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slugtranslation-hypmic · 9 months

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hi slug!!! what do you think of the block party trailers?

Thank you for giving me the excuse to go finally listen to them.

Rivals: Hmm, this is a really interesting comparison! I wouldn't have immediately classified Doppo as a "act first, think later" character, but he definitely has those moments. The music is bouncy but not immediately doing it for me. I think it's one of those songs I'll grow to like quickly, though.

White and Black: (not to be confused with Doppo's Black or White, naturally) SHADY BOYS, LET'S GOOOOOO! I love this match-up. I think they are the kind of people to have a meet-cute in which they committed identity fraud and/or credit card fraud on one another. Anyway, I love the style here. Team Rocket-ass mfers. I agree with the top YT comment at the time of writing, which is, "This is the most fanfic-y thing Hypmic has ever officially released, and I am here for it." I also love that neither of them makes one single effort to hide their scumminess. Truly a duo for the ages.

Thanks for Having Us! Now Look Alive! Osaka Big Up: (or whatever people are calling the Sasara/Roshou one) I adore the fact that Sasara introduces them as a three-person group ft. Rei, but Rei just happens to be doing something else (stealing Juuto's identity, most like) and thus it's a two-person act today. Sasara and Roshou's comedy/speaking dynamic is much more relaxed and natural feeling than it was in their first appearance in Ah, Osaka Dreamin' Night, which is a nice reflection of the current state of their friendship status. Music is chill. I'd like to hear more of it before forming more opinions. Their singing voices sound good with this older, slower style of song.

The Demons' Flowers: I appreciate how the MV style departs from usual Hypmic MV to mimic the MVs for this kind of music. Very JRPG-esque. The lyrics strike me as a little generic for music projects, which is atypical for Hypmic, but it's definitely appropriate for Juushi.

Get busy: I really like this match-up; their high energy works together well here, as does their commitment to working together with the homies to kick absolute ass. I'm not sure KR fully understands the connotation of the English title they've chosen; they're probably going for more of a "Take it easy...but take it!" vibe.

Viva la liberty: While the music itself isn't doing much for me yet, I like this take on how both Saburou and Ramuda have grown throughout the story while still acting in very similar ways to their act 1 selves. An unusual match-up, but I can dig it.

What Lies Beyond the Dreaming: Wow, I really like this. Like Scenario Liar, it almost feels confessional in the sense of how it creates a closed sense of solidarity with the listener (you're the only one I can trust, let me tell you my story for your ears only, etc.). In that case, it's being spoken to his brother, I suppose? Would love to hear the full song.

Closer: I like Hitoya's singing a lot in this one. The darker lyrics and tone suit them both quite well, and I wonder if this points to Jakurai and Hitoya finally talking things out, including Jakurai's experiences in the war, in act 3. Or perhaps that's simply wishful thinking.

My Life: Positivity: Aside from the obvious enjoyment of Hifumi wrangling the rest of the cast into being his enthusiastic background singers, I really like how this song is both bright and bubbly at surface level but says a lot of deeper things about Hifumi's character, like how he's willing to open himself up to being hurt again so long as he has the protection of his friends and loved ones. I don't think it's the kind of thing I'd listen to, but I am looking forward to seeing the full thing.

Move Your Body Til You Die!: Roger that, sir. o7 Very glad to see that Riou's solos are as silly as ever. I think this is my favorite so far in terms of music. It is most definitely my favorite in terms of music videos.

Will-o'-the-Wisp: I really, really, REALLY like the lyrics and how much growth they show for Samatoki. It's nice how you can tell just musically how much he's healed and mellowed out since the start of the series.

HIPHOPPIA: This is my actual favorite musically, and while I understand and appreciate the thematic point of having so many styles of music on this album, I'm personally a bit sad there isn't more of the classic hip-hop sound. Lot of interesting imagery in the lyrics.

Conclusion: Move Your Body Til You Die! is a work of art.

#not a translation #asks #hypmic asks

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leviadraws · 1 year

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Hi levi! Just wanna ask what your thoughts on syobai x sora? (Sorabai) they are one of my favourite and comfort ships. If this ship make you uncomfortable i am sorry i didn't mean to. I just really like their dynamic alot. Love your arts

(if you like them would you ever draw them?)

I answered something similar to this before, if you’d like to see my thoughts from *checks notes* seven months ago here you go.

I can totally get why it’s shipped and its normally a dynamic I like, but for some reason I prefer them as kinda reluctant besties if that makes sense? I just don’t quite get that romantic vibe, not sure why.

But! I really like them as the kinda mate you can trash talk freely and then they go do some crimes or something. Like an AU where they work together based off that one FTE where he offers her to be his assistant, I would totes read that.

The levels of sarcasm and backhanded compliments just go through the roof and then a building goes boom and they split the goods 60-40 (it starts 80-20, but Sora eventually wears him down to a more even split).

They would look also very dapper in matching suits and sunglasses causing havoc haha.

(In general with ships for me i have like about 5 I’d draw unprompted that I really like, then most other stuff is “I can see that” but it wouldn’t come to mind to draw myself? And then there’s the gross age gaps/too argumentative/wizard/footballer ships that I’d like to stay away from. So in general dw I’m very chill. Also I love getting asked my opinion on things, it makes me feel a part of the group /gen).

#ask Loz #sorabai #not technically but if anyone is triggered by it then they might by this too #so just in case #sdra2 sora #syobai hashimoto #loz draws #cw gun

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fan-mans · 9 months

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I did some ship chart stuff a while ago and I've been sitting on it for too long lmao. So here it is with some bonus colors as well!! Original is by redcrowz here

(Btw this is more my headcanons about the inter-character relationships than my feelings on the ship itself cause I don't care too much about them aside from otps, lol.)

Color-coded versions with more analysis under the cut

I'd like to add that I think all the circuit are their own friend groups except the special circuit because the bruiser bros don't have many friends. I have more friendships as well, but this is meant to be the more important friendships, lol.

Narcis and Dragon + Heike are a bit of a given since they're the youngest boxers in the West coast wvba gang, so they quickly became friends and started hanging out together despite their different skill levels.

Hoy and Gabby are friends mostly because they're the oldest boxers, though Hoy still sees Gabby as a 'kid', much like the rest of his co-workers. Gabby doesn't mind though, he thinks it's funny.

Dragon and Hoy are another pair that sprung up due to coincidence. When Dragon first came to the US, he knew nothing about it and Hoy took him under his wing and kept close watch on him, bonding over shared culture and experiences. Even though they speak different forms of Chinese, they got along really well and still remain close.

Gabby and Joe are in a similar boat. Gabby watched over and befriended Joe when he was younger and they've had a very familial relationship since. Gabby and Joe see each other basically as surrogate brothers and by now nothing can change that.

Joe and Bob are more of a weird pair, bonding over a love of music and singing after having met through Gabby. They chill together when in the same city and Joe sometimes makes guest apperances singing/playing piano for Bob's music.

Clown and Bear are second cousins twice removed via marriage and met at a wedding in Italy. They were overjoyed to see each other in the ring again and have their 'buddy I went on hijinks with at that one wedding' back!

Bear is friends with Sandman and SMM mostly because they're all Jewish and feel a lot of solidarity because of that. They like to have debates about anything and anything they can think of which, though they can get heated, are all in good fun.

Hondo and Carmen are friends through Don and are often seen talking about sailor moon together.

Carmen and Disco meeting was a complete accident as they ran into each other at a salon once and got into a conversation about their hair (And bleaching it). They were both really surprised to meet each other in the wvba building and laughed their asses off at the whole situation.

Disco is friends with Doc exclusively because they both like disco music. Disco adores Doc's leopard print jacket and looks up to him as a boxer as well.

Disco is buddies with Sandman and Soda mostly cause he thinks they're both cool. With Soda especially, they share a very bouncy and positive look on life as well a a sense of humor. Sandman is someone he just really respects and vibes with.

Hippo and SMM are big surfing buddies and hang out mostly because of that. Also Macho really likes Hippo's Hot Wheels collection and has contributed to it many times.

Pretty much everyone dislikes the bruiser bros but I put the especially bad relationships down here.

Sandy doesn't like them especially because, though he tries to be neutral, he gets the worst vibes and especially doesn't like Nick for being such an asshole to Joe.

Hoy... well Nick is just ablest to him, saying that if he needs a staff to get around he's too pathetic to be a boxer.

Nick didn't take his loss to Joe well whatsoever and harassed him for months. It got so bad Joe needed a restraining order. He never told Mr. Dream because he's too scared of what either of the brothers might do as revenge.

Pizza just loathes Clown because he thinks Clown makes their country look like a joke. This is part of the reason why he no longer even watches boxing.

These are guys I just hc as aro so no romance for them. Though Mr. Dream is pretty positive about romance himself, Macho and Hippo are more negative about it and don't want it in their lives.

These are 'other' characters I ship the guys with. Bear and Pizza both have wives they adore and Disco has a boyfriend stuck in another state.

Not pictured: All of Carmen and Don's side-partners.

For Don and Hondo, their relationship is complicated due to them being mutually in love but unable to bring romance into their relationship because Don agreed that Carmen would be his only romantic involvement.

Pizza, Dream, and Doc all fought together back in the day, once close friends, but drifted after Pizza left the boxing world and America itself due to mob threats. Deep down, he still misses them.

This is characters who have a mutual crush, but won't really pursue those relationships.

Aran and Mask really admire each other's cheating but mutually agree that a relationship between them, especially a long-distance one, just wouldn't work. They meet up every once and a while to hang out and mess around, though.

Hondo kinda has a crush on Carmen, and vice versa, but Hondo is scared to pursue anything with her due to the whole thing with Don.

Don is crushing hard on Joe and Joe would happily reciprocate a date, but Don is having a hard enough time dealing with his love for Hondo so he refuses to pursue Joe. Joe meanwhile thinks Don is taken fully and loathes the idea of 'taking' him from Carmen.

Sandy and Joe have a strong mutual crush but are too scared of each other to do anything about it. Joe looks down on himself a lot and thinks Sandy would think he's weird. Sandy meanwhile is scared of hurting Joe and thinks Joe secretly fears him.

These are one-sided crushes, the arrow points to who has a crush on who.

Narcis and Don both really like Wii Aran, but he doesn't feel much the same. Narcis doesn't try to hide his feelings much but Don definitely does. Aran doesn't hate either of them (Okay, he used to hate Narcis because he dislikes British people by default) and might even consider a relationship with either if they brought it up to him. However, he just wouldn't be able to trust them or develop feelings on the same level.

Disco has always had a mild crush on Heike but it's never been reciprocated. Heike is aware of Disco's crush and has put out very gentle hints that he really likes Dragon instead.

Kaiser has always liked Joe a lot, but never dropped hints or let Joe know. Joe's feelings are complex because though he thinks he still likes Kaiser romantically, he doesn't actually love him like that or want them to be anything more than close friends.

Nick has a raging crush on Joe and HATES IT. He hates himself, he hates Joe more, and he's madly obsessed with the guy who beat him. Joe is 100% oblivious. It's chaos.

And now my very weird otps!!!

Joe/Aran (Burnt Bread) is obvious as my fave. I just think that their dynamic is perfect for what the other really wants in life. For Joe, he wants to be bold and brash and embrace his weird side like Aran. For Aran, he wants to be able to accept that he actually has people who care about him and have more stability and trust both in his life and relationships like Joe. Also I like the idea of Joe just becoming so weird because of Aran, it's hilarious. They're perfect for each other.

Don/Carmen (Perfecto) is obviously perfect (Or as close as you can get). It's a long-lasting love from childhood situation with these two, almost like a fairytale. They've loved each other deeply for years and years and had plans for marriage since they were kids. Even while loving other people, they're each other's soulmate. If they were to ever separate, they'd both be devastated. This ship is perfect for angst and drama as they balance their love for each other with their desire for others and deal with all the emotional chaos that can bring.

Kaiser/Tiger (Magic Combat Boots)... Okay, I'll admit, this one is weird. I don't remember what drew me to ship them in the first place- maybe some fanart, maybe the shared 'stache power, idk. But no matter what it was, this relationship is like a marshmallow, sweet, soft, and easy. Tiger and Kaiser come off, to me, as very normal guys who are straightforward and down to earth and are the types who don't need a lot of chaos in their love lives. This ship is 110% fluff and very mellow- no drama, no chaos, just two aro/aspec dudes with great mustaches falling in love. I also like the dynamic of Tiger becoming a parent to Kaiser's adopted boys as well :).

Bull/Soda (Angry and Sweet) is the cat/dog dynamic I have for punch out. Though they don't have opposite personalities, they do contrast a lot and have different ways of approaching life. However, they definitely desire each other for such strong personalities and find a mutual bond in a lot of their traumas and with being gentle to each other. Another fluffy ship, but with a lot more angst potential with how I write their backstories.

Bob/Hurricane (Hurricane Shuffle) this one is another 'opposites attract' type ship. This time however it's an introvert/extrovert pairing. Bob is a huge overwhelming extrovert and Hurricane is a self-conscious introvert. They're the type to not stray form their comfort zones, but with each other's help, they both grow more mature and comfortable with their lives. Though there's definitely drama to be had with them, there isn't much angst and much more fluff.

Heike/Dragon (Mandarin Ducklings) is all about young, inexperienced love. These two are some of the youngest boxers, so it makes sense for their relationship to be kinda clunky and awkward, in a cute way of course. For them, it would be chaotic and strange to deal with since they're each other's first serious relationship. A lot of this ship, imo, is about figuring things out, dealing with common problems, and just navigating through love! Sweet in a super chaotic way.

Narcis/Snes Aran (Prince and the pauper) is an unlikely friends to lovers story. Despite Narcis being kind of a brat, there isn't any initial dislike between him and Snes Aran like I hc with him and Wii Aran. Instead, I think Snes Aran starts hanging with him to satiate his own curiosity, before actually coming to like him a lot, and vice versa. Snes is head over heels for Narcis and ends up following him around as his bestie for a time before Narcis realizes he LIKE likes this un-civil, low-class guy. Snes is Narcis' bro and backs him up whenever and doesn't challenge him very much at all, while Narcis not only doesn't look down on snes but does what he can to make him feel equal. And that's what they want in relationships!

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cheemken · 5 months

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Hey Knight,

I don’t got much to say for any new AU’s or anything to add onto, but I just finished the Indigo Disk DLC

Anyways. What’s your opinion about Drayton and Iris 🎤

Are they siblings? Cousins? What kind of dynamic do you think they have?

I think they have this kind of dynamic

That's so real tho yeah that's them your honour🤣🤣

But omf yeah cause like I've talked abt them w my friend Altair yeah, and at first I thought that oh, maybe there's resentment there y'know, cause yeah Drayton had to redo his second year a buncha times and y'know since Iris is a prodigy maybe he'd have some sort of resentment that she's doing better than him

But like, looking at it now, idt that's the case?? Ofc unless they finally reveal to us their dynamic hahaha

Tho now for me, I think their dynamic would be similar to Sans and Papyrus undertale lmfaooo look as much as I don't like Sans and Paps much, Drayton and Iris do give off the vibes. Like Drayton is pretty chill, pretty lazy, I wanna say he's so supportive of Iris. Like imagine tho the first time Drayden took Iris in, Drayton got so excited that immediately he treats her like a sister, teaching her everything he knows abt pokemon, and they bonded over their own dragon pkmn. Iris was least so amazed by his Duraludon, she swears she and her Axew will be as strong as him one day

And yeah idk ig it would be cute if like,, Iris really looks up to him, cause while he's lazy, he's strong, and now she's at his level. But to him, she had always been the stronger one, she was just held back by the comments made abt her that she ended up thinking she's not capable. Also, imagine him being like Sans undertale, he's all protective threatening anyone who messes w Iris hahah

And just,,, ough imagine tho, like, if we go w Nate/Rose really beating Iris and being the new Champion, Drayton was there for her, saying "well, guess we're both ex Champions now" laughing as he pats her back, trying to make her feel better and ough your honour pls chxknx

But also yeah despite all the soft, they would annoy the hell outta each other lmfao no I'm not taking criticism, they're siblings, if they can't piss off the other for a day they'd combust, I know for a fact they'd try to embarrass each other when either friend groups are around hahaha but also, imagine them just like, absolutely fucking up the twins tho, cause on our prev concepts the twins are like messing w Iris and her stuff when she's not around, imagine her and Drayton doing the same to Hilda and Hilbert but tenfold hahaha

#but ough.. your honour them... ;w;#imagine tho since most peeps say that iris is the younger one theyre actually just the same age hahah #cause cmon iris should be older by now right cbdmdn #but also it would be funny if like we do get bw3 and iris is actually the older one between the two of em hahah #also #speaking of aus #man can you imagine the villain aus tho hcndbd #like imagine how drayton would react tho or if he actually knows or not until iris does a reveal #or whichever villain au bc we have like three— hahaha #but oughgh yeah #opelucid siblings my beloved i hope we get to see their dynamic soon hfjdnd #an ask and an answer #jerseyk112 #pokemon hcs #unova kids #?? i mean theyre both from unova so like yeah hahaha #dragon siblings

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noro-noro-noro · 1 year

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the dreams I had got mixed up also.

taking the bus 1.5 they changed refinery missions in drg

big party with my relatives 2.5. some people noisy outside my window

some drunk girl takes my boots & teleports away

fantasy world crusade

i have to find hentai with the tags "bearded dragon"

why are the half dreams that i added in later indented. this is annoying

1. taking the bus home from highschool again & that guy was there but the bus stop was now at the bottom of my driveway instead of the bottom of his driveway. my sister was also on the bus and she was telling me the bus stop was at our driveway instead of Alex's but I didn't believe her until it actually stopped. then I was like jaylene when did it become this bus stop!??? when??? also there were lotuses growing next to the driveway so I was cheerful wbout that bc I like them, but then my mom yelled at me for eating lotus root and scattering the seeds around the yard last year bc now she has to dig up all the lotuses & I was like why :( I like these... then there was likr a little hole under the house with blue lighting that looked just like a picture I drew, down to the shitty lineart that I started overpainting instead. I overpainted some of the water in the pond. it was purple.

1.5 something drg related. they changed how pipes in refining worked. scout couf build his own pipes they were blue and placed faster. and also there were 6 geysers now so 6 pipes.

2. a big party with my dad's side of the family, but it happened again in my mom's house. that's always the house I see in my dreams so whatever. one of my smaller cousins C was trying to play piano. i was surprised at how they got such a nice piano onto the driveway and was worried it was gonna rain. everybody was drinking a bit & being a little rowdy , so I decided to keep at eye on my little cousins instead. she tried playing the middle part of a famous waltz that had been simplified down to child level, but then part of it was also just in the hall of the mountain king. which I should look back into playing again bc it was a lot of fun. anyway!! I was trying to help her out but I only had a shitty light blue colored pencil to make notes with. then as people were leaving I heard shouting from inside, a dude named Zach was being a pain in the ass. my brain immediately was like "do you know rhis guy? he's a white gsmer mustve been one of your ex's friends that you forgot to remove on social media" even though he was literally a dude I saw 10-15 times on campus bc he was in Industrial Design which was the huilding next to ours. anyway idk his crimes but he was just chilling in the living room and I kind of wanted him to leave.

2.5. just remembered this, it was also in my mom's house. I was sleeping in my old room when I heard people yelling from the patio (directly under my old room) & it was 8am so I turned the light on & peeked out & there was some family down there who lookrd up a me a bit sheepishly. I like gestured at them & then turbed my light back off.

3. this kinda takes place in the post party zone. it was a similar vibe to the last day of thing I volunteered for in Taiwan, where all the rules went out the window bc half the people "leading" the groups were younger than the college students, and everybody wanted to be drinking, and we were 7 to a room & one of the girls I was with kicked us all out bc she wanted to get with a guy so I was just wandering around the area like :-/ I want to go to bed.... the night market is already closed by now.....anyway it was like that vibe. we were in a similar hotel now, if slightly nicer. some drunk girl in a white fur coat and very fancy strappy heeled sandals showed up with her friend & they sat next to me & talked really loudly for a while, and then the girl was like um. hey. can I borrow your boots to go to the bathroom I don't wanna walk in these heels. so I was like ok sure just bring them back.... & she was like omg thanks babe :D & then as she was taking her sandals off I noticed she had abnormally small feet. whatever. she took my.boots & then like teleported away.

4. there was some kind of sci Fi fantasy aspect leaking in now. like fantasy where the magic is old abandoned scifi stuff like sword of shannara. I was on some quest to do something. there was a machine of some sort? some kind of thing I had. I downloaded something that turned me invisible Just in time since some mafia guys were about to walk up. their girls were also wearing strappy heels. cut to the rest of my stupid stupid party seeing the girl who took my boots also hanging onto MY dimensional gate bow that we were LOOKING FOR. and they were just like oh cool! & let her g on her way

5. it was really vital that I accurately typed in tags to look for some kind of hentai that had a bearded dragon in it..not participating or anything, just that the main girl had one & you got to see her feed it before she went off to get railed or whatever. unfortunately I couldn't spell bearded properly.

#dreams

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lunetual · 2 years

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1, 5, 8, 23 <3

most beloved millie <3 ty for sending in....... this got me ranting and raving (positive) i'm going to put this under a cut it's awfully long im truly so sorry

kpop bias ask game! ♡

1) Who do you most want to take care of? ooh... i think less that i want to take care of and more that i KNOW if i was a staff member / manager he'd have me absolutely wrapped around his finger... tnx junhyeok. like i simply know that if i was a pnat staffer he could give me the puppy dog eyes and i would just let him do whatever he wanted BUT also in return i know that he would volunteer for things without me even having to ask !! he's a good kid the best boy. @ psy consider hiring me. actually.

2) Who feels the most like home? oh taejun for sure! txt is definitely a safe space sort of group and yeonjun and taehyun have really been biases since day one. txt is also the first group i got into on my own and the first group i started stanning predebut, so it really feels like i've gotten to watch them grow so much as people and as artists these past three years and they make me feel so proud! i don't believe at all that you're a better fan or more of a fan of a group depending on how long you've been following them, but i do feel so lucky to have been along on their journey and obviously while i'm definitely a multi coming back to them always feels like coming home <3

8) Name 3 similarities between 2 of your biases okay actually millie thank u sm for asking this i have been THINKING about this trying to figure out my bias types and which of my biases are the most similar and i have landed on !! i actually think ki and taehyun have some really key qualities in common l;sdjfaldsk. ok surface level obviously i tend to gravitate strongly towards vocalists it just Happens idk and i tend to really. respond to bright smiles and i think they have some of the nicest in kpop but besides that... i think they both have this air of confidence that stems from them knowing exactly what they're personally capable of. some may even say cockiness. i love that, unfortunately. they also both have the sweetest most sincere interactions with fans like kihyun is a lot more parasocial about it but i think these two both are so cognizant of how much an interaction can mean to someone and (weverse conversations not withstanding) do their best to make fans feel as good as possible! and they're both chronically communicating w fans on various platforms like. both of you turn off your phones do something for yourselves today. etc.

23) Any particular clips or pics that you find comforting of a bias? ah now is when i have to admit i will put on midnight idol w/ kihyun and changkyun for hours on end and just have them chatting in the background of whatever i'm doing... it's just PEAK comforting i say it a lot but i love changki's dynamic it's so warm and sweet and occasionally playful but always like very respectful towards the other person and :( midnight idol is just so much of that... i also love taehyun and romin solo vlives and will replay them sometimes! they're both very even-keeled and easy to listen to (at least when they're alone ;alskdjfka) and their lives give off a really chill and calm vibe! i tell myself it improves my korean fluency whenever i watch any of these alfks;alsdj <3

#asked and answered #bias ask game #berryjaellie #millie im sorry this is so long you are under NO obligation to read any or all of this A;LSDJFALKSDF

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why-so-serious-lucifer · 6 months

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K-pop Discography Deep Dives: WINNER

A Disclaimer: I was planning, when I first started Tumblr, to be a lurker, but then I began an office job and needed something to listen to to keep myself occupied. And then, I started going through entire K-pop groups’ repertoires, album by album, and jotting down my thoughts. And then, I stumbled into K-pop tumblr and decided, you know what, there’s at least four people on this hell site who would read in depth rants about these discographies and at least five who wouldn’t read it and then get mad because it’s kind of our job as K-pop fans. My lukewarm takes should be taken with an entire silo of salt and the knowledge that this is completely for fun and occupying my very bored, very neurodivergent brain. All this to say, for the love of god, I’m a sleep-deprived student and I don’t have time for internet hate, so don’t kill me. With that being said, enjoy!

Here are my credentials: none. The extent of my knowledge of WINNER is two songs, one because it's considered pretty classic in k-pop and Dreamcatcher covered it, and the other because it was recommended to me by an Inner Circle (WINNER’s fan club name) online friend of mine. So let’s do this!

WINNER was formed in 2013 through a survival program, with five members: Hoony, Seungyoon, Mino, Jino, and Taehyun (the last of which left due to mental health reasons in 2016). They, like (G)I-DLE, who I covered a few months ago, write, compose, and choreograph their own songs, which is pretty cool and has me excited to see what they’ve come up with.

Empty is a bit of a surprising choice for a debut, with its quite melancholy mood and slow beat. Its chorus is high and very gentle, almost soothing if it weren’t for the heartbreak. I have a similar issue with the raps in this song that I do with the raps in many other k-pop songs: they’re fine on their own but I feel like they don’t fit the vibe at all. This is a ballad for dwelling and brooding; why are we randomly changing the tempo and giving the audience whiplash for something that doesn’t need to be there? On the whole, the song isn’t for me, but I do really like the harmonizing in the last chorus.

Color Ring too is sadder than I was expecting, but this time the instrumentals are more interesting with both a piano and an acoustic guitar. I’m a ballad enjoyer—though I have to be in the right mood for them—and this one is pretty good. It manages to balance the moodiness and the catchiness pretty well, though I admit that the music video is so dramatic that I laughed a few times when I probably wasn’t supposed to. The bridge and different levels of vocalizing were great, and I have to say that something about this song feels so early-2nd gen, though I’m not sure exactly what it is.

2014 S/S is their first album, and I have a couple hidden gems. Due to its popularity, I actually thought that Don’t Flirt was a single, and though I’d heard it before, I didn’t know that WINNER wrote it. It embraces a much more lighthearted, happy beat than Empty or Color Ring, with hints of reggae and Latin pop, and reminds me of Wonder Girls’ Why So Lonely, one of my favorite bands. I also enjoyed the upbeat disco of Smile Again, the soaring strings of Confession, and the harmonizing in But. Also, Love Is A Lie really reminded me of something, but I couldn’t place it for the life of me.

Sentimental, despite the name, is actually not a ballad. I love how this video is filmed, from the ceiling into elaborately constructed sets shot like a floor plan. I’m not the biggest fan of verses leaning so far into sing-talk, but they have pretty good flow and they go well with the odd, upbeat energy of the song. This one leans into the humor, and the chill soft rock elements give it a relatable, youthful feeling that I appreciated.

Baby Baby returns to the melancholy feeling of Empty and Color Ring, but innovates on the formula by adding a swingy southern guitar and slow drums. It’s definitely grown on me as I’ve listened to it more, and the last chorus was pretty good, with the combination of vocals, instrumentals, and rising tension, but it just doesn’t quite reach the point of catharsis for me. Also, I know that this isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things, but I did really like the music video and how it expresses loneliness in a host of different ways.

Exit E is a bit of an eclectic EP, truth be told, and my hidden gem doesn’t sound anything like either title track. Immature leans into a pop-punk feel with some alt-rock as well, and has a great beat. Since my BTS reviews, I’ve grown fonder of talking in k-pop songs, especially when it's in Korean. Something about it feels very human and down-to-earth, and helps off-set a lot of the artifice in k-pop.

Really Really, as I’m sure any fan of WINNER’s guessed, is the classic k-pop song I referenced at the start. I didn’t realize until this review, though, how early into their careers it was released, so color me impressed. There’s nothing I can say about this one that hasn’t already been said: it’s catchy in an understated way, it’s got an interesting mix of tropical house, synths, and hip-hop, and it’s got a music video style that’s unusual for k-pop. I did enjoy this, and everytime I hear it (since the aforementioned Dreamcatcher cover), it gets stuck in my head yet again. Since this was the first song I heard of Winner’s, their more ballad-based style surprised me a lot.

Fool is also a ballad, unsurprisingly, but I prefer this one to their others. I really like the different ways they seem to play with vocals in it, the gentleness in the verses versus the more evident emotion in the choruses, and I especially enjoy the pre-choruses. The piano mixing with the guitars in the background is great, and when it all comes together after the bridge, all I can say is wow, because it was very powerful. This became the first of their singles that I added to my playlist.

Love Me Love Me is certainly happier than the majority of WINNER’s music; its electronic instrumental hook seems to feel poised to be exciting. I love the build up in the pre-chorus and the interweaving of funk, synth, rap, and pop vocalizing really works for me here. But…I think the song undercuts itself with such an empty chorus, and though I know this sounds odd, it’s almost like the song thinks that it’s more fun than it is. It wants to be a summer bop, but it’s too understated for that.

Island was actually the other song I knew of WINNER’s, and its tropical influences interested me from the first listen. In my mind, it’s what Love Me Love Me wanted to be, and it has an excellent energy that doesn’t stall right after it builds up. It feels like a great summer vacation, both nostalgic and lively, and the post-chorus chanting with the brass is upbeat and chill at the same time. I think that so far, this one is probably my favorite title track, as it adds to what I thought made Don’t Flirt so good.

Everyday starts with some fairly basic electronic background before the vocalizing takes over. I was pretty surprised by the decision to rely so heavily on autotune for this song (perhaps it was a stylistic choice?), as WINNER have such good voices, and the harmonizing of said voices was one of the things I appreciated about their early work, even when the music wasn’t for me. Everyday’s pre-chorus is decently catchy with a thankful break from auto tune but I wish it had more of a climax or did something interesting with a pretty tried-and-true formula. I don’t think I’ll be listening to this one again, sorry guys.

So, time for a slight digression. I recognize that this isn’t exactly a song critique, but I feel like there’s so much sexualization of women in their music videos. First there was the random woman in her underwear in Baby Baby, then the female dancers in Really Really, and now the first 15 seconds of Everyday is just a bunch of women standing around posing in bikinis for…what reason, exactly? I’m not blaming the band members for this, obviously, as I know they don’t have control over it, but…I hope this doesn’t continue into the other videos later, because at this point it’s genuinely making me uncomfortable.

Everyd4y, after four songs that were only stand-alone singles, is another full album, so I have a lot to talk about. Lala sounds like it could’ve been another title that follows up Don’t Flirt and Island in their fun summer sounds; it’s a bit simple, as their songs go, but it’s very fun. For has a great, warm acoustic background and sweeping strings that mesh well together. Movie Star, meanwhile, feels more like Winner’s earlier ballads in the way that it’s constructed: layered instrumentals, a focus on lovely harmonizing, and setting a scene, just more upbeat. It’s not afraid to slow things down and for the bridge, only uses hand-clapping and acoustic guitar, then lets the instrumentals go full force for the last chorus. I really liked this one (the rap is my one sticking point, as it often is), as I think it builds on their strengths in an interesting way. It’s probably my favorite.

Millions too starts with an electronic background, but thankfully doesn’t rely too heavily on auto tune, letting the group use their voices nicely. I confess I was expecting a very braggy song, and was pleasantly surprised by how sweet it actually was. However, besides that, I didn’t find that much interesting about this one, as it follows a pretty standard pop-song formula.That’s not to say I’ve got anything against it, as I’m sure if it was on in the background I’d nod my head along, but it’s not enough for me to really care.

Ah Yeah opens differently from the past few songs, with a more down-to-earth acoustic guitar. I appreciated that this one has a full chorus with several parts, and I especially enjoyed that pre-chorus’ exciting build. This one totally had me nodding along, and now it’s stuck in my head. Overall, it’s not re-inventing the wheel or anything, but this song is a lot of fun and would probably grow on me if I gave it a bit more time.

From the EP, We, two songs stuck out to me. Mola, firstly, has a great build-up, and uses an interesting mix of Latin-pop and synth that I think works pretty well. I like how the instrumental pulls back and rushes forward at different points, and the voices have a chance to do some rising and falling, which is always fun to hear. Everyday, the single, meanwhile, was the title I’ve disliked the most so far, and the remix does help me like it a little more, adding a synthier background and a quicker beat. But at its core, the song’s just not interesting enough for this, and I can’t bring myself to care. To not end on an annoyed note, I did think First Love was sweet.

SOSO seems to combine parts of different eras of WINNER, like the breakup focus of their earliest work and the more upbeat feeling of their middle work.. I actually like the rap, which is unusual for me, but it fits much better with the rest of the song than many k-pop raps do. It’s a good old-fashioned break up anthem, and it reminds me of Congratulations by Day6. But…(cue the groaning of how I need to just appreciate things), this song has an excellent, and I do mean excellent build up in the pre-chorus, and then…it just wastes it with an empty, soulless chorus that’s just the words “so so” repeated over and over with an excessive amount of autotune…oh. My. god. Come on, guys, I was rooting for you, you were so close! This was almost my favorite song of theirs, but no. It’s more disappointing to me than anything, but still, it’s a shame to waste such good ideas. I didn’t have a hidden gem from Cross, the EP.

Hold feels like a follow up to Sentimental, both in its specific brand of humor and its slightly-bratty-slightly-funny delivery. Its sing-talk sections are not my favorites, but I do quite like its build up in the pre-choruses when we’re away from the autotune. This one did honestly get a few chuckles out of me, though I think that I liked it partly because I liked the video, and without them together I’d probably be harsher on the parts that I thought were annoying. It has its moments, but I don’t feel that attached to it.

As the name suggests, Remember is a return to their more melancholy music, and is a song that was created as a special release right before the members began a hiatus for mandatory military service. Normally, fan songs are quite thankful and upbeat, but Remember feels more like mourning something, which is completely fair, since I can’t imagine what it feels like to be essentially drafted. This song really did affect me, especially when it showed concert footage and them looking through old photos together, and I think I got to understand and care much more about the group than I had watching any of their regular MVs.

Remember is the third and last full album, so let’s dive in. Dduk (Jino’s solo) has a delightfully weird instrumental and it sounds like he’s having a lot of fun singing it, which I always appreciate. I liked the energy in the chorus of Hold, although I wasn’t the biggest fan of the rest of the song. Well gives me road trip vibes, and honestly would’ve made a great goodbye single too, if they wanted a more upbeat and nostalgic one. Serenade (Hoony’s solo) is also a lot of fun, and goes for an anthemic alt-rock that reminds me of TXT’s Lovesong. Different has a gentler energy than many of the other songs here and pairs it with a chill acoustic guitar that provides a nice outro.

I Love U is WINNER’s most recent release at the moment, created during a break in military service, and I was very pleasantly surprised both by how upbeat it is and by how much I enjoyed listening to it. It relies very heavily on synths, while also keeping that sense of humor from past songs. I really liked that bridge and lead into the last chorus, because it did a great job changing up the structure while still keeping the momentum going. It’s a bit cheesy and all, sure, but there’s no denying that it has heart.

From the EP, Holiday, I had two hidden gems. 10 min continues the nostalgic, gently anthemic vibe from many of Remember’s b-sides, which I’ve always been a fan of. Sweet Home is a bit understated at first, but that last chorus really changed things with its alt-rock tones and had me bopping my head.

So, I’m glad I did this. I admit that I didn't like WINNER as much as I expected; I found that much of their later work is not for me, and many of their more ballad-y tracks aren’t everyday listens for me. If you’re an Inner Circle, I’m sure you disagree with most of my points. But, I’m always happy to find more self-produced groups, which are already a rarity, and on top of that, finding one that also choreographs and composes is even more out of the ordinary. So, genuinely, kudos to them. I’m watching some interviews now and though I don’t think I’d be listening to a lot of their titles every day, when I’m in the mood for an anthemic summer road trip song to add to my playlists, it’s safe to say I have somewhere to turn.

My Top 5 songs are Fool, Island, Well, Don’t Flirt, and Movie Star, with Sweet Home as an honorable mention. Winner gets a 7.75 out of 10 from me, since as I mentioned, they’re very inconsistent. Like Kingdom and OnlyOneOf, when they’re good they’re really, really good (see what I did there?) but when they’re bad they’re just…boring. But unlike those groups, there doesn’t seem to be some thread that connects their earlier work to their later work, and in my opinion, they sound like two different bands. Even though I wasn’t the biggest fan of their ballads, those songs gained a lot of respect from me…but their later releases did not.

Next time, we’ll be switching up my usual by doing a girl group I know almost nothing about, so I’m looking forward to it! Tschüss!

#winner #k-pop #review #k pop boy groups #k-pop deep dive #Mino #jinu #Seungyoon #yoon #hoony #island #really really #fool #Taehyun #I love u #empty #remember #color ring #inner circle #Spotify

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nerves-nebula · 1 year

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NUMBER #6 - The last in-person conversation I had with her.

This one isn't as long as the last one xD. (Doing these two first 'cause you seemed the most interested, but I'll get to the other ones too when I got the free time)

So the last in-person conversation I had with her she was in her "better" mindset. Sometimes she's chill and we have genuinely really interesting conversations and it's fun. Very very rarely (like once every 3 or 4 years) she'll be in what she calls "nancy mode" and she actually likes cooking and is super kind. Those were the only two times she's ever baked cookies

(both times I was sick so I couldn't help, but it smelled so good. extra info: I think cooking and baking is really neat but I had to take a course in school in how to cook because she wouldn't teach me beyond "watch". I also wasn't allowed to bake because "I would make them fat". )

But the conversation, though not uncomfortable, would definitely be deemed "weird". She wanted me to "use my powers" to "manifest a new reality". I was to do this where I would re-locate the winning lottery ticket to one of the stores that they go to, and "change the positioning" so that they would get the winning lottery ticket.

I also had to use a method that she thinks is "tapping into the universe's power" where I "go through her history and find what would be stopping the ticket from manifesting from HER past". I had to talk to her about some things I REALLY didn't know all the details about and had to sound like I knew what I was talking about from a "universal consciousness" level.

Upside is that they say that if they got the ticket they'd give me some of the money xD But I, unfortunately(????), do NOT have reality-manipulating powers so they haven't won the lottery yet. They've tried getting me to start buying tickets because "surely I'd be able to win if I just applied myself and manifested it".

Also to follow up on your question(?), I'm in a possibly better place? I managed to get out of living with them, but I'm still in contact with them. I ended up learning more about their extended family (saying theirs because honestly I DON'T KNOW THESE PEOPLE).

Turns out a part of the extended family is SUPER FUCKED UP. And the rest just. Don't do anything or are disconnected? Or know and don't do anything. They're really into victim blaming it turns out. I really don't understand. Very wild stuff, plus connections to a gang that might kill some people if they talk about anything, it was in the local news apparently. Highly unlikely but, if right, I might have to hide from yet ANOTHER group of people that might kill me? Love that bestie xD

I lived with one of the family peeps for a bit and tried telling them about the things that happened, but instead of helping they bullied me (to put it one way) and tried to spread wildly inappropriate rumors and I nearly ended up homeless without ID. I'm not at that point anymore though so yay!! AKA I'm not well liked by the extended family

Eventually I got dumped into another house (renting a room) and the room has a lock (finally!!) but the landlord lives here with a few people that don't speak english and the landlord gives off mighty sus vibes. I'm going to buy a camping cooking element so I don't have to use the kitchen though because whenever I do he comes out, says he hasn't seem me much, and then watches me :/ BUT after I get the cooking thing I'd say I'm in a better spot now xD

ah, mothers baking deserts, the ultimate bittersweet childhood memory. My dad does a similar thing to Nancy Mode, though he doesnt name it and he's lucid way more often than that.

But I never know if I'm gonna get "Hours long lecture rant" dad or "genuine heartfelt conversation" dad.

also christ alive man how many people want you dead?? you're starting to worry me ;_;

WELL. ANYWAY. three cheers for rooms with locks!

#nnstuff #ask #child abuse #abuse

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soft-angelic-kiss · 3 years

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We’re all a little bit crazy (6)

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

therapsit! Izuku x Patient! Bakugou x Patient! Todoroki x Patient! Shinsou x Patient! Reader

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Chapter 6 trigger warnings- mentions of Tourette's (i don't think that’s an ACTUAL trigger but it couldn’t be hurt to mention) mentions of self harm (thinking they're indestructible.) And mentions of counting/taking pills + medications.

I’m gonna need you guys to bare with me! I really don’t know what a mental hospital is like and so i tried my best with the information a friend gave me :)

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5 «────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Walking through the dining hall, Izuku kept his head up and tried to remain tall and strong to the other patients when he heard a squeal and watched the tuff of h/c go up into the air. Immediately Izuku was on a high alert. As he sped up his pace the same as Bakugou, who immediately started yelling

“Gah dammit shitty hair! I don’t you to stay-”

The blonde's voice was easily cut off through the laughter of a red head, and another blonde.

“Oh chill it Baku-” the blonde's head threw itself backwards as the end of his sentence “gOU-” escaped his lips. The red head was immediately making sure he was okay, even with Y/N in his arms. Rubbing his neck and asking about cramps

Izuku smiled softly and watched them all interact, being able to tell that they were all best friends. He hummed as Y/N bounced her way over to him and hung on his arm with a smile “YOU CAME” they yelled in excitement making everyone smile softly.

The red head was the first to make a move as he smiled to the greenette “Hey! I’m Ejirou Kirishima!” he smiled as he pounded his fist together mushing together already forming scars, and bruises against his knuckles.

It caused Izuku to check out all of his other scars that littered his body, his hands and arms mostly, Y/N must’ve seen him looking Kirishima over and hummed softly whispering into his ear “he thinks he’s indestructible..” Izuku nodded in understanding

“I’m D-” his sentence once again was cut short by a scrunching of his shoulders and a yell of “ENK” before he returned to his previous stance and said “Denki Kaminari!” he smiled softly and waved. Izuku waved back, he decided he would look at their files later after he laid Y/N down for bed.

“What’s dinner today?” Y/N looked to their friends as they ushered Izuku to the table that they sat at, the setting arrangement a little squishier than normal due to the extra body that was added, On one side Kirishima, Denki, and Shinsou sat together and on the other side sat Izuku, Y/N, Todoroki and Bakugou.

Bakuou was the first to respond “they have beef stroganoff… and steamed carrots...” Y/N pouted and nodded “I’m not surprised Katsu..”

The group let out a little disappointed groan collectively. The cafeteria wasn’t the MOST delightful place to have their dinner, but they didn’t have the choice, especially on beef stroganoff night.

Izuku thought their food opinions were interesting as he let them all engage in conversation quietly observing each of them with a smile. They all looked so happy and content when they were together.

Bakugou's attitude was calm, Shinsou was engaging in conversation. Shoto was speaking more than Izuku thought was possible for him, Denki’s tics, at least that’s what Izuku had deemed them to be, had calmed down and Kirishima wasn’t hitting anything at all.

Each of them were so content with each other, he wondered why they were kept apart. Y/N finished her food and each of the boys told her that they were proud of her. Which made bright blushes rise across her whole body with a smile.

Eventually their dishes were taken from them and they were all sent down to the nurses station for their nightly meds before they would be sent upstairs for the night, Izuku followed after the group seeing as they were ready for the nightly meds.

Checking the time and seeing it was 9:00 pm on the dot, he waited patiently for them to receive their meds and come back. He quietly heard the mutter from Y/N as they counted which meds were there, “..seroquel and gabitril.. For sleep.. And Abilify for depression.`` They took their meds and smiled at Izuku, motioning him to follow them as they bounded up the stairs.

Izuku hummed softly following them back up the stairs placing his clipboard on a bedside table as he watched them get ready for bed as he smiled softly, when Y/N finally laid down humming into their mountain of pillows, all doctors approved.

“Good night… thank you for hanging out with me..” Izuku smiled as your voice echoed quietly in the small room causing his heart to flutter with how soft and sleepy you sounded.

“Of course. I hope you sleep well Y/N” he hummed softly as he exited the room hearing your snores. Shortly after his words slipped past his lips, he exited and saw all the other boys' doors were closed. Figuring they were asleep too. He headed down to the staff room to put away his clipboard when he remembered that he wanted to check on Kirishima’s and Kaminaris files.

He slowly searched through the last names, conveniently the two names were placed right together making sure that he wouldn’t forget about the other. With a soft hum he pulled out Kirishima’s file first.

F I L E 26

(Patient Name) Ejirou Kirishima (Patient #785)

(Date admitted) 10-25-2015

(Patient age) 22

(Patient disorder) Psychosis, Congenital insensitivity to pain.

(History/cause) Patient has seemed to believe that he is indestructible. He walks into walls and punches glass things, often resulting in scars and bleeding around his body, his mother has stated that he’s done this since he was little but always assumed he would grow out of it. He never did.

(Has patient...)

-attempted suicide?

-attempted homicide?

-attempted any act of self-harm?

-attempted violence on past employees?

-attempted escape?

(Other). He’s very affectionate to those around him but often tries to prove his manliness to those around him. He always smashes his fists together declaring the manliness/womanlyness of those around him.

(Danger level) 7/10

Izuku let out a breath as he quietly looked at the file over one more time before placing it back. He felt sorry for the red head but it explained the scar littered on his body. It also explained why he was calling everything manly.

F I L E 27

(Patient Name) Denki Kaminari (Patient #786)

(Date admitted) 4-20-12

(Patient age) 21

(Patient disorder) Tourette Syndrome, depression, anxiety

(History/cause) Patient was diagnosed with Tourettes around 6 years old, but his parents have said he’s always displayed symptoms of it even from toddler age. He stuck his finger in an electrical socket when he was 7 and it caused the scars going up his arms.

(Has patient...)

-attempted suicide?

-attempted homicide?

-attempted any act of self-harm?

-attempted violence on past employees?

-attempted escape?

(Other). He’s very cheeking, loves telling jokes and is relativity an easy going guy, he rarely has attacks but when he does i advise all employees to watch out because he gets urges to touch electricity, and mess with electrical setups

(Danger level) 5/10

Izuku carefully placed the file back into the cabinet as he let out a breath. No wonder they all saw something in each other. They all had such similar stories, even if they weren’t exactly the same they all found solace in each other.

Y/N was missing a mother, father and brother figure in her life, which is why she pursued a relationship with Todoroki, Bakugou and Kirishima. Who all gave off the vibes that the poor younger needed to thrive.

Todoroki was missing his sister and brother, which is why he connected so well with Denki and Y/N, they both held similar qualities to the two he had lost..

Bakugou needed stable, but fun people to help him realize what a calm world this really was.. And that’s why he bonded with Todoroki, Shinsou. Kirishima, Denki and Y/N. They were all as equally calm as they were cheeky, meaning they could help Bakugou with whatever problem was needed.

Shinsou was missing his parents and his little baby sister, so while he still had the parents to bond with during visiting hours. He treated each of these people as if they were a little sibling to him.

Kaminari finally felt accepted because none of them batted an eye when his tics happened, and it made him feel like he finally had a family, and he was finally happy..

Kirishima felt protected. While he enjoyed feeling power and being manly.. Sometimes it was nice to feel protected. None of them ever questioned how manly he was.. So he felt at peace

Nothing could separate them. Nothing at all, Izuku was sure of it. He placed everything back before he finally headed back up to his own room. Finishing his nightly routine as he thought of the group he’d met today as he started falling into dream land. «────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────» @buckyneedsplums @lazywriterfullofideas09 @notchittatenn @psycho-101 @toodarktoseethelight @unlogical-ella if you’re crossed out that’s because it wouldn’t let me tag you :( «────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

a/n: HI GUESS WHO’S BACK FROM THE DEAD!! In a moment of clarity i finally decided to work on this chapter. It’s been hard for me but you know i finally did it! Like i stated earlier I've never been to a mental hospital so i don’t know what it’s like in there. I tried my best using the information friend had given me. Thank you guys for sticking with the story for as long as you have!

#mha bakugou #patient #my hero x reader #i forget how to write tags #i'm lazy #feel free to like and reblog #i love you #drink water #send in asks if you want

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secretgamergirl · 3 years

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Dear Game Developers, I don’t want to be a rapacious colonizing blight on the world.

I like a pretty wide variety of games, but one general thing I’ve always been particularly keen on is the sort of game where I start off just kinda naked in the wilderness with nothing and have to build up a bunch of infrastructure to accomplish something. So you know, RTSes, Civ clones, survival games, sandbox-y Minecraft stuff, Dwarf Fortress and similar things, but these all have this really annoying habit of making my character the biggest existential threat to the entire world, and I would really like them to stop doing that all the time.

So, just to open up with an example of how to do this sort of thing in a way I like, Subnautica is one of my favorite games. I recently streamed the whole thing, so, links to that if you’d like: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4

Subnautica actively confronts my issue head on, and handles it right. I’m not slaughtering everything I see, I’m not strip mining the whole planet, I’m not leveling forests. I’m here by way of horrible tragic accident, and by the end of the game I’ve done my best to clean up the mess from that and address some other global issues to the point where I can confidently say my presence over the course of the game has made for a net positive impact on the environment in which it’s set. Plus it’s a great game in a bunch of other ways.

I’m also pretty happy with Factorio, oddly enough. In Factorio I AM strip mining the whole world, slaughtering absolutely all of the local wildlife, and any forests I’m not clear-cutting I’m choking out with industrial emissions that leave nothing but dry withered skeletons where there were once beautiful stretches of foliage. The thing of it is, between actually tracking my environmental impact as a mechanic and having such downer visuals, it at least feels like the developers and I are sharing a really dark joke about how awful you are in games like this.

Then on the other side of the coin here, we have, say, Satisfactory. A game in the same weird subgenre as Factorio (do we have a name for these yet? Convey’em Ups?) but... really gross. The player is explicitly just heading down to this really beautiful planet to extract and process all the resources they can. You’re rewarded for killing... basically all life you see despite it not generally posing any sort of real threat to you, clear cutting all the vegetation, and to keep the factory building vibes nice and chill, when you tap into a coal vein or set up an oil well, you get an endless supply of those burnable fuels to use forever, with absolutely no consequence, as you just consume all the things to make all the other things and ship them out to meet quotas. And that’s... kinda gross? Again, the fact that nothing you do has any sort of consequence despite half of it being stuff that is literally killing the world in reality makes it way worse.

Meanwhile, lately I’ve been keeping a lot of modded Minecraft videos going in the background to stave off the social isolation with the whole plague and all with some human voices, and see what cool new ideas people are testing there. One of the real popular new mods is this one called MineColonies, and you know what? It’s really neat. The idea is you find a big open plot of land somewhere, throw down blueprints for really huge multiblock structures of houses and workshops and such, get those built up a little, and NPCs start wandering in you can start giving jobs to. Here’s someone to harvest and replant trees, someone to go mining for underground resources, someone to build and upgrade the rest of these buildings, people to provide renewable food and medicine to all these other NPCs. Schools for their kids to get their stats up to good places by adulthood, a whole higher learning system to advance a tech tree, it’s cool.

But the thing is, as you probably gathered from the name, it’s DISGUSTINGLY colonialist. All these people coming in are explicitly white, with British accents, explicitly gendered and explicitly heterosexual too incidentally, and a huge part of the general infrastructure building is having to set up guard posts and barracks all over, training knights and archers to defend against the local barbarians native to the land you’re building on who wander out of the wilderness to attack everyone with some regularity. And I mean, how messed up is that? This mod is explicitly adding in native people’s just so there’s someone for you to displace and murder as you colonize some big chunk of unspoiled wilderness in the name of prosperity for your... British colony. Which of course works on an explicitly feudalist system (and then also for some reason has everyone grumbling about how you’re spending your gold, which you aren’t even doing). It totally thematically ruins what I’d otherwise be super super into. And not long after this was released, baseline Minecraft did basically the same thing. There are now roving barbarian tribes who go around trying to kill you and any villagers near you and you have to concern yourself with wiping out whole groups of them with some regularity, whereas previously the only enemies you really had to deal with were zombies and skeletons and a few other weird explicitly monstrous things. It’s gross.

My distaste for slaughtering barbarians extends to the civilization games too. Which... I mean I have put a LOT of hours into a lot of Civ games so it’s obviously not a total dealbreaker for me, but... you’re always this weird immortal dictator and even if you set your civilization up as a democracy, you sure do win every single election regardless of how unhappy people are with you, and you spend a good chunk of time slaughtering local barbarians. And increasingly, with each new game, smaller independent nations because they really keep putting more and more emphasis on military conquest being, if not the best path to victory, one you have to push pretty far no matter what you’re going for.

And it doesn’t have to work like that. My favorite game, mostly in the franchise, is still Alpha Centauri. Where the “barbarians” are brain eating space worms, not other humans, and even then, you can (and I consistently do) be a big tree-hugging hippy, enact worm-friendly social policies, make friends with them instead of killing them, and have them go devour a bunch of violent anti-science anti-environment right wing creeps, strongarm everyone else into adopting similar policies, and, like Subnautica, leave the world better than you found it by foregoing all the easier wins and doing the thing where you find a permanent solution to the local planetary superconsciousness accidentally going berserk and eating itself at periodic intervals. Happy ending for everyone! Except for Miriam. Screw Miriam.

Meanwhile, someone I know not to long ago just randomly pitched a game where there’s a big nature ravaging industrial sprawl, but you play as some sort of reclaiming embodiment of nature, strategically... I guess spreading trees to grow up through everything and have rats chew through the wiring and stuff, and yeah, I would play the hell out of that game. If nobody else gets to it before I clear my plate of all these other projects, I might even make that game.

I should stress again too that it’s not even that I don’t want games to ever put me in such a role as the player, just if you’re going to do it, acknowledge that that sort of thing isn’t cool, and either make it clear that the player character has been forced into a really unfortunate position, or that said character is just awful. Or both, both works.

What I don’t want to ever see people do is rationalize a way out of the issues. “Oh this is an infinite supply of clean-burning coal” does not fly with me. “Oh we’re establishing a colony but it’s on an alien planet” is still colonialism. The weird fetish the whole game industry seems to have with leveling forests is not made better by having those trees give you saplings that fully replace every tree cut down in like 2 minutes. If you don’t want to unpack the moral implications of something, you can just not include it to begin with. None of the stuff I’ve been laying out here is actually necessary for any of these games to work. Just... quit being weird and making me play coal-mining conquistadors already.

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snoopysfriendwoodstock · 3 years

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hellooo, loved ur post about Taylor's songwriting on evermore I think ur so right! would love for you to elaborate more on it, and on when you think her songwriting is at its worst/best 💕

hi beck!!! 💋 i think evermore suffers from a lot of what lover suffers from (evermore is my #4 album and lover is in dead LAST in my ranking i’m not comparing them like that ❤️) where taylor got so carried away by the success of folklore (where imo she really reigned herself in and only kept what was necessary) and the response to her more poetic/flowery writing that no one could tell her no when it came to writing evermore. lover is that but with 1989 where she made such a perfect pop album with no fluff, then lover she thought she could recreate 1989 but without the fear of doing it for the first time. so in folklore you’ve got this really, really beautiful writing that clearly was written and re-written but also put through a lot of scrutiny. folklore was a new venture for taylor similar to 1989 which i think made her be a lot more cautious about what she put on the album and how airtight it was. this is obviously speculation but it feels like after folklore did so well she realized this could be her new “brand” or her new “era” or whatever and suddenly evermore was so much more in your face about like her woods and witchy vibes and fantasy land or whatever and a lot of lines from the album feel like “look how good i am at figurative language! you love this dont you?” like what the fuck does “life was a willow and it bent right to your wind / but i come back stronger than a 90s trend” even MEAN. she also does thing thing where she explains her metaphors which just makes them even clunkier to try and listen to. “we were like the mall before the internet / it was the one place to be” sounds … just poorly paced? and even tho this isn’t a metaphor it’s like… isn’t that literally just “we were something don’t you think so?” i think taylor’s song writing is at its best when she’s detail oriented but leaves enough up for interpretation that it feels like an actual mineable text. i did not see the same weeks of interpretive writings on evermore as i did on folklore because it feels like she left less for us to actually explore on our own. i saw people over and over arguing about the “evergreen our group of friends / don’t think we’ll say that word again” line from champagne problems and which word she was talking about but isn’t that the best part? it feels so much more like a stream of consciousness than a carefully crafted line which lets you get drawn into the world of the song. i love the little details in marjorie, i always end up crying during the “the autumn chill that wakes me up / you loved the amber skies so much / long limbs and frozen swims / you always went past where our feet could touch” part because it’s those little specificities that make you feel like you can see exactly what she’s seeing. the coney island/the 1 comparison works here too since that little question, drawing the audience in with the second person POV in the song, just has more emotional appeal in my opinion than a really awkward metaphor. taylor has always been at her best with diary entry level honesty but i think lately she’s been replacing that with these easter eggs that just feel a little cheap? the diary style writing (which has matured into the honest fiction of folklore/evermore) worked because it gave you an insight into taylor that helped you really understand her side and her feelings whereas the easter eggs of rep/lover make you use your already existing knowledge of taylor to gain anything from it. that’s why while i think the bridge of coney island has some great writing, she gets away with not really writing anything interesting because she depends on the fans and their interest in her to fill in the gaps. that’s not good writing it’s just a parasocial relationship. but when it comes to cardigan/betty/august she’s given us these characters that we knew nothing about but people have been able to grow attached to because of that ability she has to craft characters and narratives, something she’s been doing for herself the last 13 years and why she’s able to over and over depict herself convincingly as an underdog to her fans.

BASICALLY folklore showcases the best of taylor’s songwriting by having her turn what she’s been doing for herself since the beginning of her career into fictional narratives rather than mine her own life or depend on her fans to find meaning out of her own experiences. evermore has some great moments because she uses some of those same techniques to story-tell and add lush details to her writing but she also does this thing she tends to do where once a project is successful she tries to center her identity around it in an attempt to replicate it and ends up totally missing the mark by not reigning herself in.

#this is long and i don’t think it’s very coherent but oh well! ❤️#long post

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tiramisiyu · 3 years

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Hi Tira! With Tears of Themis global server in development, I was wondering about what your thoughts are on what fans of MLQC would like which guys in Themis? Spoilers are ok ^^

hello, and I definitely do have a few thoughts on this! although please note that these are just my own thoughts and opinions, not necessarily anything set in stone. All guys in either game are super unique in their own way, and I’m sure most people will end up liking a Themis guy based solely on their own characteristics!

Summary:

Xia Yan: Gavin or Kiro

Zuo Ran: Gavin... maybe Victor initially, though my thoughts on this are complicated

Mo Yi: Lucien

Lu Jinghe: Shaw, maybe...?

Detailed thoughts below cut; light spoiler warning-

Xia Yan/Luke Pearce

With Gavin: First and foremost, they have jobs of similar nature - that is, their work consists of dangerous missions and a strict military training background. Actually, a lot of players of both games group the two together as “国家的男人” “men of the nation” because of this, with Xia Yan working in a national ministry and Gavin working in some pretty major organizations for their work.

For personality, they also have a very direct sort of sweetness when dealing with their MCs, and their style is very focused on “acts of service”, I think.

Oh, and they’re both terrible at naming things hahaha

With Kiro: Both are the “little suns” of their respective games, but I’d like to draw a distinction here. I see Kiro’s sunshine nature as being full of “light”, while Xia Yan’s sunshine nature is full of “warmth”. Also, Kiro, being an idol, faces everyone with some level of sunshinyness while Xia Yan only treats MC like that - with anyone else, he’s a fairly chill guy - professional when needed, sarcastic when needed, etc.

Oh, and Xia Yan’s “Raven mode” (my own wording) can be likened to Kiro/Helios? Although they’re not exactly similar, as the frigid Raven face he puts on is simply a necessity of his work, while the Kiro/Helios situation is a lot more complicated.

Zuo Ran/Artem Wing

With Victor: Actually, I’m only saying this because I saw a lot of people who took one glance at Zuo Ran and likened him to Victor, with their suits and serious expressions. So Zuo Ran might get some fans based on that.

But actually, they’re not that similar!! Zuo Ran does have a bit of a scary reputation at the law firm because he’s so serious and particular about the details of the work people submit to him, but he’s doing it for everyone’s good... even if he’s not great at expressing it. Zuo Ran is actually a really sweet, if sometimes very awkward, guy.

Oh, but both of them know how to cook well.

With Gavin: Zuo Ran’s awkward style of not really getting pop culture but still doing his best, with his earnestness, really does remind me of Gavin, as well as their scary reps in the workplace that actually hide a soft interior. Overall, their awkward sweet style of doing things is the major point here.

Also, despite how their jobs are like night and day, I think that these two talk about justice the most in their respective games. Justice is a goal that both strive towards in their work, and I think that’s a very key point for both of them.

Mo Yi/Vyn Richter

Uh actually my thoughts on this aren’t super deep with him and Lucien, it’s mostly surface things since I don’t have the best grasp on either person on a deep level lol

Both have got the ^_^ face thing and have the refined gentleman thing going on

Both have the moral ambiguity thing going on

Both are highly respected in their scientific fields and are guest professors at the university

There’s a good analysis of these two here if you’re interested!

Lu Jinghe/Marius Von Hagen

Haha, this boy is truly in a field of his own. I’m having a hard time likening him to anyone -

With Shaw: Well, they’re the youngest, and they do have a bit of a mischievous streak, although that mischief is so different for either guy. Shaw has that rowdy wild vibe while Lu Jinghe is like a cottequish kitten who knows how to get what he wants (with their respective MCs anyways). Oh, and they have the exact same birthday, which I think is pretty wild.

For those who like the CEO trope (e.g. Victor) you’ll actually see this quite a lot with Lu Jinghe as well (seriously, this boy is a CEO of a massive corporation and working on his masters for an unrelated field, how does he do it?). There are plenty of scenes where he’s running the Pax Group in a very professional manner, going heavy-handed if needed. But Lu Jinghe isn’t confined to the trope at all, and I think that’s part of what makes him interesting.

#mr love queen's choice #tears of themis #xia yan #zuo ran #mo yi #lu jinghe #mlqc gavin #mlqc kiro #mlqc victor #mlqc lucien #mlqc shaw #Anonymous #ask

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jq37 · 3 years

Text

The Report Card – Fantasy High: The Seven Ep 3

Let’s Split Up and Look for Clues!

Welcome back to the Seven and the Museum of Adventuring. My previous pronouncement of combat was a little premature but hold tight, we’ll get there. For now, we’re back with Antiope who just saw a glimpse of the Ending of Things (aka, Ending) and is freaking out a bit. She tells the others and they all do various checks to see what they can find out.

Ostentatia casts Commune With City and clocks that there is some kind of abjuration shield magic on the government buildings in town, stopping them from being spied on. She also clocks some lingering undead-ish magic and a weird divination effect on Antiope, specifically on the Aguefort logo of her jacket, like someone scryed on her and just got that she had something to do with Aguefort. At this, Penny reminds her that the only true piece of info they gave Ending when they broke her out is that they were from Aguefort.

Sam with a 19 Insight still feels the connection she and Ant have with Ending because of their spells turned against them in the initial encounter. Yelle does a Perception check (27) and once again doesn’t really get bad, dreadful, menacing vibes. But also, she recognizes that she’s chill with a lot of things most people don’t love.

Antiope reiterates that she texted Charity that she’s interested in the internship so she can learn more info--even better now that they know the buildings are safe from scrying. Yelle remembers Aguefort’s warning about people watching them and Sam asks Zelda if her “weird boyfriend” (“he’s actually really cool”) is friends with the elven oracle. Zelda says yeah, they’re both friends with Adaine, she can ask about any weird divination stuff. Sam makes sure to specify she should look into TK but NOT Ending, no doubt remembering what happened when she tried to do a spell on her.

It’s been a big day as Zelda says so they all go to the TGIF-esque Slappy McFinnigans to celebrate (which Sam has problems with--the fact that they’re celebrating I mean, but she’s mainly ignored). They’re quickly kicked out because Katja can’t help herself from trying to brush the mane of their centaur server and they reconvene at the more their speed SlamBurger, where a horse can fully destroy a soda machine to absolutely zero reaction. Zelda says that Ostentatia was right in that they should all do the quest because it doesn’t close any doors and they have the 2 weeks to figure things out. They all seem a bit more on the same page (though Sam is still pretty frosty towards Ant) and start making plans.

Before they leave, Yelle pulls aside Ant and Sam and says hey, first of all, you two are still linked to Ending from before. Second of all, I know y’all are Going Through It right now and you don’t have to talk about it or make up right away but you need to get your heads in the game and you need to know that you’re both loved and still family.

Penny, Zelda, Katja, and Ostentatia go back to the museum to try and get more information for their quest. Katja goes to the information desk (horse in tow, of course) and just starts asking information about TK. She’s told that she’s one of the museum’s benefactors and has been missing for years, and hey, do you understand that a museum’s info desk is about where the water fountains and exhibits are, not just random information about the world?

Ostentatia bails her out by calling her over so she can do her plan which is just to walk into the back area like she owns the place. Now, Aguefort students do have a certain level of clearance to be back there and she does have her school ID. But instead of explaining that, she tried to use her Earrings of Diamond Charm to charm the employee she runs into which fails. And then she does a pretty good tag-team lie with Katja about how they NEED to pass a class but that doesn’t fly. Then Ostentatia tries flirting which ALSO doesn’t work. Zelda at this point steps in and just headbuts the dude so they can book it away. I personally would have gone with, “Do you know who we are? We killed the dragon that’s your current main exhibit,” but you know. No backseat adventuring.

While this is happening, Penny is stealthing like a pro, looking for anything Arcana related. Ostentatia and Katja also did checks (O getting a nat 20) and we’ll go through all their info gathered now.

Katja basically gets info on TK we kind of already knew. She was a benefactor of the museum. She’s centuries old like Aguefort. She was concerned with consciousness and divinity and specifically how will and divine will manifested, as well as elemental magic.

Ostentatia gets a lot of info with her Nat 20. She gets a full map to the temple where TK went which is called the Temple of Earth Defiant. The point of the temple is that it’s up in the open air and harsh winds--wind being a symbol of chaos and unpredictability to dwarves--but they still use it as a place to honor their heroes and they rebuild and upkeep it despite the erosion and how hard it is to get there. It’s hallowed from evil and lots of stories about it involve heroes racing there for sanctuary. It was made by dwarves but it’s a pilgrimage site for other primordial beings like goliaths and earth genasi (which is what TK is). There are 3 heroes who have big statues here: Asha Hammerheart (a SUPER dope name I must say), Yvonna of the Sundering Hills , and Kora Ironbrow.

Penny finds that, amongst Kalvaxus’s hoard there were 7 unrecovered artifacts--the Mirrors of the Eidolons (which are the smashed mirrors they found it seems). Eidelons are kind of like the elemental plane version of angels/celestials. They’re primordial (remember Katja saw primordial language on the wall of the dragon cave) and kind of aligned with things like titans and genies. Raw element with no agenda (unlike celestials and demons and such which have a clear alignment which makes up the D&D religious system). It is said by wizards--who look at these things in more of a nuts and bolts way than say clerics who take the fuzzier religions view--that Eidolons are the hands of the gods because gods are beings of spirit--how could they form the physical world. Will of the divine manifested by elemental beings? Sounds right up TK’s alley.

Sam decides she’s desperate enough for information that she calls her mom who she is understandably snippy with. Her mom gives her a contact to talk to when she asks about TK but Sam stonewalls her on show business talk. She tries to play the “mother knows best, you’ll thank me later,” in a kind of Gothel-y way while acting like anything in the past never happened and says Sam is attacking her but when Sam accuses her of neglect, she proves her right by hanging up the phone.

Sam then calls the number and it turns out to be Lola Embers (Fig’s agent) who has been waiting for Sam’s call for ages and wants to talk to her, even though she’s currently chasing her dog across the park. She says she met TK once at a genasi woman networking thing and also says she once saw Charity get into an argument with TK over government funding or not getting a grant or something similar. She then says she’s in a lake trying to get her dog and Sam, being a water genasi who can breathe underwater and also a fundamentally good person even though she’s currently being aggro as hell, goes to the park to help her. Lola assures her that if she’s ready, she’ll help her get new acting gigs and that the world is ready for the new her.

Yelle meanwhile casts Speak With Plants on some trees near TK’s office and, after a super stoner to stoner conversation, gets a magical footprint trail of where she ran off to when she absconded 12 years ago.

Antiope (who is in a sports bra because she destroyed her top with the Aguefort logo since that’s what was pinged, revealing in a wild, nat-1 fueled retcon that she got a tramp stamp reading “Leader” in the Red Waste) goes to see Charity to fill out some paperwork, ingratiate herself, and perhaps get some info. Charity has her hot, young, assistant (who Antiope is instantly crushing on) give Ant his shirt (and Charity’s lack of surprise at seeing his 4 horses pulling a chariot tattoo makes the group think they’re def banging). She kind of explains what the Ministry does and Antiope boils it down a bit to snitching on other adventurers. Charity says it’s more of a who watches the watchmen situation and visibly twitches when she has to say the word “snitch”.

When she takes a second to call Antiope’s dad, she accidentally leaves a tab open on her computer which has TK’s file open (probably up from when the Maidens asked about her earlier). Antiope sneaks a peek and learns that the artifact that TK stole is called the Legendarium Extrodia and it tracks quests. It seems that at some point TK must have had top level access to get her hands on it. It also shows that TK was marked for assassination (which seems like a pretty good reason to get the heck out of dodge). Brennan also says she’s learned enough that she can use the L.E. if she finds it.

At this point, Yelle tells everyone to come back ASAP so they can follow the magic footsteps. Antiope wants to come but doesn’t want to burn bridges with Charity (or chances with Preston--equally important) so she, at Katja’s suggestion--pretends to have diarrhea and is Nat 20 convincing. Interesting choice for the end of the first meeting with a person you’re crushing on. But Preston is actually pretty supportive as she races out the door as fast as possible.

The Seven follow the footsteps out of Solace and it becomes clear that TK was headed to the dwarven temple Ostentatia learned about. This is a multi-day journey so Cinnamon sings a glorious, magical, horse song and summons mounts for everyone which I will now name because this is obviously the most important part of the episode:

Snowfire - Danielle

Taffodill - Sam

Alagonia - Antiope

Candyheart - Penny

Starforge - Ostentatia

Strawberry Dancer - Zelda

Crucial info.

As they travel, Antiope casts Primeval Awareness and gets that there is something ancient in the mountain. They travel through Pilgrim’s Pass (a village area most travelers to the temple pass through) but find it completely razed to the ground. They investigate.

With an 18 Survival check, Antiope finds tracks that seem halfway between dog and cat. There are more than 4 legs and it’s hard to tell how old they are because there’s not a lot of rain in the area. They could have been left long ago and been undisturbed. Regardless, these are clearly from monstrosities. On a 26 History Check, Katja knows that this area used to be protected by Blink Dogs (teleporting dogs) but they seem to be all gone now. On a 22 Nature check, Yelle sees a weird feather made out of plant material. It seems like fae stuff but bad vibes. On an 18 Insight check, Sam knows this was a purposeful slaughter.

And on Penny’s 30 Arcana check, oh boy. Penny finds broken common scrawled on the wall in human blood talking about a queen of the mountain who rules the skies. That only the queen may see and none may see themselves. And that the people were told to destroy the seeing glass and did not obey. In from of that message is a bear hide covering something magic. Penny lifts it with reckless abandon and sees tons of mirror shards.

Friendship bracelets! She thinks.

Gotcha bitch, the thing in the mirror says.

Uh-oh.

Penny calls over her friends to let them knows she may have made a tiny mistake. The group is pretty split between, “Understandable,” and “Girl, WHAT?” In her defense, she did try to cast Friends on the person on the other side of the mirror shards but that’s not enough to stop an entire pack of 50-60 Displacer Beast (magic tentacle cats)/Blink Dog hybrid monstrosities along with the Harpy Queen (voice from the mirror) and her plant feathered harpy minions to start rapidly making their way to their location.

It is at this point that Ostentatia remembers that abominations and monstrosities cannot step into the temple which means it’s time to RUN.

And NOW it’s combat time.

The premise of this fight is that the girls are on their horses, moving towards the center of the temple as fast as they can while fending off the closest enemies. I won’t give an exact play by play but the two highlights are as follows:

Yelle conjures up a bunch of geese with raptor stats (...so normal geese) to swarm the head cat/dog abomination and has to do a truly stunning amount of math for which she is rewarded with SEVENTY POINTS OF DAMAGE.

Antiope does some insane arrow trickery and gets the Queen Harpy in the wing (which Ostentatia helpfully gets on video so she can show Preston later) and then forces her to take damage as she falls. If not for an extremely lucky Box of Doom nat 20, she may have been down for the count. Antiope still comes away with more than FIFTY points of damage on her though.

And we end the episode mid-combat! We will catch up on our girls next time!

Superlatives

Penny: Most Likely to Make Friends During a Hostage Situation

As a companion to Danielle’s superlative last episode, Penny gets this award for reading or misreading every situation as an opportunity to make friends or make friendship bracelets for the ones she already has.

Random Thoughts

Did you guys notice that with Katja having Cinnamon and Charity’s assistant being Preston, that’s two of the main pet NPCs from A Crown of Candy?

Antiope’s Reaction to Yelle Saying That Maybe Things Ending Isn’t So Bad: Rail against the dying of the light! Why are you OK with this?

Penny’s Reaction to Yelle Saying That Maybe Things Ending Isn’t So Bad: Entropy is TERRIBLE! Everything needs order!

The greasy cashier’s response to Ostentatia’s flirty, “Come here often?” is “To my job? Honestly no.” Brennan? Chef’s kiss.

My other fave line this episode is from Sam. “I believe Cinnamon fucks.”

It’s very cute that Penny is like, “I gotta text Riz about this Eidelon stuff!” Not because she wants help. Just so they can geek out together.

The joke that Brennan didn’t think about the birds is so funny considering all the bird facts in Misfits.

Also re Birds attacking: “They made a movie about this Brennan!”

Good on Ant for refusing an Aguefort sweatshirt from Charity when offered after the little scrying incident before. Remembering things like this saves lives.

It has been brought up several times that Ending isn’t necessarily Bad just Ancient and Powerful and I trust Yelle’s vibe check but also, like, a forest fire doesn’t have malice behind it but it can still devastate a city while it clears out dead trees that need to be cleared, you know? Not ready to start wild speculation yet but I am curious. And am similarly curious about the sisters Ending has mentioned. Oh and the parallels of 7 Maidens, 7 mirrors. It’s all there, we just need a little more info.

Honestly, get you a man who will see you rushing out of a building, loudly claiming to have diarrhea, and instead of being grosses out will just supportively confess his own stomach issues. I wish he was just a little younger cause I want that for Ant.

I do like that D20 has been playing a little more fast and loose with the RP ep/combat ep format. I think it really helps with story flow.

In this episode Antiope and Brennan as various non-Zelda NPCs rolled 2 Nat 20s. O rolled one. Ant rolled 1 Nat 1--which was on a self imposed roll to see how she responded to Sephie’s tramp stamp improv. And O may have rolled one for initiative also but I wasn’t sure.

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #fantasy high #the seven #spoilers #sorry this is a little late #life happens

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hiccanna-tidbits · 3 years

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okay, okay but hear me out!

Hiccanna, Moanida and Jackunzel (and maybe someone else if u want) going on a holiday trip together (it could be sea or lake or just swimming pool).

And that three couples playing "chicken fight game"~ When u have to sit on partner shoulder or ridding piggy-back and knock down or separate the other couple!

sksksks just imagine the fun and the chaos!! hahaha

Okay SO I recently watched Palm Springs so I’m just imagining The Gang going to like…a fancy pool resort in like Arizona??? SURE LET’S GO WITH THAT

I’m imagining the only resort the gang could afford to stay at is someplace out in the middle of Arizona or something

It takes a LOT of persuading to get Jack to go, because he haaaaates deserts. Rapunzel basically has to beg. Moana finally managed to bribe him with really good homemade ice slushies. (She’s used to making smoothies for Merida, so how hard can slushies be??? Just throw in some ice!)

Rapunzel offers to help Moana with the slushies, since she gave Jack SO many puppy dog eyes to get him to come. Since they’ve got two people working on them, they’re REALLY good slushies. Jack approves.

Anna also tries to convince Elsa to go, but the perpetually-single Elsa is just like “Um, deserts? Sunburns? Being indefinitely stuck with gross couples doing gross couple stuff?!? Yeah no thank you”

Hiccup tries to wake everyone up at like 6 am to go hiking because "that's when the desert iguanas are out guys!!! C'mon, we have to go!!!" Anna is only persuaded to go after Hiccup makes her coffee--she really wants to make her bf happy, but also mornings can suck her dick. Rapunzel is more than happy to go, because she loves mornings anyways!!! And oh my god, IGUANAS!!! Jack, Merida, and Moana are like "oh FUCK no" and put the pillow back over their head, shoo Hiccup away, and go back to sleep.

On their hike, Hiccup just goes "!!!!!!!" about every reptile he sees. Snake, lizard, horny toad, literally anything with scales will send the boy into an excited frenzy. Rapunzel has similar reactions. Anna could not love both of them more.

At one point, they stumble across a gila monster sunbathing, and Rapunzel is overtaken with the unwavering desire to adopt him. She gets Hiccup on board, and he tries to lure the lizard over with a dusty piece of a snake carcass he found (Anna tried to tell him he really shouldn't touch that, but he was not to be swayed and Anna ended up figuring he could just wash his hands really well when they got back). Anna finds herself in the unusual position of having to be the Voice of Reason, having to be like “hey uh I think this might be illegal and stuff??? Also aren't they poisonous???”

(I know what you're thinking. Bold of you to assume Anna knows the difference between poisonous and venomous.)

Rapunzel literally CANNOT stop gushing to Jack about all the wildlife she saw when she gets back! Jackrabbits! Kangaroo rats! Roadrunners! Peccaries! Centipedes! Jack has only mild to moderate interest in desert ecology, but loves hearing his gf gush so he listens attentively anyways.

Anna and Rapunzel definitely hit up the gift shops in the resort town at some point, and go ABSOLUTELY BATSHIT HOGWILD buying gifts for everyone. They probably max out their credit cards. It's embarrassing, really. But Anna gets Hiccup an absolute shitton of those little wall lizard things and he nearly cries tears of joy when he sees them, so it's all worth it, really.

Moana will not leave the pool like. The entire time. The girl is just obsessed with being in the water, honestly. She gets restless, though, and can't just stand in the pool and vibe--she needs to constantly be moving and swimming around or she'll explode. Merida is more than happy to indulge her by hanging out in the poor with her, but Merida is also constantly challenging her to swim races--a very dumb idea, considering Moana is on the high school swim team and water polo team. Merida, naturally, is an extremely sore loser and is not above excessive pouting, splashing, yelling in angry Scottish, and dunking her girlfriend in revenge. It's at least entertaining for all of their friends to watch.

Jack keeps fucking taking huge buckets of ice from the ice machine and dumping them in the pool. At first he only does this because he keeps griping about the pool not being cold enough (this boy will accept nothing less than sitting in the goddamn arctic ocean), but after her figures out that it pisses off his friends, he takes to pouring said ice directly over their heads. Merida has threatened to murder him several times for this.

Hiccup and Anna's main pool activity is just lazing around on their pool floaties (Anna has a duck one, Hicccup has a dragon one because obviously), sipping cocktails, and just generally vibing. Through some ungodly mixture of pure charisma and a fake ID that Rapunzel helped photoshop, Jack manages to talk his way into getting the whole group access to alcohol. Hiccup is a sangria or Moscow Mule kinda guy while Anna usually gets a Pina Colada or a Sex on the Beach (she's aspec, so she literally will not stop joking about the irony of this). Merida makes a game out of attempting to tip over their floaties and dunk them. Jack, chaos gremlin that he is, puts aside his usual rivalry with Merida to join in. They have a surprisingly strong dunking alliance.

Hiccup and Anna try to form a syndicate of their own, and try to lounge on the same floatie so that they can protect each other while fighting off Jack and Merida together. Unfortunately neither of their floaties were made to hold 2 peoples' weight, so the one they're on ends up tipping over, spilling their cocktails everywhere and dunking them anyways. Jack and Merida consider this a Win By Default.

Moana of course loops everyone into playing water polo at some point. Unfortunately some idiot decided it would be a good idea to let Merida of all people pick the teams, which means of course that they are incredibly rigged. It's Moana, Merida and Anna vs. Jack, Rapunzel, and Hiccup, so basically The Jocks vs. The Nerds (although admittedly Anna is more of a softcore jock--she's nowhere near on Moana or Merida's level, but she's still more naturally athletic than Hiccup, Rapunzel, or Jack). Naturally, Jock Team absolutely whoops Nerd Team's ass. Jack gets salty and demands a rematch. ...Jock Team kicks Nerd Team's ass again.

Throughout all of this, no one thinks to just...rearrange the teams a little. Merida was counting on this. All according to plan.

In the titular chicken game (yes, I remembered, don't worry!), it's Merida on Moana's shoulders (Moana swims and has a lot of upper body strength, what can I say?), Hiccup on Anna's shoulders (I mean...Hiccup's a twig, and Anna HAS to have a fair amount of upper body strength from throwing busts around and punching men off boats and such), and Punz on Jack's shoulders (Jack's pretty lithe and good at keeping his balance while jumping around, so he's their best candidate for not just falling over).

Jack and Rapunzel actually manage to stay in the game longer than anyone expects--their primary strategy is “be good at dodging and staying out of the way while Merida and Hiccup duke it out.” And it works! As limber as Hiccup is, Anna's not nearly as coordinated as Jack and is no match for Moana's sturdy footing. Also, neither Anna nor Hiccup are prepared for how goddamn ruthless and determined to win Merida is. Even though they really, really should have been. I mean...have you met Merida???

When it comes down to Merida-Moana and Rapunzel-Jack, Mer feels a little bad for having to go up against Pure Sweet Punzie. Unfortunately, Rapunzel turns out to be a very hardcore fighter when she puts her mind to it, and Merida is much more evenly matched than she initially thought and realizes she must use her Full Power. It definitely helps her snap out of Going Soft when Jack starts brutally roasting Merida in particular (as per usual). Merida gets a rage-fueled Second Wave, and finally manages to knock Rapunzel over in one foul swoop. Merida and Moana are victorious!

Moana and Merida basically always shower together after a day at the pool. They claim it's because they both know how to handle curly hair in chlorine, and just like to wash each other's hair, but the rest of the gang is pretty sure that's not all that's going on in there.

One day, Anna hits up the resort town alone to buy some kind of secret gifts for her friends with what little money she has left (this girl seriously has no chill when it comes to buying presents). She goes past this huge, fancy ice cream shop and she's like “!!!! OMG!!! I'm gonna surprise all my buddies with pints of their faves!!!” She just gets super hyped and buys everyone ice cream, getting so caught up in the thrill of it that she forgets that she'll have to like. Drive all this back all the way back to the resort in the rental car. In like. You know. 110+ degree weather.

By the time she gets back to the resort, the ice cream is, of course, goop. Poor Anna, feeling incredibly dumb and like an utter failure of a friend, just kind of bursts into tears. Like damn. This is too much. She was gonna make all her pals so happy, and all for naught! Jack just kinda shrugs and throws all the melted ice cream cartons in the freezer anyways. Once they're (partially) re-frozen, Rapunzel and Moana make slushies with them. They actually come out pretty decent. Anna is substantially cheered up.

Moana prepares some tropical fruit platters for everyone to snack on. Rapunzel tries to “improve” them by adding chocolate sauce and nutella to half of them. Sometimes it works (I mean...bananas and strawberries with chocolate and/or nutella is pretty solid). Other times it just tastes...very weird. Merida gest frustrated and yells at Rapunzel for “ruining all of her girlfriend's good mangoes.”

Jack just thinks this whole thing is so funny, and decides to swap the chocolate sauce with barbecue sauce to cause further chaos. Absolute mayhem ensures. Everyone has a bad time. Except for Anna, who apparently is just a freak who enjoys eating pineapple slices dipped in barbecue sauce.

At some point, Merida gets really drunk on appletinis or some shit and signs the entire group up for a local archery competition. Much to everyone's chagrin, it's no refunds. Naturally, basically everyone sans Merida does terrible. Rapunzel and Hiccup very nearly shoot themselves, while Jack and Anna come very close to accidentally shooting a group of referees (although Jack might have done this on purpose). Moana gets the farthest, if only because Merida's taught her how to shoot a bow at some point. Merida actually ends up winning--although unfortunately, the prize is $20 and a very cheap plastic trophy (which Merida STILL manages to find a way to break before the trip is even over).

The rest of the group is much more amicable to the concept of going on hikes when said hikes are in the evening. Hiccup and Rapunzel are still excitedly chattering about the local ecosystems the entire time, and Jack and Anna are just kind of looking at their nerdy SOs like “<3 <3 <3″ Moana and Merida, meanwhile, are just kinda vibing in the back, passively listening in and watching the desert sunset.

Rapunzel manages to capture Mer and Mo's interest and gets them to participate more with geology, of all things. Merida just thinks rocks are cool (especially when they can be thrown at people bothering her!), while Moana likes learning about the physical history of places--how water can carve out landscapes, and all that. Hiccup and Jack just kind of exchange a look like “I had no idea that they were into rocks, but...the more you know, I guess???”

Jack makes fun of every reptile they see, mainly to piss Hiccup off. Unfortunately it has the opposite effect, and Hiccup can't help but be entertained--mainly because Jack's insults are so weirdly specific and over-the-top that they loop around to being hilarious. Seriously, he keeps saying shit like “Those are the lamest scales I've ever seen. Absolutely drab, and not nearly shiny enough to prove that nature is beautiful. 0/10.” and “Ohhhh, this fucking rattlesnake think's he's so scary, with his dumb percussion instrument tail!!! I could be more intimidating with a mean look and a large pair of maracas!”

At some point, a bunch of tourists riding donkeys pass them. Anna, Rapunzel, and Merida just absolutely lose their shit fangirling over how cute the donkeys are, thus exposing all three of them as the unabashed Horse Girls they are. Hiccup, Jack, and Moana find this extremely amusing, and definitely aren't above teasing their girlfriends about it. Hiccup asks if next time they take a couples' vacation, the Horse Gang (as Moana insists on nicknaming them) would like to go to a ranch instead.

Anna gets like. Obsessed with palm trees. Like they're just so pretty and exotic and tropical!!! OMG!!! And they definitely don't have them wherever the gang is from in this AU. (Also if griping about Elsa not having "tropical powers" is anything to go by, she DOES canonically like the tropics!) She has to take a picture of like...every palm tree on her phone. And considering the gang is in Arizona, that means Anna is stopping to take a picture like...every 2 minutes. Rapunzel catches onto the fact that Anna likes them, and paints her a picture with some when Punz has the time. Anna definitely cries when she sees it. Hiccup can't do nearly that good, but he does buy her some little plastic figurine ones in a gift shop that she can put in her room. Anna also cries about this. She just cries whenever any of her friends indulge her random fixation on palm trees. Surely she doesn't deserve such niceties!!!

Rapunzel is just. In love with the desert landscape tbh. Like the huge funky cacti!!! The shrubs!!! The desert wildflowers!!! The mesas!!! All of it!!! So of course she needs to pull out her easel and paint it. Jack walks by one day and sees her working on it and, partly just to troll her, he's like “put some snow in it!” As he walks away, Rapunzel just stops like “wait...that'd actually be such a great idea for a surrealist-type fantasy piece!!!” After she finishes the main landscape, she adds an overcoat of little puffs of snow on top of everything, and has some clumps falling off of the cacti. When she shows Jack, he just about cries tears of joy, but frantically tries to hide it. She gives the painting to him as a present at the end of the trip. He hangs that shit front-in-center in his room and cherishes it forever and ever.

At some point, Jack gets the ingenious idea that he's going to prank Merida by catching a tarantula and leaving it in her room. It's one of the harmless ones--Jack fact-checks this by offhandedly asking Hiccup and framing it as a casual interest in local etymology. Still, Merida screams far louder than is at all dignified, and also probably loud enough to wake a neighboring country. Rapunzel later has to physically hold Merida back to keep her from absolutely beating Jack into a pulp. Rapunzel also manages to get the World's Largest Sheet of Cardboard and the World's Largest Cup and somehow manages to get the damn thing back outside.

#rotbtd #rotbtfd #rise of the brave tangled dragons #the big four #jackunzel #hiccanna #moanida #jack frost #rapunzel #merida #hiccup #anna #moana #headcanons #hcs #vacation au #my askbox

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carminite-wyrm · 3 years

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Its an Empires SMP + Wynncraft crossover AU I guess

So, I’ve been playing a lot of Wynncraft recently, and man, the Wynncraft lore sure is wild. Halfway through doing a quest I suddenly remembered that hey, nether corruption sure is a thing over here, and isn’t there Also an invading corruption storyline going on over in Empires?

Anyways so here I am with yet another niche AU idea lmao (though also with the latest videos from Pix and Gem I...kind of already am thinking of a variant on this one lmao)

- Some indeterminable point in time in the future, the Empires gang are having the final fight against Xornoth, ready to take out the demon and cleanse their world of the corruption that had been taking hold of their kingdoms.

- Its down to the final few blows, with the Kings and Queens coming together, despite their grievances with one another, despite all the differences that had once been between them, to finally strike down the demon.

- Naturally, of course, it goes a little sideways.

- The final blow lands, and the hellish arena disappears in a flash of unholy light.

- When the heroes awaken, they find themselves in a spider-infested patch of woodland.

- Upon fighting/running their way out, they quickly realise that yeah, this sure isn’t the Empires SMP anymore.

- There are some shenanigans, probably, upon that realisation, but eventually, the group makes their way to the nearby city of Detlas, severely disconcerted by the clear presence of corruption in the land around them.

- They’re fairly certain that they saved their own land, only to land right in another world also beset by corruption.

- Their various communicators also seem to be displaying a different HUD from what they’re used to, including an actual mana bar along with their health, and more equipment slots and most baffling of all: the option to level up and increase a variety of skills.

- Also, there’s magic, though a different magic than what they’re used to

Added to that, the monsters are far more different to what they’ve encountered in their home world. Zombies, fairly standard, even if the ones in this strange land seem somehow more powerful than theirs. Spiders, easy. And then Joey stumbles across a flaming horse rocketing straight at him at roughly 40kmph, screeching demonically all the while. It narrowly misses pummelling him in the face with its hooves and oh, looks like this isn’t a standard world after all.

Character classes and more thoughts under the cut!

Character classes! (Wynncraft currently has 5 classes people can choose from!)

Warriors (uses polearms/hammers, generally the dps/tank build)

Scott – He has a pink battleaxe, yes of course he’s the heavy-weapon-using class. Also, bc I think it’d be really amusing to see this elf dude w/ an antler crown charging straight at someone with a massive axe/hammer/polearm.

Fwhip – King of the Grimlands, projecting an image of strength even as the corruption ran rampant and clashed with the inherent darkness of his own kingdom.

Lizzie – Ocean Queen w/ a Trident, enough said. Sure, there might not be any axolotls in this world for some reason, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have the powers that made her one of the most powerful Empires back home. Probably mains thunder elemental magic, bc sending chain lightning at enemies is very cool.

Mages (Magic staff goes brr. Also they can heal)

Gem! – I imagine she’d be highly adept at hitting enemies with the regular attack spell, and then suddenly casting a meteor and crystalline ice to obliterate her foes as the rest of the party watches on.

Katherine – Teleporting + fast attacks = magic menace. Also bc I think it’d look cool for her, and honestly that’s the majority of my decision-making here w/ the class selections

Pixl – Idk, something about the vigil and the whole candle thing makes me think he’d make a pretty damn good healer. Calm, collected, and the most unshakeable amongst the chaos of the Empires gang. (This AU idea was written like, a week before the latest video lmao so we're just gonna...gloss over the most recent plot developments for a bit until I can figure out how to make it make sense in the AU)

Assassins (Stabby stabby DPS)

Joel – Look I just think the imagery of Joel + Lizzie absolutely wrecking shit together on a battlefield is too good to pass up on.

Sausage – Man literally ran an assassin guild back in their home world, of course he’s an assassin here in this one. Probably has several sets of daggers hidden up his sleeves, and probably ends up with a life steal build.

Pearl – Pearl with knives would be terrifying and amazing to behold. On the other hand, I was considering either Mage or Shaman but we already have like three Mages, and I don't really have any ideas for how Pearl would utilise the Shaman abilities atm.

Archers (Ranged DPS or support)

Jimmy! – Swamp boi deserves to pop off and what better way than to be able to cause arrows to rain from the sky. And also to backflip out of danger. I imagine navigating a swamp has given him an actual dexterity or agility score.

Shaman (Buffs + support)

Shubble – Honestly I think she’d really vibe with the nature-y vibes this class kind of gives me, what with her mushroom kingdom vibes and the magic. Also, one of the most complex classes, but considering Shubble and her whole researching the corruption thing, I think it’d fit.

Joey – I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know much about his POV beyond ‘wants to court the demon’ at the moment, so contributions welcome here.

- Gem and Shubble’s initial investigations (because they absolutely hit the first library or archive they could find) whilst the others explored/adventured around the area eventually lead them to determining that in order to return to their own world, they’ll have to make their way to the most dangerous region of the Wynn region: The Silent Expanse.

Defeating whatever entity is chilling deep in that eldritch hellzone that’s pinging off Gem and Shubble’s (w/ machinery assistance from Pixl) cobbled-together ‘machine for detecting their world’s own magic’ should be enough to trigger the same event that sent them to this world. They think. Its enough for them all to hope, at any rate.

- Its an odd feeling, being at the height of their powers only to be thrust into a world where a tap from an armoured skeleton can take them down to a third of their health in one hit, at their current ability level.

- The party starts off at roughly level 5-7 btw, because I’ve had to do the tutorial quest and Enzan’s Brother quest like six times and I want to skip that here thanks.

- Eventually, the group does have to split into smaller parties for efficiency, though they’re understandably hesitant to be separate from everyone else in an unfamiliar world.

- Obviously, the parties do shuffle around a bit depending on what quests they end up undertaking, to play for each of their strengths and to cover for their weaknesses.

- Because they’re the Kings and Queens of the Empires SMP, they climb up the levels fairly rapidly, racing through quests in Ragni, Detlas, Nemract, Almuj, before finally venturing across the ocean to the province of Gavel.

- They’re well aware that something rather bad is going on in this world, something that looks and feels so similar to the corruption back home, but yet not.

- Their first encounter with the Parasites in the Dark Forest has those more in tune with the currents of magic, or the natural world, recoiling from the feeling of ‘wrong wrong that should not be in this world-‘

After that harrowing encounter, they are very, very glad, that in their world, the source of the corruption was clearly from a pesky demon, and not the result of warring planar powers.

One would think that, as the resident swamp dweller of their motley group, Jimmy would have been a tad more relaxed in the Olux Swamp. And yet, the magic from his Empire has him on edge throughout their travels in that area, the lingering sense of foreign magic, of what the locals refer to as the Decay, worrying away at the familiar scent of the swamp.

#empires smp #empires smp au #wynncraft + empires crossover au #carminite writes #im actually still working on the sunless skies hc au btw #the ficlet that's kind of becoming a fic at this point is just getting a bit long lmao so here's another au idea

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