#also i have something to restore the balance but i wanna color it before i put it up here

[squidcandy]

can we bring this au back. can we pleaseee bring this au back.

#myart #enstars #ensemble stars #kuro kiryu #souma kanzaki #keito hasumi #akatsuki #kurokei #this is a parent x teacher au #i read a fic w this premise and it hasnt left me in months now #since its fathers day… why not #sorry for not beating the kurokeiP that only sees souma as their child allegations #<- this is a joke do not come for me. i love souma. i need to crosspost more of my twt analysis on hi #also i have something to restore the balance but i wanna color it before i put it up here #my weakness… for found family… so apparent i was into fandom in late 2010s #but guys can we bring back babyverse aus #i love baby headcanons #akatsuki family you wouldn’t get it the way i do/j #okay enough. enough. ill shut up. i still feel nervous about posting this haha #kuro is 28 here this one is for my yume friend

[leafdrake-haven]

So I don’t remember if I’ve made a post like this before but I’m feeling 3-color love and I wanna talk about Tarkir. Now that we can do 1 set on a plane, it’s less risky to do returns and medium to less popular planes have more of a chance! (Granted I think these ideas would work best in a 2-set situation but I digress) So what would I like to see in a Return to Tarkir?

Revolution! Maybe I’m weird but flavor-wise my favorite of the Tarkirs we saw was Fate Reforged. I love the Khans and the world-building and flavor of them so I want them back. However, I love the unique designs of all the dragons and it’s interesting to see the interactions with the khans and the world as a whole. It’s clear from some of the flavor texts that Tarkir needs the balance of both. Khans of Tarkir and Dragons of Tarkir were both the world at extremes and the plane suffered for it, so we need a way to have both (for the health of the plane AND for the enjoyment/happiness of players xD).

Tarkir is currently ripe for a huge change. There’s no way Ugin didn’t do something to calm and recalibrate the dragon tempests before he left Tarkir again. Perhaps slowing them down from where they’re supposed to be and then setting it so they’ll increase to their required amount once the dragon population approaches what it’s supposed to. This will be a huge power balance switch. The humanoids are already kinda used to the new world order but we’ve seen each clan has people grasping to the old ways, and if the others see the dragons aren’t as infallible as they’ve been taught, more may be swayed into a rebellion.

Jeskai/Ojutai: I would like to see Narset return and confront her beloved teacher. She manages to single-handedly best him but instead of dealing a finishing blow she offers a hand; a role-reversal. She becomes the leader and restores the clan to the Jeskai to uncover their previous true history and teachings and they all move forward together, hand in claw in wing etc. Ojutai is outraged and humiliated and takes any of his dragons that still respect him after his defeat into self-exile. Some stay behind, impressed and curious by Narset’s ascension, especially by what she has to say about planeswalking and what she’s learned from other worlds. Ojutai monitors from afar and once his anger begins to cool, his curiosity and pride in his student returns. He knew Narset could surpass him once she sparked, he just never thought she would. Eventually, humbled he returns with his willing dragons and the clan is restored to a greater extant than it ever was. Dragons and humanoids now as equals, learning from each other and allowing their passion to guide them. I can also see a high-ranking dragon not being able to accept this and break off with another group of dragons that don’t accept this order. This would give us a Jeskai Narset planeswalker card, a Jeskai legendary Ojutai card, and a legendary blue/white new dragon leader card.

Abzan/Dromoka: I would like to see ancestor/spirit worship become way more widespread even if it’s in secret. It gets to the point that most of the humanoids in the clan know about and support learning about the old ways. Eventually there’s a confrontation between Dromoka and the leaders of this underground rebellion and they manage to slay her and many other dragons and drive out more. Reception is mixed. Dromoka was seen as both a tyrant for taking parts of their culture away but she was a steadfast protector afterwards and would even listen to her humanoid leaders over some of the dragons if their strategic minds had proved themselves in the past. The scale lords they killed were also protectors, family members. It’s a very somber couple of days. Eventually a leading council decides to try something outrageous. They decide to raise Dromoka’s spirit. Once her spirit returns she is understandably enraged, this stands against everything she has ever believed and taught! Another confrontation takes place. The clan summons ancient ancestors that are more than glad to fight with the spirit of Dromoka. Eventually they are able to calm her spirit and she realizes she is herself. Her mind, her feelings, they’re all there. She is not some mindless undead beast. She realizes that technically some of the spirits are as old as her and have much wisdom to share. Dromoka is given a choice. Out of respect for the good she did, they can put her spirit to rest if this existence truly disgusts her. Or she can remain a protector of her clan, if she is willing to relinquish leadership. She, like Ojutai, is humbled. She agrees as long as she can be on consulted, which they laugh and inform her that’s how ancestor spirits are supposed to work. Of course in this case too some dragons would be willing to convert and some would be enraged and break off. We would get a new legendary Abzan leader (or card for the council), a legendary spirit dragon Abzan Dromoka card, and a legendary green/white dragon leader.

Sultai/Silumgar: In secret the clan reembraces nature magic and community they lost. Sidisi and other rebels realize they can’t overthrow Silumgar and the dragons on their own. A poison that can down even the noxious Silumgar dragons is eventually developed. Even if it doesn’t kill them outright it gives them a chance. The rebels throw a party in honor of Silumgar and a tainted feast is prepared. The dragons and even Silumgar himself are incapacitated the the rebels go on a massacre. Silumgar and a huge amount of his dragons are slain. As the ultimate gloat, Silumgar is raised as a sibsig servant. The Sultai are restored and delve (hah) desperately into their own history to recover what has been lost. Some other dragons are raised to be their undead army to protect them from the other clans/dragons and the few surviving Silumgar dragons. This would give us a legendary Sultai Sidisi (or other character if it makes more sense) and a legendary zombie dragon Silumgar (either still blue/black or just mono black). I don’t think there would be enough surviving Silumgar dragons for them to make their own faction, at least not right away.

Admittedly I have less ideas for the last two (despite the Temur being one of my favorites of the original clans). I mostly think these groups would just break off and war with each other.

Temur/Atarka: We already know there’s secret shamans practicing the old ways of the Temur and lost strongholds that contain lost artifacts. With the dragons losing strength I think the shamans would grow more bold and more clan members would be willing to embrace old ways. I think with enough support the Temur would just suddenly break off, probably fighting off and taking out some dragons on the way. Atarka would be outraged and retaliate. I think this would essentially be like the relationship in Fates Reforged. We’d get a new legendary Temur clan leader (maybe Surrak reprises his role?) and another legendary red/green Atarka.

Mardu/Kalaghan: This one I have the least ideas for. I imagine humanoids would be slowly regaining their sense of cooperation/community and realizing it’s easier to survive the harsh lands by working together. I wonder if the clan could break off much how it formed to begin with and just, ride away. Maybe there wouldn’t even be a departing confrontation like with the Temur and Atarka, the Mardu decide to reform and ride their own way and the Kalaghan dragons follow their lord. They essentially just become two rival groups. Maybe some dragons embrace the white mana and join and maybe some humanoids prefer to follow the dragon lord. We’d get a new legendary Mardu leader and a new legendary red/black Kalaghan. (I could see some argument for this being like the first two and teaming up and we end up with a Mardu Kalaghan but I feel like we learned the least about her so I’m just not sure.)

Anyway these are my indulgent ideas that I think could make a compelling return. What do you think? What would you guys like to see?Thanks for reading my ideas and ramblings!

#tabby talks #Tarkir #return to tarkir #take me home tarkir roads #mtg #I think these are plausible ideas! #i just want clans and dragons both

[popurikat]

Trying to make sense of parts of Future (Mystery Skulls)

Since my last analysis went so well I thought I’d make this post as well, especially because Future really did confuse me and I know others might be lost as well; so lets discuss this together! It will be lengthy as I am basically spewing my thoughts out right on the videos immediate release date (there will be a read more option after my first thought to avoid long positng). Well first things first, I wanna address that I've been curious about what kind of spirit Arthur's arm could be (since I am not too well acquainted with any canon on its background part at least) and I think I have concluded that the closest thing to it could be is a Tenome; which is a Yochai that possesses a man's body and moves the eyes to the palms. "found lurking in cemeteries, hands outstretched, as if he has only recently lost his vision and is searching for something. Get close enough, and you’ll find out in quick succession that a) he’s not blind, but looking with eyes embedded in his hands, and b) what he’s looking for is a snack." (fyi, most of my mythos information is coming from Wiki just as a heads up)

And sure enough he found a great source for his hunger. Something he has been EYEING since the start. Which now leads me to my next points on the video...

At first watch I was convinced that each strand found on Mystery’s heart represented a singular soul bond, I thought that blue was for Vivi, Green was for the hand, pink for Lewis, purple for Shiro, Yellow for Lance, Orange for Arthur, and black and white were unknown. Which, didn’t settle right for me. SO I went in and re-watched the clip a couple more times and saw this:

Vivi’s (blue created after she got hurt) and Shiro’s (white created after she died) strands were connected to the strands located next to them. A start and an end. Mystery’s promise to Vivi to stay at her side for generations as he was spared upon prior defeat of Mushi. And then of course we have the promise of power and sustenance for Shrio as they held a symbiotic relationship for most of their lives that was only severed due to an interference. These double strands of fate are especially clearer in the scene with Shiro in Future. As the black strand gets clearer the more she gets injured or emotionally hurt, it eventually leads to the leak of the white strand on her death. Meaning; Black/white=Shiro; Purple/Pink=Lewis; Blue/Green: Vivi; and Orange/Yellow: Arthur. And why am I inclined to believe Lewis and Arthur are apart of Mystery’s heart? Well that's because those two were the only ones fully streaming before Vivi’s and Shiro’s appeared. We know that Arthur lost an arm to Mystery and discovered his identity (ergo losing most of his trust in him) insinuating both strands to arise early on of his color scheme, as well as with Lewis’ death occurring under the protection of Mystery when they were grouped and having his soul go restless/ in pain. It wouldn’t make sense to add family members or side characters not included in the mainline story to this grouping unless they would play an important role in the finale, which isn’t likely since we have only one more video left as Ben stated it was going to be a 5 video series. I am also inclined to believe each person has two strands because of Kitsune lore: “ Kitsune keep their promises and strive to repay any favor. Occasionally a kitsune attaches itself to a person or household. They follow their word of honor. They become self-destructive if they break a promise, and when someone else breaks a promise, they become deadly enemies.” Plus, It would make sense as to why in this short battle Mystery sprouted his last 3 tails when it came to Vivi and Shiro and how their connections affect his power. (more on this in a bit) But, furthermore; if anyone else notices, the Band-Aids on the heart are also remotely located on the sections of Vivi’s and Shiro’s strands specifically because for both, Mystery has vowed to protect them and has failed. 

Now then lets talk about a few things on Mystery’s ultimate form shall we? The final form of a Kitsune, its celestial form as shown here is called a Tenko. (yes I am aware of the Kumiho, but that is a fully evil, flesh eating, 9 tailed fox that specialize in illusions and well Mystery has never been portrayed as human). The Tenko makes even more sense when taken into consideration that Mystery’s third eye (typically a form of wisdom connected to overpowering the mortality of ones self) opens. So how was this done in such a short amount of time? “Kitsune do not accept aid from those who are not willing. they do not ask for help, and as such, most aid must come from another's initiative. Kitsune are emotional and very vengeful. Kitsune will lose their temper at the slightest provocation. Once someone has earned a kitsune's enmity, the kitsune will begin enacting revenge that can become quite extreme. On the other hand, those who have earned a kitsune's trust and loyalty will see a friendship that can last through many trials. Freedom is very important to the kitsune. They do not accept being forced into something they do not wish, and do not like being bound or trapped. Doing so weakens the kitsune.” Mystery as we know is very much controlled by his emotions, going head first into things constantly based on reaction and his inability to control his power under distress. His tails arose in the fight sequence every time he fulfilled his oath AND used 100% of his form/power. Therefore, his tails grew because he wasn’t holding back anymore, not his grievances, not his appearance, nor his hesitance in his evident distress of being bound to two entities that both required his aid.  My last note on these images comes from a tumblr user’s reverse audio clipping (https://nebulous-rain.tumblr.com/post/633555549749952512/ok-so-yknow-that-one-reversed-part-of-future). The rewind of the clip of Mystery’s transformation plays “When I’m With You”, which yes, cool a possible Easter egg to the next song! BUT what is this song about? Let me just bring up the first line of the song: “You got me hanging by a THREAD...I wish I could turn back time...I wish I could rewind life...” and before the chorus “I’m gonna make it right”. We know that this can refer to rectifying the wrongs of Lewis’ death, but more accurately to do so we need to defeat the evil inside this mutt that is pulling the strings of this whole fiasco. And this might just be the intro portion of the next mystery skulls mind you as we’ve also gotten many false starts with the previous two videos where hellbent used “every note” and future used “enemies” alongside the main song. BUT WE HAVE TWO YEARS ANYWAY, WHY BABBLE ON ABOUT THIS. LETS MOVE ON!

Hearts in this series have not been just for identifying the dead or for aesthetic purposes, they are the life force of each powerful legend. I am actually surprised to see Shiro have a heart as she started off as a creation from Mystery and therefore her lifeforce is just his blood and without it she is nothing. I am curious about her color pallet though, her heart is purple and pink. Lewis’ is gold/yellow with touches of orange. And Mystery’s is just red, but it has a mix of everyone’s essence within it to keep it tied and whole. Shiro’s could be colored this way in reference to Lewis’ aid to help find her creator; which would explain why Mystery surrounds himself by color as he required outside help and how Lewis’ heart is yellow in reference to how recently Arthur helped him remember his friends/hidden memories. One thing we have learned about hearts is that they can be broken repeatedly and can be ripped apart from the body, but they can be repaired too through resolution/hope. Lewis restored his heart in hellbent by using Vivi’s flower petals and finding hope that he will get revenge, only for his heart to be repaired again through Arthur’s touch. Shiro may have withered away, but her heart is essentially not broken, she’d need Mystery to restore it as it was flung into space (and that again relies on Mystery finding his sanity and finding it in himself to even bring her back). And as for Mystery himself, he’s gonna need the whole gang to reach out to him to extract the parasite within and restore balance. I really want to know more about the heart properties and how they give their users their powers as well Vivi is able to summon her strength through a material connection (bat) that function in its own way as the vessel a heart does since its connecting her to her ancestry.

NOW to finalize, I offer you two queries:

WHO IS ARTHURS HAND REACHING FOR!? I know it seems like Mystery, but that would be counter productive for the hand demon if he has Arthur interfering with his control. Is it still after Lewis as we’ve seen previous times where his arm acts up only in Lewis’ presence and when specifically other “magic” is at play? If so, is the goal to ward off Lewis and Vivi from defeating Mystery? Is Arthur gonna use the arm to find his own power as we’ve seen when he is able to momentarily cease control of it he kinda ruins anything electrical he touches and well, electricity is currently running rampant in there.

and lastly, I am really curious how touch sensitive hearts are, We know that even the smallest of brushes can detect memory/links to the person holding it (as seen with how Shiro managed to get soul flowers in hellbent), but the fact that Lewis was so in touch with the feeling of Arthur EVEN THOUGH ARTHUR GRABBED HIS HEART THROUGH HIS METAL HAND MIND YOU!, that he still managed to feel the disturbance instantly. So my question is, is the touch sensitivity reliant on how close someone is to someone? I would like to say yes cause when Shiro touched his heart he didn’t react instantly, he felt her rummaging his memories and was awoken, but he didn’t kick her butt by fully reforming until after she had long since stepped on his heart and then forced the memory of Mystery to arise. But yeah, its a nice little detail.

Either way, thanks for reading! Feel free to add on, comment, or even dm me about more Mystery Skulls information and theories! Love to hear them!

#Mystery Skulls #MSA #mystery skulls animated #future #MSA future #Mystery skulls animated future #Lewis #Lewis Pepper #arthur #arthur kingsmen #Vivi #vivi yukino #Shiro #Shiromori #??? #Arthur's arm #Mystery #theories #theory

[alistairlowes]

Hello! I just wanted to say the coloring on your gifs is always so incredible. Would you ever consider doing a coloring tutorial? Or even just share a few tips. Everything always looks so smooth and vibrant. Thanks!

hii! thank you!! 😳💕

i wanted to do some general tutorials a while ago but i need to plan them out since i like to be detailed and still hadn’t come around to it. but my colorings are also pretty simple so i don’t really consider myself good enough to teach anyone much. i did lowkey write an essay rn to explain how i do them now because i often see tutorials say what to do but don’t mention why. there is of course numerous way to do one thing in photoshop this is just a way i find it fastest and most effective.

and i was just about to delete files of some of my recent gifs to free space, but luckily i didn’t yet so i’ll include them below to download so you can see what i did on each one.

anyway here’s how i edit below the cut :D

1) 1.1 this is not directly related to coloring but it does affect it. first you wanna make sure that the file you’re working with is in good quality. ideally you should look for shows/movies that are 1080p but 720p also works. i’m using 720p here.

1.2 to make gifs look smooth it’s also important to have right frame rate that’s not too low or too big. i take screen caps with kmplayer and these are my settings.

2) after exporting frame to photoshop i turn them into a gif with frame delay of 0,05 (sometimes more but max 0,07). also i sharpen them right away because sharpening affects how coloring will look. i use ‘smart sharpening’ and here is the picture of settings i used now. normally i set amount to 500 with radius either 0,03 or 0,04 but here it was either oversharpened or not enough so i experimented with settings to see how it looks nicest (the higher the file size you work with the higher you can set sharpening without ruining the gif. so when i work with 1080p i pretty much always set it to 500). anyway now that we have that set, this is what we’re starting with:

3) when it comes to coloring i make it very simple by using only 3-4 color adjustment tools (mostly brightness/contrast, selective color & color balance). trick to vibrant gifs is using ‘brightness/contrast’ options gradually as you color gifs. for example look at this set. i used brightness and contrast 3 times till i got it to where i wanted to. repeating this step depends purely on personal preference and lightning in the scene you’re working with. the darker it is the more you will probably have to do it, but i mostly use it around 3 times.

3.1 so i start by using ‘brightness/contrast’ tool and i set brightness to 51 and contrast to 9 (settings picture). you’re obviously gonna have different settings on each set you do. however what i always do is set brightness higher than the contrast. also don’t overdo it if it doesn’t look bright enough because you'll be doing it two more times.

3.2 after that i start fixing the colors and i usually start with ‘color balance’ tool (settings for this gif here). i generally only move blue and magenta a bit. this is especially useful if you’re working with scenes that are overwhelmed with certain color (for example in my yneh edit you can see how drastically it changes from green to more natural colors). the more natural the scene is the less i use it.

3.3 third thing i did in this step is to use selective color tool. now when i first use it i only change setting on two colors as you can see here. i like to darken red because it helps to keep skin tone and i darken black because it makes gifs appear more quality. i only do it mildly in this step. 

3.4 another thing which is optional but unnecessary for me to do here is to add ‘vibrance’. so far my gif has enough color, but there are certain scenes that are very pale or have lost some color after brightening them. in this example i restored some color so it became more vibrant because the scene needed it. this is also a way to avoid whiteashing!! what we have for now:

4) now i basically repeat same thing until it looks good. i added another ‘brightness/contrast’ option and then i used ‘selective color’ to fix the skin and background. i mostly only touch red, yellow and black (see here). once again i darkened black tones in each color to up the quality. you can see here how much difference that makes. 

5) same as before i added another brightness/contrast option and i fixed skin further with selective color. in this case i also recolored background because blue/purple comes of more vibrant (see all here). after that i played with selective color two more times until i was happy with how everything looked. see inside pds file to see all changes i did (download here). once again darkening blacks even just a bit improves overall look.

6) other adjustments depend on the gif itself and personal style. sometimes i add some other options like ‘curves’ or more ‘color balance’. one other thing that i wanted to fix here was skin color of other people (once again useful to avoid whitewshing in many cases). i just wanted to town down yellow a bit and i did that by setting mask and adding selective color (see here).

that’s pretty much it. these are my saving settings. 

lighter gifs will probably be easier to do and won’t need so much fixing but it really depends on the scene. for example this didn’t need so much retouching (also it looks grainier because i put unedited version next to it. it looks better when you just save edited gif asdfghjk).   

you can download this psd to see what i did

some tips:

- if the gif is pixelated or grainy sometimes it helps to save it as pattern instead of diffusion (pic)

- when you make very vibrant gifs they will have a lot of color. photoshop however saves only 256 which means your gifs will sometimes turn out like this. to fix this you can add ‘hue/saturation’ tool and lower saturation. you can also use ‘selective color’ and try to dawn down all background colors. this can also happen when you have multiple scenes in a single gif. there’s just too many colors then and you should probably cut them to only one scene (for example this is a gif i tried to do of multiple cuts that turned out too pixelated on the rain scene because there were too many colors so i decided not to post it).

- even if you’re working with same scene for a gifset you will still have to adjust coloring based on how lightning changes or the dynamic will be off. look at example.

- to lighten gifs you can also use ‘levels’ or ‘curves’ option instead of brightness/contrast. sometimes it works better.

- try to keep it natural and enhance already existing colors.

- sometimes something that looks good on pc will look way off on mobile so i usually check and adjust based on both.

- link to my psds on google drive

if you have any other questions feel free to ask. i tried covering most but i don’t know what’s happening in my head 90% time while editing so yeah

#Anonymous #answered #tutorials #if there typos srry i can't english #i also make gifs on 3 blogs and each one follows different style so idk even

[liemonyellow]

brother, i will hear you call

read on ao3

Summary: Roman's not having a great time. Remus sympathizes.

Warnings: Light swearing

This is for @nadiestar / @mimssides

Remus knocked lightly on the door separating his room from Roman’s.

“Ro? You okay?”

He heard something muffled, but nothing more. He knocked again.

“Roman, can you unlock the door?”

Nothing.

“Please?”

Remus heard the click of the lock unlatching. He twisted the knob and slowly, oh, so slowly, pushed the door open and took a few steps inside.

Roman’s room was a wreck. Not as much as Remus’s, but still a lot less orderly and pristine than he usually kept it. Papers were strewn about every which way, crumpled and crushed and shredded to pieces, pens and pencils and markers were scattered across the floor like confetti, paints and inks splattered over everything in sight. Remus would have been impressed, if he wasn’t so worried.

Roman was the “good twin”, or so he insisted. Remus didn’t really care who was what as long as shit got done and he was free to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Truth be told, he thought Roman could use a little more freedom and chaos in his life. But seeing this? Seeing all of his brother’s hard work, his passion and drive, his imagination and creativity, destroyed by his own two hands? Roman didn’t do this.

Remus finally looked at Roman, or at least, Roman’s huddled form curled up under a pile of blankets in the middle of his bed. Remus let out a sympathetic sigh.

“That bad, huh?”

The blanket pile moved, curling in tighter and letting out a sniffle. Remus plodded over to the bed and sat on the edge, feeling it sink down a little. He stared at Roman’s obscured form, then flopped over onto his back.

Things were quiet for a minute. Then Remus heard movement, and turned to see Roman’s face peeking out, red-eyed and tear-stained, hair mussed and sticking up in places.

“Wanna talk about it?”

Roman sighed, pulling his blanket closer. “It’s stupid.”

“A lot of shit is stupid. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.”

Roman was quiet. Then he said, barely audible, “I just...”

Remus pushed himself onto his side to face him, propping himself up with his hand.

“I just feel like nothing I do is worth the effort. That no matter how hard I try or how many times, I’m doomed to fail.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

Roman gave him an incredulous look. “What’s- what’s wrong with it? I don’t want to fail! I don’t want to-” He slumped over again, pulling the blanket back over his head. “I don’t want to disappoint anyone.”

"Who's disappointed?"

Roman looked away, eyes filling up with more tears. "Everyone."

Remus waited, only slightly raising a doubtful eyebrow.

"It's true! Nothing I do is good enough! Not for Logan, not for Patton, not even Virgil!" Roman sniffed. "Thomas deserves better."

"Nah, I don't buy it."

Roman blinked at him.

"Has anyone told you they hate your work?"

Roman shook his head.

"Then why would you assume they do?"

"Because it's not good enough."

"Yeah, so?"

"Wha- You- I-!" Roman curled up tighter. "You don't understand," he says, muffled by the fabric.

"Really? I don't understand? Me, Remus, the Duke, Dark Creativity and Intrusive Thoughts? Buddy, my whole existence wasn't good enough for Thomas."

Roman had the decency to look a little ashamed at that. But shaming his upset brother wasn't what Remus meant to do. He sighed and tried again.

"Look, Bro, I am well aware that my ideas might never win any prizes, but I still fucking have them. It's the act, see? I have an idea, and I can't stop thinking about it until I get it out of my head. And yeah, sometimes it's a fuckin' shitty idea but it's still mine. And sometimes making the shitty thing gives me more, less-shitty ideas, or it turns out better than I thought it would, or people might actually like it!" Remus sighed. "And then sometimes it's just a shit idea, with a shit execution, and you feel like shit for ever thinking you could do anything worthwhile."

Roman was staring sadly at him, his face a little warped from the tears collecting in Remus's own eyes. He tried to blink them away unsuccessfully.

"Like, I get it, okay? Sometimes you hate everything you make, and you just don't wanna do anything anymore because everything sucks."

Roman had loosened his grip on his blankets, which had fallen halfway down his shoulders and started pooling around him on the bed.

"My point is, shit sucks all the time. So what're you gonna do about it? Sit around and mope, sure, valid, cry your heart out. But at some point you have to do something. Get the feelings out, where they can’t keep taunting you. Even if you have to do it by breaking shit," Remus said as he gestured to the rest of the room. “Or like, if you wanted to talk, or vent, or scream at someone... I can take it, y’know. I’m not fragile or anything."

His brother was staring at him, eyes wide, brow creased, mouth hanging open. Remus wasn’t sure how to read that.

“I mean, it’s up to you, but I’m here for you or whatever. Just-”

Roman launched himself from his position to wrap his arms around his brother in a crushing embrace. Remus froze, unsure how to respond, then hugged his brother back, squeezing just as tightly.

"Thank you," Roman whispered. Remus rubbed his back and buried his face into his brother's shoulder, sniffling as he pretended not to cry.

"I know I'm not the best at this comforting shit. But it kinda helps to know you're not alone, I guess? We might not get along all the time but we're still in this together. Even if I am the 'evil twin'."

They stayed like that for a while, hugging each other, until Roman let go. He didn't rush to put distance between them, content to sit beside his brother, one hand settled on the Duke's shoulder.

"You're not evil, Ree."

Remus rolled his eyes and scoffed. "Bitch, if I ever hear you say that again, I'm disowning you and no one will ever find your body."

"That's not what 'disown' means."

"Yeah, I know, but I'm still gonna do it."

Roman gave a soft laugh. Remus smiled.

"By the way, I love what you've done with the place. Redecorating?"

Roman sighed heavily. "I suppose all this was a bit dramatic."

Remus slipped off the bed and picked up a couple of pens and markers, making a show of examining them before snapping them back onto the desk and picking up more, saying, "No shit, but seriously, it looks great! Nice balance of color, good spread of clutter; it really takes practice to make a good mess."

"You're a mess." Roman finally joined him, picking up scraps of paper on the floor near the bed.

"At least I'm a good-looking mess. Unlike someone I know."

"You take that back!" Remus ducked to avoid the newly-restored sketchbook Roman threw at him.

They continued like that, bickering as they cleaned, until the room was, well, not spotless, but much less of an artistic war zone.

Roman took a deep breath, as if the act of clearing up his room had also purified the air. He seemed lighter, and a little bit more himself. He gave Remus a disgustingly grateful look.

"Hey. Thanks, Ree."

"Gratitude? Gross. Hey, you wanna go fight the Dragon Witch again?"

"Gladly."

#sanders sides #my fics #roman sanders #remus sanders #creativitwins #this one's for you mim

[angelruel]

vintage pt.2

      summary: the reader gets into an accident which causes her to lose her memory. as Ruel begins to rebuild their relationship and recall the good memories between them, some bad ones are restored as well and might threaten their future. 

masterlist

Word Count: 4.4 k (kind of long, oops)

       “Soooo what’s my favorite color?”

       “Easy. Blue,” he retorted while reaching over to fill in a space on the tic tac toe board that Y/N had drawn on her empty lap desk. He was the x’s and she played the o’s. It was a bit difficult for Ruel to pretend to not know all of her tricks she played in this game, but he was a very convincing loser. She had also taken the opportunity of his return to test him on some trivia of her personal likes and dislikes. 

       “Okay, here’s a good one,” she said as she filled the left hand corner on the board with a perfect circle. Ruel learned a long time ago that her strategy was to fill two corners and the center spot of the board in order to have an upper hand on winning. He watched her play the same way over again. Ruel admired her predictability and he almost felt confident enough that her tic tac toe skills returning would somehow correlate to her feelings for him to return as well.

       “Well finally a good one. Lay it on me.” He gave her his signature soft smile that he always grants her when he’s being his sweetest version of a boyfriend.

       “What’s my favorite song? Or, at least one of my favorite songs.”

       Ruel scrunches up his nose in thought, “hmmm. I’m gonna need a little more context, bub.”

       “Okay so maybe my favorite song I like to hear on a road trip. Something that gets me energized.” Ruel found it funny that she was reaching for more and more clues to jog her memory. They both knew that couldn’t she remember the last road trip she’d been on, or any of them for that matter. He was proud that she was at least in a more positive mood about not remembering things. 

       “Wait a Minute! by Willow Smith. There’s one.”

       Y/N’s happy expression dropped to a confused one. 

       “Huh? I don’t listen to Willow Smith.”

       They both just sat there for a while. There was still an apparent wall that Y/N had built up to secure herself from being hurt by Ruel since she barely knew him. 

       But the truth was that she barely knew herself.

       “Well, I guess I did listen to her music,” she dropped her head down. “I guess I just can’t remember it.” 

       Ruel used the sleeve of his sweater to wipe off the marker drawings on Y/N’s desk tray so that he could lean over it to hold her hands.

       “Hey, how about we do something else? I brought back some stuff like you asked me for.” She looked up and gave him a soft smile when he let go of her hands to grab a blue shoebox from the floor.

       “Oh, you brought gifts! Yay!” she exclaimed while clapping her dainty hands over and over. He sat the box in front of her lap on the hospital tray and she stared at it for a minute. One of the things she did remember was that blue was her favorite color. And after having a few conversations with Ruel, she discovered that his was brown. So, she assumed that the color of the box was a little nod to her. She thought that was really sweet.

       “You can go ahead,” he encouraged her. “If you have any questions, just ask.”

       She hesitated to lift the flimsy lid from the top. Partly because she was afraid that seeing the contents wouldn’t help jog her memories at all, and also because she was still pretty weak from the constant dosage of pain meds she’d grown accustomed to. 

       The first things to come out of the box were some polaroids and a bunch of little papers she grabbed that were grouped together. One of the polaroids showed a group photo in front of a campfire with little writing at the bottom that said ‘new years 2020.’ There were some post-it notes with little messages written on them in pencil. They were fading but Y/N could still make out what they said. It was a girl’s handwriting, and there was a little drawing of a pond? Or maybe a lake. 

i drew you a pond since you wanna act like a silly goose all the time. bitch.

               -y/n

       There was another one filled with words instead of a cute drawing, and she assumed this one was a serious matter.

hi, love. i left to go watch the sunrise with coco around 4 am-ish. you probably would’ve wanted to join us, but you look so peaceful when you’re sleeping. and coco said that you’ve been smothering me lately and encouraged me to sneak out. anyways, i’ll probably be back before you see this, but just in case i’m not, don’t call the cops. okay that’s all. in case i never return, i love you. 

                -y/n (under the heavy influence of stella)

       Ruel chimed in to explain. “Yeah, you used to leave me little notes like that sometimes instead of texting like a normal person.” 

       “And you kept them?”

       “Of course I did. I’m not a monster.” He joked and she playfully hit his chest with the stack of notes. Ruel scooted his chair closer to the side of Y/N’s bed and leaned in. “Lets see what else we got in here.”

       There were movie tickets, receipts from restaurants, and even old wristbands from festivals. 

       “Is this what you meant when you said I grow attached to material things?” She laughed on the outside but in reality, Y/N was so infatuated in the idea that a boy would keep a box of things that reminded him of her and their relationship. 

       “Ha yeah, I guess it kind of rubbed off on me after a while.” Ruel reached his hand into the box as well and pulled out a little beaded bracelet. It had a simple pattern of ocean blue and brown wooden beads. He played with it in between his fingers.

       “I remember this. Your cousin made it for us when you brought me to Thanksgiving. She kept running back and forth asking us what our favorite colors were. It was so cute. And she said we had to share it,” he reminisced. 

       He gave her the bracelet which she carefully placed on the wrist that wasn’t connected to an IV. There were mostly pictures in the box. Pictures of Y/N and Ruel in different settings: kissing, posing next to venue signs with his name on it, cooking, etc. She picked up one of the pictures and examined it carefully. 

       “I remember this,” she said in a nonchalant matter. Ruel looked up at her, then back at the picture in her hand.

       “You do?” 

       “Yeah, I remember that whole trip. That was a fun trip. Hmm.” She hummed to herself in bliss with a grin on her face. 

       “Tell me about it,” he grinned back at her. “What do you remember?” She looked down for a while. It was almost like the times they spent together were in secret, and too precious to share with anyone else. She felt a deep connection to someone-whoever it was to make her feel such strong emotions in just the echos of the times they spent together. Y/N began longing for the person who made her experience this type of fondness. The person she was looking for was right in front of her. Why was she holding back?

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       “Okay, how do I say this,” Y/N’s hand snaked up to her head to rake through her hair as she paced in deep thought. She took in a deep breath and turned around to look at him sitting in the hospital chair across the room.

       “I-I want this to be special. I mean, you’ve been so patient and considerate with me. You haven’t tried to rush me into anything at all. But I see the way you look when you think I’m not paying attention. You’re hurting, and I’m sorry that it’s taken me so long to finally give in. Well not, finally give in, but. You know, you know what I’m trying to say right?” She used every ounce of energy she had to walk across the room to face him. She picked him up and brought his face close to hers. 

       “I’m trying to tell you that I love you,” she whispered and smiled softly. Before she could say anything else, Y/N heard the doorknob rattle in desperation to open it. 

       She quickly threw the teddy bear back into the chair and tried to pretend that she was doing anything else. 

       Ruel leaned into the door frame and struggled to keep his balance as he carried a Taco Bell bag and two drinks in his hands. 

       “Oh, let me help you with that,” Y/N rushed over to him to grab the drinks and his eyes grew in shock.

       “Well, it’s nice to see you up and moving so much. The doctor was right, you really have been getting stronger every day.” Y/N smiled up at him with pride as they both settled the food onto her desk. “So, have you heard anything yet?” 

       “Anything about what,” Y/N mumbled in between taking bites of her soft taco. She knew exactly what he was referring to, though.

       “Oh, you know. Like when are you gonna get out of this place? I mean, with the way you’re up and walking now,” he brought his free hand up to rest on the back of her neck as he examined her face with concerned eyes. “It’s been, what, four weeks now? They said four to six weeks, but by the looks of it, you’re healing up really well. You’ve done so good lately.”

       She mouthed ‘thank you’ and gave him another wide smile. Y/N was happy that he was proud of her progress. He played a big part of her growth, though. Through the discomfort and the multiple procedures she had to undergo, Ruel was always there at the side of her bed to rely on. Whether she was up at 4 am crying because she couldn’t remember the names of her dogs or freaking out in excitement after being able to stand up on her own, he was there for it all.

       And as her strength developed each day, so did her trust and love for him. She assumed that it wasn’t the same as their previous relationship, but it was more than enough to keep them happy. He would always tell her that he loved her, but she didn’t say it back. He told her it was fine, that he knew she didn’t really know who he was and he wouldn’t hold it against her. But in return, he needed for her to accept that he still loved her as much as he did before the accident and to be okay with him loving her even if it meant that she couldn’t love him equally back for a while. 

       But after spending so much time with him, Ruel was hardly a stranger to Y/N anymore. He was a friend, a very understanding and attractive friend. She couldn’t ignore the burning sensation she felt deep in her stomach when he would cuddle up close to her on the bed during their movie nights. She couldn’t ignore the desire or the comfort she felt for him any time that he was around (which was very often because Ruel was always around). He told her that he would wait for her, that she should take her time to decide if she wanted to continue their relationship whenever she was ready. He told her that she’d just gone through a major trauma and that she needed to focus on getting better. He said he would wait for her, but a part of her feared that he was only saying this to make her feel better. She feared that he had already accepted that they were just friends, that maybe he’d already began a new romance with some skinny long-haired girl in Sydney and he was just waiting for Y/N to get her strength back so that he could go home to her. 

       “Okay, well I have to tell you something,” she finally came out with. Ruel sat up straight in his chair to give her his full attention. His eyes were fixated on her face and his hands rested in his lap. She found herself lost in thought trying to remember what she wanted to tell him but she couldn’t focus on anything but his beauty. 

       “Did they already tell you whether you’re going home or not?” he laughed a little as he went to grab his drink off of the desk. “Did I miss it when I went to get lunch?” He used the side of his jeans to wipe the water that got on his hand from the cup. His huge hand. The same huge hand that he then used to move the long strands of hair out of his face. He’d previously told her that she did not like the long hair look on him and always encouraged him to get haircuts and shave. In the moment, Y/N couldn’t figure out why the hell anyone would ever encourage him to change his appearance when he looked like that. The long hair and mustache gave him a much more mature look in comparison to the old pictures and videos she would look at of him. She couldn’t understand why anyone would want to cut the hair that she so desperately wanted to run her fingers through. She quickly snapped out of it and shut her eyes so she couldn’t look at the beautiful boy in front of her.

       “I really do have to tell you something,” she started and stopped because she was nervous. With her eyes still closed, she felt Ruel’s hand grab hers.

       “What’s going on, why are you acting so weird?” he let out a nervous laugh and Y/N realized that he was probably feeling the same anxiety as her in the moment. She knew that someone had to be the confident one in this scenario, and she decided that it would be her. She took one last deep breath and let go of it.

       “Do you remember what I told you when I first told you I loved you?”

       “Yes,” he laughed again, “Do you want me to tell you the story again?” She nodded quickly in a child-like manner and looked at him in adoration.

       “It was a little after a month of us dating and I’d just taken you home after we went out driving and just hanging out. I was almost back in the car when I saw you run out of the house, barefoot, yelling at me to wait.” Y/N laughed a little and felt the tension between the two of them begin to melt away. 

       “And then what did I do?”

       “You went into this whole speech about how you felt and how you were very scared to be vulnerable because you were afraid of being hurt. And then you said something that I’d never forget,” he looked up at the ceiling as if the answers were written on the tiles, “you told me that the fear you felt only grew as you fell more in love with me. You said you thought that it would never go away, but you didn’t want it to stop you from embracing the happiness you felt when you were with me. And then you told me you loved me, and that you were scared of me. You said that I made you wanna jump into the fear rather than run away from it. You said you knew that you loved me as soon as you felt scared. Because you knew you had found something worth cherishing. And if it ever went away, you didn’t think you’d survive it.” He looked down. After saying all of that, it still seemed like there was something he was missing. He looked as if he didn’t manage to not break her heart. He was scared too.

       “Ruel?” Y/N let her hands relax and gripped onto his tighter. 

       “Yeah?”

       “I’m scared.” She began to fiddle with his long digits and almost felt hesitation to do anything next.

       “What are you afraid of-” he began, but was interrupted by the connection of her lips onto his. He freed his hand and rose it up to the back of her neck so he could deepen the kiss. They kissed again, and again. They kissed until their faces were red and she broke away for a moment to catch her breath. She smiled at him and he looked back at her in disbelief. 

       “I love you. I really do, Ruel. And I’m sorry that it’s taken me so long but I don’t want to be just friends. I want you in my life like you used to be,” her eyes dropped to her lap and her expression changed, “before everything got so fucked up.”

       He grabbed her face again and began to pepper it with kisses. At this point, Ruel was halfway onto her bed. She brought up her dainty hands to cup his face and she gently pulled away again. Ruel hitched a rushed breath out as he pouted in confusion as to why she pulled away. 

       “Oh yeah, I’m going home today.” She smiled with her teeth and he laughed in pure bliss before grabbing her face again.

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       The boxes piled in the middle of the living room all started to disappear one by one. Y/N watched in awe as Ruel picked up every box and placed it in its proper area. Her legs swung back and forth in boredom while she waited on top of the kitchen counter where Ruel had placed her since she refused to wear shoes on the trip to her apartment.

       “You’re such a good slave,” she told him in a sweet tone as her eyes followed him across the area. He shook his head, barely giving her an ounce of the attention she practically begged for, and continued moving things around. 

        “Honey are you sure you’re gonna be okay on your own like this? You can stay back home a little longer if you’d like,” Y/N’s mother remarked. She looked at her daughter with concern.

        “I’m not alone, I have Ruel. And besides, I’ve already left the nest once before. I should be fine.”

        “Well I guess I’ll be on my way home now. Call me if you need anything. Anything.” Y/N pecked a kiss on her cheek and guided her mom outside.

        By the time she got back into the apartment, the living room was clear of boxes and she moved down the hall in search of her boyfriend. She found Ruel in her bedroom on the edge of the bed hunched over his phone. 

        “What’s so interesting?” She sat down beside him and rested her chin on his shoulder. Once she realized what he was watching, she pulled out one of his airpods so she could listen in. It was from her Youtube channel she started a few months ago. She had faint memories of vlogging herself doing normal things like grocery shopping or going to her brother’s football games. She’d only looked at a few of her storytime videos, including the one where she details how she met Ruel. This was a video she hadn’t seen before, though. It was of her and Ruel together in some resort. It looked like they were on vacation and he explained to her that they were in Amsterdam for some music festival and had decided to make an entire trip out of it since it was so close to their anniversary. They’d coordinated matching outfits for the first weekend and were posing in front of the bathroom mirror together like lovesick idiots.

        “Damn, I’m so jealous of us.”

        Ruel let out a low chuckle at her and skipped through the parts she’d recorded of his performance.

        “Yeah, most people are.” He fast forwarded to a portion of the video after they returned to the hotel. Ruel was in the shower and Y/N was laying on the bed, recently showered, detailing all of the ways she was proud of her boyfriend. He laughed when she poked fun of how he forgot his own lyrics on stage.

        “Well that was almost cute,” he added and locked the phone.

        “Hey, it’s still pretty cute,” she laughed, “You can’t be mad at me for telling the truth, babe.”

        “Babe, huh?” he questioned as he turned to face her.

        “What, is that weird? Or too soon? I mean, you call me ‘bubs’ and ‘love’ all the time,” she looked down and played with the details of her jeans.

        “It’s adorable. I love it. And I love you,” he reassured her as he cupped her face and pulled it in for a puffy kiss. She kissed him back, this time with more dominance. Y/N kissed Ruel like there was a pot of gold hidden somewhere in his mouth that she was determined to get.

        Ruel matched her energy right away. He kissed her back and gripped the back of her neck to guide her face closer into his. They adorned each other with open mouths and full hearts. As they continued, Y/N felt the urge to go further and further with him, exploring his body and getting to know him on a more intimate level. They were so good at making out, it seemed like they’d done it a thousand times before. It felt like she was kissing a lover from a different lifetime, like she’d replayed scenarios over and over which all ended with her loving him. She couldn’t remember ever doing this with him before, but her body remembered. Everything with Ruel came with such ease. Every time he touched her body, she was overcome with euphoria and only craved more. She craved being closer to him, kissing him deeper.

        “Mmm, take this off please,” she tugged on his shirt and he quickly pulled it off before resuming his actions. Y/N felt herself falling into an intoxicated state as she moaned against his mouth. He responded to her by wrapping his hand around her thigh and pulling it closer against him. They both began to move in sync with each other, both giving and taking as their bodies danced a routine they knew too well. Y/N was so distracted by Ruel that she didn’t even hear her mother walk back in through the front door. She only whined when he pulled his face away from hers.

        “Why’dyoustop,” she breathed out. She was out of breath and watched him with puppy dog eyes as he stood up.

        “Your mom is back,” he stated flatly. He was clearly out of breath too and he was trying to calm himself down so he could see what was going on in the front.

       “...so?” she gave him a blank stare and patted on his side of the bed to join her again, “she can let herself out.”

       “Don’t worry, bubs. We’ve got time,” he chuckled to himself and pulled his shirt back on over his head. Y/N sighed and jumped from her side of the bed to join Ruel in the living room.

       “I’m sorry, hun. I forgot the most important box: your things from the hospital.” Y/N’s mother placed a small box on the counter and tapped the top of it lightly, “This is what you had on you when the crash happened. There’s not much in there, just the clothes you were wearing, your wallet, your phone,”

       “My phone?” Her eyes perked up. So did Ruel’s. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. I bet there’s a bunch of clues in there to help jog my memory,” she picked up the box and skipped down the hallway to drop it off. 

       “I’m pretty sure it’s dead, so you’ll have to find a charger for it. You probably have the same kind.” Her mom gestured towards Ruel, who looked like he’d just seen a ghost. His eyes were fixated in thought, emotionless and dazed in a trance.

        “Huh? Oh yeah, probably. Sure.” He snapped out of his guilty state quickly and turned to see Y/N coming back from her bedroom.       

        “Was that it, Mom? Cause we were just about to go out and get some food before it gets dark.” They both said goodbye and hugged Y/N’s mother. Once the door was shut behind her, Y/N grabbed Ruel’s hand with a quickness. His worries were suddenly gone as she led him down the hall. 

        It wasn’t long before they’d continued right where they left off. Y/N was still indulging herself in him and embracing the comfort she felt in his arms. She gripped the fabric of his shirt into her fists to deepen the kiss and felt the vibration from his mouth into hers as he let out muffled moans. With each kiss, she found herself thinking about all of the things she couldn’t wait to do with him before another thought popped into her mind and snapped her out of the daydream. She pulled away from him and turned her head towards the box.

        “I’ve been wondering what was left on my phone,” she gestured to the dresser. “I need to plug it up so I can see what was going on before I lost my memory. It would be cool to see who I last talked to right before my life was ruined, right?” She laughed and began to sit up. Ruel grabbed her hand and lightly pulled it so she could come back down to him.

        “I thought you wanted to do this, yeah? I mean hey, this is our first official night together alone. We can look into the phone later, right?”

        Y/N nodded and laid back down next to him. “Hmmm, you’re right. This first, phone later,” she declared before connecting their lips once more. As Ruel rolled his lanky body on top of hers, Y/N couldn’t help but wonder why Ruel was so against her looking at her phone. Was there a dirty secret in there that he didn’t want her to find? She dismissed her paranoid thoughts and continued.

a/n: okay, so that’s that on that. ugh what is on that phone that he doesn’t want her to see???? i hope this makes sense, i’ve reread it so many times and it seems like crap but i’m still going to post it. thank you for the support of my page, and please send me asks with what fics you would like to see next ;)

#one ruel #oneruel #ruel #ruel fic #ruel imagine #ruel imagines #ruel one shot #writers on tumblr #ruelvandijk #ruel van dijk #ruel vincent van dijk #ruel x reader #rueledits

[illusion-reality-steve]

Reaction to RQ!Reverse episodes (Librarian, Nightmare’s Return, Sandwich Boi’s brief moment of glory, Chaos vs Ultra)

First of all.........wow.

...I have many negative feelings about these episodes.

Ok. These episodes.

It’s all RUINED, Can I fix it? Can Chaos Steve be STOPPED? I’ll find out IMPORTANT tips on how to STOP the DARKNESS 1 reason NIGHTMARE STEVE is still ALIVE This is how Nightmare Steve TRICKED me! Mysterious Figure CONFRONTS Nightmare Steve TRAPPING Chaos Steve and STEALING his power! I created ULTRA STEVE, and you won’t believe this but... WOW...Ultra Steve did THIS to Chaos Steve Why would Dark Steve BEG Rainbow Steve for THIS? This Steve actually RETURNED!! NO WAY! The ONLY way to defeat the ULTIMATE Steve in Minecraft How to make a PORTAL to the VOID! Reverse Steve finally LOST IT

14 episodes. 14 episodes total after the Faceless arc to finally deal with Reverse Steve.

Compared to how long the arcs in the Steve Saga are, 14 episodes seems like a short, clean amount of plot advancement.

But while I was bingewatching these episodes, it didn’t feel like 14 episodes of story to me. It felt like....chaos.

The plot in these episodes is really jarring to me because it was doing WAY too much in a SMALL amount of time. And most of the plot was the heroes reacting, rather than being proactive. And I...didn’t like it.

Let me explain:

So, the Steve Saga did a “Villain of the Week” format. Where one (1) villain is introduced and dealt with, and then the next villain is introduced. It was repetitive, but easy to follow.

Examples from the Steve Saga: Dark was a threat. Dealt with. Shadow was a threat. Dealt with. Nightmare was a HUGE threat and Shadow and Dark were added, but it worked because we know who Dark and Shadow are. Dealt with. Then Reverse, then Positive/Negative/Infinity, then Plague, then Faceless, and so on.

Rainbow Quest doesn’t follow that formula. It’s connecting all of its villains into one arc, where one villain is naturally the consequence of another villain.

Rainbow Quest Season 1 mainly set up the villains, the main plot, and a sequel hook. This is unlike the Steve Saga because while the villains just spawned into the story line, Rainbow Quest is showing us the rise of the villains. We know Nightmare’s origins, Dark’s origins, and Reverse’s origins, and they were all spaced out and connected to the main plot (getting the crystals) well.

We had Nightmare as an antagonist, or an obstacle in the main plot (finding the 7 crystals while saving Steves from doom), and his actions created Dark Steve. That worked. And since Rainbow Red was established early in the series and had little cameos before his transformation to Reverse Steve, that helped set up the sequel hook for Season 2. That also worked. imo, the format RQ Season 1 uses is a lot better than TSS’s formula; it’s less repetitive so it feels fresher to long-time viewers, and it connects to the overarching plot well.

But Rainbow Quest S2 didn’t follow the format S1 used.

While Season 1 has a good balance between main plot (finding the crystals) and subplots (setting up villains and future story), Season 2 had WAY too much and an unbalanced amount of subplots. S2′s subplots TOOK OVER the main plot.

What even is the main plot of S2? Well, based on the first episode where we heard Rainbow’s voice, I think the audience was expecting the main plot to be Rainbow Steve saving Steves and adjusting to becoming the new hero and keeping his identity secret to boost morale, while Reverse (later Chaos) will be the main villain.

We were supposed to see Rainbow and Sabre go from color to color to help everyone defend against the Darkness and restore hope.

But then that got hijacked by Reverse, who drained all of Rainbow’s powers and forced him to be saved by the Orange Steves, outing him as being Main Orange reincarnated as the hero.

Rainbow and Sabre haven’t even saved anyone yet at this point. They just went to the Yellow Steves to receive Light’s training and the Orange Steves to see that they’re doing well.

The beginning of the season made a huge deal of keeping Rainbow’s true identity a secret. It was going to be part of his character development about responsibility, bravery, and being someone else. But S2 just did a speedrun of that character arc because he was immediately outed, and the Orange Steves were ok with the truth. So why was there so much stress on Rainbow’s secret when it wasn’t going to impact the plot anyways??

Anyways, then they did their side quest of helping Ghost Steve (which was a valid thing to do), which led to the Faceless sideplot. And immediately after Faceless’ defeat (with hints of Void’s debut), Reverse and Dark just came in and destroyed everything. Not even a moment to breathe. They just caught Rainbow and Sabre off guard. This makes these two look easily distracted. They should had done better to prepare for Reverse and Dark (especially since they asked Leader to help increase defenses in the Rainbow Hub).

Like, there’s a difference between struggling with your new responsibilities as a hero and being just completely uncapable, and it felt like Sabre and Rainbow were the latter.

And finally, for once, Sabre did something proactive and found Light Steve, bringing him to the library to get help. But they got side tracked and decided to go investigate Nightmare’s “death”. But was that even relevant to rescuing Rainbow?

And then they went to the Void (proactive), but they were just pushed around, given a villain monologue by Nightmare until Galaxy saved them (reactive, deus ex machima)

Basically.....S2 sacrificed its main plot of having Orange adjust to being Rainbow in favor of all of these subplots that were made to set up the third season (which will probably be about Void Steve), and I dislike this approach. It makes S2 feel chaotic and unfocused. It felt like the heroes accomplished nothing. It seemed like things were handed to them too easily (help from Ghost Steve, the Orange Steves, and Galaxy), or they were completely unprepared and not suitable to be heroes (not even getting a chance to save Steves and fight villains until later).

And worst of all, this arc just made the heroes look reactive, bending to the will of the villains. We didn’t get a good story of Rainbow learning how to adjust to his new life as the hero. We didn’t get a story of Rainbow learning how to be brave. Instead, we got a story of villains always having the upperhand and the heroes looking silly trying to stop them last minute. And a bunch of events/subplots that weren’t even connected well together.

It’s just really hectic.

And it’s a shame. Because the content IS good. But the way the season was structured and what it chose to focus on...just ruined the story.

So....yeah.

I really disliked the Reverse Steve arc. The Void and Galaxy arc better make up for it, so I can forgive its setup for ruining the Reverse Steve arc.

Disclaimer: I’m aware that the Void Steve arc isn’t the third season, but another part of the second season. Keep in mind that these reaction posts are just my initial reactions and opinions and me explaining them. Rn I’m behind on Rainbow Quest and trying to record my genuine first reactions as I binge-watch this stuff. Overall, these posts aren’t meant to be about facts or theorizing what the future episodes will be about, but me just discussing my thoughts on these episodes as they are (and people are of course welcomed to join the discussion regardless of their opinions). Just wanna clarify in case anyone is confused XD

#reaction #rainbow quest #rainbow quest spoilers #negative #analysis

[jq37]

The Royal Report– A Crown of Candy Ep 14 Encounter in the Ice Cream Temple

We All Scream

We return to the Ice Cream Temple after the absolute bombshell that the SPF engineered Jet’s death as a way to get the Candians to her lair and gear up for the fight that that revelation obviously triggered. We get a better idea of the battlefield with the amazing Rick Perry set--like even by his standards it’s amazing, fog is involved. The party is on a ledge on one side of the room and there are huge levitating Popsicles and ice cream cones between them and a massive tower of frozen desserts which has the chocolate egg stuck in it in a little alcove.

As the fight begins, the SPF quickly cycles through all her glamours before revealing her true form, a huge, blue/purple, many-faced, many-winged, angelic type being--but angel in the, “We’re saying ‘be not afraid’ not as a formality but because we know we look scary,” sense. And with a Nat 20 initiative she goes to cast something in a cone that would have hit everyone for 8d8 damage but Rina dispels it with a clutch 5th level Counterspell (rolling exactly the DC without even adding her mod), absolutely foiling Brennan. In celebration, she finally puts the crown on Amethar tossed to her a couple of eps back.

Cumulus does some crazy monk movement to jump all the way across to the alcove with the egg. Unfortunately, the SPF immediately uses a legendary action to hit him with with a Ray of Frost for 27 damage and then gets a lair action to skewer him with an icicle, fully dropping him to death saves. The one small mercy is that Cumulus falls towards the egg, not into the mist.

Liam takes some shots at the SPF, and learns that she has both a really high AC and some kind of Mirror Image spell going to take some of her hits. He also eats the Peppermint Heart Seed the SPF returned to them, hoping it will give him flight like it did to Preston (almost jumping off the ledge to test it) but Brennan rolls on the Wild Magic Table and it instead makes the entire party Invisible. 

Ruby (at Brennan’s mischievous suggestion) jumps off the edge so she’ll be in range to use Mage Hand, ties it to the end of the rope to the closest floating Popsicles (the orange one), and hangs on. In the distance, she can hear her aunts cheering for her. The SPF blasts her with some cold damage, insisting she just wants to take her somewhere safe but Ruby is having none of that.

Amethar throws some javelins which just gets rid of some of the illusions. The SPF does some more damage to Ruby.

Theo, student of Lazuli, realizes that the SPF is like a dragon sitting atop all this magical treasure but she’s not the source of the magic per se and they should be able to get the floating Popsicles to move at their command. He tells everyone and then holds his turn to see if Rina does anything crazy. Rina Thundersteps herself and Theo to the Popsicle Ruby is hanging onto and uses Winterscoop like an oar to try and move it (DC 10 Wis check w/ advantage--Brennan’s one small mercy). She gets it and yells to her guys to jump onto the other Popsicle (the red one) but they aren’t able to move it. With the rest of his held turn, Theo cast Protection From Evil and Good on Rina. 

The SPF tries to blast Rina’s group with another cone attack but Rina stops it cold (ha) with another Counterspell, viably breaking Brennan.

Cumulus fails a death save. Theo takes some cold damage which he lessens with Absorb Elements. Then the SPF casts a spell on Ruby, entering her mind and saying, “You came to me in the glade. Wherever you go, I go.” And she hears a scream from Jet as the SPF begins stitching her own shadow to Ruby. (Spooky, hate that!)

Liam jumps on the red Popsicle and attacks the SPF again, getting rid of the last of her protective illusion.

Ruby swings up to where Cumulus and the egg is. She the rope to Cumulus and pushes him off the edge (Zac’s Face: *Immediate Concern*) so they can pull him up and help him. She also does an Insight check on the egg and feels that the outside is cold but there’s a deep rumbling from within.    

Amethar jumps onto the red Popsicle and is finally able to move it. He gets closer to the SPF to throw some javelins and gets a hit this time but, unfortunately, as the SPF is hit, an identical wound dealing half damage appears on Ruby. Ruby yells this info to everyone else.

Theo again delays his action to wait for Rina to act. Rina Healing Word’s Cumulus both because he’s down and to boost her movement by ten (she gets that free 10 feet of Fly when she casts a spell) and she uses that movement to get within range of the egg and cast Bonfire (a cantrip) on the egg (Ruby insisting she could have done it without help). Brennan, womped thrice, needs a 12 or higher on 2d8 to damage the egg. Rina gets a 13 on the dice without having to even do any Sorcery shenanigans. 

The egg cracks, releasing hot steam, the smell of cinnamon and the most ADORABLE baby dragon that imprints on Rina immediately. Rina coos that she finally has a family.”

“That is mine,” the SPF says.

“Not anymore,” Rina replies. 

Ruby’s Big Day

Jon Bon nails the SPF with a throwing ax, doing half damage to Ruby again.

The SPF does a ton of damage to the red Popsicle peeps and Swifty and Gooey look ROUGH.

Cumulus (after determining that the SPF connection with Ruby will fade soon) jumps and grapples the SPF, doing a successful Stunning Strike, but the SPF uses a legendary resistance to come out of stun and then attacks him, paralyzing him and leaving him to fall.

Ruby tries to figure out if she can do something and Rina says if she trusts her and holds her action, she can do something to help. But it’s not necessary because, on his turn, Liam hits the SPF with a crossbow bolt (Ruby takes no damage as the connection has faded) and then moves the Popsicle under where Cumulus is going to land. The SPF hits Liam for 25 points of damage, taking him down to 9. 

Even though she doesn’t need it to save Cumulus anymore, Ruby still delays her turn to get movement help from Rina (reluctantly). Amethar catches Cumulus out of the air before he hits the Popsicle and then does almost 50 points of damage to the SPF with Payment Day now that he’s in melee range. 

Theo moves the orange Popsicle closer to where the action is happening, Misty Steps to the floating ice cream cone between his Popsicle and the other one, then tries to boomerang his sword to hit the SPF, but it doesn’t hit. 

Rina (slipping into a very Fig manner of speech for a second) asks Ruby, “You wanna go for a ride?” Ruby accepts and Rina (after telling Cinnamon--the newly christened dragon--to fly over to her when he has a chance) Thundersteps herself and Ruby over to the very crowded orange Popsicle with the SPF. She also casts Create Bonfire on the SPF which does double damage--24.

And Ruby decides to take her held turn.

She casts Green Flame Blade on Flickerish--Jet’s sword--and says, “For Jet, bitch.” 

Yak flies over to give her advantage (and make this as cinematic as possible).

Nat 20 bay-bee!

So she’s getting extra dice from Green Flame Blade, Rogue Sneak Attack, Flickerish’s Superiority Dice, and the Nat 20. Siobhan is rolling a DM number of dice here and you truly love to see it. 

Brennan, sensing that, writes a number on a folded piece of paper and hands it to her. The amount of HP the SPF has left. Then he has her roll in the Box of Doom. She lets those colorful dice fly and counts them up--while Brennan looks on with increasing consternation in the background.   

59.

She opens the piece of paper.  

52!

Ruby lands graceful, balancing with her circus training, shadow of Jet being cast tall on the wall of the cavern.

“Can’t you come home with me?” asks the SPF.

“Why don’t you come home with me?”

Ruby thrusts the sword forward and the SPF (who Brennan says was literally just about to use her 9th level spell slot to cast Wish and restore all her HP) is no more. 

Cold Shoulder

Fight over, the mist begins to clear. They see the floor of the cavern is just magical items on magical items and Swifty is stoked as hell. The magic of this place goes from painfully freezing cold and sickly sweet to the good kind of crisp cold and welcoming availability.  

Ruby in her ear hears 4 voices:

“Proud of you, kid.”

“You make it look effortless. I am so proud.”

“Sweetheart, I don’t know where we’re going next. It was nice to be here, but we’re gonna go somewhere we don’t know, but we’re gonna go there together.”

“I was fourth in line and I didn’t know that we were all gonna say something. They didn’t tell me.”

“Look after her please,” Ruby says.

“I wouldn’t dream of doing anything else.”  

Then she feels the embrace of her shadow and it returns to its place.

(“I love you so much. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”) 

Rina says to Ruby that she could have finished off the SPF herself but she wanted to let her have the killing blow because it clearly meant a lot to her. She doesn’t know if that will mean anything to her now and she feels that maybe she’s wasting her time continually trying to reach out to her but maybe, someday, it will get through to her. 

Rina’s guys escort her away and she can tell that Gooey has something on her mind. Rina gives her permission to speak freely and Gooey (with Swifty and Jon Bon chiming in) basically says, “Fuck the Candians. They treat you like shit. We’re your real family. You’re gonna be a dope ass queen.”

“You know, it’s funny. That’s the first time someone has called me queen and it hasn’t felt uncomfortable. It actually felt really good.”

Ruby takes another moment of silence for Jet. Theo says that it was always Jet’s dream to be fighting with and for the common people which is Rina’s whole thing. They should be rallying behind her. Ruby and Amethar never even wanted to rule--now he gets to be a warrior again like he wanted. Amethar shoots back with his perspective on the last 4 weeks: his daughter died, he died twice, he decided he was gonna finally man up and bam, it turns out he’s not even king anymore. So excuse him for not being the most gung ho person in the world.  

Theo says that he trusts that Amethar is on board but Rina doesn’t know him. From her POV, this is just unprovoked shunning.

“You have two living daughters.”

Ruby goes to talk to Rina and, on a Nat 20 Insight, sees that all her guys are fully ready to remorselessly kill her if given the order. Still, she presses on, laying out her cards: Her entire worldview has imploded in a matter of weeks. Her twin sister just died. She’s going through so much and now this too? She can’t accept Rina as both her sister and her queen. She has to pick one.

“I understand that you lost everything,” Rina says, “but I was born with nothing.” She says that she was actually very excited to meet Ruby and have a sister and finally not be alone anymore, tears cracking through her cold facade for a moment. But then she gathers herself. 

“If I must choose, then I choose to be your queen.” 

“Very well.”

Rina and her crew exit the Temple and start down the mountain. Everyone except for Liam follows them. Liam goes to check on the hoard and rolls a 24 Investigation check. At the base of the tower he sees an old lair with ancient chocolate eggshells. He knows this is the dark space from his dreams and he knows this was once a dragon lair. At the center of the nest (which is still somehow warm), there’s a little ember that glows brighter as he approaches. It grows red and bright, filling his vision, a hand reaches out, grabs his throat and pulls and we end the ep!   

Medal of Honor

Killing a god should be enough to get anyone this spot.

But killing a god with only a 7 point margin on a Nat 20 in order to avenger your sister’s death with her own sword a turn before said god was about to down a Full Restore?

Ooh, man. All hail Princess Ruby Rocks baby!

Things I’m Concerned About

OK, I mentioned last week I was worried about Rina doing a Cat's in the Cradle but I said I’d elaborate later and what I feared seems to be materializing so I’m going to talk about it now. Rina clearly had a certain vision of what she wanted this family reunion to look like and, for valid reasons, it’s not happening that way. They’re not really bonding. So what this ends up being is them relying on her in battle but brushing her off socially--at least that’s what it looks like from her POV. And like, she’s been around for like 2 days so it’s kind of unreasonable for her to expect them to be fully on board already but I see where she’s coming from. If I grew up as basically a Dickensian orphan and a princess told me a sob story (however valid) I wouldn’t be impressed. It would be a complicated situation even without a war happening in the background. On top of that, Rina is surrounded by Yes-Men which concerned me from the start when Gooey pulled her aside that first time. The last time we had the potential for serious party conflict in D20 (not counting Bloodkeep because I maintain that, despite the setup and Brennan’s best efforts, that was never going to happen) was the Kingston/Pete situation and that ended up fizzling out but idk man. That conversation Rina had about how it felt kinda nice to be called queen? That def set off some alarm bells in my head. I don’t know enough about GoT to know if this is a totally valid statement but when she got the dragon and then that convo happened I was like...hmm...how does Dany’s story end again?

Lol also, whatever the heck is going on with Liam and the dragon. Really this should be first but, I’m gonna be real, the Rina thing was so much that I fully forgot this was a thing that also happened. 

I’m concerned about whatever happens next ep that was so bad they’ve been talking about it for ages. Feeling pretty trepid about that my guys. 

We haven’t heard from Annabelle and Primsy in a while and that doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad but...hmm...

Five A Few More Things

Ah yes, the return of the, “Why can’t a butterscotch bird help me perform first aid?” argument. “Are you telling me a bird can’t save someone’s life?”

“Give me the child.” Brennan, I know I say this a lot but if anything happens to Cinnamon...a single thing...a solitary hitpoint...Brennan…

 There's a bit where Cumulus rolls like a 9 and Ally goes, “Can he get advantage from the egg?” And Siobhan makes a face like, “Fully what?” but then a second later is like, “That’s a great question,” totally straight-faced and it’s so funny.

I wonder if Rina’s peeps feel the way they do about the whole party? Because Theo is honestly (in Murph’s words) also one of her goons practically and Cumulus pledged the orders’ services to her. You’d think they’d get consideration. 

When Cinnamon gives Rina a Help action she goes, “I’ve never gotten  Help action before,” and I understand what she meant but also, lol, she gets Help actions like every turn from her guys.

“Don’t come after my distant cousin!”

Very happy that if combat is happening in our story eps we’re getting some story in our combat eps. Getting a significant chunk of immediate aftermath is very cool and something I often wished for in the other main seasons.

FYI: Celestial is Liam’s Greater Favored Enemy. 

Brennan really does love to undercut the tenseness of the situations of his dark world by reminding us all that it’s also deeply stupid and made of candy and I think that’s great. 

One More Thing

Two big fandom art things are happening right now that I want to shout out:

(1) Until the 24th, D20 is accepting CoC fanart for their finale montage. The email is [email protected] and the details are on their Twitter. 

(2) A fan run event is also happening--as big bang (which is a fanfic-visual art team-up thing that I’m learning about for the first time but seems really cool). Info for that is here. 

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #a crown of candy #a crown of candy spoilers #the royal report

[thornbolts]

Shadowsands Bazaar Purchases 5/30

Wicker Charm:

A triangular talisman made of wicker and bone, tied together with string. Keeping it over your bed will shield you from dream interference; keeping it in front of your door will shield your home and family from harmful magic. Of course, the charm can be repurposed toward more nefarious deeds, but neither Aura nor the Dreadmist Crew would know anything about such things.

Fer the Respite. Better to be too prepared than unprepared. Hope we don’t need it, but it’s there if we do. I’m startin’ ta fall behind on how this kinda magic works. Might need ta take a trip ta Drustvar and see what Alton thinks about this charm. I can feel that it’s real, but I wonder how effective it really is. Might as well visit soon. Book ‘a Bones is actin weird. He might know why.

MD Boarding Party:

An Eight Barrelled Rifle with a rotating cylinder. Fielding 80. Calibre ball shot, this behemoth fires like a double-action revolver, and has a built in feature to discharge all eight shots one after the other with great speed. (Think the Repeater Handgun from Warhammer) It is made from fine steel and wood. A great addition to anyone's armoury! It weighed about 12lbs, and could be used to knock a fool stupid if the situation called for it.

Fer me. Hehe. Winter’s Veil came real early. I knew me and this thing were ta go hand-in-hand the moment I laid eyes on all eight cylinders. Now I got something that’s got real firepower without havin’ ta use Shadow if I need it. Gotta practice quickly loadin’ it. It’s more unwieldy than my pistol. Eight shots, and it becomes a club until I got the time ta load the cylinders.

Aqua Regissima:

This extremely potent solvent will take care of most of your disintegration needs. From gold to flesh, everything melts under the sizzling touch of this base.

Fer Loira: Figure this might be helpful in some way or another. Strong ass acid. Got no idea what the name means. I know ‘Aqua’ means water. The other part? Hell if I know. Remind me to speak ta ya about somethin’. Got two new things that might interest ya: One new potion recipe I managed ta get from an old friend and some kind ‘a adrenaline-storin’ parasite I figure ya might wanna study.

Leather Mask: Red Dragon

Supple leather has been wet formed and smoothed into various creatures and shapes, moulded onto a face shaped block to promise an excellent fit upon the wearer’s face. Each piece has been hand stitched with a deep black thread - for some colors this blends in well, in others it creates artistic details. Masks come with a soft cord that allows it to be easily tied onto whoever it is meant for.

Fer Ratbit. Figured this’d fit ya both metaphorically and literally. Sorta know where ya got yer skills. Figured this’d be on brand fer ya whenever ya gotta get some wetwork done. Wherever ya are, stay safe. But more importantly, stay hidden, and stay alive.

Porcia Blend Rolled Cigarettes x20:

A blend of fine, mellow herbs combined with high-quality Westfall green tobacco. Combined with cured Kul Tiran Billow-Weed, a recreational herb favored by Great Sea Corsairs, Star-Lily petals from the Shadowmoon Nightmarsh of Draenor, and a small amount of sticky, refined felweed resin.

Fer me. Ma, I know ya always hated anything that even rhymed with ‘tobacco,’ hated its smell on pop’s beard. But honestly? I don’t gotta worry about killin’ my lungs when I’m already dead. Wish ya were here though. Even ya scoldin’ me is somethin’ I miss. I... Sometimes, I wish I had the power to step through the veil, inta the land ‘a the dead just so I can see ya again. But the dead should rest. Ya deserve yer rest. Me and pop’ll see ya when our times come. Wherever ya are, ma, I love ya. I hope yer at peace.

Smyrna Oil

The oil of the Alteraci Sassafrass herb, combined with the spores of the Mudsnout Blossom Mushroom of Hillsbrad. A few drops of this oil for the experienced, or a single drop for the wary, should be soaked into a small square of cloth and tucked between the lips and teeth. This oil induces a kind, slow, altered state of pleasant and colorful hallucinations and happy, sleepy awe. Especially useful when observing the beauty of the natural world. The effects fade roughly an hour after the cloth is removed from the mouth. Doubly effective and slightly restorative for undead.

Fer me. Pop talked me up and down about meditation in the letters before he disappeared. I’m still skeptical that it works for the dead. But Nigel assured me it does. Takin’ this is like escapin’ fer awhile. Sometimes get tired, exhausted enough ta not even feel like movin’ sometimes. Maybe this can help.

Throwing Knives of Seeking x5:

These well-balanced throwing knives appear unnaturally keen and sharp. Before it is thrown, the wielder chooses a target. The knife will then correct its own course of flight as needed to hit that target.

Fer me. Lately I’ve noticed my aim’s gettin’ a little shaky. Might be the mindlessness startin’ ta take hold. Sometimes, my hands feel so cold, and they won’t stop shakin’. I’m scared. Feel like my time’s gettin’ closer each day. And shaky aim might get me my second death. Need ways ta defend myself without relyin’ on a gun. Age is gettin’ ta me. Sometimes, I wonder if I should succumb ta it or keep goin’. Latter wins every time. Sometimes, I don’t know why I keep choosin’ it. Maybe it’s just because I’d rather die standin’, not quietly kickin’ the bucket.

Glasses of Translation:

“A must-have for both bureaucrats and merchants. When worn, the following languages (when read) are translated into Common for the wearer: Draenic, Thalassian, Darnassian, Gnomish, Dwarvish, Gutterspeak, Orcish, Goblin, Zandalari, Taurahe, and even Nerubian!”

Fer ya, pop. Hope yer doin’ all right. Ain’t seen ya in awhile, not a single word since old god shit hit the Vale hard. Miss ya every day. I try not ta think about it too much or else I become an anxious mess. Hope this package gets ta ya. Just... please write me back, pop, even if it’s just ta let me know yer still okay. I’m goin’ down ta the Vale myself ta look fer ya if nothin’ comes in.

I know ya’ve been learnin’ from them monks. I dunno how much ya’ve learned, but I hope it was enough ta keep yerself alive durin’ that invasion. I love ya, and I wish ya were here.

Pipe of Insight:

An excellent tool for the student pressed for time, or for the researcher on the brink of a discovery. When any material is lit in the pipe, and then smoked for five minutes, the smoker feels great mental clarity, and their body rejuvenates as if they had a full night’s rest. The mental clarity lasts for four hours.”

Fer me. One ‘a the worst feelin’s in the world is bein’ tired, and ya can’t sleep or do nothin’ about it other than just lie down and hope it eventually goes away. Works on Undead. Made sure ta ask. Hopefully, this’ll make restin’ a lot easier.

Skeletal Stag and Doe Figurine:

This is a graceful pair of carved skeletal wooden figurines, the Eversong wood of a pale hue with a very fine grain. The stag stands tall and alert while the doe rests at his side, head also turned forward as if having just noticed something ahead. The eyes glimmer against the wood with dark, cloudy onyx gems set to match them as a pair. Within the curve of the doe’s body one could rest a candle, though incense could also be leaned against her spine to hold it upright as it burns.

Fer Alton. Sorry I ain’t been ta Drustvar lately ta help ya out on the farm. Travel ta Kul’Tiras proper’s hard. But I think tensions are easin’ up after, well, the Banshee showed her true colors and the war ended. Reckon these figurines would be fittin’ fer ya. Swear this stag even looks like one ‘a yer forms, bones and all. I ain’t forgotten ya. Just waitin’ fer the right time ta visit. Kill a witch fer me, Alton. Stay safe.

Mentions: @ms-winford​ , @hinahinagray​

#shadowsands #market purchases

[quarterfromcanon]

Lost Control and Tumbled Overboard Gladly

Heather & Valencia - Femslash February - Day 24 - Instrumental [3,265 words]

When they arrived at her former residence, Heather felt the pit of her stomach tie itself in knots. She pulled into the old parking spot and stared at the front of the house. Valencia occupied the passenger side in tense silence. She followed Heather’s line of sight and gazed the same direction, anxious for entirely different reasons.

Heather sighed. “Here we are.” She unbuckled from the driver’s seat and pocketed the key ring. “They’re waiting for us. Guess we’d better go inside.”

She turned to Valencia. Her friend had not moved an inch. 

“Are you gonna stay with the car?” Heather teased gently.

“What should I call them? Are they handshake or hug people? Do your parents go to church? Should I have worn one of my cross necklaces? Are they good cooks? I won’t say anything either way, but what if they see a reaction on my face?” Valencia touched a hand to her lips to stop the flow of inquiries spilling from them. “I’m sorry. I should’ve asked you on the ride. I did not prep for this at all.” She took a shaky, deep breath then quieted again. Her eyes were wide as she awaited Heather’s response.

“Okay, so, let me see if I can remember all that and take it on one at a time.” Heather’s features scrunched up while she talked through the entire list of concerns. “They don’t have a preference for how you address them. Just don’t copy Rebecca and call them Mr. and Mrs. Heather. They won’t be mad if you do; my parents find it cute, but I don’t care for it, personally. Mom and Dad do have a church they go to, but they’re not ‘church people' in the way that you’re thinking. For my mom, it’s kind of a leftover obligation from her upbringing. My dad’s a little more into it. Mom would be more likely to dig your jewelry because it was pretty than because it indicated your religious background.”

Valencia nodded. A little of the tension left her limbs.

Heather continued. “They’re both decent cooks. Dad taught me. They won’t stare at you while you eat because they will also be eating, so don’t stress about monitoring your poker face. Oh, right, and they’re hug people. If they get excessive, just give me a signal and I can get them to tone it down.” She let her palms fall with a slap against her thighs. “Does that cover everything?”

“I think so.” Valencia clicked the button on the seat belt. She squared her shoulders and activated the passenger side unlock. “Let’s go.”

They exited Heather’s car in unison and walked up the path. Heather assumed the lead to knock at the door. It opened almost immediately. She was greeted with fond caresses and voices an octave higher than their natural register. 

“This is V--” Heather began the introduction but found herself guided across the threshold so both parents could fill the doorway as they met their guest. 

“Valencia!” Heather’s mom greeted. “Welcome to the funhouse!”

She pulled her into a warm embrace, which Valencia returned with a genuinely touched expression. Her eyes met Heather’s over her mother’s shoulder. 

"Told you,” Heather murmured.

“You have a lovely home, Mr. and Mrs. Davis,” Valencia praised as soon as they were far enough inside for her to view the space at large. “Thank you for letting me tag along with Heather today.”

“We’re happy to have you!” Mr. Davis replied. “Hot dogs and burgers are out by the grill, all set for me to throw ’em on. We’ve got the makings for veggie alternatives, too. Heather e-mailed us the recipes.”

Valencia beamed, taken aback but pleased. “Sounds perfect.”

“Enough of our hovering! Lawrence and I will get back to food prep. We’ll let Heather give you the tour.” Mrs. Davis looped her forearm around her husband’s and departed with a cheery wave. “Please, make yourself at home. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”

Valencia returned the wave vaguely. She appeared dazed by the entire whirlwind encounter. 

Heather drew nearer to nudge Valencia’s ribs. “They’re a lot,” she acknowledged once her dad went to the patio and her mom was in the kitchen listening to the portable radio.

“But in a good way.” Valencia elbowed Heather in return. “So, how about that tour?”

Heather cast a look around with both hands in the pockets of her ripped jeans. “Um, this is the living room. And also the dining room. One big space. Kitchen’s on the other side of those shutters in the wall. Downstairs bathroom is over there.”

“Are those yours?” Valencia pointed to shelves near the entryway that were covered in ribbons, trophies, and photographs.

Heather’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “Yeah, sorta. They’re basically all participation.”

Valencia crossed the floor in several long strides to investigate the commemorative display. “Wow, you were involved in a lot.”

“Here and there.”

“More than I ever did when I was in school. I took dance for a while, was part of a couple of pageants and church plays. That’s about it.” Valencia traced her fingertip over embossed gold letters. “There’s no pattern. You defied labels and stereotypes even then.”

“You’ve really managed to put a positive spin on ‘flighty’ and ‘indecisive.’”

Valencia gave Heather a light, reprimanding shove. “A positive spin to balance out your negative outlook. Why don’t you like these?”

Heather twitched her shoulders. “Seems kinda weird to build a shrine to nothing. It’s colorful and sweet, I guess, but all these dead ends don’t represent anything significant.”

Valencia grabbed a photo of a very young Heather off the bottom shelf. “Look at that cute little face. She’s not insignificant.” Her fingernail tapped the image. “There’s a bundle of sunshine full of potential.”

Heather laughed. “Okay, see, now I know you’re full of shit. No one has described me as ‘sunny’ in my entire life.”

“Well, they weren’t holding a picture of you at age five.”

Heather rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You are laying it on so thick. Oh my god.”

“Hey, I’m honing my skills, learning how to hype up my girls,” Valencia protested. She restored the snapshot to its place with care. “It still counts even if it lacks finesse. That’s what Rebecca says.” 

Heather held her hands aloft in surrender. “I agree. I mean, you’re doing a good job. I’m just only able to take sincere compliments in small doses.”

“We’ll see if we can build up your tolerance.” Valencia poked Heather’s side with her index finger. Heather shied away from the touch but smiled.

“Good luck with that.”

Valencia’s gaze lifted to the painted handprints displayed on the wall. “Aww! How long ago did you make these?” 

“Close to twenty years ago for one? Going on fifteen years for the other? The little prints are a Christmas gift from first grade. The bigger ones were something Mom asked me to do after our move to California the year I turned twelve. They’re dated on the back.” 

Valencia elevated on tiptoe and angled both away from the wall to peek. “Sure enough. How close are they to your hands now?”

“I’d say almost three yards.”

Valencia blinked several times before she realized Heather was referring to the literal distance between where she stood and the paintings. She lowered her voice in an unamused monotone. “Haha. So funny. Put a hand up there for comparison, smartypants. I’m curious.”

Heather obliged with an even more exaggerated eye roll, but she had to actively suppress a grin.

“The width across is almost the same as in middle school,” Valencia determined. “Your fingers have definitely gotten longer.”

“Do you wanna check my height against the notches on the door frame, too?” Heather joked.

Valencia tilted her head to the side and playfully feigned earnest deliberation. “Maybe later.”

She let her companion continue the tour to the staircase. Heather slid her palm along the railing and left the ground floor with Valencia in tow. “There’s a laundry room and a couple of closets too, but you won’t really need those. The second bathroom’s up here.”

They passed the aforementioned lavatory and beelined into Heather’s bedroom. Valencia gave a low whistle. “No wonder you didn’t try to move these things with you. It all looks heavy as hell.”

A spacious bed and massive headboard with multiple storage compartments dominated the left wall. An equally cabinet-covered entertainment center took up most of the space on the right. There was a desk by the window and old textbooks were stacked high on several flat surfaces. Heather crossed the familiar space and folded herself into a seated position atop the padded desk chair, one leg tucked under her thigh while the other dangled to the floor.

The only leftover spot to sit was the mattress, so Valencia perched at the foot of it with her back straight and her hands clasped in her lap. “Did you actually use all of these cabinets?” she marveled.

“Oh yeah. There’s a lot of old crap in here that I need to sort through at some point. I only took what I saw myself using right away when I moved. Most of the rest is still where I left it. Here, I’ll show you.” Heather climbed onto the bed behind Valencia and crawled toward the angled cabinets behind the pillows. Her guest followed suit. Heather popped open the doors to reveal a crowded collection of well-worn paperbacks. “These were just for my favorites,” she explained. “Salinger, Palahniuk, all of that. I usually felt like rereading before I went to sleep. I put them someplace nearby so I wouldn’t have to get back out of bed.”

“What are they about?” Valencia trailed her fingers down one of the broken spines.

Heather puffed out a breath as she deliberated where to begin. “A lot of things. Chuck’s stuff gets pretty dark and gross but I like that they usually have a twist. J.D.’s are interconnected and really make you think.”

“So it’s one long story?” Valencia’s arm brushed Heather’s when she continued to examine the tightly packed books.

Heather made a so-so gesture with her hand. “There are shared characters that get their own turns. He wrote about this family whose last name was Glass. The kids are kind of a mess, but when you read about their childhood, it helps you start to understand why they ended up the way they are. They deal with a lot of stuff as adults, too: mental health problems, antisemitism, questioning faith, death in the family. More than one death, actually.”

“The Catcher in the Rye,” Valencia read the title underneath her fingertips. “Okay, this one I’ve heard of somewhere. Which sibling is this about?”

“It’s not about any of them,” Heather replied, “but they do basically say in a different one that the second-oldest brother, Buddy, is supposed to have written it. A lot of people think Buddy’s Salinger’s stand-in, so…” She shrugged.

“A story-within-a-story, written by a character, that you can read for yourself,” Valencia said slowly. “So it’s sort of like those Harry Potter textbooks Rebecca has?”

Heather considered the comparison. “Eh, yeah, I guess. But I don’t think Quidditch Through the Ages is gonna end up on a freshman’s required reading list. It’s more like bonus information than a novel in its own right.”

She closed the cabinet once more and settled on the mattress. Valencia reclined beside her. They both stared at ceiling. “The bed’s comfortable,” Valencia remarked while tapping her shoes together.

“You’re on my side, so it’s a little more broken in.” Heather folded both hands atop her stomach. “What about your old house with your parents? Did you leave things there when you got an apartment?”

“Loads, but none of it would’ve gone with the decor.” Valencia wrinkled her nose. “I kept my DVD player, though. It was the first purchase I ever made with my own cash from babysitting my sisters. Technically still my parents’ money, but it felt like a big deal at the time. There’s a butterfly sticker on it, so you can tell that thing’s been in use for ages.”

Heather rolled onto her hip. She propped herself up with her elbow. “You had a butterfly phase, huh?”

“Mm-hmm. It was almost going to be part of my first tattoo. I might still get one at some point.” Valencia touched the large robot design on Heather’s right arm. “What about this guy? Why did you want to get him?”

“His name’s Wilbur.” Heather affectionately regarded her favorite body art. “I have to be in the mood for sci-fi, but I’ve always sorta dug robots. Some of my classmates growing up spent years swearing I was one.”

Valencia’s brow furrowed. 

Heather patted her own neck in explanation. “The voice. Not a lot of rise and fall.”

Valencia turned onto her side. “They made fun of you?”

“Kids come up with random stuff and it just sticks.” Heather lifted her eyebrows with indifference. “It’s not a very solid insult when you think about it. Robots are basically programmed to be smarter than humans. They process things quicker. They’re helpful. A lot of times, they’re made out of durable materials so they won’t break down. Leave it to an eight-year-old to think they’re roasting you by saying you’re a virtually indestructible genius.” She flexed to make Wilbur stand out in sharp relief. “Plus, look how nice he is. Who wouldn’t wanna be like this dude?”

Valencia studied the robot. Her eyes traveled up to Heather’s profile. “No one worth talking to.”

Heather met her stare and smiled. Valencia sat up and checked the corners of the room. “So where are all your instruments?”

“... My what now?”

“The display downstairs made it seem like you might’ve played a few,” Valencia elaborated. “Do you keep them in here?”

“Oh, right.” Heather nodded. “Those are scattered. A lot are in closets, but the upright piano is still in that nook by the top of the stairs between some potted plants. Mom sorts the mail on top of it.”

“Can I see it?”

“Sure.”

The exterior required some minor dusting but all-in-all the piano remained in good shape. Valencia sat on the left half of the bench and ghosted her palm across the keys. She turned to look up at Heather, who remained standing. 

“Do you remember how to play anything?”

Heather settled on the other end of the cushion. Valencia scooted to give her adequate room, although the limited space meant they were thigh-to-thigh. “Honestly, I quit my lessons so early that I was still on scales. Then I went through a period when my friends started a band where I kinda got interested again. Performing with the group didn’t work out, but I did at least pick up one of those old-timey standards they teach beginners.”

Valencia bit her lip and wriggled with excitement. “Can you try it now?”

Heather chuckled. “Dude, it’s seriously nothing impressive. I Googled the lyrics once and it turns out the non-instrumental version is sentimental as fuck.”

“I like sentiment sometimes. Besides, it’s not like you’re going to sing, too. Unless you are. Which would be fine.” She offered Heather a persuasive grin. “Entertain me.”

Heather groaned. All it took was a single whispered plea from Valencia and she caved. “All right. But no singing. Also, you’re gonna have to help me. It’s supposed to be played by two people.”

Valencia clapped. “A performance and a class. You should be charging me. I’m totally screwing you out of multiple paychecks.”

“Psh, tell you what: if it doesn’t make your ears bleed, I’ll take a five out of your Chan Ban savings. Then we’ll call it square.”

Valencia giggled. “Deal.”

Heather took Valencia’s hands in hers and placed them on the keys. She overlapped their fingers to demonstrate the correct placement. Valencia’s chest pressed into Heather’s arm as she observed the lesson. Heather cleared her throat. 

“Your portion is simpler, but there is some back and forth. So, it’s basically gonna go buh-ba-duh-duh four times before I come in, okay? It starts here for the first.” She pushed the pads of her fingers against Valencia’s nails. “Then here.” A shift and further contact. “Here.” A third demonstration. “And then here.” Heather helped Valencia test the fourth and final. “And you’ll just keep doing those four over and over while I’m taking care of the things at the higher end.”

“Okay.” Valencia stared at the piano for a second then twisted back to Heather with a wince. “Show me again?”

Heather smiled patiently. “No problem. I’ll keep practicing with you until you’re comfortable on your own.”

They ran through Valencia’s half of the song at least a dozen times, laughing and leaning into each other all the while. Eventually, Valencia made it through a repetition unaided. 

“That was it! I actually sounded right.” Valencia bounced in her seat. “You’re really good at this.”

“If only my instructor could see me now,” Heather drawled. “Now, my part goes like this.”

She played her entire half. The movements were slower than they would be once familiarity returned, but it gave her a chance to let the music resurface after so long away from the effort. Valencia watched with rapt attention.

“Whoa. Glad I didn’t sit on the right. I picked the correct side of the piano for my skill level.” 

Heather snorted. “I would never throw you into the deep end before you were ready.” 

“I appreciate that.”

Heather rubbed her palms across the denim over her kneecaps. “So, are you ready try this thing together?”

Valencia gave a nod with almost comical gravity. “Let’s do it.”

She sat a little straighter and began. Heather waited for the introduction and then accompanied her seamlessly.

“Aah!” Valencia shrieked without breaking the flow. “This is happening!”

“You’ve got it,” Heather encouraged.

“What is the song called? I’ve heard it so often, but they don’t usually say the name before or after when it’s in movies.”

“Heart and Soul,” Heather answered. She grimaced. “I told you it was corny.”

Valencia made a dismissive sound. “It’s happy.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Heather continued to participate on autopilot. Her gaze drifted to her partner. She lingered over everything -- the bend in Valencia’s knuckles with each note, the way the sleeves of her blouse clung above the crook of her arms, the gold heart pendant nestled against her clavicle, the smile on her lips and the light in her eyes.

“Dinner’s ready.” 

Heather jumped and her hands fell away from the keys. “Mom! We didn’t hear you come up.”

“Oh, that’s all right, honey. You were playing together so beautifully.” Mrs. Davis squeezed Valencia’s shoulder. “You must have the magic touch, sweetheart. She hasn’t visited this part of herself in years.”

Mrs. Davis rubbed her daughter’s back in passing and then disappeared down the stairs again. Valencia and Heather stood, leaving the piano behind to go enjoy their meal.

“You know what?” Valencia prefaced while they made their way to the landing. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you get accidentally startled before.”

Heather felt a blush creep up the back of her neck and fan across her shoulder blades. “You saw that?”

"Yep.” Valencia laughed, though not unkindly. “You must’ve lost yourself in the music, huh?”

Heather focused her attention on the descent and the banister, but she couldn’t resist a quick glance at Valencia once they left the enclosed stairwell. “Yeah, I guess I was really feeling it.”

#H+V FF #CEG Writing by Me #Helencia #Heather x Valencia #Two words: Labor. Day. #I HAVE BEEN WAITING SO LONG FOR THIS ONE. :D

[jessica-goldenstars-blog]

[ENGTRANS] Jessica interview with Grazia Korea 10.2018

G: Grazia  J: Jessica 

G: You were overseas till a few days ago. From Canada to Seoul, and now you're in LA. How do you pass your time lately? 

J: I've been very busy lately. (Laughs) I visited many places while abroad, and I'm also trying to create more opportunities to meet my fans. 

G: It seems your time spent in Seoul is getting shorter. 

J: In a month, my time spent in Seoul won't exceed 2 weeks. When I'm back, it's like I'm ready to leave again the moment I put down my luggages. Even so, Korea is still my home, because my parents and sister are there. 

G: Looking back to now, you're not only a singer, but also the creative director of an up-and-coming fashion brand to be reckoned with globally. How do you benchmark yourself? 

J: My agency profiles me as a 'multifaceted artiste'. It's becoming increasingly common to have multiple careers. From being singers and actors, to participating in musicals or any other careers. Pursuing multiple fields and careers is something interesting to me. Singer Jessica is doing well, being able to put my thoughts into action is fascinating. 

G: What inspires you to continuously create new content? 

J: It's a blessing to be able to travel to so many places for work, and this inspires me. Travelling back and forth like this allows me to meet my fans as well. I feel the urge to give back whenever I feel the energy and support from my fans. 

G: Does this mean you spend a lot of time in the air? How do you pass time? 

J: I drink a lot of hot lemon water on flights, and also apply a calming essential oil behind my ears to aid my sleep. I always do an essential oil infused 'half-bath' (hanshin yoku) once I reach the hotel to relax my muscles. This is how I stay in sync with my surroundings, like "oh, this is LA, it's a new start". 

G: How about your rest days when you have no schedules? 

J: I'm busy practising self-care on days without schedules. From hair color and treatment, to mani-pedicure. The discipline of self-restoration will fill all my free time, which also includes workout routines like pilates. Visits to the doctor's for supplements will take up almost a whole day. There are also frequent times when meetings with the Blanc & Eclare team go on till the wee hours of the night. 

G: I'm sure there are times you do absolutely nothing? 

J: Whenever I have a few free days in Korea, that is when I feel rested. To me, it's not truly rest unless it's home. I have a concert in Taiwan this October, but my schedule is packed before that. I may be able to take a breather after the concert but nothing is certain because my schedule is still being arranged till now (laughs). 

G: If you continue to work like this, you will definitely feel exhausted, and experience 'burnout'. Do you sometimes feel life is tough? 

J: The good thing about me is that I'm very focused and also very flexible. Of course, I'm surrounded by people whom I'm thankful for. They stayed beside me, gave me support so I wouldn't feel exhausted and am able to complete a day's work with ease. I'm surrounded by many capable staff, and I'm very thankful. 

G: Do you find it fitting to be both a singer and creative director now? 

J: It's fascinating. Regardless of what my career choice was, it has always been my dream to work in the fashion industry. Working with people who share the same interests, putting out products just as I imagined without modifications, and then people buying and using my products, makes me very happy. Since this is 100% my product, the feeling I have is indescribable, nothing else compares. 

G: Having debuted at a young age, have you ever thought about how 30 year old Jessica would be like? 

J: Because life was simply too hectic during my younger days, so I look forward to a carefree life now. As for what kind of person I wanna become, I just wanna be spontaneous and cool. My definition of cool would be someone who enjoys whatever he/she does, and is able to derive happiness from it. 

G: That sounds like the current you. Have your dreams come true already? 

J: That's right (laughs). What I'm thankful for is how I've been steadily moving towards my goal since young, and successfully reached where I am today. 

G: Were there no major setbacks? 

J: I guess things were fairly smooth-sailing for me. 

G: As the saying goes 'life is never smooth-sailing', have you ever felt frustrated? 

J: I'm not the type to get frustrated over things. In other words, I will accept whatever life throws at me. Under such circumstances, we should just sort things out and change our course of action. Moreover, I'm not the type to regret or feel sorry for myself over things that is out of my control. Everybody has low periods in life, and that happened to me too. Whenever that happens to me, I will face reality and forge a new path. I don't wish to bear unnecessary stress. 

G: How will you picture yourself 10 years from now? 

J: I should have a happy family by then? (Laughs) Since I would have been at that age. It's great that my life is moving along the way I imagined. I once thought to myself that I was gonna open a store in NYC if I ever work in the fashion industry. I didn't manage to list NYC as one of the locations when I first launched my brand, but my dream still came true in the end. Accomplishing my dreams make it extra meaningful. 

G: You once said you will try your best to portray your true self in interviews, is there any special reason? 

J: I'm actually very shy. But as my overseas activities increase, I gradually start to think I should open up more to show the various sides of Jessica. Being on my own now, I've managed to find a comfortable balance with everyone. 

G: Circumstances make a man. Seems like you are at a good place now? 

J: Regardless of what place I'm at, I don't ever wanna hear my manager say things like "I don't wanna hear what you have to say and I don't care what you think". Cultural differences exist, and we can interact with people via so many social media platforms nowadays. Since I've opened up more, I can interact with everyone more closely now. 

G: Following your current emotional state, what has changed? 

J: I feel more at ease now. I used to feel awkward when people initiate conversations because I didn't know what to say, and what should be said, so I feel burdened. But I'm at a good place now, so I feel great. 

G: What kind of person is Jessica to you? 

J: I'm extremely straightforward and frank, even to people whom I have connections with. It's more convenient to work like this. 

G: What kind of person do you want to become? 

J: I'm somewhat of a perfectionist. Even though I haven't learnt to let everything go, I'm slowly getting there. I try my best at whatever I do. Everyone tells me I am where I am today because of my hard work. Nowadays I'm beginning to delegate tasks to my staff, so it's getting easier for everybody now (laughs). 

G: You look prettier these days, what's your secret? 

J: Focus on my health. I fell sick for a few days after returning to Korea a while back, it was so bad that I couldn't leave my house for those few days. I felt the time was wasted with nothing accomplished, and I could only spend less than a week in Korea! So I did a full body checkup to find out what my body lacks, and have started managing my health. I also take vitamins and reduce my intake of flour-based foods. I'm trying hard to improve my eating habits. 

G: It's a popular topic these days, happiness or health? 

J: I have always wanted to lead a happy life since young, but I'm already very happy now. So I need to stay healthy to enjoy this happiness longer (laughs). 

G: It's only 2 months to the end of the year, how do you intend to spend the rest of the year? 

J: I'm earnestly preparing for my concert. Thereafter I intend to take a break till the end of the year. I'm also considering if I should release an album next year. 

G: So will we be able to see Jessica the singer next year? 

J: Once I feel that I am ready, I will release that album. An album clearly distinguishes an artiste. My album will have to showcase a sound unique to me, so it requires more effort. 

G: Last question. Any other things you wanna challenge yourself to? 

J: I'm more into clothes worn for vacations these days, like swimsuits. I also intend to expand a variety of different garments. I will mostly focus in the fashion in the near future.

Source: https://www.smlounge.co.kr/grazia/article/40029

C-trans: JungSooYeonBar

Engtrans: RI

#jessica jung #jessica #jessicajung #interview #grazia #grazia korea #engtrans

[goultrasweetheart]

Healing-4K Fic

These characters do not belong to me. I only own the ship children.

Memories… of chains, screams, and vague ones of the color red began to put a damper on his new life. Things he wished they didn’t come back to haunt him. Things he had admit he’s done while encumbered with insanity and depression. He also wished he had the power to reverse time and take back what terrible things he’s done to everyone. He wanted peace, now that everything's back to normal. They got their home back. Alpha’s back.

“Hey!” startled, he flailed and lost his balance on the tree branch, latching onto it “What are you ‘hanging’ around for? Hehe” he sent a glare down below at whoever disturbed him. 4’s glare immediately melted away into a solemn expression when he spotted King Multiverse, currently wearing a red and blue flowered kimono he’d mentioned a few days back. “Helloo there! Good to see ya again! How are you?” the god shout with a bright smile. He turned his face away with an exasperated sigh, climbing his way down “Better” “I see… Well, I came here in hopes you could spare some time and hang. I’ve been a little lonely with Toucan and Omni busy little Abarai as of late. It’ll do us some good to tie some loose ends we might have anyway” 4 went with it, smiling “Sure. I’m not busy” King Multiverse grinned and turned his back to him “Excellent! Follow me! I know just the right place!” he spoken, humming along to himself.

.

.

.

He felt the shift in scenery and looked around him to see the bright speckled atmosphere. And turned to watch the god set out the drinking glasses and wine bottle “Over here. Sit” not an order, but a friendly calling. 4 settled down in front of him and watched him lighty shake the bottle “Care to have a drink?” he offered “Why the heck not?” he next cracked a weak smile in return again, taking the offered glass “So, is there something you want to get off your chest? If so, I’ll listen” downing his first glass ‘Where should I start then?’ 4 thought to himself, staring at his own drink. King Multiverse in the end, bought his boyfriend’s silence as a maybe. Also, from reading the guy’s contemplative expression said a lot too “Hey. Don’t force yourself. Take your time”.

A fuzzy feeling began to set in after a few glasses “Easy there friend. I wouldn’t recommend having so many drinks” he chuckled but still weary. 4 propped his chin up on his hand “I know, I know. It’s good wine” now his turn to drunkenly chuckle. He scrunched his nose a little and King Multiverse raised a brow at this new but odd behavior “You wanna know what’s strange?” “How so?” the god stood quiet for a response, indulged. 4 moves to stir the liquid of his drink “I’ve always question why *hic* I’m still here, even after what I’ve done in the past. Losing my brother because of my insolence. Losing our world and... going insane” gone silent but still continued “Why. Why did he spare me when I… I-” “Our Lord knew you weren’t at fault. Losing someone close to you and a place you called home can change one's view drastically” “I don’t deserve mercy. I-I raped the poor girl and I- left her with a child she doesn’t desire! My child! I don’t blame her if she’d *hic* gotten rid of it by now…” he drawled, lowering his head in shame and defeat.

King Multiverse could feel the others pain and guilt rolling off him in waves. Even if he had never done such a horrid thing, he still could sympathize with him. He’d probably end up the same way if he lost someone important. It was a blind miracle 4 managed to heal and change. The god dared to respond to his last sentence with a soft smile “Actually…” that brought him out of his stupor “Huh?...” “That baby you mentioned. Absurd as it sounds… she kept it. Her and Blank decided to raise it like their own” wide eyed, the wine glass in his hand shattered, an unexpected action. He chuckled at 4’s reaction “What?!...” now watching him bring his hands up to his face and rub at the corners of his eye sockets, followed up with a frustrated groan “Oh… okay. I-Is she… happy?” King Multiverse took the glass and restored it with a flick if his wrist, hand him another refill “Yes. She’s recovering just fine” “That’s good. Jiva’s a strong woman. I’ll give her that… Damn. I still kinda feel the sting where she last slapped me that day, haha” “She sure is” he agreed with him with a proud smile “By the way… What’s *hic* up with Omnipotents kiddos calling you *hic* uncle? Now I’m curious…” he hummed a little “I honestly don’t know, haha. I just took to it when they were just small little tykes. Always called me their uncle. I felt right at home…” “I know how that feels… My brother was the one to raise me. He's all I have for family, really. You’re very lucky” “Did you know Omni’s kids used to follow me around like little duckling! It was the cutest thing!” King Multiverse swooned, making 4 laugh a little.

.

.

.

.

An hour from now, King Multiverse watched 4 still lay there on the ground and giggling about god knows what. Completely drunk off his ass. 4 now sat in front of him “Hm?” curious as to what his buddy is up to and moved to store the wine away before he does anything more reckless. “Boop!” 4 poked his nose and giggle a little again. The god blinked as his boyfriend next wrapped his arms around his middle and nuzzle him. Another unfamiliar action he never thought 4 would do suddenly. ‘Never thought he would be this affectionate? He’d usually be very composed?’ he thought to himself, shock falling into a sweet smile and relished in this rare moment. He gently pet his head and back “You smell niceee~” he felt heat in his cheekbones from the small comment and chuckled, pulling his boyfriend down to lay next to him on the blanket.

The guy’s nonsensical babbling seemed to have stopped and his breathing finally dropped into calming soft snores. This drew an exasperated sigh from him and smiled, and placed a hand on his back “Rest well babe”. Staring up at the stars, he closed his eyes ‘You poor thing… Still thinking it’s all your fault. Of what you’ve done. We’ll do our best to help you… I promise, love’.

#4K #Omnipotent sans #seraphim sans #king multiverse #ship children #passive 404 #angst #fluff

[thoughts-of-a-bibleophile]

bit of a rant/review of pokemon the movie i choose you

Ok. Can we talk about the Pokémon movie? It was a beautiful fucking mess.

Why?

Let me preface this by saying I am a huge Pokénerd and am a fan of the games and anime (I haven’t watched it in years but what I have seen recently I enjoyed). Saying that, I also am someone who won’t take “well it’s just a kid’s show/movie, it doesn’t have to be good” as an excuse ever, especially with well-done kid’s movies are coming out every year at this point.

Anyway. if you are curious, for some reason, about my opinion of the latest movie in the Pokémon franchise....continue reading.

Also. SPOILERS BELOW.

So. Like I said previously. It was a beautiful, terrible hot mess.

A h o t mess

Let’s start with why I thought it was terrible (and weed out the butthurt fans right off the bat)

Story wise, there were issues. Since they crammed the entirety of season 1 into it with different characters and picked the best episodes of the season as story points.

Like I would compare it to The Last Airbender movie in how over-stuffed it was in story, since that movie also tried to an entire season into a movie, but I can’t compare them because The Last Airbender movie is actual garbage and this movie is.....not that.

Main complaint is movie length. Why is it so short when it could have been so much longer and filled with more character interaction and development?? I’m not asking for Pixar quality because I’m not expecting Pixar, but if you’re gonna introduce us to new characters and expect us to love them and miss them when they leave, give us a bit more to go on than just snapshots of their journey. Speaking of snapshots, though, I did like that little touch of Verity going through her phone to show the moments they’ve all been together -- clever, time-saving story-telling choice, that.

“No one watches/plays Pokémon for the story/characters” -- WELL I DO. THEY’VE DONE IT IN THE PAST AND MADE A MEMORABLE STORY AND GAME FOR US, SO THEY CAN DO IT AGAIN. Have you even SEEN Pokemon Mewtwo Strikes Back? BECAUSE BOI THERE WERE TEARS AND IT WAS THE BEST.

Just...The reason the other Pokémon movies worked so well/better is because we knew the characters involved aside from Ash. If we’re being introduced to new characters in this movie, give us a reason to care about them.

There was also just very little tension because I knew that they were just highlighting parts of the first season (or so), so whatever problem they had would be worked out by the end. Also, because it’s Pokémon and Ash is an OP MC.

My boi Sorrel tho

I love Sorrel, though. A+ dude. I wish he had more screen time because he's such a cute little bean and I FUCKING CRIED when his Luxray died HGHSJJJJjdee (but does he only have Lucario?? Like I know he was too afraid to love a Pokémon after Luxray, but boy are you seriously going on your own with one mon???)

I was also happy to see that he found Articuno, but WOW these kids are lucky because together they’ve all seen like four legendaries (Entei, Raikou, Suicine, Ho-Oh) in the span of a year (or so?) Some people, apparently, don’t see legendaries EVER and these kids see FOUR? I know it’s because plot but dang.

Verity (like the lake!)

Verity (ha her name is Verity and she's from a region with a lake named Verity lol) kind of just reminded me too much of Misty with her Pokémon being water types. If they were gonna add that little background about her mom, I wish they would have done more with it. Like...explain how she uses water types because her mom loved water types. She uses a Piplup because her mom has an Empoleon. I just wanna know MORE about her. GIVE ME MOREEEE DANG IT

I also def thought they were gonna have her mom as someone we've met in the games/show before, but no. Just random, faceless character we never see/meet.

Angry child Cross who is essentially Kacchan from My Hero

Can we talk about Cross for a second?

Yes, he’s an asshole, but, especially with that little redemption arc, he’s not EVIL. Like I know they needed someone to set off all the bad things, but this boy doesn’t have an evil heart. Just say....like a darkened heart or whatever because if he was evil he wouldn’t get a redemption arc like that. He’s just a proud asshole who believes in strength over friendship.

Honestly, true antagonist is Marshadow because WOW SOMEONE NEEDS TO COOL THEIR JETS. I was also incredibly confused as to if Marshadow was good or bad.... Like they say its a guide and someone who restores the balance or fixes the Ho-Oh feather, which sounds like a good guy, but this little bitch was stirring up all the trouble and ends up being the main villain like good lord what is going on.

The animation, the colors

Damn I forgot how good the battles look. Like DAMN. So much tension for a battle I know Ash is gonna win. So much hype when LITERALLY NO ONE UNDERSTANDS TYPE MATCHUPS LIKE A PIPLUP VS A PIKACHU THE PIKACHU WILL WIN IDIOTS

Ahem. But I'm probably thinking too much like the games and not the show which kind of throws the games out the window so whatever.

But yeah, man, I forgot how beautiful something can be when it goes onto the big screen. Like, the Pokémon anime has always had a certain look, a certain charm to it (yes, even in the Sun and Moon series), but it just looked so great and beautiful and gorgeous and lovely on the screen and I’m honestly excited for it to come out on DVD/BluRay whatever so I can see it again.

Ok...it’s not Your Name or a Ghibli film. But...it’s still a very pretty Pokémon movie and it touches my nostalgic, nerdy heart.

ALL THE NOSTALGIA

You read my complaints above, but I will admit that, while it was a bit ridiculous to cram the entire first season into one movie, I enjoyed that it was a celebration of sorts of the show from its beginning? Which was honestly great. They had all of the best, most memorable moments from the show (the pilot -- obviously, finding Charmander, Bye Bye Butterfree). I was near tears a few times with all the nostalgia, guys.

I wish they had brought back Misty and Brock if they wanted to really really celebrate the first season, but c’est la vie.

AND THEN THAT THEME SONG GAVE ME LEGIT CHILLS. I DON’T CARE THAT IT WAS REMIXED. I HAD CHILLS. GOOSEBUMPS E V E R Y W H E R E.

I saw the theme song remix on YouTube prior to seeing the movie and I felt all the nostalgia then, so you’d think I wouldn’t get chills when I saw it.

Welp, we’d both be wrong then. Because ALL THE CHILLS. ALL THE HYPE FOR THE REST OF THE MOVIE. IT WAS GLORIOUS. (imma put it on repeat after i post this, tbh.)

Other things that don’t really have a place elsewhere

Also, this was pretty much the X-Men days of future past of Pokemon. Tbh. Because, unless this is just AU first season? (I can’t remember if this was confirmed to be just the alternate universe first season), it’s like they’re saying well, here’s the NEW beginning of the show so now we can do whatever we want woo! (Jesus I sound like Kukui)

Speaking of doing whatever they want...

PIKACHU SAID WORDS??? ENGLISH? WHYY???????????? I WAS SO CONFUSED AND WONDERED IF MY SODA HAD BEEN SPIKED

I know they were trying to do the throwback to Mewtwo Returns (BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW THAT WAS ONE OF, IF NOT THE, BEST MOVIES AND SO DOES THE POKÉMON COMPANY) and we all want to remember why we love Ash and Pikachu so much and why THEY care about each other so much. But....that was.......strange. Maybe the Japanese audience liked it more because that seems to be the only opinion they really care about, but I know I wasn’t the only one in the theatre just staring at the screen in confusion asking what the actual f u c k was going on.

Last things

I may have my complaints -- that I’m throwing out into the ether just to get them out of my head -- but that doesn’t mean I disliked it.

It’s still Pokémon and I’m still a fan and everyone will still be fans regardless of any issues with the movie, any story problems, any characters featured (or lack thereof **MISTY AND BROCK).

With its beautiful animation, particularly in the battles, and gorgeous set pieces, because WOW did you say some of the views they had?, it was nice to see Pokémon celebrated with an old story told with a fresh coat of paint.

This movie may not be the best. It may not be Pokemon: The First Movie Mewtwo Strikes Back (honestly, most movies aren’t that, so that might be a bit unfair to say.) But it’s still got that Pokémon charm we all know and love and has some pretty cool characters along the way. It’s definitely something that every Pokémon fan, young or old, new or a veteran, should watch and enjoy. Because, despite its flaws, it reminds you of better times, nostalgic times.

It reminds you of that first time you played the game or watched the show, when your biggest choice was your starter Pokémon and adventure was just outside the door, waiting for you to take the first step.

(Yes, I’m basically saying nostalgia is what powers this movie, but we’re celebrating the 20th anniversary, so of course there will be nostalgia.)

Some fandoms can’t say they’ve been around for over 20 years -- but Pokémon, with its die-hard fans and ever-growing fanbase who will support just about anything that comes out relating to the games/show, can. And the movie understands that. It understands that just about everyone who sees it will put on their hat, grab their Pokémon, and sit in those theatre seats like we’re all excited 10 year olds waiting to go on our own journeys, waiting to revisit the world of Pokémon regardless of how good the movie is. And that, the strength of the fans and the perpetual love of the series, in my opinion, is the greatest strength.

#pokemon the movie: i choose you spoilers #pokemon spoilers #review #rant #or something like that #nostalgia #animation #sorrel #verity #new characters #ash #pikachu #pokemon

[tipsycad147]

11 ways to heal energy blocks for success

December 6, 2015 by Savannah

To create success and posititvity in your life, you need to heal energy blocks in your body that are hindering you from being great.

,”If you want to find the secrets to the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibrations.”

If you want to find the secrets to the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibrations

He was way ahead of his time. Or, behind, depending on how you look at it. Since the civilisations of old knew about these sorts of things before the world forgot them.

Though they were never completely abandoned, for good reason, and are now beginning to slowly come back and become common knowledge again.

When you understand that everything is energy, you understand that everything can be manipulated.

It’s all about positive and negative ions if you wanna get sciency about it.

Since energy is neither created nor destroyed, but instead continuously transferred from one place to another, the goal is to intercept as much energy as you can and direct it toward the thing or goal you have in mind.

Most people label energy in the body as whether you feel tired or not. This is a correct definition, of course, but by far not the only one.

Energy powers more than just your drive to get up and do something. It drives your creativity, your ambition, your happiness. Energy flows to every aspect of who you are and powers your ability to feel, think and act upon it all.

When you encounter a problem such as low physical energy, depression or even lack of money, it’s because your flow of energy has encountered a block and needs to be cleared in order to continue to flow properly and get to where it’s suppose to be.

Everything is energy.

Many people use the chakra system to heal energy flow.

The chakra system is a system throughout your body where energy whirlpools, per say, as it flows through the body. When a chakra encounters a block of sorts, you see the results manifest in physical and mental ailments.

There are 114 chakras in the body but for simplicity’s sake we’ll focus on the main seven everyone else pretty well acknowledges. Start small!

The first chakra (Muladhara) is known as the root chakra. It’s associated with survival and instincts and is located at the base of the spine.

The second chakra (Svadisthana) is known as the sacral chakra. It’s associated with emotion and creativity and is located in the lower abdomen.

The third (Manipura) is called the solar plexus chakra. It’s associated with confidence and self worth. It’s location is the upper stomach area.

The fourth (Anahata) is the heart chakra, located at the, you guessed it, heart! It controls love, happiness and peace.

The fifth (Visuddha) is the throat chakra, located at so and has to do with truth and self expression.

The sixth chakra (Anja) is the all seeing third eye and is located in the centre of the forehead. Intuition, wisdom and imagination stem from it.

The seventh chakra (Sahasrara) is the crown chakra, located at the top of the head. Connection and spirituality is what it majors in.

When the chakras are all aligned and in tune with one another, you find yourself thriving and able to accomplish anything in your path. When they are not all aligned, you have to heal your energy blocks to restore flow.

How do you clear energy blocks?

Why! I’m glad you asked! If you encounter any types of energy blocks there are many ways to heal them.

Cleanse/Detox

Our world these days is such a toxic one. There are harmful chemicals in nearly everything we touch and use on a daily basis.

Regardless of what sort of block you are dealing with, a cleanse or a detox might be a good way to go.  These work best with digestion or nutritional issues. If you are prone to colds or general sickness it could mean you have some clogs from toxins or a poor diet.

They can also help with mental blocks too, though. Chemicals can manipulate hormones which can have you all out of whack. It’s that mind body connection everyone talks about. If your hormones aren’t balanced, physical and mental blocks alike can be effected.

Cleaning out all the piping will do you some good and fix many issues you may be having. We should all do this routinely every couple of months or so to make sure everything’s clean and flowing properly.

       2. Reiki

Reiki is a healing technique used by reiki masters to channel energy through the body to clear blocks and restore flow. They can aid the natural healing process and do wonders for both physical and mental ailments.

This is a great way to heal energy blocks.

       3. Meditation

Meditating on your blocks will help you clear them, as the body is naturally meant to do. You can focus on one chakra at a time by imagining a swirling pool of light or water. See it swirling effortlessly and smoothly.

Do this with each chakra, moving from one to the next. You can hold your right hand over each chakra and move it in a circular motion, helping it along if you like.

Since each chakra controls and influences certain aspects of you, both your thoughts and actions, keeping them clear is very important to well rounded physical and mental health.

You can meditate on a thought or ailment you would like to clear. You can imagine the word or phrase and see it dissipate from existence.

Practice makes perfect. If you’re new to meditation, it may seem silly at first. Just stick with it though. Trust me, you’ll have good results, and it’ll get easier as you get use to it.

4. Eat Correctly

I wish I could tell you the one specific diet you should eat to have the best results in everything you wish to accomplish. However, the truth of the matter is that everyone is different. What effects one person negatively may not effect another in the least.

It all stems back to your particular ancestors and what they were use to eating. Therefore, evolving your body to process that particular diet efficiently.

The best way to figure out your ideal diet is to experiment with your body. Try eliminating one or several things at a time. After a week or so, all of it that was in your body should have more or less processed out. Take a note on how you feel.

Introduce one thing at a time back into your diet and take note of how you feel after eating each item.

Do you feel bad after eating some dairy? Are you bloated and gassy after eating bread? Did that sugar make you feel anxious?

Keep a journal of everything you eat and everything you feel so that you can begin to see connections. Adjust your diet appropriately because that’s legitimately the only way to do it.

Your perfect diet is unique to only you.

      5. Sunlight

Sunlight naturally clears blocks and recharges your energy. Everyone should be getting at least a little sun everyday.

I know it’s harder in the winter. Try opening up all of your curtains to let as much natural light in as possible. It will help.

      6. Feng Shui

This is one of my absolute favourite things to do! I feng shui everything!

Feng shui is an ancient art of a science that arranges things in specific colors, orders and patterns to allow for optimal qi (energy) flow.

It’s super detailed and intricate and deals with the five elements: Earth, water, wood, fire and metal. Your house and workplace should follow the laws of Feng Shui. Any where you spend a lot of time.

Start small. The most important places to start with are your work place and your bedroom since that’s generally where you spend the most time.

I’m working on a post for you to teach you some basics! How exciting! I’ll keep you posted.

      7. Yoga

You know me. I couldn’t possibly offer you a list of solutions that didn’t include yoga, now could I?

Yoga helps energy flow by working out the muscles and ligaments. By strengthening the channels through which energy flows through the body, said energy can flow more efficiently.

       8. Unplug

Being around electronics all of the time really messes with our natural energy. The energy from the machines intertwines with our own and causes disruptions.

If we’re constantly plugged in, which most of us are, it can manifest in all sorts of problems; mentally and physically.

Taking just thirty minutes or so to get away from our technological world will help you in restoring flow. The more time you take away, the more benefits you’ll see.

      9. Breathe

I saw something once that said something along the lines of, we have forgotten how to breathe in the energy of the universe, and thus, forgotten in large how to heal, live and be.

There are tons of breathing techniques out there all aimed at one specific thing or another. I like to just focus on breathing deeply and often.

Breathing will help you heal, detox, focus and clear any block you need to clear efficiently.

      10. Mindset

Mindset is everything. The way you think and speak directly relates to your actions and the energy you put out into the world.

You get back what you put in right? If you only put out negative energy, you will only receive negative in turn. Like wise, if you put out positive, you will receive positive. Very simple math.

Pay attention to how you speak. Instead of “I don’t have any money.” try, “I’m going to find me some money.” You speak your truth. No matter what your truth is. You decide.

      11. Odds and Ends

Lemon Essential Oil will help improve physical energy.

Vitamin C will help with these things.

Burning sage will help clear negative energies.

S.S.Blake

http://earthandwater.co/energy/

[ashesandhalefire]

do you have any tips for gif coloring - yours are honestly so gorgeous and vibrant without looking over-edited and i am both in awe and wanna sit here like Miles watching Peter B lol. I have been struggling to achieve such a clean look. are there any psds you frequently use or a combination of layers you gravitate towards?

first of all, WOW this is so flattering asdjfkl. thank you! i kind of taught myself by playing around and following the occasional tutorial that i found, so i don’t know if anything i’m about to say is, like, logical and/or good advice lol. 

i don’t usually use psds, but i tend to hoard the original files when i make sets so if there’s a coloring i come up with that i like, i can usually go back to it later if i need to recolor that same scene or a scene with similar lighting. 

generally, i seem to find the most success using curves to brighten (instead of brightness/contrast or levels). plus, curves does a majority of the heavy-lifting for me when i’m trying to correct weird color tones, and then i sort of live in color balance and selective color. honestly, i very rarely change the actual vibrancy/saturation - every time i do, everyone just turns orange and i get an eye-twitch lol. 

i usually (usually, lol) don’t have that many adjustment layers on each gif. like the first gif from my last set only has two layers on it: curves and selective color. the curves layer pretty much solved all the brightness/contrast issues and restored the earthy brown tones instead of the green fog that was on the caps originally, and the selective color layer just removed some of the yellow-orange hue from their skin tones. 

but that said, the third gif from that same set actually has five layers: curves, color balance, 2 selective color, and a small vibrance adjustment. this scene is filmed almost exclusively blue, though, and i needed it to match so it’s an outlier and shouldn’t be counted.

lol okay that’s not true - i know a lot of editors sometimes have a LOT of layers, but i find it works out better for me when i try to limit the number of adjustments i’m making. 

ALSO i started using photoshop CC recently and i found that my old smart sharpen settings looked terrible when i tried using them on gifs. i actually ended up finding somebody who had posted their settings for CC, and they worked much better. they used these settings and then went to the layer blending options and adjusted the opacity to about 70%. i found these settings were a SIGNIFICANT improvement over what i was using before:

so i don’t know if any of this is actually helpful, but i hope i answered something for you!

#Anonymous #asks for ts

[callsignbaphomet]

Yo buddy! 19. Introduce an OC that means a lot to you (and explain why)

I am so so sorry for the length of this post. I got carried away :S

Man, I actually spent like 30 minutes thinking about this answer and right off the bat I wanna say that all of my OCs are super important. Yeah, a pretty standard dad answer but I’ve put a lot of dedication and time into them all. I wanna make them as equally important and valid whether they are op or just fraguile. Not to mention that with LC I really wanna be as extremely inclusive with my OCs as humanly possible. It’s fun, challenging and incredibly scary (my number 1 fear is fucking up and doing something offensive).

However, I’m gonna go with Jelani. Yes, I talk a lot about him, Angelus, Loke and Ginger but they’re my most developed OCs and the easiest to just talk about for hours. And honestly I have a soft spot for all four of them. There aren’t any “main character(s)” in LC but these four are as close as you can get.But anyway…Jelani. Why? I’m gonna go outright and say that all LC characters have been around since I was 14 years old when I first took up writing. I cannot for the life of me remember what his original name was and the character he used to be back then was a hell of a lot different than what he is today. As embarrassing as it is to admit to he was the “token black character” with barely any development and barely any roles and just thinking about that makes me wanna slap the shit out of 14 year old me. He was a massive idiot and didn’t know shit about character development.

So the character was in a box for years. Then 2005 came along, with a massive dose of depression and a shit ton of other things which caused me to stop writing LC and I just got rid of it and got rid of every character except for Angelus for VERY personal reasons. Lo and behold in 2006 I met my boyfriend and as corny as it sounds he helped me wave off that bad time in my life and I started doing the things I used to enjoy again. One of which was picking up LC and starting from scratch. This time the character development was slightly better but not by much. From the very start “important” characters were loosely based on important people in my life so I continued that trend but made it far less obvious. I redesigned Jelani and loosely based him off my boyfriend. Over time and the more I’ve developed Jelani the similarities have dwindled and pretty much the only things they have in common now is that they’re both metalheads and are male lol

Around that time he did have blue eyes and was lighter skinned and wasn’t powerful. But I wanted to keep working on him and wanted to make him something unique and different since I had an overload of werewolf and vampire characters. I also changed his skin color to a much darker tone. Correct me if I’m wrong but you seldom see dark skinned characters that are powerful and are not evil. I’m not saying Jelani is a saint, he’s made a lot of wrong choices but he’s not evil. So I turned to one of my favorite subjects: mythology (in this case some sort of based around Christian mythology since it’s the only one I sort of know a little bit about). Pretty much ended with a super powerful character that borderlined on useless. With the snap of his fingers any and all problems could be solved and that was boring and as my boyfriend pointed out, “It’s fun to have very powerful characters but if you wanna use him you kinda need to balance him out.” Been working on that ever since. And I’m currently satisfied.

As he is now Jelani is still my most powerful OC especially after his story arc but there are a ton of restrictions on him. He is what in LC are known as Makers or “Gods to the Gods”. Long story short he and a few other deities were involved in some really bad mess which caused a massive war and the deaths of millions of “celestial beings” and the Maker that ascended Jelani (back then he was named Caine) properly punished him and those involved.

So now a second war broke out and it nearly destroyed the Earth. Sick and tired of trying to kill off his 8 compatriots-turned-enemies he destroyed his physical self and sent off his soul/energy/whatever you wanna call it into the cosmos to then later come back and kill off the remaining enemy deity. Ironic since he is the god of reinvention and reincarnation. Thing is this plan backfired. Horribly. While suspended he sort of fell into a coma and didn’t awaken until eons and eons later and was then “reincarnated” to the version you currently know. In his absence the enemy deity, who is a massive dickhead, that started the mess took over Jelani’s realm (Engh'Nia) and role and completely threw everything off balance. I’ll probably explain later if anyone wants to know.

That enemy deity sat comfortably on the throne thinking Jelani was dead but only a Maker can kill another Maker so…yeah.

Now in 870 C.E. he is born to Earth realm beings known as Berserkers and is named Jelani and has no recollection of his previous life and what he really is. However he always sort of felt outta place. No, I didn’t want him to feel out of place because of what he and his mother (at the time the only two black characters living in that village) look like. He and Sanaa (Jelani and Loke’s mom) are very loved, accepted and treated as well as the rest of the family. Sanaa dedicated as much time to teaching him, and Loke as well, of her side of the family. Ingvarr (Jelani and Loke’s dad) and the other side of the family also learned with the boys.

What I meant by out of place is that he should’ve been born a Berserker since Sanaa and Ingvarr are both Berserkers but he wasn’t. They thought he was but turns out he wasn’t. He always had weird dreams that made absolutely no sense at all yet always left him mentally and emotionally exhausted, he had certain abilities that neither side of the family had ever seen before. He could conjure a weapon but unlike Berserkers he could only summon one and couldn’t conjure any armor. He has the ability to whisper into anyone’s ear and force them against their will to do whatever he commanded. Thing is that no one knew what language it was that he whispered, wasn’t Old Norse and it wasn’t Swahili either. He also recovers from any and all kinds of injuries quickly. One day of rest is enough to heal small injuries while bigger injuries take 3 to 5 days without leaving any scars. The complete opposite of Berserkers. His eyes also changed to a bright red. When conjuring weapons and armors Berserker’s eyes glow in their natural eye color, they don’t change colors. Everybody just thought it was a product of Jelani being mixed.

His grandfather, Håkon, didn’t think it was because Jelani was mixed, he thought that maybe he was something more and encouraged him to explore those differences and develop them. Ever since then he’s been trying to figure out what the hell he actually is. He eventually finds out the truth.That enemy deity that was left had found out Jelani was alive and didn’t remember anything so he tried to have him killed without exposing himself to him in case it would jump start his memory. Even if he’d stand in fro t of him he wouldn’t remember. Before destroying his physical self he’d made certain fail saves. Jelani had about 3% of his original power tucked away but it could only be activated if he was in immense danger or in some cases if his panic level reached extreme levels which happened twice, once when Loke was in grave danger and the other when Loke died. That first time, he was about 8 years old, he had managed to change into his “real” form to get Loke to safety but he had no control over his actions and after it was over he didn’t remember what happened but Loke saw everything. Didn’t scare him and he didn’t treat him differently after that.

The second time was when Loke died and he just lost it. He sort of changed physically but he wasn’t in control either. The result was that he destroyed an entire area, basically killed everything within a 5 mile radius in his panic in a fission bomb style. He then tapped into more reserves of his abilities and restored everything as well as ressurecting Loke. This time more people saw what he could do. Another fail safe his old self did was trap one of his enemies with the rest of the 97% of his abilities into an old tree he himself had created. If the deity wanted to be set free they just needed to give him back what he told them to hold on to. Like I said, in the arc he recovers everything but he didn’t want to go to the realm since he had another life on Earth that he preferred. The Maker that ascended Jelani took charge of the realm AFTER Jelani fixed it, which took almost a year. If he ever wants to go back he’d be free to do so. He still carries the weight and authority of a Maker and is recognized as so by celestial beings and those few mortals that know. Same for those who allied themselves with Jelani. However, his abilities are down to 3% to keep things balanced and tbh an op character that could just snap their fingers and solve everything doesn’t feel like a good challenge or even fun.

Thing about Jelani is that as I developed him I also developed a lot of OCs and made a lot of world building decisions that made LC a lot more complex and fun to work with. Loke was supposed to have permanently died just to fuck with Jelani, cause him more pain and grief, make the antagonist even more of a dickhead and make Jelani question and doubt himself even more but I scrapped leaving Loke dead permanently since I kept developing him as well and wanted them to have a very friendly, loving and healthy sibling relationship. Honestly I am so sick of the “brother against brother” trope. You have no idea! I’m still trying to work in some things with him and am even still trying to come up with a design of his “true” form that I really like.

Not to mention that this character has also positively influenced other characters as well. In short I just freaking love Jelani so freaking much and I could talk more about him but this post is already really long and I’m so sorry about that lol

#reply #whiteone #Jelani tag #oc things #Legion Corp