not the best icon in the world, no. But at least it isn't purple anymore.

Here are some more examples, just briefly, of the joys of using Levels. Games, I think, are most notorious for being too dark in places. These are some screencaps I have left over from making Riku's icons. The left size is the icon only resized and sharpened. The right side is with the addition of levels.

Notice how even when the icon wasn't originally that dark. Adjusting the levels does a lot for it.

How to Put Boarders on Icons-

This is BLISSFULLY SIMPLE after everything else I've written about.

Have open the icon you want to put a boarder on. Go to the top tool bar for Select >> All.

This selects the entire image. Now you want to go to Edit >> Stroke, again on the top tool bar.

That will bring up the stroke menu.

Basically, what stroke does is it 'strokes' within (or without) the selected line. It will follow that line with a depth of however many pixels you want, in whatever color you want.

The settings you see on my menu are the ones you typically want to use. Inside stroke, one pixel width with black. For my magic or alchemy icons I use a three inch white boarder. You can click the black box to select whatever color you want. Similarly, you can go down and fiddle with the blending and opacity if you want something more fancy.

Hit okay and save and you're all set.

How to Make an Automated Action.-

Okay, now that I've taught you how to do everything individually, I'm going to show you how to do it automatically.

That's right. Photoshop comes with a beautiful little feature called the automatic action, which will allow you to record a series of actions and then replay then on any image as many damn times as you want.

First, let's take a look at the Actions tab.

Above, you see my Actions Tab. Within the Icons folder there are several actions: RBG and Save is just what it sounds like. It will convert any image to RPG format, save it and close it. Save as Jpeg saves the open image as a Jpeg file, I made that back when I'd accidentally saved a whole lot of images as *.png on accident. Make png/rgb icon is my "make an icon" action, though the name no longer fits. That action converts to CYMK, uses a Unsharpen mask, resizes the icon to 100x100 pixels, uses Sharpen and converts back to RGB at which point I can decide if that was what I wanted or not. If it isn't what I wanted I will go into the History tab and back up, deciding at what point the process went off track and adjust the icon manually. Boarder makes a 1 pixel black boarder around the icon, saves it and closes it and White Boarder makes a 3 pixel white boarder around the icon.

As you can see, you can do virtually anything with an Action. Furthermore, you aren't required to make a completely new action if you just want to make minor changes.

Here I've opened up the Make png/rgb icon action. You can now see each step this action takes my image through and how it specifically remembers the settings on each step. Note how while it uses "Unsharpen Mask" twice, it uses different settings each time.

The cool thing is, you can edit this action any time you want to.

First. See how the checkmark across from Make png/rbg icon is red? That means that this action is not currently using all of it's steps. If you look down you'll I've unchecked the second Unsharpen Mask, because I don't always want it. If the step isn't checked, it will skip that step every time you play the action until you re-check it.

Furthermore, if you want to keep a step but change the details of it, just double click on that step. If, say, I wanted to have my second Unsharpen Mask set to sharpen to a radius of 8.0 pixels, all I have to do is double-click "Unsharpen Mask" and change the settings, then hit okay.

Pretty nice, hm? So here's how you make one.

Look at the very bottom of the Actions tab, see the button I've squared in red? This is probably the only one that bears explaining, but I'll say what they all do.

Square - first button - This is the "stop" button. You pretty much only use this to stop recording.

Circle - second button - Record. Once you hit this the program will 'record' any action you do. Not stuff like moving your mouse, but resizing, selecting, changing formats, even saving and closing it will record.

Triangle - third button - Play. You need to have an action selected (or a specific step within an action selected) to hit this button. When you do it will do all the recorded steps to the image you have open.

Folder - fourth button - New Folder button. Hit this to make a new folder you can put your actions in and group them as you like.

New Layer - fifth button - The one in the red square. This is the "New Recording" button. Hit this and you will get a box asking you what the name of your action is going to be, and what folder to put it in.

Trash bin - sixth button - You can drag any action, step or folder to the trash bin to delete it.

Anyway, hit the New Layer icon. The box that pops up is pretty straight-forward. Name your action, choose the set to put it in (this is the folder thing). You can key it an F-key if you think you'll use it a lot, and you can give it a color to help better organize if you like that kinda thing.

Once you hit okay your action immediately starts recording.

Now? Do whatever you want. I personally suggest you scroll back up and go through the steps to make a boarder action. Maybe you like doing the rest by hand. If you don't, I suggest making an icon button which will resize and sharpen your icons however you like them. Remember, you can always go back through the history tab step by step if you want to change something.

Once you've done everything you want to do, hit the stop button. And you're done! You can hit play whenever you want to use that action again.

How to Use an Automated Batch.-

Okay, the big one of all usefulness. "Aviy," you say. "This is all great," you say. "But," you say." "I'm not going back and doing all this shit to each one of my fucking five hundred icons one at a time," you say.

WELL that's all very reasonable. LUCKY FOR YOU there is the glorious batch automate option.

Exactly what it sounds like. You can make an Automated Action and then run that Action on every goddamn icon you have, all at once.

First off, go to File >> Automate >> Batch on the top tool bar.

Then you get the Batch Automate Window:

Under Set: you choose which folder the Action you want to use is.

Under Action: you choose which action you want to run.

Under Source: you choose where the files are coming from. Basically there is 'Folder' where you'll select the directory from your computer. 'Open Files' where it will run on all the files currently open in Photoshop, and 'File Browser' which... I don't know.

So assuming you're set to Folder, you click "Choose" to pick the directory. You can, if you like, include all sub folders, which is useful if you organize yours icons like I do.

"Suppress color Profile Warnings" -- sometimes when you open images you will get a "discard imbedded profile" query. THEOREHTICALLY this matters when you view an image, but I've personally never noticed it and I always discard them. If you don't discard them you'll have to go manually set your color mode to CYMK or RGB. Anyway, make sure you have that box clicked or else your Automate might get held up.

MY ONE BIG SUGGESTION HERE is that you make sure you have "Save" and "Close" in whatever action you run. Otherwise Photoshop will open up all of your 509 icons one after another, and will try it's fucking best to crash your computer.

Anyway, then you're all set! Hit okay and let her fly.

Random Useful Tips.-

Okay, I actually only have one useful tip for this section, but it's a doozy so here it goes.

Time to talk about the History tab, kids.

Okay, look UNDER The three pictures of Lina. See the list of actions? Open, CMYK Color, Unsharpen Mask etc? These are the actions I've done to this image. The most recent think I did was "Color Balance" which is why it's on the bottom of the list. If I were to click any one of those items though, my image would backtrack to that point. For example. HIt Image Size? We'd go back to just before I made my icon 100x100 pixels.

The history doesn't keep EVERYTHING, but you can change your preferences in Photoshop to how much it will remember.

Now look back up. The first picture of Lina which says "25.jpg" next to it. This is the base. That will ALWAYS be there. That is the file as it looks when I open it. Hitting it at any time will reset me to the original image.

Now look back down! See those little button at the very very bottom, much like on the Action tab?

There are only three this time, and the Trash Bin does the same thing. However the other two are REALLY COOL.

Okay, first one, on the left, looks like a series of little boxes. This is the "Create duplicate state" icon which is fancy talk for "will open another image exactly like the one you're looking at". Basically if you want to edit and icon in multiple ways, and keep the histories for each? Hit this. You can make a dozen of them and edit them each a little differently.

Next to that is the Snapshot button. The Snapshot button is AWESOME.

What the Snapshot button does is takes a picture of your image and places it up there, above the actual 'History' stuff.

If you look up and see the two other Lina Images? Snapshot 1 and Snapshot 2? Even though those are small little icons, you can see that I've made some minor changes there. The joy of Snapshots is that if you're not sure which way something looks better, take a Snapshot of it both ways. Then by clicking those little avatars you can switch quickly between them to decide which you like more.

Be careful though. Snapshots do NOT maintain their own history. And if you switch between Snapshots too much, you will lose your overall history and not be able to go back any more.

AND THAT'S IT wow god my head hurts. Uh. Questions or comments? x.x

Oops: I spelled borders wrong! THROUGH THIS ENTIRE THING.

App

2006-06-19T19:00:51Z

Character: Lina Inverse
Series: The Slayers (Novels)
Age: 16

Canon: Lina Inverse is a cute, short, and flat-chested girl who just-so-happens to be one of the most powerful sorceresses of her era. But since being a beautiful and talented sorceress doesn't pay that well, she frequently moonlights as Lina the Bandit Killer, a horrifying woman who walks into bandit camps, sets them on fire and pilfers the booty for herself while everyone else is trying to remember how to stop, drop and roll.

Lina is short tempered, violent, greedy and something of a sadist. But at the same time still feminine enough to be self conscious about her appearance and want a prince charming to ride up on a white horse and take her away. She also isn't quite as heartless as she lets on, and makes a genuine effort not to hurt innocents with her massive attack spells, no matter how stupid they might be. In the end, all Lina really wants out of life is treasure, copious amounts of food, someone to exchange witty banter with, and maybe a few hapless bandit camps to blow up now and then. Is that so much to ask?

Note: To those familiar with the Slayers anime, the main difference between the two is that Novel!Lina makes a real effort to not blow up cities. Basically, Novel!Lina is Anime!Lina with a conscience.

Sample Post:

You know what I really hate? Wait, can't you guess? Here, I'll make it easy for you. Multiple choice:

What does Lina Inverse really hate?

A) Zombies
B) Zombies
C) Zombies
D) All of the above.

If you circled A, B, C or even D give yourself a big ol' pat on the back, buster, because you are a winner!

That's right; I hate zombies. It's not that they're falling apart (though that's plenty gross) or that they're always after my brains -- because hey, I can't blame anyone for that. It's the stench. Because get this; Zombies? Smell like rotting corpses. Yeah, who'da thunk?

Still, it wouldn't bug me so much except that zombies shouldn't even be here. You see, bandits and zombies aren't really known for socializing all that well, and this is supposed to be bandit territory. And by 'supposed to be' I mean is; because this is a forest, and everyone knows all forests have bandits. It's just a given! The sun rises in the east, water flows downhill, ugly guys have bad dialog, and the woods are chock-full of bandits just waiting for a broke -- er... beautiful young sorceress to come along and relieve them of their ill gotten gains. And give it back to it's rightful owners. Eh hehe, of course.

But back to what I was saying: zombies just aren't the type of villain a girl usually finds in this environment. Maybe I should take this as a sign that someone finally convinced a bunch of bandits that the only thing fearsome about them was their stench? I guess if you told that to a bandit with half a brain he might decide to run with it and voilà! Next thing you know, Plan Zombie Odor Defense is a go!

So there you go. You villagers have yourselves a two-fold infestation here, zombies and bandits and I just happen to be the girl to get rid of them for ya. And lucky for you I take my fees out of the bad guys' wallets and not yours! (Though if you're feeling really grateful, I wouldn't say no to a feast in my honor.) So what do you say, point me in the right direction? I think they're calling themselves the Steaming Blood Brigands? ...or was it the Boiling Sweat Gang? Simmering Spit Squad maybe?

Anyone?

Voting Post - 92.9%, 52 ins to 4 outs.