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icyg4l · 8 days

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PAC: What Upgrades are Coming Into Your Life?

Hello beautiful people, so sorry for the delay on readings. I've been really distracted lol. But tonight marked the end of the $5 4/20 weekend sale. I am grateful for those who have purchased a reading. Now, if you would like to purchase a reading, please read my guidelines and let me know! (They will be regularly priced until another sale comes along). Now, this weekend’s PAC will be all about the upgrades that are coming in your life! Whether that’s in your career, home, family, finances, love, etc. We’ll find together! So without further ado, please pick your Megan baby. 🤭

Top Left-to-Bottom Right (1-4):

PIle One, I feel like things have been getting hectic in your life. I think that this is a group of people who can get easily distracted by the small things. A lot of you are going through a breakup/separation from someone that betrayed you or love bombed you. I can feel my throat tightening as I’m typing this. I’m sorry, Pile One but this is a blessing in disguise. I think that this will be a death/rebirth period for you. I am seeing snippets of the Hiss video, specifically when Megan is dressed in all silver. I think you will come out stronger than ever. When I say stronger, I mean you will be less tolerant with other people’s bullshit and having better boundaries. I feel like someone tried to dominate you and as a result, it ruined your self-esteem. I see you taking some time to yourself and realizing who the fuck you are. You need to know that things will get better. Anything that happens over the course of the next seven days is meant to happen, Pile One.

Cards Used: The Empress (RX), Prince of Cups, 7 of Swords, Strength, The Hermit, 3 of Swords (RX), The Magician, Temperance (RX), The Lovers (RX).

extras: “bovine”. playing the dozens. hbcu bound. 1H lilith. a full shopping cart. laughter.

Pile Two: If you suffer from insomnia, you will absolutely start to get better sleep. Pile Two, you’re such a smart worker. I know you don’t like to work hard, and you will be getting a reward for that. I see a promotion coming your way. If you have a boss that has an explosive temper, I see that this will happen within the next three weeks. Your life also seems chaotic like Pile Two. You also seem like the obsessive type. I feel like this is a pile full of nightowls as well. Part of your upgrade process will mean embracing your shadow side. I think that you have some trouble with other women (if you’re a woman), or having trouble embracing your soft side. It is okay to be vulnerable. I also see if you’re on the search for a new car, then a woman will co-sign a loan for you. It seems like you will be changing from the inside out. The longer it takes for you to address the issues that you have going on internally, the longer the results will come. I am seeing that when you finally decide to open up and be vulnerable, the physical changes will manifest. For example, if you want longer hair, your hair will grow two inches. If you want to change your life, change your mind Pile Two. And I’d recommend you look up the term ‘limerence’. Start making changes to become more grounded and less clouded by delusions, fantasies and looping thoughts about stuff that does not exist in your reality. It’s time to let them go, Pile Two.

Cards Used: 4 of Cups, Queen of Cups, The Chariot, Ace of Discs, 3 of Discs, The Devil, King of Cups (RX), The Tower, 9 of Swords

extras: listening to nightcore. “egoic”. meat market. fresh beat band. beauty shop (2005). picker-upper.

Pile Three: Your hard work is finally going to pay off. You’ve been obsessing over your work and dedicating so much of your time to it. It is finally going to receive some recognition because you decided to not give up on your dreams. As a result, I see that your dream lifestyle will be well-funded. If you’re an artist or a clothing designer, this will especially resonate with you. The amount of time that you spent on your passion will be appreciated by many eyes, Pile Three. If you’ve been having a hard time accepting someone for who they are, or if you have been struggling with your emotions in general, I see that you will get a handle on it. And also, if you’re looking for a vendor, you will find one! You are being called to continue to focus on your craft. I am channeling this interview of GloRilla where she says that she abstained from relations with men, partying and alcohol for sixty days before she blew up. Then FNF was released, and that marked the start of her mainstream journey. So, keep going baby!!

Cards Used: Wheel of Fortune, Strength (RX), 5 of Cups, Queen of Cups, 7 of Cups, Princess of Discs, The Devil, 3 of Discs, Temperance, The Star

extras: christina aguilera. spiders. a series of unfortunate events. award shows.

Pile Four: The only way that you can learn from your mistakes is if you actually implement the lesson into your life, Pile Four. I can tell that you’re stubborn. Once you really understand that nothing can change if YOU don’t move things around, you will know how powerful you are. Some of you may have a really thick (and attractive) accent. I think that you can use this to your advantage to make things shake for you. Pile Four, do you really know yourself? Like outside of the things that you do and have, who are you? It is time for you to do some soul searching, my love. It feels like I am talking to a shell of you. I think that the upgrades that are coming in will involve other people. You will find someone who helps you embrace your rawest, natural self. I also think that you will be interested in fitness and will find a workout partner. Investing in yourself physically will impact you emotionally. You do not need to go back to your old self because they’re gone. Take pride in this new you. I feel that your spirituality will strengthen as well. Your boundaries will grow stronger, and as this happens, you will lose more friends unfortunately. But I don’t think you’ll be affected by it. Overall, I feel like this pile will gain a lot of clarity and mental strength to start breaking generational curses and shedding old skin. You got this, Pile Four!

Cards Used: 8 of Cups, The Star, Death, 9 of Swords, 7 of Wands, The Fool, Temperance, Page of Wands, The Lovers

extras: “you smell good.” “be you.” jump by tyla. maison margiela. kick-ass. wwe.

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thebucketpail · 1 year

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When You Accidentally Kill a Clown pt.4

Alright bestie you know the drill. Uh, this one's a bit longer than usual though. Enjoy?

Pt.1

To say Danny was having a bad day would be the understatement of the century. Well it wasn’t really a bad ‘day’ more like a terrible series of events that just kept getting worse. Oddly enough, though, this terrible horrible day did not start with killing the Joker, then promptly getting interrogated by a surprisingly cute serial killer/ crime boss/ vigilante. In fact it actually started seven hours earlier at around 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Danny’s roommate had practically kicked him out of the dorm so he could have ‘date night with his girlfriend’ but it was said in a way that made Danny nope out of there real fast.

‘It’s fine, I’ll just use this time to explore Gotham a bit,” he thought to himself. Turns out Gotham, with its incredibly high crime rate and massive amount of curses - seriously? How could one city be this cursed- has a lot of ghosts. Ghosts that seem to be very happy someone can see them. This would have been fine, Danny would have been happy to help, If they hadn’t swarmed him.

Mere moments after he had addressed a shade Danny had found themself in the middle of a mob, shades, imprints, spirits, etc, all vying for attention, help with something here, or just plain attention.

It took them 3 hours to lose the mob.

And it wasn’t even all of them, a few blob ghosts clung to him as he explored the piers, shades following at his heels, weaving in and out of shadows bringing general bad luck because of course, why not.

Danny just wanted a scoop of icecream? Sorry it fell on the floor. Oh look at that his shoes are untied, would be a shame if he- ouch that must have hurt. Just trying to sit on a bench and relax? Aww that's a cute seagull, here have some of Danny’s pretzel. Okay thats enough- ow what the fuck? Ack no stop! stop-!

So yeah, exploring the pier turned out to be not the most safe idea for all the strangest reasons. Danny had to leave before the shades did any real damage like throwing him into the bay, or splitting the boardwalk underneath him.

Danny had just lost yet another pack of attention seeking ghosts when he felt the eyes. It was the uncomfortable prickling that made the hair on his arms and neck stand on end. “Just find a place to get dinner, it’ll be fine," he thought, quickening his pace toward the batburger he had designated on a map he’d found at the pier.

Now what Danny didn’t know, being new to town and all, was that Park Row was not a place you should be walking by yourself, at night, with black hair and blue eyes. That was just asking for trouble, and oh boy trouble they got. Before a single thought could flash through their head, Danny had been pulled into an alley, a large figure pinning their hands behind their back. Danny twisted around, trying to gain purchase and maybe get a look at their attackers face, but stiffened as they spoke, low and gruff.

“Awww what’re you doing in crime alley all alone kiddie?” he crooned, “Don’t you know it's not safe?” Danny’s growing panic reached a peak as another figure melted out of the shadows of the dingy alley, “Boss, what do you think? He could be a Wayne." The ‘Boss’ leaned forward to inspect Illuminated by a nearby streetlight. Danny’s eyes blew wide at the painted white face, impossibly huge smile, puke green hair, and pristine purple suit in front of him.

He hardly heard him berate the goon

“This isn’t a Wayne you imbecile, it's just some random street rat” Hey

“But- he could be, he fits the bill,” the conversation drowned out as Danny stared, stock still. They could feel the ectoplasm in their blood pooling at their fingertips, the tingling sensation sending prickles down their spine.

The last thought that crossed their mind before a flash of green enveloped the alley was; ‘Fuck, I hate clowns.’

When the light died down they were free, the goon a few feet away on the ground, eyes wide in shock or horror, they couldn’t tell. Danny, eyes no doubt still glowing, followed his gaze to the crumpled purple mass at his feet. Oh shit.

“You- you- I’m getting out of here,” the goon shouted, pointing a shaking finger at him as he scrambled away. Danny just stared down at the clown in shock. Sure he’d fought a lot of dead people but ancients he’d never killed someone himself. Taking a deep breath he tried remembering those grounding tricks Jazz had taught him to ward off panic. He focused on his breathing, closing his eyes as the steady rhythm of his too slow heart beat in his ears. After a few moments he exhaled deeply, running a shaking hand through his hair as the other reached for his phone.

And, well, we know this part.

-------

It was almost 1 am by the time Hood got Danny back to their dorm. They had of course protested that they didn’t need the escort and it's all fine- because truly Danny had no intentions of returning to their dorm- but Hood had insisted, continuing the interrogation as they walked.

“Do you have any siblings”

“two”

“Where are you from?”

“illinois”

“What's your favorite color?”

“Green probably”

At the very least the questioning served to calm Danny’s nerves and distract them from the less-than-happy thoughts. There was also something about Hood that made Danny’s core pull in his chest. Aside from very obviously smelling like death- something he had chalked up to being a serial killer/ crime boss/ vigilante - the man kept making his ghost sense go off, but it always caught in his throat rather than escaping. Danny had almost choked the first time and it was starting to get annoying, it reminded him of being around Vlad. It piqued his interest regardless.

So when the noises coming through the door confirmed that; no, Danny should not go try entering his dorm and that he would definitely not be getting what little sleep his body could manage after the night’s events, he decided on some reconnaissance. Because if he wasn’t getting sleep, he would be at least getting answers for that weird feeling. He let invisibility wash over him and retraced his steps back to the building entrance. Hood was long gone but it didn’t matter. Danny soon took to the sky, staying low enough he wasn’t breathing in the dense clouds

of smog but still high enough to scan the streets from above the rooftops.

It felt amazing honestly. He hadn’t been able to fly since before he got to Gotham, and while it the air wasn’t as clean and the sky wasn’t a glowing blanket of stars like it was in Amity, but with the rush of wind, subtle glow of the street lights, and the soft din of night traffic, it still reminded him of home. In a way it was peaceful, if you discounted the ever present police sirens, occasional pop of gunfire, and general filthiness of the city.

As Danny wove through the street and alleys of Gotham he couldn’t help but to think about his hometown. He knew Amity would be protected of course. The GIW hadn’t been a threat since the Meta Human protection acts were passed, even though ghosts weren’t considered metas the investigation had been enough to disband the agency. His parents probably couldn't pose too much of a threat to any ghosts, especially with the portal being closed (he'd made Valerie promise to keep it shut, since she'd decided to stay in Amity), and even if someone from his rogues gallery managed to make it through, Red Huntress was more than capable to handle it.

Jazz had even managed to drill it into their head that Danny wasn’t responsible for the protection of Amity, as much as they thought they were. Being a hero didn’t make them happy, at least not in the way they were. Danny actually loved helping people, and fighting his rouges on occasion. But being Phantom was so stressful, the late nights, the missed school, the barely dodged calls to cps, it was all so much. So Danny had given up Phantom just in time to start senior year. Granted it was a little late to completely turn his academic career around, but he made an effort and now he’s studying Engineering at Gotham University on a near complete scholarship from the Wayne foundation. All of this though and Danny still felt an inkling of worry for his town, even if it was in capable hands. He was working on it though.

He knew back at the start of senior year that he wouldn’t be able to hang up Phantom forever, afterall he was a part of Danny that couldn’t be ignored (it would quite literally be detrimental to his health), that and the fact that he existed on the precipice of life and death meant he would always have some ghost or another vying for his attention. One of his regulars wanting a fight, someone new deciding they want to test his mettle, or just a lower powered ghost wanting some help, and as long as it didn’t affect his schedule too much or get him too high on the Bats radar Danny would be happy to oblige.

So he didn’t mind it much when, after he’d started losing hope in finding Hood - Damn that guy can disappear- he felt his ghost sense go off. The sharp air escaped his lungs in a sudden gasp, never failing to stop his chest for a moment. Danny felt the ice melt in his mouth as he scanned the streets for whomever had set it off. He couldn’t see anything but something- someone- was pulling at his core, beckoning him to a nearby rooftop.

There wasn't anything special about this particular building, just an old beat down 24/7 convenience store. Danny flew around it a few times before landing gently on the roof’s edge. They didn't know what they should be looking for as the area seemed to be entirely empty. But his confusion proved to be short lived when the surrounding shadows seemingly condensed in front of them. The dim and flickering neon sign to their left somehow got dimmer and more flickery, and what little moonlight that had wormed its way through the thick clouds was all but swallowed by the swirling mass of shadow.

The massive shadow was towering almost three feet over Danny by the time it began taking shape. And it wasn’t quite humanoid, but the flowing gown and veil reminded them of a mourning widow. Her eye glowed a flickering grey, and her skin was made of the same shadow as her gown. She was beautiful, Danny’s breath caught in their throat. They didn’t know why, but they dropped to one knee, bowing their head to the shadowy figure.

The woman chuckled, a sweet chirping sound that echoed and reverberated around the rooftop. When she spoke, her voice was just more than a whisper, yet sweet and full, even behind that recognisable Jersey accent, “Rise child.” Danny obeyed. “You are powerful, young one, I can see it in you.” Her eyes flickered to Danny’s chest, hovering just where his core sat. “You are the ghost child from Amity, yes? I’ve heard much about you and your exploits. I must say, not many could go toe to toe with Pariah Dark and come out victorious.”

Danny’s tongue felt heavy in his mouth as he nodded, “It was difficult, but I had help.”

The woman hummed, “Even still. Is it true he still exists? In the forever sleep, you have not yet consumed his core?”

“I- no I have not,” Danny said. This was another of those things Danny had decided to ignore. A few months after they had locked Pariah away the Observants had tracked him down at school, resulting in a panicked request for the bathroom and a whole week of strife. Apparently, according to ghost politics, Danny had become heir to the crown of the ghost king. All that belonged to Pariah was now Danny’s, won in single combat. And if the news that he would become the new King of The Infinite Realms wasn’t enough, he had also been informed that to take the throne he would have to consume Pariah’s core, just as he had done when he won the throne from his predecessor.

This news had overloaded Danny’s brain and he had spent the past three years pointedly ignoring that fact about his half life. He’d get around to it… eventually. Luckily three years wasn’t much time for immortal floating eyeballs so it hadn’t become much of an issue. But he’d run out of time and would have to face the music at some point.

“But it is true that Pariah still exists, in eternal slumber for the time being.” He continued, squirming under the woman’s scrutinous gaze, “Ah, but if you don’t mind me asking, who are you?”

This elicited another set of giggles from the woman, err, girl? She had shrunk to the size of a young girl in a knee length black dress, a feathered beret sitting on a curly bob of dark hair. Her giggles grew, consuming the rooftop in the joyous sound. The laughing ceased as the young girl tilted her head to the side, just a little too far for a human. A grin spread wide across her face and something sparked in her eyes.

“I am Lady Gotham, princling, I thought that was obvious…” She trailed off for a moment then continued with renewed enthusiasm, “ I heard that you are a protector of your hometown, do you intend to assist my knights while you are here?”

Lady Gotham, Danny had heard of her. The supposed amalgamation of everything that made the city what it was. A combination of the pain and suffering as well as the fierce stubbornness and love of those who called the city home. Being a spirit she wasn’t seen often in the Ghost Zone, but those who passed through the veil brought stories of their protectoress. A Lady fierce, vindictive and unforgiving to those she considered an enemy. A being that collected curses like postage stamps. But also one who cared deeply for her city, and even more so for her knights who cared for her just as much.

Danny felt humbled in her presence.

He ducked his head, sheepish as he answered her, “My apologies my Lady, I have long since hung up my cape to pursue the remainder of my life. But should you call for my help I will not hesitate to do all in my power to aid you, or your knights.”

Lady Gotham hummed, pleased, “I appreciate the promise I will keep it in mind. After all, just tonight you have already helped my city so much. I want you to know that no matter how it may weigh on you; what you did was good. By taking his life you saved countless more, accident or no. And for that I thank you.” Stunned, Danny nodded. “I am afraid I must depart now, holding form isn’t difficult but I must say it makes it harder to spread my shadows. I wish you the best princling.” The girl before him smiled then melted -like actually melted- into a pool of shadow at Danny’s feet. As the cloud dissipated, the faint light of the convenience store returned, casting a dim staticky glow.

Danny stood mulling over her words for a few moments before laying down on the roof’s edge. The silence was punctuated only by the faint buzzing of electricity emitted from the neon sign, but it did little to distract him from the thoughts he’s been running from all night.

The thought that he had actually killed someone.

What Lady Gotham hada said was probably true, the Joker's death was a good riddance, he had killed tens-of-thousands, and probably tens-of-thousands more. Taking him out of the equation was a good thing. But that didn’t change the fact that Danny had killed him. Danny had never killed a person before, not directly at least. He wasn’t deaf to the notion that some people may have died during one of his ghost fights, in fact he was painfully aware of each person he had failed to save. But he had never been at direct fault for a murder until now. It shook him to the bones.

Did this make him a murderer?

He stewed in these thoughts for hours, only being pulled from them by an inkling of sunlight breaking through the towering buildings hitting his eyes. Groaning, he sat up, painfully aware of how tired he was. “Probably not getting any sleep though” He could feel the bags under his eyes growing with the lack of sleep. However he did manage to get off the roof and transform back into his living form, ‘need coffee’ He thought blearily as he began making his way down the street, maybe he’d find a shop or something.

What he did not expect was to be pulled into an alley for the second time that night (Morning? Oh what does it matter he’s getting mugged).

Their assailant, no more than two inches shorter than Danny with an unkempt beard and suspiciously stained shirt, had them pinned to the wall, a knife at their throat.

“Empty your pockets!” he shouted, digging the knife further against their skin. Danny suppressed a yawn, they really did not have enough energy to deal with this. Luckily they didn’t have to. The rumbling of a motorcycle filled the air as a blur of red and black turned into the alley. The mugger barely had time to shout “Hey!” before Red Hood decked him in the face.

“Twice in eight hours?” He asked, the grin almost audible in his voice as Hood tied up the man, “I know you’re not from here, but that’s still gotta be some kind of record,” Honestly Danny would have been more upset if he wasn’t so tired, but even so;

“Wee it’s not like I’m Trying to get attacked. I just wanted some fucking coffee,” he ground out.

“At four in the morning?”

“It’s almost six,” Danny muttered after sneaking a quick glimpse at his watch - a black digital one with little blob ghosts on it, a gift from Dani. “Besides it’s not like I was planning on sleeping anytime soon,” he continued. That same weird feeling from earlier tugged at his core during the silence that followed. Of there being a ghost nearby, but his cold gasp getting caught in his throat before escaping. Danny could almost feel the thrum of another core, but there was something muffling it. It made Danny wrinkle his nose.

Despite his wish to investigate the fact of Hood’s weird probably-a-core, Danny also really wanted to get out of this awkward situation. But hey it seemed like Hood was stalking him anyway so this probably wouldn’t be his only chance.

“I should probably be going now,” they said, moving to exist the grimy alley, stepping over the unconscious form of his would-be-mugger-#2. “Don’t worry, I’ll be a bit more careful this time,” They threw over their shoulder with a grin before leaving.

A weight settled on their shoulder as they walked away. Ancients this night was eventful. Hopefully their roommate was finally finished with ‘date night’ enough to allow Danny a couple hours of sleep. But first; coffee.

+++++

Humans I am so sorry for this chapter (because yes it's a chapter). I was just going to write another little installment from Danny’s Pov and then ended up with over 3k words which is like adding up the word counts of all three other chapters. But i think it turned out good so win some lose some. Anyway, all the exposition is out of the way so we’ll be going back to silly goofy fun times now. Also sorry about the kind-of angst, I didn’t mean to, it just appeared.

What were your thoughts on Lady Gotham? I’m fairly happy with how I wrote her, she will definitely be returning

No I will not add you to the tag list, I don't mean to be mean but I just down have the brain power for that <3

Subscrib to the Ao3

Pt 5

#When You Accidentally Kill a Clown #bucket writes things #danny phantom #dp x dc #danny fenton #dc #dp x dc crossover #jason todd #Obligatory Lady Gotham Cameo #exposition woAH #Man Danny's just ahd a bad day huh #like losing his icecream? getting attacked by a seagull? poor guy #threw out the GiW befoe rhe plot cause thats just angst in the making and im trying not to wnable bad habits #dead on main

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vivilingriphyn · 2 months

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Congrats @zaptrap on hitting 1k! :DD

Click for clearer image

Had lots of fun with this especially how I feel like I've finally taken a breath of fresh air after getting burnout from linework and sketching, so thank you for making me think long and hard for a couple of days on how i wanted to do this, the limitations and challenge you've given for this dtiys was headache inducing in a good way that I'd always welcome, since it's helping me improve and have fun. So thank you and congratulations again!

Now let's talk about the illustration itself, the inspiration came from when we were tasked to act, aka theater. From that one thing it set off all alarms in my head that THAT was the one! So I went with that and began thinking of other words, "Dramatic, Dynamic, Tragic, continuation and Symbolisms etc. And with the words now chosen my brain began to visualize exactly what I wanted, and ofc the original art as my base, taking the pose and making it as dramatic as possible while still retaining the original pose but making it feel after it's the continuation ofc inspired by your reply "nah it's not already in him (unless u want it to be lmao)" so took your words and ran with it! XD

Plunging that knife into Cole's heart and ripping out that same knife to create something beautiful.

The Lilies and Spider lilies, I wanted them in illustration as symbolism of sorts, I've never been good with symbolisms but still wanted to try em. (By google definition) Lilies mean life while ofc Spider lilies means death, in the illustration i tried to make the lilies on Cole transition into spider lilies, as well as the petals on blood trail towards Jay's knife while there’s a actually blood dripping down going pass the spider lilies and lastly the petals that are drifting upwards towards the stage light is presumed to be.

Since I've taken theater as inspiration ofc i really wanted make sure that the lighting gave what i wanted it to give, while it also became a challenge for since i realized that lighting and shadows were one of the things i lack so again thank you @zaptrap for making this dtiys because not only was it fun but gave me a milestone that i wanted to achieve which is to improve on understanding with lights and shadows and i have achieved it subsequently thanks to this dtiys!

Now you might've noticed Jay's design. It's actually because when waiting for the references I already started doing the illustration. Since i didn't wanna burn out my overload of motivation with doing nothing.

And this is the illustration 3hrs in. As you can see Jay would've looked completely different and wouldn't have any no parts of his face showing because I thought that literally half of his face was metal xD the thing on his chest would've been different, no metal parts going down his abdomen, no belt, and the boots. So for his design here i did change some aspects of it like the chest part and a lil bit on the boots and ofc giving Jay's face back, but kept some of what i originally drew which is not adding the metal parts on the abdomen and keeping the ribbon belt and mixed the boot with some parts of Jay's shoes in the references. I kept these because i thought it add to the compassion and overall flow of the piece especially the ribbon belt (I don't know what they're already called but i need something to differentiate them 😭) because without it it feels to much empty space that the drifting petals wouldn't be able to fill in as I wanted it to.

Anywho again congratulations @zaptrap ! I really REALLY had fun with this and I hope this piece makes you feel rewarded for reaching the milestone of 1k because you deserve em mate!

#jay #jay walker #ninjago #digital art #art #lego ninjago #ninjago jay #cole #cole brookstone #bruise #blood #spider lilies #lilies #illustration #zaptrap dtiys

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bejeweledblondie · 7 months

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Phillip Graves Headcannons

A/N: These are supposed to be somewhat realistic, I lived in Texas for three years on an Army Base & Jesus Christ they’re flooded with plenty of Phillip Graves

Phillip Graves x F! Reader

• You met Phillip while he was on a four-day weekend at a UT vs. Baylor football game

• You were one of the cheerleaders on the sidelines & you caught his eye immediately

• I mean c’mon those shorts & chaps mixed with Pom Poms (The UT Cheer uniform is so stinkin’ cute)

• Your friend pointed him out to you at first

• “Girl that man has been staring at you”

• He was nearly focused on you the entire game, you kept smiling & giggling at him the more he looked

• He found you as you were walking out of the stadium, he asked you out & ofc you said yes

• There’s 100% an age gap (this man’s ego is equally as large as big as Texas)

• If you’re in a sorority he attends the formals with you

• he drives the most lifted extra pick up truck you can imagine

• “Babe can you even see over the damn steering wheel?”

• As you graduate college he proposed to you (with a two carat diamond) & you had a elaborate wedding on his family’s ranch in Texas

• You had multiple wedding dresses designed by Berta bridal

• Surprise Pom dance for him with your cheer teammates

• After the wedding you honeymooned in Italy

• Ofc y’all decided on off post housing so you be able to have every commodity on the planet

• hear me out indoor swimming pool

• Even though you went to college, Graves is a very traditional man he doesn’t want you to work

• You have different hobbies, go to cycle class, shop ofc, get Botox done etc.

• Since he’s a very traditional man I do feel like he’d hold some old fashion views that were engrained in him from childhood

• He’s a religious man to some extent (he’s from Texas there’s no way around that)

• He 100% loves to show you off on & off post

• His Shadows at first were in pure disbelief that he married you, hell some of his Shadows are closer in age to you

• Buys you lululemon work out clothing for the “quality” he loves the way your body looks like those damn align leggings

• You guys do go line dancing & the both of y’all are pretty good at it

• He loves to go to the range to shoot in his free time, & he’s a hunter (I apologize to my fellow animals lovers) but not a trophy hunter

•He conceal carries a handgun at all times

• He makes delicious Deer jerky

• This man collects old Allied WW2 firearms

• He loves History Channel documentaries on WW2

• full on dad stance in front of the tv while watching

• “Honey come look at this!”

• He’s not that old but due to his time in the Marines & current job he does have bad knees, a bad back etc. the cracking his body does is insane

• He does take pills for that & you have to remind him to take them

• Whenever you ask him to read something he whips out his old man glasses

• He is always losing them too, so at work he will wear contacts (no one knows about this at his work)

• “Turn the radio I can’t see”

• He adopted a golden retriever puppy & a German Shepard puppy for you

• They’re your guard dogs when he’s away

• You got pregnant a little bit later in your marriage solely because Phillip was focusing on work a lot in the beginning of your marriage

• He was over the moon excited that you were pregnant

• Your gender reveal was powder inside of a target & be shot at it

• It was blue, you were having a little boy

• He made sure the nursery was set up prior to him leaving

• When you went into labor Phillip was about to go on a mission & it was the most excruciating experience knowing something horrible could’ve happened

• He watched your baby be born on FaceTime. It hurt him to see you upon so much pain & just surrounded by medical staff

• Due to a miscommunication & an ambush he unfortunately got held up

• He didn’t meet your son until a month after you delivered

• He looked at the photo he had of you in his plate carrier in the safe house he was held up in wondering how you & his newborn son were doing

• His Shadows & their significant others gifted you the most beautiful baby gifts once they returned from the missions

• Graves would fall asleep with your baby on his chest in the living room after feeding him in his recliner

• Your son’s little face would be smushed up against Graves’s chest drooling on his t-shirt

• He too would bring your son to work, but once he started crawling (I swear if there’s one thing that will break any hardened military man is a baby)

• Once your little boy is old enough he would play football & baseball

• Graves also helps coach when he can, he too played those sports as a little boy

• He’d also probably take him hunting too & teach him how to live off of the land

• The saying Once a Marine Always a Marine rings true in the Graves’s household

• Just like his old man your little boy joined the Marines

• Graves is a true traditional family man at heart & does everything he can to shield you guys from his line of work

✨NSFW✨

• huge daddy kink, his ego is already big & he loves the idea of you having to rely on him

• Loud office sex whenever you’d visit

• Cockwarming him while he does paperwork

• You’d wiggle around & he’d hold you down

• You went topless in Italy when you went to the beach on your honeymoon, & he constantly was grabbing at your tits

• You adopted the habit of tanning like that in the privacy of your backyard

• Major breeding kink too

• He loves finishing inside of you

• He’ll also use you to take his frustrations out when he’s had a rough day at work

• Lingerie especially red lingerie is his favorite

• He’s 100% a boob man & he’d be happy to pay for fake tits if that’s what you wanted

• You’d 100% wear his cowboy hat while riding him

• He spanks you as a punishment

• You do have sex in the back of his pick up truck under the infamous Texas starry nights

• You two have made so many sex tapes together from all different angles

• He also has so many nudes of you

• One or a couple may have accidentally gotten leaked to his team (this just fed his ego more)

• You’d also probably wear his old marine dress blues for the Marine Corps birthday as you rode him

#cod imagines #call of duty #cod masterlist #ghost call of duty #phillip graves imagine #graves x reader #phillip graves #phillip graves smut #cod graves #graves mw2 #graves smut #ghost x y/n #cod modern warfare #phillip graves x you #phillip graves x female reader

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sexhaver · 9 months

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ive been playing Cassette Beasts for a minute and it never stops being funny to me how flagrant they are about making this "Pokemon but with features you didn't know Pokemon has always needed". off the top of my head:

super effective/NVE hits have added benefits/debuffs beyond just doubling/halving the damage (hitting Electric types with Ground reduces their evasion and speed, hitting Steel types with Poison gives them poison-coated spikes that do contact damage, etc)

legally-distinct-Pokemon will learn new moves while in your party without having to battle, and you can then straight up steal these moves from them and put them on a not-Pokemon you actually care about using, which gives an actual incentive to hunt down and raise otherwise fringe not-mons beyond completing the not-Pokedex

we all played the Pokemon Infinite Fusion fangame right? we know how fusions work? okay so this game has them as temporary per-battle things instead of permanent ones, which is only marginally less cool while being infinitely easier to balance around

attempting to catch something shows you the percentage chance of success so you know whether you just got unlucky or if you should save your Pokeballs-i-mean-blank-cassette-tapes

leveling up is tied to your not-trainer instead of your not-pokemon, so you don't end up in the classic trap where your starter is way overleveled and everything else is underleveled and then you hit a fight your starter can't solo and have to spend an hour grinding to get the weaker not-mons up to par (funnily enough most Pokemon Nuzlocke romhacks have already figured this out and give you infinite rare candies with the only restriction being that you can't level past the next gym leader's ace pokemon, because Pokemon fans have realized that grinding is the worst part of the game way before Game Freak has)

moves, not-Pokeballs, not-PokeCenter visits, and healing items are all bought using entirely separate currencies which stops you from trivially breaking the economy in half

the soundtrack, fittingly, is pretty good! the vocals were a bit much for my taste but there's an option in the settings menu to straight up turn them off (letting the BGM play on its own), which i've never seen in any other game and really appreciate

downsides:

on a game design level, i understand why can i only carry a max of 5 not-Potions and 1 not-Revive at a time - it's to put a limit on how far away from fast travel points i can get by just running away from everything and healing off damage. on a gameplay level, however, this feels pretty bad

the pixel art style is trying to look as much like Pokemon as possible without actually being Pokemon so the overworld sprites look more like beta stuff from Pokemon that they cut for looking too weird. i have yet to find a haircut that doesn't look bad

this is super petty of me but something about the bloom and lighting of the 3d environments combined with pixelated 2d sprites that still cast shadows makes me painfully aware im playing a video game. it's like they were going for the same aesthetic as Octopath Traveler but fell just barely short. i can't think of a better way to articulate this feeling but if you know you know

it does that really obnoxious half-assed style of voice acting where plot-relevant characters will sometimes (maybe every third or fourth textbox) speak the first two or three words of dialogue before trailing off. mashing through textboxes (as one does) means constantly getting jumpscared by "hmm"s and "haha!"s "okay then!"s

i get that they wanted to make the player feel involved in the story, and it has a pretty decent hook so far, but oh my god. the amount of dialogue "choices" that just transparently do not matter. you know how people memed on Fallout 3 and 4's dialogue choices all leading to the same outcome, to the extent that you were basically choosing between "yes" and "yes (rude)"? and you know how Bethesda would at least attempt to justify how both options led to you accepting the quest anyways, even if it was really dumb? Cassette Beasts has streamlined this process even further by making the options in most of their binary decisions so identical that they don't even require different followup dailogue before rejoining into the main conversation thread. a solid 2/3rds of the dialogue options in this game so far feel like checks that you're still awake. i know this is a minor issue because people aren't playing Pokemon-likes for the engaging "choices matter" approach to storytelling, and i did ignore it at first, but it's so pervasive that you really can't ignore it

#cassette beasts

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phoenixyfriend · 9 months

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[Personal rambling about my relationship with an event of recent history. This is not meant to reflect anyone else's feelings on the subject, just my own. If you reblog, please engage in good faith.]

[TW: discussions of 9/11 and its effects]

One of the side-effects of watching a lot of videos on the topic of architecture, especially in NYC, is getting really strong, complicated feelings rising back up about 9/11.

I was living in Queens when it happened, and not yet six years old. I was young, but a few moments of the day it happened is pretty clear in my memory. I was too young and not connected directly enough to the event to really understand what was going on at the time, but it was very nearby and had very strong impacts on my life both immediately, and going forward.

(After all, I had to fly inter-continentally just to see my grandparents, and I had younger siblings. Any family from Serbia needed to apply for a visa to come over to visit us, and most of them didn't speak English. Imagine how difficult airports are, right after that, if you hadn't experienced it yourself. This doesn't apply to just New York, but it does apply to me.)

Anyway, the memories are pretty shaky but definitely there for me. I was lucky enough to not have anyone who died in the event or the aftermath, but my surroundings were pretty heavily impacted due to proximity, and I imagine there's a lot that happened that I don't remember because my parents shielded me from it.

The thing is... I was still there. I still remember it, and I feel a sense of connection to the way NYC chose to rebuild after, the ways it worked to commemorate the dead, etc. I was too young to be involved and, for a time, too distant--I lived in Colorado for six years, starting '07.

It's still the city that's defined much of my life, either while living in it or living on LI, which isn't NYC but is in its shadow in all ways. I've lived in or near NYC for over half my life.

So when I look at New Yorkers reacting to the event or commemorations of it, I get it. New Yorkers erecting monuments and having strong feelings about 9/11 makes sense. Of course the people who live here and were directly hit by it have strong opinions! It was a major event! Of course city residents went feral with anger when a random luxury housing unity tried to build higher than One World Trade Center. You don't just... choose to be larger than a building that was designed to commemorate one of the greatest tragedies in the city's recent history, especially not when that building's height is already symbolic, being exactly 1776ft tall at the spire.

It might seem stupid, but I get it. I understand why NYC residents were furious at the idea, given how contentious the supertalls already are.

I understand why, over twenty years on, the rebuilding is still ongoing. I understand why 2, 5, and the Perelman Performing Arts Center have taken so long, and are still years away from completion. Nobody wants to get this wrong.

And the reason it gets so complicated is because there's this stark difference to my feelings on how the average American, and also some New Yorkers, it's true, might use 9/11 as a tragedy to fuel their racism and xenophobia and jingoistic warmongering.

This isn't my tragedy, for all that I was in its shadow, saw the smoke rising and felt the echoes of it across my childhood. I didn't lose anyone in the attack or the aftermath, and I wasn't part of a minority group targeted in its wake. I was only ever on the fringes... but it was still my city, you know?

When I was in high school, I lived in Colorado. We were discussing the difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources in class. The teacher used 9/11 as an example, saying that everyone in the room was a secondary source, because we were alive and saw the events unfolding on television, but we weren't there, just getting the information secondhand from the news.

I raised my hand, and said I lived in New York at the time, just across the river, and the teacher acknowledged that I was significantly closer as a source than most of the class.

I don't call myself a primary source on this. I wasn't even six, yet. My memories have faded with time, and I wasn't as close as many were.

But there's still a pride in NYC and in the rebuilding, in the way that the city bounced back. It's not so much about the architecture and rebuilding, for all that its symbolism is important and meaningful in its own right. It's more about the smaller businesses that were impacted by the destruction of a large section of the financial district, the local delis and bodegas, the hot dog carts at Bowling Green, and the wider economy hit by the ripples of the event, which definitely did affect everything in the metro area, not just the immediate surroundings.

So it's not my tragedy, really, but it is New York's.

And there's a specific kind of distaste and rage in me when I see it co-opted. When I see the average American call it 'our' tragedy. 'The nation's' tragedy.

It's not. It's not yours to use for your violence and hate for what you call Other.

I don't feel suspicion when New Yorkers hold on to the symbolism of the event, and snap back at corporate interests that try to disrespect the memory of it. This is New York's tragedy, and it makes sense for New Yorkers to feel strongly about it.

I sure as hell suspect everyone else that tries to claim it, though.

#new york #new york city #nyc #9 11 #9/11 #9.11 #personal #phoenix posts #world trade center #tips are on because this took me a while to write and has the feeling of an op ed? so like. IDK #it's not fiction but it is writing

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sad-leon · 1 year

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I mean, I wouldn't mind u drawing scars and stuff for Rise Leo part way through (esp. if you do end doing so for the other Rise bros and stuff, because I don't want him to feel left out, and I also, just because I think it would be cool and stuff for Rise Leo and the others to have scars and stuff after everything they went through), I also wouldn't mind if u went for a different color for Leo's throat scar if that was easier for u and/or if u prefer it.

Sure, I understand the need for consistency and stuff, but art styles and designs change over the time and there is nothing wrong with that.

I also love u giving scars for Leo too. My boy would have a lot of them as well. Like, throat ones, knee and/or leg ones, shell crack(s) (which he does have actually), electricity scars, etc.

Anyways, my main point is, I love how u draw both Rise Leo and 2012 Leo as someone who loves Leo (he is my favorite), but if you were to add some things and/or change some things up, I think that would be okay and/or cool.

(Esp. since I now want to see Rise Leo with some scars and stuff, lol)

i have a lotta different headcanons for my boi, but this is the one im gonna go with :D

the scars on his shoulders, chest, and shell are from when the kraang grabs him with the metal claws.. i don't imagine he was very gentle

also, using this opportunity im also gonna share my Shadow Leo scars:

poor boi cant hide in the walls or else his bandages will fall off and his brothers get sad ^-^

Shadow leo doesnt sleep much due to trauma and also not knowing how to.. I'll reveal more in the qna post (y'all can still submit questions), but Shadow leo does not have a fun time having to be physical for long periods of time

#shadow leo #rise2012crossover #sad•leonart #rise leonardo #rottmnt au #rottmnt #tw scars #scars

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x-liv25-jamieswife · 17 days

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can i req some grayson headcanons if thats ok with you pookie <3

grayson head canons

OF COURSE! i literally love him sm (though i'm a jamie). he's such a complex character with so many layers and i'm a sucker for those. if anyone has more requests, feel free to send them to me! hope you like them <3

gray can't stand procrastinators (me) and people who don't make an effort. this dude is working 24/7, like...

he has literally every apple product you can imagine (but he prefers microsoft computers, not macbooks)

he's never had s*x....

he absolutely lovesss cats. he used to have one when he was younger but it died. he ends up getting another one after he marries lyra and has kids

he read smut once and actually thought it was kinda good (xander got excited)

when he plays the piano, he needs a heated bench cause his ass always gets cold

grayson would always check on his brothers on their first day of school (xan and jamie) he wouldn't go up to them, but he'd watch from the shadows to make sure everything was ok.

although he never does, he lovesss sleeping. at the end of a long day, he loves cuddling up with his blankets and resting his head.

he meditates (like he sits with his legs crossed and everything)

he lovesss the nature. sometimes he wakes up early to watch the sunrise (and he watches the sunset most days)

he loves hozier and is secretly a swiftie

his favorite place he's been to is spain. he absolutely loved the food there (as someone who loves travelling and who does it quite often, i reallyyyy want to go there)

he used to take anti-depressants and still does (i'm projecting...)

he used to throw really bad tantrums as a child, like really bad (nash would get so discouraged he'd consider offing himself)

whenever he starts dating lyra (unless he doesn't end up with her...), he always leaves her little post it notes with sweet nothings written on them

gray hates being around people and socializing (obviously) because so many people have tried to use him in the past.

he went to the eras tour in a gray suit (folklore themed) with little leaves on them (the forest on the cover of the album) designed by taylor's designer roberto cavalli (apparently he died today, rest in peace)

he loved cuddles (in bed, on sofas, literally anywhere)

he's a huge fangirl for his favorite ships. like when he reads a scene of one of his favorite couples kissing or confessing he'll literally squeak (he reads romance, fight with the wall)

grayson sometimes makes those aesthetic like 'come get ready with me for the day' but there's no talking. it's like clips of him choosing his outfit, fixing his hair, etc fans go crazy for the clips of him buttoning up his dress shirt and stuff cause they can see his abs. he does them because alisa told him he needed to interact more with fans. (@catapparently came up with this one)

although we always see him swimming in pools, he prefers the ocean.

his best friend is their dog, tiramisu (this one is not really a head canon, it's been implied but i find it adorable so..)

he tried to become vegan when he was younger but loved burgers too much

speaking of burgers, he loves super unhealthy fast food meals.

he has a lucky pen

he lost that lucky pen once and had a huge panic attack. nash tried to comfort him but gray wasn't hearing him so nash had to dump a glass of water on his head.

gray secretly wishes he was as carefree as jameson cause he hates himself (poor pookie)

grayson takes up so much space in bed. like he'll be sprawled out with his head at the bottom of the bed.

gray is an emotional drunk. in my jamie and gray head canons i said that jamie once got him drunk. that never happened again cause gray ended up balling his eyes out telling everyone he loved them and that he wants to spend more time with them. that didn't bother jamie though, it was the simping over emily that did it.

skincare king (he has a skincare fridge and all the products you can imagine. this dude would have like face wash made out of 24k gold or some shit)

has an insta account dedicated to the pics he takes of people (note the word people because he has a seperate account for nature that he shares with avery, its anonymous though)

gray had an emo phase when he was 11. he didn't dye his hair black but he bought a wig and everything

he used to be really short but magically started growing at like 15

gray is actually a really good dancer. he's actually quite decent at pole dancing

he loves gardening. he cultivates his own vegetables and shit and cooks with them. he's sort of like this girl on tiktok called nara smith who does everything from scratch (like her kids asked for lasagna, and she made her own mozzarella balls, pasta sheets, tomato sauce, bechamel sauce, grows her own vegetables, etc)

#the inheritance games #the brothers hawthorne #the final gambit #the hawthorne legacy #avery grambs #jameson hawthorne #grayson hawthorne #nash hawthorne #xander hawthorne

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sometimes-sleeby-octopus · 2 months

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I have new Boba and Matcha Art!!! With bonus “canon” comic :000!!!

I’m obssesed with them!!! Here’s them laying in the grass:

I’m going to try to explain this in a less ramble-y way with new details I’ve thought of! (Because the first post of this AU was written in a sleep deprived haze. First post linked here if you want to see them in color but shittily. Note: I’m leaving out the jackets from here on out because they were a pain in the ass to draw and I don’t always have the energy for that)

So this is from my recently made MxB Bittersweet Memories AU (which is kind of like 2 aus in one). In this AU there is the “canon” universe and the “drink” universe.

The “canon” universe has the main Sonic cast we all know and love with a focus on Sonic and Shadow. The reason it’s “canon” and not just canon is because there is sonadow (and I’m so funny to make that reference <3 /sarcastic) More on that later.

The Drink universe has variations of the main cast (both in personality and appearance) based on different drinks/drink flavors, also with a focus on the Sonic and Shadow variants. In this universe, there is Boba! Sonic (who is extra peppy and sweet like boba) and Matcha! Shadow (who is very calm, since Matcha tea can decrease anxiety and stress). They call each other by their drink names instead of their “canon” names because I might write a fic and the plot I’m about to explain requires them to be distinct from the “canon” cast.

The silly thing that connects these two AUs into one is the weird connection the sonadow variants have. “Canon” Sonic feels all the emotions Boba has toward Matcha, and they sort of reflect into his own feelings for “Canon” Shadow, as seen in the comic above. Matcha experiences all of Shadow’s memories through dreams and general emotions, including Shadow’s memories of Maria and her death. These memories don’t have to be distant and Matcha can experience them as recent as they happen.

For the “canon” universe, this connection leads to Sonic chasing after Shadow and in the end, they get together. Although, it does take some time since they still have their rivalry.

In the Drink universe, Matcha and Boba have already gotten together in the beginning (and they don’t have a rivalry since their story went a lot different). Instead of going on adventures and saving the world, the people of their universe sell drinks corresponding to themselves (Matcha specializes in Matcha Tea, Boba makes boba, etc). Matcha’s sister (Apple Cider! Maria) never died, so he doesn’t have the same or as much trauma as Shadow (Grenadine! Gerald is dead tho but from old age rather than assassination; he adopted Matcha in this universe and they had a good relationship before he passed). This makes dreams and memories of Maria dying distressing (even though he doesn’t know who Maria is). As a result, the connection leads to a Hurt/Comfort scenario that strengthens Matcha and Boba’s bond.

Throughout this whole thing, both pairs don’t even know the other universe exists!!! It makes it funnier on Sonic’s end tbh XD

I know this is. A lot. But I’m not really sorry!!! I love Matcha and Boba so much!!!

TDLR: Drink Universe with drink inspired STH designs (and established sonadow) and “Canon”Universe with regular STH designs with almost but not yet established sonadow have a weird connection that leads to scenarios ✨ (and lots of sonadow moments!!)

#mxb bittersweet memories au #matcha! shadow #boba! sonic #sonadow #sth #Round of applause for my autism that made me hyperfixate on this!!!!#more art coming soon I just want to space it out for processing time for all this info and just because lol #can you tell I want them to love each other and maybe kiss.

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rubykgrant · 1 year

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I've been slowly re-doing/adjusting my RVB face designs, and also working on more characters! It will eventually be a LOT, but for now; here are the main Reds, Blues, Freelancers, Doc, plus a bonus of Locus, Flowers, and my OC Poppy (just for the fun of it~). I love designing characters, and playing around with features so everybody has different noses, mouths, chins/jaw-lines, etc. For everybody, I have two versions. The first being their signature armor color, and then their actual people colors. I also wanted to include things like facial hair, glasses, scars, freckles and what-not (like Donut's hearing aide and Carolina's eye shadow, because she can't NOT be edgey haha).

(below is some design descriptions and notes on my thought process for everybody. it is a LOT, don't feel obligated to read it~)

Grif and Simmons both clash and compliment each other not only in personality, but in physical features as well (Simmons is sharp, and Grif is soft). I wanted to show that Simmons actually isn't as scrawny and gawky as he used to be, but he hasn't totally registered that he's finally "grown into himself", or that some muscles have happened (once he does, this unlocks "Confident Simmons", and nobody is safe. for now, he's just too used to feeling awkward). Simmons has a fairly strong jawline, an aquiline nose, and hair the color of red clay. He's had his hair very short and properly styled for many years, but after Chorus it started to grow out, and when he pulled it back to see how much he needed to trim, he realized he liked being a ponytail guy! (also, it isn't visually shown here, but trans Simmons is real~) Grif is a big guy, fat and pretty darn strong with thick limbs, and rough around the edges. He's also handsome and beautiful (not "in spite" of those features, but BECAUSE of them). His features are like a combination of rebellious and charming, with his default expression being chill. He has warm copper brown skin, and hair that reaches his shoulders, dark brown, very thick and wavy (it also magically never gets tangled). You can see where Simmons' cyborg prosthetics match the same area where Grif got his skin grafts, but over the years Grif has sort of "absorbed" the organic material, and the skin is a shade darker than when the surgery was fresh (Simmons himself isn't too terribly pale, but still lighter than Grif). Grif occasionally shaves or lets his beard grow in more full, but usually likes to keep just a little bit of face-fuzz around his chin

Sarge is very boxy and built like a brick. I enjoy the irony of a character who has a very BIG personality being somewhat short in stature, and Sarge is certainly a little bundle of dynamite. Despite his claims of only being 29, he somewhere in his 50s (possibly getting into 60s), but still going strong. I wanted to show the age lines around his mouth and his eyes, so he doesn't just look weirdly "smooth" (this man is basically leather, and proud of it. he also has larger earlobes, and bushy eyebrows). His hair has gone white and gray, kept in a perpetual buzz-cut, and he has some scruffy facial hair. He's broken both his nose and his jaw several times in his life, resulting in some unique shapes. Most of his scars happened years ago when he was younger, but the scar on the side of his head is from getting shot during Blood Gulch. He's rather pale thanks to wearing the armor every day for a few decades. His "solution" was to try and sun burnt on purpose so he'll be RED again, but Donut, Simmons, and Doc stopped him before it got too bad. He typically looks very grumpy and stern, but we all know Sarge is EXPRESSIVE with his emotions

My thought process with Donut was to combine Barbie with GI Joe; very pretty, but also pretty darn strong! He has sort of a "soft diamond" shape to his face and jawline. He looks very sweet, but has the potential to be INTIMIDATING. In the past, his hair was light blonde, but turned a strawberry-brown as he got older. During Blood Gulch, when he got EXPLODED, Donut got some scars on the right side of his face, and the hair in that area never entirely grew back. After finally accepting that he is PINK, Donut has also embraced other aspects of himself, both loving who he already is and enjoying what he wants to be. He doesn't hid his scars, but he styles his hair with a side under-cut and dyes the longer lengths a lighter blonde. He also wears a hearing-aid for his right ear, and his eyebrow on that side is a bit thin too. Donut's mouth naturally makes the "cute kitty shape", and he usually has some shiny chapstick/lip-balm on as well. He likes to get some sun on his skin, but is careful not to tan too much, and always uses lots of lotion

Doc is very "in the middle", not too tall or too short, he's not skinny but not chubby either... however, he's got sort of a sturdy build, very athletic without being too buff. A rounded jawline that ends in a small point with his chin. He has a very high bridge to his nose, making a refined line from his forehead down in profile, with sharper edges at the sides of the nostrils. His skin is a deep brown, and his hair is very dark, kept short, with the curls swept up out of his face. Doc isn't "vain" exactly, but he likes to feel comfortable with himself, and to a certain degree, this involves being satisfied with his appearance. O'Malley also enjoys feeling sort of "cozy" with the hair and what-not, so it is a shared reassurance. Doc wears glasses, and O'Malley absolutely knows how to do the "intense anime glasses thing" when he wants to look DRAMATIC. Something I wanted to show with both of them; Doc has very welcoming and kind vibes, but he is perfectly capable of being a sarcastic little smart-mouth, with a fierce sense of resolve. O'Malley likes to be very over-the-top and appear threatening, but there's potential for him to protective, and even joyful. Again, he looks very in the middle, applying to Doc and O'Malley's attitudes

Kai resembles her brother in many ways, but I wanted to make sure she's still unique to herself. Things they have in common; warm copper skin, thick and wavy hair, and they're both chubby. There is a subtle heart-shape to her face (above around her forehead and hair, and also lower with her jaw). Kai has had fun with lots of different hairstyles through the years, but she's decided to just let it grow out. She's dyed it some crazy colors in the past, without really knowing what she was using, but now Donut helps her coordinate, so she has a gradient going on (darker golden-brown at the roots, lighter shades of brown in the middle, and finally yellow at the ends). To keep it from getting tangles, she usually has her hair tied back, or wrapped up while she sleeps. Kai is somebody who is very aware of what she's physically capable of, in terms of both strength and flexibility. Sometimes she shows off with some interesting party tricks, but also just has a graceful way of moving when she wants to dance (or kick somebody's butt). Everything about Kai is LOUD and PROUD, but that doesn't mean she can't calm down and share quiet moments with the people she cares about. She also has two double sets of earrings; two studs up on her right ear, and two small hoops lower on her left ear

The first rule when drawing Tucker; he is the prettiest. He has fairly long and noticeable eyelashes. His nose has a defined smooth and broad curve to it, giving him a profile that is a bit regal, even heroic. He's one of those people who always looks younger than he actually is (not exactly a "baby face", but naturally youthful, until one day he's just gonna suddenly become a silver fox). He has dark brown skin, and thick black hair (4c), kept a little long at the top, but styled as a fade. He has pierced ears, usually just two studs (but can be more elaborate if he wants to dress up). Tucker is an interesting character; visually, he can very easily be a pretty boy, or a prince charming... but then he starts talking, and you realize how obnoxious and annoying he is. Underneath the flirty attitude and sarcastic jokes, he has genuine concern for others, and a fear that he won't be strong enough to protect people. Underneath THAT, he's a determined and clever person that is capable of doing amazing things. All that is wrapped-up within Tucker. I wanted to see a hint of the charm and smug attitude in his face, but the noble look is in there too. Physically, he's a short-king (manlet), but after training with Wash, Tucker has impressive muscles that combine with some quick reflexes

I imagine Caboose as one of the BIGGER characters. He also has the strongest "huggable vibes" (he's literally friend-shaped, no matter how much Church used to argue this fact). Caboose has a naturally sweet smile, which makes it all the more serious when he's upset (a sad Caboose will break your heart... a mad Caboose might break your arms). As Sarge once said- "He's like an ox!". His skin is a shade of sandy brown. His hair is a deeper brown, very soft and a little bit fluffy (I'm especially happy with how his bangs turned out~). I really wanted to make it clear that while Caboose might be all kinds of adorable, he is indeed a grown man, able to take care of himself, and others as well (he understands things some of them never notice). The curve of his jaw is low and subtle, but also shows how "solid" he is built. Caboose is a hopeful person, and has the will power to MAKE things turn out OK one way or another. No matter how unusual his ideas might be, Caboose is dependable, and intuitively has the strength to be kind on purpose

Wash has kept the beard despite the teasing, which has finally transformed him from looking like a very tired lost teenager into a dad who works at a library (the beardo-fication of Wash~). His hair is mostly a light blonde, more golden brown at the roots and through his facial hair (during Project Freelancer, he had a shock of gray after the Epsilon incident, but it has faded). His skin is a light tan color, covered with MANY freckles, and a few scars on his face (the most recent neck injury isn't visible. the scar above his eye is actually from a skateboarding accident as a kid, but the one across his nose was sometime after Project Freelancer started to fall apart). Although he fusses over other people a lot, Wash is bad at taking his own advice, and tends to not eat or sleep enough. It also didn't help that he had a bad habit of ignoring his own emotional breaking points until he was in the middle of losing control... he's finally learned to recognize certain things, and accept every part of himself (a little punk kid, a dork, Mr Serious, a guy who had a Villain Moment, and somebody who really found where he belongs). Under the beard, he has an angular chin, his nose has a curved swoop shape to it, and he has a defined lower lip

Carolina is one of the few characters we see without armor in the series, so I knew what I was working with, but I also wanted to show how she has changed. Carolina is a naturally intense person with somewhat slender features, and she's worked hard to be VERY strong. Now that she's spent time with this group of goobers, and had some chill lessons from Grif, Carolina is rediscovering how to enjoy herself and be less harsh (remember, she is the BEST. this means she's gonna be the Best Red, the Best Blue, the Best at Being Annoying~). She cut her hair during Iris, a little bit choppy at the time, but later decided to keep it short and give it a cleaner trim. She's dyed it a darker, less vibrant shade of red (I imagine her natural red is a bit more carrot). She still uses heavy eye shadow though! (at this point, it is out of spite toward anybody who everybody who ever said it looked silly; not so silly when she's kicking your but, is it?). She's a bit pale, but with a warm tone to her skin. Most of Carolina's scars came from incidents when she didn't have armor, or was so determined to finish a mission, she didn't care if she got hurt. It isn't visible here, but she doesn't bother with shaving her legs (not to get all deep about it, but Carolina sort of has her own balance with embracing certain aspects of femininity, and also ignoring expectations of "beauty". she knows what she's about, and does what she wants)

These designs for Tex and Church exist within my story-line where they get to return in synthetic human bodies (originally intended for the Director to use for himself and Allison, once he could properly "resurrect" her... which didn't work). DNA samples were used as the basic building blocks, the genetic information was allowed to "randomize" itself. As a result, Tex isn't an identical clone of Allison (just like parents can have more than one child; related, but physically different). Ironically, Tex takes after Allison's maternal grandmother, and so does Carolina. Tex has light skin and blonde hair, which she keeps tied back in a ponytail, with two lengths that frame the sides of her face. Carolina and Tex have the same nose shape, a long bridge that curves up at the end. She considered cutting her hair different, or dying it another color... but she didn't want to constantly worry about "changing" herself to avoid any similarities with Allison. Instead, Tex wants to find out what it means to be HERSELF; which is BIG and BUFF. She's pretty tall with a thick body-type already, so she just had to work on the muscles (also, even with long hair, she still has a "warrior dude" vibe, and she's very proud of it). Tex naturally has a lot of confidence and a rebellious attitude, but she really isn't "mean"... at least, not all the time

Church definitely has some traits that came from the Director... but Church was always a contrary little so-and-so, and even though he had no control over how his body formed, it seemed he was destined to be the "opposite" of what somebody else intended. Church is much shorter than the Director, with a thicker more "chunky" body-type (he puts on some healthy weight later, getting a bit more chubby. he also works on being strong enough to pick Tex up. that was his whole motivation). He has a broader nose, and more squared jaw. He has light skin, but a bit more of a sandy color. The most obvious resemblance is his black hair, which sticks up like a soft hedgehog. He asked Carolina and Tex if he should avoid having facial hair (since they have to look at him, and he doesn't want them to be reminded of any unpleasant memories). They assure him that it's fine, and the hair on his chin kind of suits him (it fact, even through the similarities, they can look at him and just see CHURCH, as he is). Church can be a smug, loud-mouth jerk... but though all his rants full of curse words and insults, he cares very deeply about people. Even though he had some ego-trips, he mostly just thought of himself as "some guy". Now he knows how important he is, not because he's a special and highly advanced AI, but because a lot of people missed him. Now he can actually be with them all again, and just like Epsilon, he has the chance to find out what he's truly capable of (they can still project holographic avatars of themselves, but all of the AI Fragments are back too, and happily spend time in Church's head~). Although they make different expression, Church and Carolina have the same "neutral" shape to their mouths

Poppy was originally sent to a different group of Red and Blue Flag Zealots, meant to identify needed supplies and order more ammunition. She was designated "neutral", and had white armor with tan accents. When the teams ran out of bullets, they kept fighting in non-lethal ways, which Poppy thought was preferable to a clearly pointless war, so she just never put in the order for more. Both teams considered her a friend, playfully fighting over who's side she was on, but never getting mad at her for getting along with them all. After a dangerous incident left her knocked-out and recovering, Temple's group arrived to recruit more Sim Troopers. Poppy's group refused to join. When she woke up, they were all gone. She misses them dearly. Because she's still considered part of the Flag Zealots, the UNSC decided to throw her back into a new training program (which was actually pretty shady and insidious), and that's where she meets Sarge. Poppy has a calm yet sarcastic personality, with a raging inferno of a temper once somebody ticks her off. Perfect for Red Team! Poppy is medium-short, about the same as Doc. She has broad shoulders and strong arms, very sure-footed and versatile when it comes to fighting. A very go-with-the-flow attitude, somebody who can be comforting and encouraging, but isn't shy about showing her emotions. She has a somewhat rounded fact with a short, sturdy chin. Her skin is a light shade of brown, and her long hair is a dark earthy brown. Not pictures is her own prosthetic arm (she's meant to be a "mirror" for Simmons, clever like him, but not a know-it-all. she was the one in the accident, and woke up with cyborg parts. Sarge decides to just adopt her, and this SHOULD immediately make him hater her, but Simmons finds himself feeling pretty fond and protective of Poppy. accidental sibling! also, they're both trans in opposite directions~)

We've seen Locus without armor in a flash-back before Chorus, so I tried to translate that into my style I use here. I imagine that he actually wasn't doing to great Chorus, not eating or sleeping enough, what with the whole crisis involved; thinking of himself as a murder-machine unable to see the worth of kindness or mercy, and THEN recovering enough humanity to be horrified by his actions thus considering himself a monster without a purpose... y'know, that whole song and dance. Anyway, the Reds and Blues force him to be a person again, so he gained some weight back. While he has a very strong jaw, it's kind of low where the angle is (so he doesn't have a "long" chin, but a wide one). He also has pretty defined cheek bones, and other features as well (he wasn't smiling much for a LONG time, but he does indeed have lines on his face that deepen when it happens). He's BIG, burly, and buff... but hopefully looks less harsh than before

I like to imagine that Flowers keeps faking his own death, and has a set of plans outside of what Project Freelancer was trying to do... nothing ever worked out properly. Flowers mainly doesn’t like the idea of people being “thrown away” or treated like they’re worthless, and at his worst, that meant using people for some goal they didn’t choose for themselves. He wouldn’t like to admit it, but… “daddy doesn’t always know best”, and he’s trying to include people on the decisions of these goals now (while the Director and Councilor might have just thrown together Red and Blue teams to mimic the other group who had a nearly endless stalemate going, Flowers picked out the Reds and Blues for Blood Gulch because he LIKED them, and he genuinely thought Alpha would too… in a very twisted way, Flowers founded this family). Nobody entirely trusts him at first, what with all the lying. Plus he keeps talking like a overly cheerful serial killer. He’s an older and distinguished gentleman. Some gray streaks in his hair, which he keeps wrapped up in several small braids that make a flower-shaped bun. Some scars on his body from many missions and fights (including the ax to the shoulder). He has a warm, brown skin, and back tattoo that is just barely visible; orange blossoms. He has a tall and lanky body-type, but even past middle-age he still has thick muscles

#red vs blue #rvb

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idleglowingpixels · 1 year

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talk about Collector

WHYYYYYYYYYY okay now that I got that off my chest let's get serious LMAO

Before I dive in too deep, to any other ppl reading, THIS IS YOUR FAIR WARNING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ANY CRITICISM OF TOH. Something that is really apparent in this fandom particularly is that a lot of ppl refuse to allow and accept genuine criticism discussions, dumbing it down to personal biases, misinterpretations of the text (or in this case, the show), and proclaiming "It's intentional that the show did that!" every time someone breathes something negative about it. This is ESPECIALLY annoying with the "Blame Disney/the shortening" nonsense -- a key skill in television writing is to be capable of working with the allotted time that the studios give you. After they were told Season 3 got cut short, they still had 11 22-minute episodes of Season 2 and all three 40+ minute episodes of Season 3 to conclude the story in a satisfying way.

Seeking and reading criticism posts outside of the general tags, ignoring warnings on posts that give forewarnings, then getting mad and upset that someone criticized your comfort show is generally an unhealthy behavior, especially if you're not in a good mental state. If you can't take people criticizing something you enjoy, and more-so if you deem it your comfort media, and feel the need to bother them because you made yourself upset reading their posts, you've got a lot of soul searching to do. That, or maybe you should log off until you can handle it.

Also, obviously, spoilers ahead for TOH, as well as Amphibia because these shows parallel a lot more than I want them to. :')

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I have a LOT to say about The Owl House from a critical and writing perspective, and I feel like the show is EXTREMELY overhyped for what it actually is. I feel its sister show Amphibia executed much of the same/similar themes better, and that's not even a bias thing. Just from the way both shows are written, you can tell which one feels more competently structured from a narrative standpoint (and, let's be honest, which one is actually funny).

Okay enough about general opinion, let's get to Collector. From a character design perspective, GOD I love this little guy, both the reflection/shadow form and the actual form are distinct from the rest of the cast. I'm a big Sun and Moon design/symbolism enjoyer (Sun and Moon from FNAF, Sun and Blake from RWBY, Celestia and Luna from MLP:FiM, etc.) so these types of characters are always welcome. And while their voice annoys me personally it ABSOLUTELY fits them, so no matter how annoying I find it I don't think I'd want them to have any other voice.

But that, unfortunately, is the only props I can give to Collector.

The show is FULL of redeemed antagonists that range from okay (I'd like to think Amity was decent enough and Hunter was alright but definitely should have been introduced earlier so his redemption was a slow burn but this post isn't about them so I'll end this note here) to "what the actual fuck" (Idc what anyone says, there is no excuses PERIOD, Lilith's redemption was the absolute worst redemption arc I think I've ever seen AND I'VE SEEN CATRA'S), and Collector is very much on the lower end of that scale. We hardly see them overall and their character writing is rushed beyond belief -- and again, I'd like to reiterate that that is ENTIRELY on the writing team for the show. Disney and the shortening DID NOT DECIDE TO KEEP COLLECTOR IN. The writing staff were aware of the time they had left and made the decision to shoehorn them in and expect everyone to just be okay with it.

From a writing perspective, they bloat the story exponentially and 100% should have been left in the drafts or saved for future content like what Dana said she might do if she is able to through books and such. If we only get hints of the other Collectors, this one should have STAYED hints with them.

We have essentially no significant amount of time with them outside of Hollow Mind and the season 2 finale before season 3, and what we DO have of them in season 2B is so drastically different I'd consider 2B Collector and 3 Collector as two different characters entirely. And before you tell me, "They're different because sun/moon symbolism!" "They're different because Belos and King influence them differently!" etc. etc., don't waste your time. Yes, those are good explanations as to why they feel so different between seasons, but that does not make the writing of the character inherently good. Allow me to elaborate:

In S2B, of what little we see of Collector, they are extremely sadistic in nature, and while they appear childish the writing of that lack of care for others is ABUNDANTLY CLEAR. And it seemed that way even as Belos first encountered him as Philip in the flashback episode. There, they weren't yet "influenced" by Belos and his plans; hell, he hardly had an actual plan yet.

Skip ahead to Hollow Mind, easily the best episode of Season 2 imo, and Collector is taunting Belos, mocking him and his schemes. Saying things like "Ooh, you were mad!" and "I'm starting to think you make those [grimwalkers] just to destroy them. You have fun with it, admit it!"

I cannot find any reasonable explanation as to how or why Belos would influence Collector into doing such things. Why would he want a little pain in the ass making fun of him for hundreds of years? And by his response to Collector's taunt about the grimwalkers and Hunter, "Of course I don't, Collector. It hurts every time he chooses to betray me," he took offense to their words, but kept his tone from shifting to anger as he does with everyone else because of Collector's power.

Belos doesn't want Collector thinking he doesn't like them because of their abilities, but he does want to stay on their good side for information. For knowledge of spells. And he puts up with Collector's annoyances because of that.

Essentially, that wasn't something Belos taught them or influenced them to do. All Collector knows is to adapt to their friends' behaviors, yes, but Belos is like, over 400 years old. I don't know about you, but I doubt with the way he speaks and how he's written that he would taunt his underlings in the same childish vain as Collector, and do so enough for Collector to pick up and mimic that behavior.

Now to the finale, their appearance is pretty much just them getting duped by Belos and sent into the depths of the titan skull, where King ever-so-conveniently finds them, making the pinky swear that releases them.

They maintain that mocking attitude even after Belos betrays them, calling King "boring" for calling them Mr. Collector and feeling generally disinterested by King before he promises a game to play. And even after they're released, they continue the attitude further with the whole "I remember someone throwing me off a bridge...I'm not angry, though!" bit, only to send Belos to his "death" moments after, deeming it as a game of tag. They've seen Belos kill grimwalkers first hand, fully aware that their lives mean nothing, and replicated the behavior by returning the favor to Belos (or so they thought). Their lack of care continues when they nearly try to do the same thing to the Hexsquad, people who didn't even do anything to them, before King stops them, changing the subject before they can cause further harm.

After stopping the draining spell, Collector continues the destructive maliciousness they have all the way to the end of the episode, and that's the impression of them we're left with. They were sadistic, uncaring and childish, but only learned the behavior of killing from Belos -- even though Belos didn't actually die, the intent was to kill him, and they were fully planning to continue with the Hexsquad.

And then...We get to Season 3.

Just a side-note, I think it's a safe assumption to say the first 2 seasons of The Owl House took place between roughly 2 months, as Luz was outside waiting to leave for a summer camp after the school year ended before initially arriving in the demon realm. Going off of that assumption, in Part 1 Luz returned to school as she returned to the human realm, presumably in late August/early September due to her living in Connecticut. And since Part 1 takes place in the timespan of about 3-7 days, the last day being Halloween, the timeskip only brought us about 2 more months ahead. Keep this in mind.

After Luz and co. return to the demon realm in Part 2 -- objectively the worst episode of the season -- we already see King's influence on Collector since they turned everyone into puppets instead of actively injuring or killing them when they don't comply. Still bad? Yes. But from how it looks in Part 3 with the Hexsquad, it seems more like the puppets' consciences are just comatose or an alternative to sleeping, maybe in a REM-like state. But of course, the show didn't have enough time to explain that further over all the nonsense in Part 2.

Anyway, when we see Collector in Part 2, they're still being childish, which is unfortunately the only thing that stays consistent with this character. They then say two lines that were the most god-awful writing decisions I've seen in a hot minute, and this show is STOCK FULL of really bad "this is peak humor LAUGH" moments like this.

They say that Eda has this "cool aunt vibe" and such, which sounds like one of those "character dynamics/tropes" posts on social media like Tumblr and whatnot. It comes off as really pretentious in the writing, and was shockingly unfunny to hear for a show that calls itself a comedy. Another line that frustrates me, more-so for lore reasons, is when they ask Odalia to make pizza bagels, when it was previously stated that human food is inaccessible to Luz during her time in the demon realm. So not only is it contradicting that whole thing (Eda actively struggled to find food for Luz that she could eat), how would they or King even know what one is or how to actually make one??

It seems like a small point to get heated over, but it once again feels like one of those stupid one-liners that one of the writers thought was the funniest shit they've ever thought up and kept it in because they knew die-hard fans would just laugh it off and brush it off as a joke, and that the writers forgetting about Eda's maternal struggle to feed her adopted kid is Disney's/the shortening's fault because they're at fault for everything wrong with the show...and not the ppl who wrote it.

Regardless, this whole shtick is extremely out-of-character for the way they had spoken in Season 2, and from what I can recall (I'm not gonna rewatch the entire show for the sake of a single post), King never talks like this. Luz does around him, but he himself doesn't talk like this.

I've discussed with friends before about this, including Robin (the one who asked me to talk about this), but from Part 2 onward Collector gets the same Luz-like writing every character that gets redeemed suddenly dawns out of the blue. I started calling it luz-ification, but it doesn't just happen to Collector.

It happened to Hunter, where his more cocky and ego-centric dialogues from early 2A was dropped for a more "comedic" personality and an anxiety-ridden character, though it's later eluded to that his cocky attitude was him masking his true self, so I try to keep it to that perspective.

But this happened to Lilith as well, where she suddenly started acting like "Cool Aunt Lilith" IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING HER ADMITTING TO CURSING EDA AND ALLOWING HER CAPTURE. WITH NO CONSEQUENCES TO BE FACED OTHER THAN THE CURSE SPLIT WHICH IS HARDLY UTILIZED IN THE SHOW.

(Side-tangent: Characters facing little to no consequences for their actions is something that goes on so much in this show but this is long enough already and I really don't like talking about this shit for long 'cause I could be using my time on better pieces of media, I'm sure there's plenty of posts explaining this point elsewhere by ppl who enjoyed TOH more than me)

Hell, it even happened to Amity for a hot minute. For some moments in the show she's written really off-character and saying things that just completely contradict how she's typically written, but then goes back to the more sassy and balanced character later on.

This post has gotten WAY longer than I wanted it to be, but to keep me from spending even more time on this, Part 2 shows a drastically different Collector, to the point that they do not by any means have the same character writing as they had before. They got luz-ified. Using social media lingo they couldn't even have access to in canon, and being written to quite literally just sound like a mini-me of Luz with the more obnoxious undertones of the childish thing.

Point is, they mimic these behaviors of Luz that they wouldn't even have reasonable access to learning from, because she's in the human realm for almost all the time after their release. It only makes sense in Part 3, when Luz is actually there for them to see her behaviors in action, but even that is so contrived and rushed that it feels unrealistic and narratively unnecessary. Remember what I said before about the timeskip only being 2 months? Yeah, 2 months isn't nearly enough time for a character to fundamentally change who they are as drastically as Collector.

Now to the part where I talk about Amphibia really quick and mention how it did the whole "having an alternative threat acting as a mini-boss" thing a million times better than this shit ever could. King Andrias, paralleling Collector for this particular scenario, is shown relatively early on that he's an antagonist to the audience. It's later revealed as a plot twist not to the audience, but to the characters, who least expected it. They don't waste time trying to throw off the audience with red herrings or telling its audience "He's not a bad guy, he's totally not going to be evil later on." They just show the audience he's evil and keep the story moving.

He's given enough time to feel like this ominous, looming threat, and True Colors masterfully showed how messed up this guy is and the lengths he is willing to go to ascend to the Core and cheat death, just as the souls within the Core had. His motive to avoid death and return Amphibia to the world-conquering ideologies from centuries' past is what made him such a love-to-hate villain. And the motive to cheat death in a children's cartoon? Metal as hell. The Core also parallels Belos here, and further on in Season 3, being the one manipulating Andrias through his fear of death in order to make him do what they want him to.

In the third season, Andrias continues his work by the Core's demands, only giving up in the final battle when he's read a letter from someone he had considered a friend long ago, which admittedly didn't have much set-up but it was at least the focus of an entire episode prior to the big pre-finale.

At the end of the series, he's shown to have moved on, allowing himself to age naturally and to stop using technology to keep him in pristine condition for eternity. He accepted the natural cycle of life, and in turn accepted that he will come to pass one day. He wasn't a perfectly written character, but considering what it's being compared to? Leagues better.

Like I said before, TL;DR, Collector is the bloatware of The Owl House's plot. They were shoved in as a last minute addition because they were the writers' "precious bean silly goose little gremlin blorbo" that they couldn't just keep in the drafts with the rest of the collectors. So instead of maintaining what little integrity the show's writing had to begin with and follow through to the end with the Day of Unity plotline being the series finale (Which was VERY OBVIOUSLY WHAT THEY WERE GOING FOR), they essentially made a side quest distraction that dragged the story on for longer than it needed to, wasting the audience's time.

I'm not mad that the Collector exists, I just find that their inclusion in the series did more harm than good for the writing. The show has a serious issue with giving screentime to unnecessary characters like the miscellaneous Hexside students, giving characters too much screentime (The biggest offender for this is Amity, there's more episodes centered around her than Hunter, Willow and Gus combined) and not giving ACTUALLY necessary characters enough screentime (Looking at you, Emerald Trio).

I really want to rewrite TOH, and if I feel the need to rewrite a show, it's usually because there's too much fundamentally wrong with it for me to give it anything higher than a 6/10 overall. But I've already got a whole AU and a whole rewrite in the works for two other series I care wayyyyy more about, so that's gonna have to be left to other writers in this fandom.

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If this post is how you've stumbled upon my page, hi :') Feel free to ask me about more or to elaborate on smth I said here if you want clarification, but if you check out my intro post and see another mutual interest we have maybe ask me about that instead of TOH please and thank you

#toh criticism #toh critical #the collector #heed my warning or get blocked #I'm not dealing with ppl that take general media criticism personally #anyway have fun with this novel ig #amphibia is so much better than this show and I'm tired of ppl not seeing that

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emerystellar · 1 month

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hii ^_^ i would appreciate if anyone could spare some change cuz i have a lot of expenses right now and i am barely stringing along. more context/sob story under the cut if you want but tl;dr car repairs, ubers to/from work, and food in the meantime

ways to support me:

redbubble ☆ i have quite a few things on there, including logos of my stuff and retro things like bowling alley carpet, i’m working on a pride collection of bowling alley carpets too!! and i have a lot more in the works :]

patreon ☆ four different tiers with varying perks, and near-daily updates on art projects, sneak peeks at redbubble designs, previews on music and even full songs weeks before they release- also recognition on youtube, my discord, etc etc!

donations ☆ these are quick links to all the major money sharing apps (cashapp venmo paypal), if you want to do zelle that requires my email ([email protected])

bandcamp ☆ for as little as a dollar you can pick any of my currently released songs to get the highest quality download, which is equivalent to listening to it 34 times on spotify… so if you really like my music then own it for yourself here! you can also get 50% off literally anything with the code hungrypumpkin (since it’s helping me pay for food lol)

and if you can’t donate, pleaaaase reblog hopefully to reach someone who can- reblogs help wayyy more than likes in this case ^^

thank you all!!! you’re amazing and i hope you have a stellar day

poll for engagement:

okayyy umm hii… i’m a queer trans non-binary neurodivergent indie artist, teacher, and musician (to get all the demographic solidarity out there, i never know how to write these) and as of rn i’m having to pay my dad $1900 to fix my car’s transmission while ALSO paying anywhere from $100-150 a week on ubers to get to and from work since i have a residential tutoring job. while ALSO having to pay rent, bills, etc like normal. it fuckign sucks and i’ve literally been eating almost nothing except free handouts from college … it’s a nightmare and it weighs on me every day 😔

not only are most of the ubers a wild roulette on whether the car’s going to be super uncomfortable and make me nauseous, the driver being overpolitical and talking about super uncomfortable shit out of the blue and making me feel really unsafe, they’re often super fucking late and i can’t risk being late to work and it’s just all around not sustainable yayy!! and i also just learned i have depression from all this! which next to the rest of my melting pot of neurodivergence makes it Really goddamn hard to exist in a positive way!

when i’m not at work or school i am making as much content as i possibly can and pushing it out onto redbubble, patreon, etc. you will get more than your moneys worth in return from artistic content and stuff, that’s all i have to offer right now, because frankly commissions are extremely draining and take me SUPER LONG to finish- i don’t want you to have to fight through my executive dysfunction to get a finished piece that’s not fair to you and i want to make this as worth it as possible on the user end

if you want a specific goal, then right now, $350 for ubers for a month would help a lot but naturally give as much as you can because i need all i can get rn ^^; i’m lowballing it so it feels more achievable really but just ,, please anything helps lol

$0 / $350

thank you i love you all my gratitude is immeasurable and i just.. thank you for supporting me it helps more than you know

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kudouusagi · 1 year

Text

Utsumi TV guide A stars vol 1 interview

This is a really long interview and I'm just going to do a summary of new things mentioned in this interview.

The interview starts with Utsumi talking about the infinity week event and how she talked from behind the stage because Kobayashi wasn't there and she wanted to make it fun for people. She says it was nice to see everyone excited about season 2 and the OVA.

She says the reason the S course ends in an abandoned factory is because they needed to think of a place that Langa could do a backside rodeo (the trick he does at the end of ep 1) and they decided that was a good place for it and so it influenced the whole course. There are multiple routes people can take so it's interesting too. It's not based on a real place. The conveyor belt that Langa uses for the jump in the first ep isn't shown clearly where it is so they didn't have to draw it in the scene every time and have it get in the way.

Since Reki and Langa are normal and Adam and Shadow wear crazy costumes they designed Cherry and Joe to try to balance them out or it would just seem like Adam and Shadow were weird cosplayers

She talked in a previous interview about how this story is all about male friendships and the interviewer asks about that and about Reki and Langa and their fight etc and Utsumi says that their fight lasted so long because it makes you feel how important their friendship is and it makes it even stronger when they make up, but it's not just friendship, she believes that it's also that they also acknowledge each other as rivals and their race scene at the end of ep 12 is proof of that.

The interviewer tries to ask about the friendship between the adults and she's like "I was mainly focused on Reki and Langa, that was all Ookouchi".

Utsumi says that the CEO of bones told her that this is the first time he's seen a 1 season original anime have so much hype about it over a whole year after it was made and he's been in the industry for a few decades so it made her really happy to hear him say that and she's happy that everyone is so passionate about this anime

She says there's a plan for season 2 but the OVA isn't really decided yet and since the OVA isn't decided yet season 2 isn't finalized yet either.

She says all she can really say is that the OVA will probably be a short story since OVAs are limited in time, and they haven't really decided yet but season 2 will probably be not long after season 1 with maybe a small time gap.

The interviewer says personally they'd like to know more about Joe and Cherry in high school and what happened with shadow after the end of ep 12 and Utsumi says Joe and Cherry's past would be interesting... and she came up with a story for how Cherry got his lip piercing but everyone rejected it.... but what happened with shadow and his boss (and if that was really her BF) will be in season 2.

The interviewer then asks about ADAM at Langa's party at the end up ep 12 and Utsumi says that the scene was designed to show that ADAM had returned to how he was before and that skating with Langa had reminded him of the fun of skating but she really doesn't want ADAM to change either. So they hadn't really thought about how their relationships would be at that point and she's only really thought about if after she's gotten questions like this. They'd probably have different conversations with him that they've had with him up until now. "I think we might see that in the continuation!? (lol)" also it's the first time we see ADAM during the daytime so his outfit is really red.

The interviewer asks if there were places they found during location hunting that they didn't get to use in season 1 that they still want to use and she says there was this huge tree they wanted to use that would be around Reki's house that they probably played around ask kids etc and they thought about shoving it in their fight scene but decided it would be too weird so they didn't use it. There was also a shopping district will probably be used in season 2.

That's pretty much it. It ends with her saying that while it might be a long wait she hopes people can wait patiently while having fun imagining what could come as they wait.

#sk8 #sk8 the infinity

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wisteria-lodge · 7 months

Text

badger-flavored bird primary + bird secondary

Hi there. I’m fairly sure I’m a Bird Snake, but I’ve never submitted an “official” typing request, and I was wondering if you could SortMe? I structured this off the ask the other day that asked what a SortMe submission should look like.

When I was a kid I was quiet, kept to myself whilst wanting to join in groups of other kids playing. I liked solitary activities, and I could spend hours by myself doing something I liked, to the exclusion of the world around me. I read constantly, fiction and non-fiction. I was reading and writing from 3. Initially I wrote stories about concepts I thought were cool - one was a short story about a girl who sleepwalks out of her room at night and is lured into a machine by a Shadow Man that steals her shadow. I think I was about five when I wrote that lol. Then, because I wanted my parent’s approval, a performance aspect snaked in and I started quite early writing things designed to make the adults around me ooh and aah about how precocious it was. I pushed past my anxiety to perform (there was an aspect of the attention I got from adults there.)

To preserve my own creative outlet, I secretly wrote fic for the different media I was entranced by at the time. I knew it wasn’t the kind of thing the adults would approve of. I learned to hide things quite young.

Okay. I’m definitely seeing signs of an external focus that makes me think Badger or Bird primary (“wanting to join in groups of other kids playing” and “wanted my parent’s approval”) Like yes, those are universal human feelings, but you’re choosing to highlight them.

I’m also definitely thinking either Bird or Snake secondary. There’s the “you” and then there’s the “you” you perform to solve a problem or get something. And you’re… fine with it. A Lion or a Badger would be chafing more.

One of my absolute favourite pastimes was to go on to these old breed standard websites and read every profile A-Z of each breed within a domestic species, cat, dog, horse, etc, and pick out the ones I would have one day. I had a similar list-like enjoyment of dinosaurs, sharks, planets, rivers.

Well, it looks like you - as well as every other neurodivergent apparently - either has or models a Bird secondary. And I’m leaning towards you’re just a Bird secondary. The collector instinct, the love of lists… Bird secondary.

There was something very pleasing about designing your own life. I thought if I got to Heaven, I would ask God to design my own world, so I might as well start planning before I died, lol.

This, this right here might be the most Bird primary thing I have ever read.

I was not athletic at all, but I had a daring streak. Not out of wanting to act out but for the pure adventure of it, I used to arrange small rebellions or capers (I tended to have a Best Friend or else usually just preferred one buddy to do things with). Once I innocuously invited myself over to my friend’s house out of nursery, smoothly eliding the facts so that her parents didn’t doubt I had my parent’s permission. They double-checked with my parents when I got there and my disgruntled parents arrived at dinner time, haha.

You’re explaining to me all the planning that went into your first mini-heist, and also the things you overlooked that made it fail. And there definitely seems to be quite a bit of planning, or “arranging” going on. Bird.

I remember the motivation was wanting to eat a certain type of green pasta that I knew my friend’s mother made that I didn’t eat at home.

Honestly, the way that it was so pre-meditated makes me think Bird secondary more than snake secondary.

I loved dressing up and costume.

Not conclusive on its own, but Actor Bird secondaries almost always have a real thing for costumes.

I have an ear for accents, huge tracts of dialogue from movies. I could do this thing where I’d watch a movie I liked intently, then when I was bored I’d access that movie in my mind and watch that inside my head. I had to learn to stop doing things like that, because watching the mental movies meant I would kind of zone out totally for hours (cos the movie was on! everyone shut up I’m watching my movies) and other kids found it weird. Learning What Other Kids Found Weird was a rough ride. I tried hard to learn the rules, although I was constantly frustrated by how one rule would contradict another and how shallow or hypocritical they were.

Tell me about it. I did the movie thing too, although in my case it tended to be more radio plays from the 40s. Still use it to get myself to sleep sometimes. But all that really tells me is that you’re neurodivergent, which we knew.

Discovering Pirates of the Caribbean at ten-ish changed my absolute entire existence completely and totally. That - THAT - is what I wanted to be. I loved POTC so much I wrote pages and pages of self-indulgent fanfic, before I discovered the existence of fic on deviantart (in search of yet more of POTC beyond my well-worn DVD set).

Seriously, are you me? What WAS it about that movie. It can’t have been all the Lion primary stuff, because I really don’t think you’re a Lion primary.

I love to cook. Say, I ordered the shopping and the chicken arrives, but it’s skin-on bone-in thighs, not the fillets I ordered. Immediately I pull up a database of skin-on bone-in thighs in my head, and I see if the ingredients I have can be made into a dish. No? OK, what’s the expiry on the ingredients I have. What can I make today that will satisfy the household, whilst using up the stuff I bought that will spoil soon? Curry? Soup? Ah, tacos! I can freeze the chicken (which goes into the mental database as something I have stocked for when I do want skin-on bone-in chicken), and use the other ingredients to make taco filling, and finally use up those tacos in the cupboard that have been sat there for an age. Ahh. A win-win, no losses. My favourite type of win.

Bird, bird, bird, bird. Rapid-fire Bird secondary.

This may sound irrelevant, but this is why I hate stuff like maths. In maths problems, you can’t use the numbers you have to hand. You have to find new numbers. OK, where? Well, you have to use the pre-existing methods to find the numbers you need. OK, but what if I don’t know the pre-existing methods? Or, what if I know one, but it’s not complete? Can’t I use what I know from working out half the problem to put together the pieces for the rest? NOPE, and you also fail the WHOLE question, because if you don’t use pre-existing method 9.0 AB345 then you show you haven’t understood the question and you FAIL. At this point I tear up my paper into shreds and eat them like a hamster. Then I go into English and study stuff that makes sense, like the equal weight of context and content, because only a sociopath believes in rigid, unequivocal methods.

I’m a humanities teacher, not a math teacher, so I’m going to do my best to understand and re-phrase your problem. I think you’re bothered by the fact that you’re being forced to use a specific method, instead of coming at it sideways in the way it makes sense for you (because of course you’re right, there are so many ways to solve any math problem) you have to follow a very rigid series of steps. (Half of which seems unnecessary because your brain just does that.) All that tells me is that you weren’t taught math in the right way.

This love of English and interest in the “equal weight of context and content” does speak to kind of a love of social engineering, that absolutely seems to come out in the way you deal with people.

When I’m making a difficult decision, first I consult my ethics. What is the most correct principle that my belief system tells me fits this case? Like a lawyer choosing the exact precedent for their case, this isn’t always a straightforward decision. I have to sift through competing belief systems in order to align with the right one - perhaps in order, it would go; religion> basic moral compass> rules I have written for myself.

You wrote a flow chart. You’re a Bird primary.

Usually, the correct principle is one that melds with my sense of self-preservation, my morality, the objective truth (or…subjective in my case, as I’ve decided my religion is the baseline of morality, but as that is as deep as my lifeblood I don’t tamper with that.) I would also consult internal systems to make sure I am landing on a decision that takes myself into account, so I can carry out the principle without breaking my back.

That’s good to hear, especially because your built System seems pretty Badger-flavored (focus on community and community beliefs) and as we know, leaving yourself out of your assessment of the situation is absolutely a Badger primary tendency.

Once I’ve done this, my mind is pretty set, and execution is the stuff I have to chew through next. I sometimes have red flags for certain decisions I make depending on the topic - this can be a person, for example I trust X with nearly everything, but I know not to trust them when making a decision on Y. These notes that I’ve made are very sound and I nearly always lose if I go against them - usually when I’m in a weaker mental or emotional state and my systems are blurry and grey-er.

Bird primaries are still very much people, and this ^ is a good example of the way they DON’T follow their own System all the time. But they still want to, and following the system makes them feel strong and safe, and that’s what makes them Bird primaries.

This is probably why I’m bad at giving specific examples for things - or job interviews! My reasoning is so subjective to myself I feel dishonourable to use my decision-making process as a standard for a situation. My reasoning and ethics are tailored to a set of situations, and those situations in the set may not resemble each other at all. I am the constant. So….maybe don’t rely on what I did off one data point?

It’s unethical to give an example, because that’s only one (inherently flawed) data point, and the only correct thing would be to give me ALL the data points.

I kinda think that *only* a Double Bird could have written that? Am I wrong?

In my favorite fantasy, I am a survivor in a commune/closed community/fiefdom situation in a post-apocalyptic/high-stakes scenario that survives on my intellect, charm and ability to adapt to my situation. Within the commune is a peaceful community well protected by the walls, and I am a soldier/town librarian that keeps the people safe whilst cultivating a beautiful space to live inside the commune and protecting the innocent who come to our door, often making tough decisions where other people fail. The horrors of the world wax and wane outside the walls - we are making our own place out of beauty and love for humanity, and we stay strong. The travels and missions and relationships I have outside of the commune keep me grounded in reality and add a spark of adventure to my life.

The fantasy is to have a closed system that you take care of (VERY Badger-flavored Bird) and you take care of it by making the tough, correct calls - which you so by using your skills, your social engineering, and your ability to pivot. (Very Rapid-fire bird.)

Seriously, if you don’t watch Star Trek TNG, watch TNG. You’d really vibe with Picard.

When I saw about what character do you really identify with… Man, this is gonna sound like such an ego trip, but - Gandalf, from the Lord of the Rings. Gandalf is a merry wizard, who travels Middle Earth making friendships with people he’s not supposed to be friends with and making trouble. He can be awkward, cryptic, naive, belligerent, put his foot in it, storm off and have a temper. He can also be wise, generous, deeply human, see everybody on the same level and lead his fellow creatures out of very dark places. He isn’t forgiven easily for his mistakes - the stakes are high, and when he slips up (like in the mines, like when he trusts Saruman, when he is unable to prevent Faramir from riding to battle…) there are consequences that hurt him. He also isn’t afraid to lie or garnish the truth to get what he needs - but his desires are rarely purely for his own benefit.

Okay. Gandalf is *very* powerful, and he’s very capable, and knowledgable. He’s a Bird secondary fantasy. Communities value and love him, but he’s not part of a community himself (this was also the case with the apocalyptic fiefdom scenario.) So the fantasy is not the community, the fantasy is protecting the community. Which would make me double down on Badger-flavored-Bird rather than actual Badger. If the Bird primary hadn’t already been like, really really obvious.

What makes me feel powerful? Being able to, out of pure cunning, publicly present the unarguable facts with the sheer power of moral force, and win - that’s the stuff. And I don’t just mean public speaking, or sitting at the table and making the final, right decision. I mean wearing a pretty dress and knowing you are having exactly the effect you desired to have. It’s being seen, and then being celebrated, whilst you are in control.

You’re low-key using Snake secondary language (”cunning”) but the fantasy here is so Bird. ‘I want to have SO much information, and judge the space I’m going into so well, that I can go in and have *exactly* the effect I want… and KNOW I’m having the effect I want, in the moment.

#double bird #bird primary #bird secondary #rapid fire bird #actor bird #sortme #shc #sortinghatchats #wisteria sorts

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