Personal Thoughts Galore | Silkie~! | 21 | Fuck AI βArtβ | π | π
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ALT Panel 1: Fatima looms over Val, backlit by the entrance to the arcade, with a cold expression. She says "Two YEARS, Val. Two YEARS you haven't shown your face here." Panel 2: Zoom in on Fatima's face as she opens her eyes wide and says "And NOW ... I have something to say to you." Panel 3: Fatima's expression becomes comically 'about-to-cry', her nose scrunched, mouth tensed, and eyes glistening with years. Panel 4: Fatima hugs Val, shedding big tears, and yells, "I'M SOOOORRRYYYY"
ALT Panel 5: Fatima puts her head over Val's shoulder and continues crying, saying "Val, I was a TERRIBLE friend. I NEVER should've asked you to do that." Panel 6: We flip the view and now see Val's face as she looks stunned. Fatima continues talking, saying "I should've just asked you to cast the tournament with me or something! I was so STUPID!!" Panel 7: Val hugs Fatima back as her expression turns slightly pained. "I did you dirty too, Fatima," she says, "I said I'd do our plan and then didn't." Panel 8: Val hold's Fatima's shoulders, holding Fatima in front of herself as they face each other. Val says "I was too proud to lose, but then too ashamed to face you. I wanted to make it look like I walked out an indignant victor ..."
ALT Panel 9: "... But really, I RAN," Val finishes saying as Fatima looks at her wide-eyed, her makeup running. Panel 10: Audrey is standing behind Val with his hands clasped together on his jeans and says "Hey, um. I'm gonna give you two some space." Val replies "Thanks, Audrey." Panel 11: Once Audrey leaves, Fatima leans in close to Val with sparkly eyes, saying "Val, who was THAT smokeshow?? I didn't know you SWING that way!" Val replies, "There's a lot to unpack in that sentence" Panel 12: Audrey is walking whimsically through the arcade and looking around, humming a tune.
ALT Panel 13: He spots an arcade machine with a four by four grid of square buttons, which happens to have the cat-ears guy from a few comics ago standing next to it. Audrey says "OH! What's THIS game??" Panel 14: The cat-years guy gestures towards the game, also placing his hand on it, and says "Oh, this is a rhythm game from Japan. The menu is all in Japanese. I can teach you to play if you like." Panel 15: Audrey's eyes sparkle as he insistently presses a button on the grid that has lit up. The cat-ears guy is saying "Okay, so, just because a button lights up doesn't mean you NEED to press it." Panel 16: The cat-ears guy shifts his gaze over to the machine's screen to see how Audrey is navigating the menu by spamming that one button. He says "Okay, so, you just selected the hardest song on the maximum difficulty. Don't press that button again. Press the other one to go back. Okay, so. You pressed it again."
ALT Panel 1: Val and her fighting game opponent are sitting on front of a big flatscreen, a crowd gathered around them. It's a fighting game showing a flying robot extendo-punching a blocking Doctor Duel in a flooded cave. Val narrates: "It's the last game in the set. I won the first and lost the second to make it more convincing." Panel 2: Both the characters' healthbars are very low, with 38 seconds left on the match timer. Val continues narrating: "I made it CLOSE on this third one too. I'm PRECISE." Panel 3: We zoom in on the robot extend-punching Doctor Duel, who is blocking in a crouched position, shielding himself with his white cape. Val continues narrating: "Now he's chipping me out in the corner ... and I just have to let him do that." Panel 4: Profile view of Val's head, her face illuminated by the light of the screen, as she continues narrating: "It's just a small favor for a friend. A small concession. Really not a big deal and not a testament to anything."
ALT Panel 5: Val looks down at her hands. Panel 6: In her hands is a PS2-style controller. She is holding the left direction input on the d-pad, in order to block in the game. She narrates: "But ... That's how these things work, isn't it." Panel 7: Val, in mid-air in a dusty white void, eyes closed and mouth hanging open slightly, has several jigsaw-puzzle-piece shapes taken out of her form. She narrates: "Just one small concession. And then another. And then another. None of them seem that important ..." Panel 8: We zoom in as she now has more jigsaw-puzzle-piece shapes taken out of her form, notable one of them previously where her mouth was. She opens her eyes slightly. She narrates: "Until you realize ..."
ALT Panel 9: Now instead of jigsaw-puzzle-piece shapes taken out of her, only one piece that has any of her in it remains, and it is her eye, in a state of dread and panic. She narrates: "You've conceded your ENTIRE EXISTENCE." Panel 10: Val is now in profile again, but colored with dark greens and blues and frontlit with red. She is sweating and scowling, and he controller shakes in her hands. She continues narrating: "It's not in me. This isn't why I'm here. I want to LIVE. I want to SURVIVE ..." Panel 11: She stands up out of her seat with such force that it almost knocks it over, a blaze of deep crimsons and yellows, and yells "I EXIST GOD DAMN IT!!!" Her opponent sits shocked, looking at the screen. Panel 12: Doctor Duel kicks straight up, sending the robot flying backwards and depleting the rest of their healthbar, as the screen says "K.O." in big shimmering blue lettering.
ALT Panel 13: Val is standing in front of the flatscreen, both her opponent and the crowd looking at her in shock. The whole scene is bathed in red, except for Val and the screen, who are in colder colors. The screen reads "PLAYER 1 WINS" and shows Doctor Duel with a tensed, hand out, aura farming. Panel 14: Val gently set her controller down on the seat of the chair. Panel 15: Back-view of Val leaving the arcade proudly with her laptop bag, as Fatima reaches the tournament prize money to her over the counter with a nonplussed expression. Panel 16: Val puts her hand out palm-down, rejecting the money, and says, with her pupil glowing red, "Keep it. I'll never come back here."
