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bacidipesca · 10 months

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my au headcanons

Essentially, this is the universe in my head whenever I write for Mareach. Some details may differ from story to story and I’ll probably forget quite a few, but largely this is how I imagine the world works/the backstory informing my characters’ decisions. Behind a cut because this got so, so long out of literally nowhere.

I want to just say first au takes some inspiration out of @elitadream ‘s ideas but hopefully with enough distinction to make it unique.

The specific details I’ve borrowed or plan to thus far from elitadream: Mario being Peach’s guard in an official capacity, the chain chomp incident*, and staying in the castle/Toad’s quarters/workshop. (I was also planning on using their art as partial inspiration for their first meeting for my own AU as well but if they don’t want me to, I will do my best to come up with an alternative.)

*kind of, I explain that later.

I have a timeline in my head of several (like 5+) different encounters with Bowser plus other enemies sprinkled in, a distinct cast of toad ocs I’ve been building, I have a backstory for why Mario has super strength (Luigi has his own distinct power also), I’m pulling inspiration from the new Mario movie for my backstories for Peach and Daisy, I’m planning on possibly involving time travel in the future. I’m hoping that the differences will make themselves clearer as I go on here. If there’s anything here that I haven’t correctly given credit on, or that needs to be removed because the person who inspired it isn’t comfortable, let me know.

If you see anything as a part of this au that you would like to use or borrow for your own fic or art or au, go for it! I would love to see the result, so feel free to tag me, but also feel free not to. While some of my ideas are unique I think a lot of them just ‘make sense’ for the sandbox we’re all playing in.

- Mario and Luigi were born in Brooklyn to a really insular Italian-American community (their grandparents were the ones who came over from Italy) where they spent most of their time in their own neighborhood speaking Italian with family members and friends, which is what gives them their slight but noticeable Italian accents when speaking English.

- If you got them around someone like Pauline or another Brooklyner, though, you might hear them start to pick up on some of those vocal tics because it’s also ingrained in them from growing up in that area.

- Also this is where my (possible, eventual) time travel nonsense comes in—Baby Mario and Baby Luigi go on an adventure that ends with them getting Firebrand and Thunderhand powers, but it’s because of Kamek and his interference after already having met the brothers as adults who fell into the Mushroom Kingdom. So, as of everything I’m currently writing, Mario and Luigi have no recollection of that adventure because it technically hasn’t happened for them yet.

- But because time is so very rarely linear, or even circular, the Firebrand and Thunderhand powers are kind of hardwired into them now. They just discover having them at the same time they would have gotten them (and eventually will get them, because time travel) as babies.

- Does that make sense? No? Okay good, we’re all on the same page then.

- This is why it’s eventually maybe a possibility and not a hard and fast thing. Just accept that Mario and Luigi were born in Brooklyn with mystical powers.

- Accept it.

- Anyway—

- Firebrand powers! This is why Mario has super strength. He also has extra endurability, can withstand and collect heat/fire in his body, or generate it at a cost of energy to himself. Mario’s fire can be controlled much, much more precisely than he lets on, allowing him to even write or draw with it (hence the brand part of it). Because his powers are linked to Luigi’s, Mario’s fire does not burn him. Mario is very warm to the touch and doesn’t get cold very easily, and can even get a little overheated if he layers up too much and doesn’t let off any additional heat.

- Thunderhand powers! Luigi has super speed and extra stamina, can withstand and collect electricity in his body same as Mario, and generate it the same way as well. He can also produce thunderclap-like screams, but usually under high stress rather than on command. Mario can’t be shocked by Luigi’s electricity. Luigi’s constant fidgeting and his jumpiness can be partially attributed to his need to let off excess energy, and he has a tendency to give people a little static shock when he touches them. He wears gloves to try to mitigate it but it doesn’t help much.

- Luigi can jump higher than Mario.

- They are fraternal twins, and where Mario is right-handed, Luigi is left-handed. Their powers are stronger coming from their dominant hands.

- Peach and Daisy are from the same place but not necessarily related. They were both displaced by a war that caused them to be, essentially, sent out as a last hope for survival into the unknown. They were discovered by the people in their kingdoms and raised by the people in authority.

- I haven’t decided yet if I want either of the princesses to have powers of their own. If I did, I would like to give a healing/soothing ability to Peach like I’ve seen some others ( @drones-of-innocence , @elitadream ) do.

- What brought Peach (and the others) to the Mushroom Kingdom is what is called a warp event. There are large, naturally occurring pipes in this universe that occasionally spit out things and people from other worlds. The Toads have studied them for centuries and eventually managed to reverse engineer all of their modern pipe technology from that knowledge. No one can say for sure what causes them but they can be predicted from the Mushroom Kingdom’s end, at least, as they’re usually heralded by thunderstorms gathering around the natural pipe in distinct formations.

- Peach was raised by Toadsworth (and a relative of Toadette called Toadanne, who eventually retired and was replaced by Toadette), at first just with the intent to look after her, but then with the intent to put her on the throne when she showed incredible intelligence and empathy from a young age. She has a constant drive to prove that her people made the right choice to make her their princess, and will do or sacrifice anything of herself to keep them safe and happy.

- Peach is capable of defending herself, but if she can avoid collateral damage she will always take the more peaceful option. Even if that means going quietly when she’d much rather be screaming.

- I’m borrowing heavily from the new movie with this, but I want Mario and Luigi to be small-time plumbers from Brooklyn who used to work for Spike’s wrecking crew. After Luigi hurt his knees in a work accident (don’t @ me over that one, it’s a popular headcanon), they split off to do their own thing, but in the end they stumbled into a pipe that took them to the Mushroom Kingdom

- It was the stormy season when they first came through so there wasn’t a team to greet them like there was when Peach arrived—instead they were discovered by Toad

- Now, the thing with Toad is I know that there’s like. So many ways to depict him, and there’s so many versions, and are they all the same guy or different guys or what

- But I loved the depiction of Toad in the movie as kind of a mix of Chef Toad and Captain Toad with a little dash of unhinged and undyingly supportive, so I’m adopting that into my personal headcanon and saying that the Toad that finds the brothers is also slightly unhinged but the best friend you’ll ever meet. He immediately pledges himself to helping the brothers out and helps them find their way through the mushroom forest to Toad Town.

- I think the Mushroom Kingdom kind of anticipates things like this to happen now and then, or at least they have systems in place to help people who have been displaced like this, so the boys are set up with a place to stay almost immediately and promised an audience with the princess so she can help with their dilemma—it’s not known to the average Mushroom Kingdom citizen that natural warp pipes are inactive outside of events and it’s impossible to predict when the next event will be or if the boys will have an opportunity to use it.

- They do end up having a really lovely permanent house in Toad Town with two bedrooms, one of which they share (FIGHT me it was so cute they still shared in the movie), and the other of which is a workspace/crash pad for Toad.

- Which means to me that Mario is invited to crash with Toad at the castle when he’s been given guest quarters there and he can’t sleep because his bed is too big.

- Mario doesn’t know what Toad actually does for work, or if he does work, except he has a space at the castle and he always seems to be tinkering with something when Mario comes to visit him there.

- (I don’t know what Toad does either.)

- Mario and Peach fall in love at first sight, but not at the same time.

- Peach is fascinated by seeing other humans (there are others in this world aside from Daisy, but they’re rare, usually nomadic/adventuring types, and Peach doesn’t get to leave the kingdom much) at first, but then quickly grows fond of the brothers once she gets to talk to them and even though she knows she shouldn’t, she takes a personal interest in helping them get established in the kingdom.

- Afterwards is not my own official canon, that’s more explicitly set in elitadream’s AU because of the Bowser portrayal (we’ll get to my Bowser don’t worry), tho to be fair I don’t know that it’s official to their canon either because the original art was also a what-if scenario

- I would love to call First Rescue canon to me but it borrows super heavily from the original fanart so we can just say Mario displayed his super strength in an effort to save the princess’s life. She had invited him up to the castle to check on him and his brother, to see what could be done about helping them find work or projects they might enjoy

- (In my head the Mushroom Kingdom is like kind of utopian and people dont always NEED to work and can be provided for by the community if they’re unable or they have Something Going On)

- But then he saved her and she was like ‘I need a way to make sure I see him as often as possible’ and asking him to be her guard was just the most natural thing

- Mario declines at first, mostly because he’s worried he won’t actually be qualified but also because he doesn’t want to be given special treatment over his brother, who he says is just as good as him

- (And he is!!!!!)

- Peach is more than happy to employ them both, especially when Mario explains that he and Luigi are plumbers in their own world. All of the castle’s defenses run on pipe technology, after all! Luigi heads hands-on teams that work around Toad Town to fix security issues, and Mario is made captain of the princess’s royal guard.

- Now here I want to pause and address the boys having the Firebrand and Thunderhand powers again, because it kind of affects their work, and also how power-ups work in this world.

- (Yes, I have plans for power-ups!! Get excited!!)

- The boys never revealed to anyone outside of one another that they had these powers. They discovered and developed them late enough that they managed to keep them hidden from their parents, though they surely always suspected something was different about their sons. The boys were savvy enough from growing up in Brooklyn to know not to tell about those gifts unless they had to, for their own good, because they were just too different from anything else on Earth.

- It was different when they got to the Mushroom Kingdom, though. They saw folks whizzing through pipes, turtles that talked, flowers that made people spit ice out of their hands. Though they were still wary, it was enough for Mario to let down his guard and save the princess.

- They still plan on holding some powers close to their chest, just for the sake of surprising potential threats

- I was planning on hopefully doing some training/research scenes with the toad guards, or at least doing some more in-depth headcanons at some point, because I believe power-ups work differently for the twins than they do for other people

- Power-ups are either naturally occurring, like mushrooms or flowers, or hand-made, like lucky bells. Different kingdoms in the land export different power-ups and they’re a big part of a kingdom’s trade.

- The Mushroom Kingdom specializes in mushrooms, obviously, and shares a border with one of the kingdoms of Sarasaland that spills fire flowers into their territory.

- On the opposite side of Sarasaland (which is saying a lot, it’s a big empire) is the Ice Kingdom, which exports ice flowers.

- Lucky bells and tanuki leaves and other power-ups that provide a suit/costume change are either handmade or altered by the kingdom that exports them to provide that costume. They are rarer than other power ups for this reason. It is a kingdom of furries, you get to decide who lives there and who rules it, have fun.

- It bothered me that super mushrooms in the movie only gave Mario like 2 feet of height and then the minis made him almost microscopic so when Mario has a super mushroom he gets to be Big. No, I haven’t decided how big that is yet.

- This is just something for me personally, don’t @ me.

- Oh shit right I promised I would talk about Bowser, let’s talk about Bowser

- I want to say on a scale from like Heinz Doofenshmirtz at 0% to Thanos at 100%, my Bowser is probably at like a 39%?

- Which is to say: he is capable, he is strong, he is dastardly, and he’s motivated by wanting to expand and legitimize his territory rather than feelings for Peach; by the same token, he’s not the brightest villain, he relies a lot on brute strength, he heavily underestimates his opponents, and he’s also being manipulated by people around him.

- His people follow him out of genuine loyalty, not fear. He’s very much a king of misfit toys, but they take their righteous anger a step too far in many cases and that’s where the problems with the Koopa Kingdom lie.

- If he killed someone by accident he would be really messed up about it.

- Tbh if he killed someone on purpose he’d still be a bit messed up about it

- At first he was targeting the Mushroom Kingdom for land and power, but after a few encounters with Mario his beef became very, very personal and now he’s pretty much out to ‘destroy’ Mario—everyone assumes that means he wants to torture him, kill him, rip him to pieces, but to be honest even Bowser doesn’t know what he would actually do if he got his hands on him

- Possibly maybe there will be a bigger bad to fight someday and that’s why I don’t want to commit to Bowser fully wanting to murder this plumber in particular

- (Look maybe someday they can race gokarts together okay?)

- This is why I say, again, that Afterwards is not canon to this au, I was using a Bowser who’s a little harsher than mine for it.

I thiiiiiink that’s all I really planned to say here? I’m hoping I didn’t forget anything, but I guess I can always make another post later. If anyone has any questions, my ask box is always open. I’d always love love love to talk about my ideas or the Mario characters 🩷

I’m writing a fic right now about Peach being sick and Mario coming to take care of her (shock and awe, something not inspired by someone else’s fanart??), let’s see if I finish it or give in to the urge to post this to tumblr first. ✌️

Oh shit I did manage to finish the fic!! That’s cool, you should read it if you liked this post. :O

(I’m afraid to put links on this rn in case tumblr nixes it from showing up in tags lol, I’ll add some later 🩷)

#mareach #mario #mario x peach #princess peach #super mario brothers #super mario brothers headcanon #luigi

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mymemoirs · 10 months

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Webtoon Recommendation: "Whale Star: The Gyeongseong Mermaid"

It's really been a while since I recommended any webtoon or manga. But THIS?! This is a masterpiece to be honest. I was at awed and I'm seriously considering purchasing coins to purchased the webtoon. Although I didn't in the end, but I would love to have a physical copy of this webtoon. That's my impression on Whale Star.

I'm just so happy that I stumbled upon this webtoon by accident on the completed section. Yes, it's completed so go read it today! Cause technically you got certain amount of pass, so wouldn't hurt to use the daily pass to the max.

Whale Star: The Gyeongseong Mermaid

Historical events with a twists inspired from Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid". The plot, characters and art are so mesmerizing.

Set in the year 1926 in Joseon (present day Korea) under Japanese imperialism rule, the story follows a handmaiden named Su-a Heo. One day, she met a wounded independence fighter, Uihyeon Kang, in the shore and help nurses him back to health.

Along the way, she loses her ability to speak in a fail attempt murder because she was caught hearing things she shouldn't by another independence fighter, Haesu Song.

Since it's a story set during war and oppression, I knew that I should prepare myself for death of maybe the main characters or other major characters as well. But Na Yoonhee, the author of Whale Star, wrote this piece so beautifully. She builds up each characters back story and it felt so real and alive. It was as if we live through that character's story.

It was heart wrenching to see so many losses for those characters and you couldn't help but weep with the characters as well. Also as we get to see the character's story, we get to see them grow as a result of it.

As I get attached to each major characters, it was really hard to see some of them go (spoilers but not as well since this is set in warring times). I even need time to mourn for the loss of major characters. Thankfully, I'm reading this during the holidays

Anyway, those who doesn't like sad endings or potential sad endings might not find this webtoon appealing. I, for one, am the type to be intrigued by storytelling and once I'm interested in a storyline, I would try to see it through until the end.

Besides the historical theme and fairytale motifs, the ability to even create one that makes the reader emotional and engaged are rare. I really put my hats off to the author-nim, Na Yoonhee.

This masterpiece truly needs to have a live adaptation one day! Closing off, here are some moments shared by Su-a and Uihyeon.

-Reina

PS. Oh, how I wished I could wrote beautiful written stories as well.

#whale star: the gyeongseong mermaid #whale star #webtoon #recommendation #manga recommendation #historical #drama

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nubianamy · 1 year

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Top 10 of my fic

Thank you @beshrew-my-very-heart for tagging me in this. I love hearing you talk about your work, and our collab work is very dear to my heart.

Rules: List your "top 10" (or up to 10 if you haven't written that many) fics ranked by kudos on AO3. Are you surprised by what's most popular to your readers? Then, under a cut, provide your ranking of your personal top 10 fics (with explanations if you want!), and then tag a few fellow writers.

Top 10 AO3 fics according to kudos (out of 166 total works):

Only Held By Gravity (Teen Wolf Stanny soulmates, 939 kudos)

Fasten You to Me (Teen Wolf Sterek fantasy, 852 kudos)

Glasses, Coins, and Golden Rings (Teen Wolf Sterek historical fiction AU, 549 kudos)

We Might As Well Close Our Eyes (Glee Fuckurt teen BDSM, 447 kudos)

Until It Hits You In the Teeth (sequel to Only Held By Gravity, but with more polyamory, 380 kudos)

Those Magic Changes My Heart Arranges (Glee Puckurt teen theater series, part 1)

Searching For Words (Hawaii 5-0 McDanno one-shot, 275 kudos)

Emergence (Teen Wolf Allison/Stiles/Scott horror, 269 kudos)

Time in a Tapestry (Glee Puckurt what-if, 229 kudos)

Glitter on the Front Porch (Glee Puckurt-to-Fuckurt fluff part 1, 217 kudos)

I am not at all surprised that my Teen Wolf stories top the list, because that fandom is ridiculously loyal—but check it out, #1 is a RAREPAIR, Danny/Stiles!

I will say technically #2, a Sterek fantasy oneshot, has had more kudos because it was taken down in 2015 for including quotes of too many Beatles lyrics. The podfic also has its own following!

I am very proud of #3, set during the Civil War; that was a big stretch, but a fun one to write.

#4 is our first Glee story, and that's a collab with someone who's even more prolific than I am (and a much better writer).

#5 is the sequel to #1 but was only recently completed.

#6, another Glee story, is the first in a trilogy I'm very proud of, with lots of theater references and canon compliance for most of the story.

#7 is my first McDanno fic, but really hit a chord in the H50 fandom. I worked very hard to get Danny's character voice right, and it was satisfying to know I was able to achieve that.

#8 is another Teen Wolf rarepair, this time with a real horror backdrop, and that was also a good challenge for me, as I love horror fiction but had never written it.

#9 is a collab with one of my dearest friends and cowriters, @knittycat99. We always meant to continue writing the next part of the story, but life does intervene!

#10 is the first in a very adorable Puckurt fluff series.

Read under the cut for my recs!

10 of my fics I wish people would read:

The French Drop is based on the heist film Sneakers from 1992. It stars Robert Redford and Ben Kingsley. God, I love this movie, and I absolutely had to write this story, because they needed a happy ending, or as close to a happy ending as I could give them.

Auld Acquaintance is a collaborative D/s Puckurt written by myself and @beshrew-my-very-heart. It was a challenge to ourselves to see if we could write something short and complete, and we did! (Of course, we are now writing the much, much longer sequels.)

Dancing Through the Same Noise is a Glee Puckurt-to-Fuckurt patterned after an episode of How I Met Your Mother. It started light and funny and quickly got very serious. It has the advantage of having beautiful art (it was so beautiful that I purchased the original watercolored pen-and-ink sketch from the artist and had it shipped across the world to me).

So Tyrannous and Rough in Proof and A Trivial Comedy for Serious People are parts #2 and #3 of the These Magic Changes Puckurt series. I finished the series fairly recently, but I hope more Glee readers will go back and reread the whole thing, because I think it really hangs together very well.

Blue Rubber Band is a Puck-focused Puckurt AU one-shot based on a Regina Spektor song. It's about drug addiction and homelessnes, but is ultimately a hopeful story. There is also a podfic.

Gold Mine is a Glee Dave/Puck what-if story that is unbelievably sweet, sexy, and romantic—and monogamous and vanilla! I am really fond of it, mostly because canon totally supports this pairing and I think they would have been great together.

While We Got the Chance to Say is part of the enormous Glee Donutverse, but I think can be read as a stand-alone pretty well. It's a BDSM-flavored polyam love story focusing on Kurt and Adam Lambert (no, not Elliott Gilbert!). If you've ever wondered about the Donutverse and you would like to give it a try, this is a very glittery introduction.

Family First is a Glee Kurtofsky futurefic one-shot which I wrote during the two days of the 2020 election. It does deal with cancer and contains minor character death, but Dave's character arc centers around his friendship with Finn and the whole Hudson-Hummel family.

the soul slakes its thirst in fearless draught is a Finn/Dave/Kurt futurefic patterned after Cyrano DeBergerac. It is very romantic, with a smutty followup chapter.

Lucky Connection is a Dave/Finn story based on a Hallmark movie, so you can imagine just how sweet and romantic it is. There is zero smut, but a happy ending.

BONUS: the only fanvid I have ever made was completed a few weeks before Cory Monteith's untimely passing, so it is somewhat bittersweet, but I am still very proud of it.

I will tag @pterawaters, @knittycat99, and @flinchflower, but if you are a fanfic writer, consider yourself tagged too!

#fanfic survey #fanfic writing

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chipper-smol · 3 years

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Hollow Knight Telephone Round Two: Behind the Scenes

Prompt:  Ghost is the youngest crew member on set and is extremely hard to phase. They can get past of the scariest set pieces like Deepnest, Fog Canyon, and the White Palace with barely blinking an eye. Their reaction to the Nosk animatronic was a mere “Haha ok!”

By @deltaetalan

------------------------------- By @payasita

Towards the end of the second season, there was a noticeable wave of burnout creeping over the cast and crew.

Despite everyone's expectations, the Deepnest arc was proving one of the more difficult to stage and film. The small number of actors needed should have sped filming up, and on paper, the consistent darkness on set was a boon. There wasn't much in the budget for computer animation, but the art director's insane attention to detail combined with the margin of error allowed by a low light setting would make the final product nothing short of magic. Everyone was sure of that.

But before all of that, the low light also meant that the bulk of the Deepnest scenes had to be shot at night. Perfectly fine for Hornet, who was currently off school for the summer and would always relish the excuse to sleep in the next day without catching shit for it. But Ghost was five.

Hornet wasn't sure about the legal specifics of having such a young kid on set, but from a practical level it was slowing things down. There was always only a 50/50 chance Ghost would have agreed to go down for a nap earlier in the day to be ready, and their mother refused to let them keep filming once Ghost started getting fussy. Adept as she was at playing a cold filicidal goddess-plant-thing for the show, Hornet's stepmom was a bit on the stricter side when it came to things like bedtime in reality.

But tonight was a bit luckier. Ghost was full of energy, suddenly deciding that staying up late was the best thing in the world and that they would be up forever and ever. Hornet gave this another half hour, at most.

Also lucky was that neither Ghost's mom or her own were available to supervise tonight, so their dad had come instead to watch both kids. Predictably, he had promptly fallen asleep on one of the Hive Guardian props lying backstage, left there either by or for the increasingly lethargic crew. (The huge plush things were there because they were exactly as soft as they looked, and there was an alarmingly good chance that a fight would break out among the crew about who'd get to keep them after the series wrapped. Hornet suspected both her father and mother already had separate plans to steal one before that.)

So anyway, Hornet was technically in charge of Ghost tonight. Technically. At seventeen she wasn't exactly a legal guardian, but half-sister was definitely the next highest rung on the responsibility ladder. She wasn't a kid, and she was even getting her own spinoff, thank you very much.

(Eventually. She'd already filmed the pilot, but the producers were tossing around words like "focus testing" and "Production Hell". It might be... a while before it aired.)

And at any rate, Ghost was in a great mood. So the directors and camera crew were handling them well enough, and Hornet was free to demolish the catering table and fiddle around on her phone for a while. It almost felt like an honest-to-goodness break.

Zote wandered in early, far before he had to be on set, as usual. He'd long since added "punctuality" to the running joke of his ever-expanding precept list. (Hornet still couldn't believe he'd gotten away with ad-libbing all that into the show. It was downright bizarre how much the directors loved his character.)

"'Evening, miss. Doing some summer reading on that thing, I hope?" He gestured with his chin before pulling up a step stool, and going for the paper cups by the coffee pot. Hornet just tilted her phone toward him for a second to show it off before returning her attention to it.

"Nah. Cookie Run."

He hummed as if in understanding, and poured himself a cup of the cheap instant stuff always available for the crew. "I keep saying-- all those big companies keep putting all these gizmos and wazoos into your phones, there's not gonna be enough room for the damn phone. Look'ere, had the same Blackberry since aught-five, calls my kids, sends text-messages to my grandkids, still works like a charm."

"Okay."

"Seriously! Only thing I don't get though-- look. These little black boxes come out sometimes--I dunno what they are-- takes up the whole screen when my granddaughter sends me a text-message-- and it's only her! What's that about, do you think?"

Hornet tuned him out as he showed off the tiny greenish-grey screen showcasing a short message from a "Milly".

"...I think those are supposed to be emojis. Like... the... smiley faces," she explained carefully, shuffling a bit on her feet. Zote paused and frowned down at the screen.

"... Ohhh- oh, yeah, I know those. Aw, now that's nice. She's sweet." At least the guy was miles nicer than his character. Still kind of a blowhard, but less... that.

Still, Hornet was about to make an excuse to go sit somewhere else when the director called for quiet on the set. There was some ruckus up in the rafters that was too shadowed to make out, save for a glowing orange ball shifting around between hands. Ghost hurried onto their mark, and the camera guy counted down to action.

Unseen machines well disguised behind painted stalagmites and fibrous web cocoons pumped out a low, steady fog as little Ghost-- or rather, "The Knight"-- toddled forward to the center. They stopped in front of an empty space where they'd stand again later, and clever editing would give the illusion of two of them. And then more movie magic would contort one of them into the image of the complicated monster puppet designed for the fight scene in a display that had already been storyboarded, to show everyone exactly how grotesque it'd be. There was some irony in how Ghost wasn't allowed to watch certain episodes of the show they starred in. Zote worried over his coffee, watching the child. "Hope the kid doesn't get spooked by the puppet. They're doing so well," he whispered over. Hornet considered.

Ghost was not easily frightened, especially not by the animatronics and props set in front of them. Much of the reason they were cast was their adoration of movie monsters and beasts. They genuinely enjoyed acting, and delighted in watching themself and their "friends" on screen after the fact, happily pointing and shouting when they saw "Mama" and "Sissy" and "Carl" (Quirrel) on TV with them.

But on the other hand, they also weren't super predictable about what they disliked and why, even when they were walked through exactly what would happen and when beforehand. They hadn't batted an eye at the saw-toothed mawlek when placed in front of it, but had outright sobbed upon seeing Monomon looking huge in her tank with the false tendrils waving about in suspension with her. No one could figure out whether they thought that Monomon had been turned into a giant squid, or that the squid had eaten her.

"... It'll be fine," Hornet whispered back, hoping that was true. There was a brief cut, a shift in camera, and the "Nosk" puppet was dropped from the ceiling in front of Ghost. All was silent again, and the director called action.

The puppet moved on thin wires invisible in the light, rearing up on spidery limbs and tossing back its head. Ghost already had their weapon out as instructed. Their cue had been to run away, but instead, they pointed the nail up at the Nosk, bouncing on their heels.

"Bontosaurus!" they shouted gleefully.

"Cut," the director called out, his voice a little flat. Ghost hurried forward to the puppet and started fiddling with it, patting its plastic legs and jumping up to touch the now limp neck.

Zote barked out in boisterous laughter, and Hornet cracked a grin beside him.

"...Yeah, they're in their dinosaur phase right now," she explained, not even a little apologetic. "Shit, me too! Y'know, in a different way." Zote shot back, earning a snort. Ghost continued playing with the puppet, heedless of the stagehands' bewildered pleas for them to be gentle with it. Eventually the puppeteers in the rafters started wiggling it around a little, much to the child's utter excitement.

Zote went on, "That's almost a shame. Ari really put the elbow grease into try'na make that one terrifying."

Hornet watched the scene, admittedly a little fond. "I'm sure it will be. ...To the right audience." She supposed it did look a little like a museum fossil display, from an angle. Though, there was probably less Mod Podge involved in their assembly.

All the ruckus was finally enough to wake her father, who startled for a moment before pushing off of the big stuffed bee and making his way to the child.

"Hey-- noooo, no," he picked up the still enthused Ghost, who immediately tried to use the new slight altitude increase to reach for the Nosk's dangling plastic head. The puppeteers brought it down obligingly, letting them pat it like a horse. Behind them, the director called for a quick five, and wandered over to have what was probably his sixth cheap coffee for the night.

"Thanks, Will, sorry," the exhausted stage-dad offered a sheepish smile, then glanced around for Hornet.

"Honey, come here, I gotta check in with your stepmom," he called her over once he spotted her, struggling a bit with his squirming child. Hornet just gave him a look.

"No-- dad, get off the set," she waved him over to her instead. The camera crew seemed to agree, practically jeering their show's most controversial secondary villain off stage. He laughed and complied, only slightly abashed.

"Ah-- right, right."

Ghost seemed to settle somewhat in his arms once brought over, starting off on a little meandering tirade about the "dinosaur" behind them and pointing it out to Hornet. She humored it for half a second before appeasing them with a cookie, then fixed her father with her best judging stare as she handed over her phone.

"You have to stop forgetting your phone all the time." At least this time it wasn't his employee lanyard. They all learned their lesson after that chilly afternoon stuck outside.

"Why? Yours works fine," he poked through it quickly with one free hand, bouncing Ghost a bit in the other.

"I'm gonna stop letting you use it," she warned. Ghost, for their part, didn't seem to think pulling the mask up was worth the effort, and settled for jamming their snack in from the bottom of it and getting crumbs all over their costume.

Hornet made no move to stop them, and dad was too busy to notice.

"Young lady, that's the kind of talk that's gonna get you," he looked up and pointed at her with her own phone, "Thrown right in the baby pit."

Hornet swiped it out of his hand with a long-suffering groan. A few feet away, Zote was laughing again through a mouthful of baguette sandwich.

------------------------------- By @clover-uwu

------------------------------- By @audubonii-swift

“What’s an animatronic?” Grimmchild asked while tilting her head, ghost didn’t know either and copied the motion, making the set designer sigh. “You were supposed to have been told already-! Huff, it’s basically a machine that can move, and it’s going to chase you as you do the routine we’ve been practicing.” The children glanced at each other, and grinned. “Awesome!” They cheered, they were super excited, they hadn’t seen the monster they were meant to fight since they snuck a look at the concept art.

Ghost stared up at Nosk in awe. Usually he was fighting other actors, with occasionally very complex costumes (they still didn’t fully believe the moss charger was just a costume), so seeing the animatronic that was incredibly exciting. They ran around it, inspecting the various technologies in it. It’s stomach was semi-transparent orange glass filled with LEDs, it’s legs were hydraulic, though the outside of them looked like black bark, and it’s head looked kinda like their costume mask but upside down.

After a moment of hesitation, they finally said what was on their mind. “It looks like one of those long necked dinosaurs. What are they called? A… Brontosaurus!” Grimmchild snickered and nodded, climbing onto its back “I wonder what I’d be like to ride it.” He grabbed onto its horns like reains, Ghost giggled, climbing on behind her and looking at the hidden slot on its back, the perfect size for their toy nail. “It looks kinda stupid, doesn’t it?” Grimmchild burst out laughing, and nodded. “Is this thing even meant to be scary, I mean, some of the others were kinda silly looking too.” Ghost nodded, there were quite a few. “Yeah, but they said this bit was meant to be suuuper creepy.” Grimmchild snorted. “Good luck with that.”

“Hey, you two, get down. We need to set up for recording.” They complied, and the engineers began moving the animatronic to the main set. Grimm came over and smiled at them. “Come on, time to get in costume!” He led them both off to the Changing room, where they quickly changed before they both walked to the edge of the set. Just off camera.

They saw the director yelling at Quirrell and dad, while gesturing wildly at a coffee cup, the two clearly holding in laughter. Ghost would have to ask him what they did after recording. A prop-maker walked along the back wall of the room, rushing to return the relic to its place on Lemm’s shelf, which makes six times now for that one. And they had been so careful with it before giving it to him. Nosk wasn’t there, but a doll identical to them was, engineers fusing with the ground around it. They felt a shiver run down their spine.

“Ready?” They turned to see Hornet standing next to them, they nodded, seeing the engineers moving off set. “You sure, this is meant to look scary so it probably will be.” Grimmchild rolled her eyes. “Please, that thing isn’t scary.” Hornet nodded, and walked back over to stand with the others behind the camera, and after a moment of talking the direction spoke. “Nosk fight, take one. And, action!” With the signal given, Ghost began walking forward, Grimmchild flying close behind, stepping up the cliff and staring at their doppelgänger confusedly, it felt weird to look at. Who ever made it did a good job but it was seriously deep in the uncanny valley. Grimmchild tilted her head too, fluttering about it. They gingerly stepped where they were told was the trigger to start Nosk moving.

The doll snapped it’s head to the side and screeched, causing Ghost to jump back and Grimmchild to flutter away. The animatronic popped out of the ground and began to unfold. It looked s-so huge from here! It didn’t look like that before! Did it? They tried their best to follow the choreography as planned, but it so nerve wracking and they couldn’t help but flinch away and stumble from the wind. T-they lost their footing-! O-oh god-! They slipped down the ledge and landed in the small corner near it, the animatronic storming along above them. T-they were meant to doge to the side- not down. So for a short while they hid, shaking as they felt it run and jump above their head. Grimmchild continued to panic as she flew above.

They let out a shaky breath, steeling themselves to move. Swinging their nail like they were taking a pot-shot in hopes of making the scene still look ok, so that they never have to do that again, before jumping out of the hiding place to finish the scene as quickly as possible. They slashed twice, before leaping onto its head and stabbing their nail into a slot on its back. It stood on its back legs and they nearly slipped off. It screeched again before collapsing, Ghost stepped off its back, panting, they both walked out of camera view.

“T-that was- d-different than expected.” Grimmchild put a hand on the wall, shaking slightly and looking close to tears. Ghost nodded. “Yeah, I’m glad I slipped down there instead of somewhere it would step…” the two started walking to the other room where Grimm and Hollow would be waiting. The second they were through the door Grimm was on Grimmchild. “What happened sweetheart? Why are you crying?” He spoke with worry as he gently led them to the couch.

“It’s fine dad, uh, the animatronic is just a bit scarier when it’s moving.” Grimmchild admitted, rubbing the back of her neck slightly. But Grimm was already in full concerned-parent mode, wrapping them up in a blanket and putting on tea. “Would a cupcake help?” They both immediately turned to hollow, who was suddenly holding a tray of cute cupcakes with grey-blue frosting and little orange ball-shaped candies. “We’re halfway through the recording, so I thought it’d be fun to celebrate.” They sheepishly explained after a moment of confused silence. The children each took one, thanking Hollow quietly. The two were back to their happy laughing selves by the time Hollow went to offer cupcakes to the rest of the cast

------------------------------- By @quikyu

------------------------------- By @saturno-sol

“Ok Ghost, this is how the scene’s gonna go.” The director called out, “After you equip the Grimmchild charm and enter the next room you’re going to stop once you see the Nosk double. Then we’re going to do a few close up shots to build up the mystery and suspense we had already established with the other scenes through Deepnest.”

Ghost nodded from their seat at the bench, fingers running over the grooves of the charm in their hands. Glancing to the side of where the main camera and director sat, they could see Grimmchild flitting around in circles excitedly, causing a few set workers to duck out of the way of his swooping. They snickered as they watched their friend almost knock over a boom mic before finally settling down to perch on a chair.

The director shifted in their seat, “Now when we’re done with the close ups that’s when the crew will get set up for the maze and after that, we bring out the Nosk.”

The young actor hesitated, the Nosk was...well it was unsettling to say the least. The concept of a shapeshifting bug being a boss sounded so cool when they read through the script, but then they saw the animatronic skeleton that would soon become the Nosk. It may have been due to the fact that it was just the bare wire frame, or that it’s head was Ghost’s body but upside down, but Ghost definitely disliked the robot immensely.

This was one of those filming days where Ghost wanted the day to end as soon as possible and move onto the next scene, even if the next thing planned for filming was the Abyss. But there was nothing else to do other than power through it and remember their cues. Who knows, if they did the fight perfectly, maybe they’d be able to film it all in one take!

With that idea fueling their motivation, Ghost waved their hand at the film crew. “I’m ready!” They chirped to the director before adjusting their costume so that their cape hid their hands from view.

The director gave them a thumbs up before announcing out cues to the rest of the crew, a swirl of organized chaos behind them stirred as cameras got into position, microphones were placed, and the last touches to the set were made. Grimmchild flew over to where Ghost sat at the bench and hid behind it, ready for the plume of smoke that would appear remotely from a fog machine cleverly jammed behind the bench. The two actors were now ready to film.

“Filming in 5!” The director counted down and Ghost took a deep breath, “4! 3! 2! Action!”

Instantly Ghost changed from Ghost the Actor to Ghost the Character as they lifted their head to gaze blankly at the camera, silently pinning the scarlet charm to their cloak and hopping off the bench. They heard the quiet hiss that marked the smoke machine and in a twist of wings Grimmchild appeared, mewing softly as he took his place beside Ghost’s horns. Without looking up at the flying bug, Ghost turned towards the hotspring and started trotting towards the passageway that would take them to Nosk’s lair, their feet splashing into the warm waters of the spring before continuing onwards.

Passing the entranceway the actor came across a “husk enemy'', the actor playing the role shuffling towards them with a raspy hiss. Just as they rehearsed and filmed a thousand times before Ghost unhilted their foam covered Nail and began their attack. They swung once at the husk’s front before leaping over it and smacking the husk three times on the back, killing it. They didn’t stop to make sure it was dead, rather they continued until they stopped at the hissing pit of spiky bugs.

Just as planned, the corpse of the dead bug twitched before bursting in a spitting snarl, the legs of the corpse crawler flailing towards the silent knight. Grimmchild squeaked out an alarm before readying a fireball.

Which, of course, did not materialize due to the fact that neither Grimmchild nor his father were capable of fire magic. All of their flames were added in during editing with the use of CGI, which meant that every scene had to be lined up perfectly with each actor to ensure that nothing looked delayed or choppy.

As soon as Grimmchild let his “fireball” loose with a nyah! The corpse crawler looked as if it were knocked back by the flame, hissing out a pained screech before Ghost finished them off with another swing of their Nail.

Now that that part of the scene was over, Ghost hopped up onto the platform. They almost continued jumping to the next before they paused, remembering their cues. Ahead of them was another them, the Ghost puppet, manned by someone beneath the flooring. It stared at them blankly, and Ghost copied it as they stood still for the dynamic shots that were currently being filmed around them.

Flying behind Ghost, Grimmchild chittered and cocked his head at the doppelganger in confusion. But as soon as the director signalled that the shots were over he alighted on Ghost’s head, causing the actor to stumble as his full weight rammed into them.

“Hey!” Ghost yelped, “Stop trying to knock me over! You’re like, as big as my head! One day I’m gonna fall down when you hit me.”

Grimmchild just giggled at Ghost’s complaints, “But I like sitting on your head! It’s fun!” He wriggled his wings until he was satisfied with how he was sitting, swiveling his head around to watch as the crew moved to set up the Nosk maze.

The crew moved in a precise and frenzied manner, everyone was eager to move on with filming the episode, so setting up for the maze went on faster than it did with any other set they had shot before. Ghost deftly moved out of the way once the crew got towards where they were, being mindful of the still cackling toddler on their head. As they waited for the new set to be completed the young actor decided to do a bit of an inventory check, just to make sure that everything was perfect for the Nosk fight.

Cloak? In pristine condition (well as pristine a cloak that was meant to look weathered and tattered could be.) Nail? No new nicks on the faux metal. Charms? Securely pinned onto their cloak. Traveling Companion and Fellow Actor? Still annoying, but fun to hang around with.

It seemed like everything was in its proper place, which meant that there was a high chance for the filming to go as smooth as possible without any wardrobe malfunctions or prop fiascos. Which also meant that Ghost could be done with the Nosk without interruptions, leading to a nice evening off and maybe a few pieces of candy from the snack table. They could even bribe Grimmchild into not careening towards their head every time he wanted to land with a few packages of candy, as long as they sneaked the sweets over to him without his dad knowing.

Speaking of Grimmchild’s dad, Grimm took the set change as an opportunity to walk up to the two little actors with a smile on his face. “And how are you two cool kids doing on your big scenes! You both looked fierce taking on that husk, what spectacular performances!”

Grimmchild beamed while Ghost gave Grimm a little wave with their Nail. “Dad! Dad! Didya see how I helped beat up that guy!” He squealed as he leaned from side to side on Ghost’s head, causing them to teeter-totter to keep balance. “An Ghost was super cool too! The husk guy was like “rahh!” but Ghost was like “swoosh” with their Nail and bam! Bad Guy died twice!”

A chuckle arose from the older actor as he nodded along to his son’s recounting of the shot. “I did get to see all that! You were very brave.” Grimm rummaged through the tote bag he had slung over his shoulder, “Would you two like a snack before you film the rest of the episode?” At the mention of food Grimmchild perked up and Ghost nodded.

He brought out a plastic bag filled with a variety of baby carrots, cut celery sticks, and other healthy snacks stuffed inside. Immediately both children balked, veggies were the worst! Grimmchild stuck his tongue out, face contorted in a disgusted grimace, “Yuck! I don’t wanna have a carrot for a snack, I thought you had cool stuff like chips!”

“I don’t think I’m hungry anymore Mr. Grimm.” Ghost declined, intent on not touching a single stalk of celery if they didn’t have to. Grimm huffed before stuffing the snack bag back into his tote.

He shook his head, “My little one, you know I always pack healthy snacks for you, when have I ever brought anything different? But alright then, I guess snack time will have to wait a bit longer for you both.” Grimmchild groaned, mumbling about how he wanted a bag of chips as Ghost tried swatting him off of their head, noting that the maze was almost done.

The director called out to get ready for filming in 5 minutes and that was Grimm’s cue to get off the set. “I know you two will do great, remember to have fun!” He waved to them as he went to go and take a seat, the young actors waving back in farewell.

“You ready?” Ghost asked their friend as he flew in a loop before hovering next to them. Grimmchild nodded as a grin stretched across his small face.

“Let’s go beat up that robot!” he crowed as Ghost cheered, the two bounding over to the entrance of the maze.

Even though Ghost and Grimmchild had rehearsed the maze and subsequent boss fight down to a t, the maze was still just a tad intimidating. The set had to be almost completely quiet with the only sounds being Ghost’s footfalls, Grimmchild’s chitters, and the other barely there ambient sound effects that would be added in during editing. It also had to be relatively dark, just to add the slowly mounting terror that the audience would feel as Ghost followed their doppelganger.

The battery powered lumafly lantern glowed brightly through the artificial gloom as the two actors made their way through the scene. In front of them was the entranceway that would lead to the boss room, the puppet quietly being replaced with the animatronic off camera.

The little knight took a deep breath before marching through the tunnel, focusing really hard on not flinching with every barrier that would slam down only a few paces away from their feet each time they walked underneath them.

Finally the duo reached the threshold of the boss room, taking a moment to pause just shy of entering the room proper while the camera panned out. This was also where Ghost ran through the choreography of the fight in their head. The animatronic moved four different ways, a rush across the entire stage, jumps on premarked spots that Ghost had to avoid at all cost, the one move where it shot out a spray of orange dyed sludge, and the last move where it would jump up onto the scaffolding and rain sludge down onto the two before coming back down.

Ghost had to hit Nosk at least 20 times before the battle would be considered over and its death animation would make it shut down. Depending on how many fireballs hit the Nosk the damage count could be lower as well, Ghost just had to eyeball it while still looking like the cool knight their character was.

They walked forwards to where they stood straight across from the Nosk, hopping up onto the platform and bracing themself for the fight to begin. As soon as they stepped close enough a scream tore out of the animatronic, it’s head snapping as the long neck and body emerged. Ghost unsheathed their nail as Grimmchild readied a fireball, it was time to fight.

The Nosk charged towards the two as Grimmchild unleashed a fireball, Ghost leaping up and using their nail to pogo off of its back. It ran all the way to the closed off entrance before turning around with a snarl and jumping, the hydraulic pistons in its limbs hissing with each stomp. In the moments it stopped stomping, Ghost dashed forward to slash at its legs before darting back as it reared up and sprayed colored sludge across the stage.

Don’t get hit, don’t get hit, Ghost reminded themself as one glob of orange sludge plopped into the floor merely inches away from their feet, Grimmchild swerving past another volley to spit out a flame. Ghost anticipated the Nosk to start charging again, their nail at the ready to pogo off of the animatronic but what happened next surprised not just them, but the entire crew.

The Nosk whirred, neck snapping to the side before jumping towards them with a garbled and robotic scream. Suddenly Ghost felt a white hot pain erupt along their arm while at the same time they were yanked back, Grimmchild grabbing their cloak in between his teeth. He had saved them from being impaled on one of the robot’s spindly legs. They bit down on their tongue as the urge to yelp out in pain mounted, but no the scene had to keep going, it was just a cut on their arm they would be fine!

The Nosk was never supposed to jump after the sludge rain and above all it wasn’t supposed to land outside of its preprogrammed jump spots. Something was wrong, something was very wrong and Ghost was now terrified of the robot. Underneath their costume they pressed their injured arm close to their middle, hoping to stave off the bleeding before switching their nail to their other hand.

Their friend opened his mouth to ask if they were ok before Ghost shot him a look and a minute shake of their head, the scene wasn’t fully lost yet, they could keep going. Grimmchild shot them a concerned look back, not fully convinced Ghost was ok as he flew forward to protect them. Nothing had been spoken between the two young actors but their goals were the same, they didn’t just have to hit it enough times, they had to shut the animatronic down completely, no matter the cost.

Grimmchild instead of breathing in a fake fireball decided to swoop down and ram into Nosk's side, intent on knocking it over. Ghost could hear the worried murmurs of the crew as they ran up to drive their nail as hard as they could into its head, someone stage whispering in a panic about how they couldn’t remotely turn the robot off.

The Nosk roared, pistons almost screeching as it launched itself into the scaffolding and began the rainfall of infection. Ghost ran and hopped up onto the raised platform, evading the not-deadly-but-still-had-to-be-avoided sludge before sliding off of it and pressing into the blindspot that they knew the Nosk couldn’t run over.

Sure enough, as it touched down to the ground, hard enough for Ghost to feel the set tremor underneath its weight, and galloped towards their direction, it completely missed Ghost in the blindspot. That gave them the opportunity to rack through their brain for where exactly the kill switch was on the robot. From what they could remember from the brief rundown of how it worked, the switch was hidden in one of the back spines. They needed to bend each spine until they cracked to find the right one and once the switch was exposed they or Grimmchild had to flip the switch for it to all be finally over.

Easier thought than done, Ghost leaped upwards as the animatronic rushed at them, grabbing onto the first spine and tugging with all their might, feeling the wire frame bend until it snapped. It wasn’t the spine that held the kill switch but it at least was one out of three down, the young actor rolled onto the ground before dodging a limb as the Nosk began stomping around.

Grimmchild circled around Ghost, nodding at them before barreling into the second spine with a cry, biting down and snapping the spine by using his weight to bend it. Just as some of the black cloth was ripped off the spine a switch emerged and Ghost perked up, that was the kill switch!

They brandished their nail, eager to put this whole animatronic malfunction problem behind them. Just as the Nosk turned to them with a mechanical snarl they jumped onto its head, using it as leverage to land on it’s back. They raised their weapon high into the air before slamming it down against the switch, the animatronic seizing as the gears and pistons instantaneously jammed.

Immediately Ghost leapt off its back, Grimmchild hovering around them protectively as they both watched the Nosk twitch and shudder, the rest of the sludge mixed with hydraulic fluid spurting out before it fell off the stage, leaving the cracked shell of its head behind. Neither dared to move, waiting to see if the kill switch had actually worked before the lights of the studio turned on and some of the crew ran onto the stage. The two actors were swarmed by crew members asking if they were alright, what had happened, any injuries either of them sustained, a hundred questions that all blurred together and made Ghost’s head hurt.

From the din that surrounded them, Ghost could hear another voice rise higher than the rest, telling others to move and get out of the way before Grimmchild’s father pushed into the circle.

“Are you two ok?” Grimm exclaimed, kneeling to get a better look at the two little actors. “I swear I leave for five minutes to take a call and then all of a sudden I hear that the Nosk malfunctioned and nobody except for you two stopped it.” He trailed off, muttering about how he was definitely going to have a chat with the producers and the safety advisors about this.

Ghost hunched forwards, bringing their injured arm into view as tears started to prick at their eyes. Grimmchild glanced at the still bleeding cut on Ghost’s arm and with a deep breath the child began, “I think Ghost needs to go to the nurse.” Grimm nodded before yelling at the members of the crew that had crowded around the two to alert the onsite medic and to give them some space.

“Dad?” Grimmchild piped up as Grimm whipped his head back around to face him.

“What is it, little one?” He asked in a soft voice, the child shuffling his wings before blurting out,

“I still want those chips.”

Grimm blinked at the bug before shaking his head, “Ok ok, after we get you both checked up I’ll get the biggest bag of chips for you two to share,” He reached his hand out for Ghost to grasp before leading the two off the set towards the cricket nurse waiting near the director’s chair. “But right now I am personally calling off filming, I think that’s enough action for today.”

------------------------------- By @artisticdragons

------------------------------- By @bluwails

The floor was sopping wet as the staff and crew stood behind yellow ribbon as firefighter-fly bugs put out the fire that blazed only moments before.

The hiss of fire extinguishers, a welcome and unsettling sound, blew out the remnants of the fire clinging to the animatronic monster with their face. The windows and doors to the set were opened to release the smell of burnt plastic and foam, as the sound of firetrucks and ambulances blared not far behind them.

They were lucky. Not much had burned in the incident, but it was enough to have it disassembled. But, with enough tenacity, and sleepless nights for the prop team, the NOSK would be functional again. And they would have to face it again... Ghost trembled. They would have to face it again after all this. Only Moments ago they were in that room with it as it danced furiously, ablaze, and programmed to attack them. Its empty eyes zeroed in on their body as they flailed, tangled in support wires.

They swallowed dryly again, the taste of it still behind their mandibles as the adults about them discussed what could have caused the electrical fire. But they knew. It was their fault.

“Are you feeling alright, little Ghost?” Grimm questioned softly, easing into the seat next to them. Their voice careful and sympathetic as they sat close to their younger co-star.

After getting checked by a medic, he saw them sequester themselves away from the rest. He asked if they wanted to change into something more comfortable and less...burned. But they shook their head, mask rattling about their head, refusing to remove it, saying their character was brave, so they must be as well.

Grimm leaned to view their masked face, sighing heavily, rummaging through their bag and easing a small juice box into their hands. Ghost nodded in silent thanks, drinking from the cool welcomed box as an officer approached. “Hello, I am officer June. I'm here to take statements, and they say you were closest in proximity.”

The jewel bug smiled, showing their badge,“ I understand today was really scary, huh?”

Ghost nodded quietly, rubbing their hands together.

Humming sadly the officer nodded kneeling close to them,“I am gonna have to ask you a couple of questions about it, okay?” she whispered calmly, Her voice low and soothing as they rubbed small circles into their back, “I’m gonna need to know everything that happened to the best of your ability, okay buddy?”

Ghost nodded, squeezing their eyes shut as they trembled slightly, the memory clinging to them like the scent of their singed fabric wafting glumly in the air.

They were squeezing in an extra scene for the Deepnest arc.

A dark place full of many spike and deadly spiders, so they were meant to be jumping and flipping a lot. They were confident before. They had practiced nonstop in and out of the wire harness to assure they were perfect during recording, for it all to coalesce into a fight with a monster the directors called a NOSK.

They were meant to fight this big monster that stole faces of loved ones to use against the hero, but they had none, so it was their face.

The fight begun like practiced, with them dodging and striking it like practiced, and it returning their advances with glops of launched jelly, until the big finale approached. The supporting wire carried them, as they leapt, brought them slightly higher than rehearsed. Following through regardless, they swung their prop nail, feeling it touch the wires above with each leap and flip. They finally zeroed in on the bit of the spinal column designed to shut it down when struck, aiming again they rose their nail only to feel it snag a collection of wires above the head, pulling them taut.

Before they could release the nail, it severed several wires, causing a burst of sparks to rain down onto their animatronic foe. Sparks, landing like dazzling bits of glitter, showered the both of them only for one to latch onto a bit of foam or paint, igniting the beast into flames with them above it.

It writhed and screamed, still playing its part, attacking and climbing the walls after their swaying body. But as it continued its false assault, it had become more wild as the fire atop its back began to melt and severe more wires. It struck itself and close to them. It’s body twisting in acted pain as bursts of flames and sparks erupted from its body.

It wasn't until the harness was snipped, and a staff member swept them away, did they see it finally buckle in on itself collapsing, writhing, its voice slowly dying with the room slowly getting swallowed in smoke and sprinkler water.

They sighed again, clutching the juice box, unable to meet the officer’s eyes. Guilt holding them.

“ It's my fault, officer June. I broke it.” they choked quietly, rubbing their eyes. June hummed sympathetically, patting their back again.

“Don't feel bad. It was only an accident. No one would expect this to have happened, and no one blames you for it. You were very brave.”

Ghost sniffed and nodded. Her words were kind, but the mistake still made them feel crumby.

------------------------------- By @mipexch

#telephoneknight #hollowknight #hollow knight #ghost #grimmchild #hornet #pale king #zote #troupe master grimm #nosk

189 notes · View notes

meruz · 3 years

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once again i am answering asks in a big compilation post. included is... gotham, patrick stump, tips about drawing backgrounds, tips about drawing in general, links to my faq, and infinity train

like.... the tv series? No... I’ve drawn dc comics fanart before, though. But it’s been years since I’ve been really into it. I like jumped ship like 10 years ago when the New 52 happened LOL.

AFJHDSLKGH I’m sorry I (probably) won’t do it again??

Actually full disclosure I have a truly cringe amount of p stump drawings/photo studies in my sketchbook right now LOL. He’s just fun to draw... hats, glasses, guitar, a good shape... but I don’t think I’ll rly post those until I can hide them in another big sketchbook pdf.. probably Jan 2022. Stay tuned........ (ominous)

(ominous preview)

These are all sort of related to backgrounds/painting so I grouped them together even though they’re pretty much entirely separate questions.... ANYWAYS

a) How is it working as a BG artist? Is it hard? What show are you drawing for?

I think you’re the first person to ever ask me about my job! Being a background artist is great. It’s definitely labor intensive but I think that could describe pretty much any art job (If something were rote or easy to automate, you wouldn’t hire an artist to do it) and I hesitate to say whether its harder or easier than any other role in the animation pipeline. Plus, so much of what truly makes a job difficult varies from one production to the next, schedule, working environment, co-workers etc. But I will say that I think while BGs are generally a lot of work on the upfront, I think they’re subject to less scrutiny/revisions than something like character/props/effects design and you don’t have to pitch them to a room like boards. So I guess it’s good if you don’t like to talk to people? LOL

A lot of my previous projects + the show I’ve worked on the longest aren’t public yet so I can’t talk about em (but I assure you if/when the news does break I won’t shut up about it). But I’m currently working on Archer Season 12 LOL. I’m like 90% sure I’m allowed to say that.

b) ~~~THANK YOU!! ~~~

c) What exactly do you like to draw most [in a background]?

@kaitomiury Lots of stuff! I really like to draw clutter! Because it’s a great opportunity for environmental storytelling and also you can be kind of messy with it because the sheer mass will supersede any details LOL.

I like to draw clouds... I like to draw grass but not trees lol,,, I like to draw anything that sells perspective really easily like tiled floors and ceilings, shelves, lamp posts on a street etc.

d) Do you have any tips on how to paint (observational)?

god there’s so much to say. painting is really a whole ass discipline like someone can paint their whole life and still discover new things about it. I guess if you’re really just starting out my best advice is that habit is more important than product. especially with traditional plein air painting, I find that the procedure of going outside and setting up your paints is almost harder than the actual painting. There’s a lot of artists who say “I want to do plein air sometime!!” and then never actually get around to doing it. A lot of people just end up working from google streetview or photos on their computer.

But going outside to paint is a really good challenge because it forces you to make and commit to lighting and composition decisions really quickly. And to work through your mistakes instead of against them via undo button.

My last tip is to check out James Gurney’s youtube channel because hes probably the best and most consistent resource on observational painting out there rn. There’s lots other artists doing the same thing (off the top of my head I know a lot of the Warrior Painters group has people regularly posting plein air stuff and lightbox expo had a Jesse Schmidt lecture abt it last year) but Gurney’s probably the most prolific poster and one of the best at explaining the more technical stuff - his books are great too.

e) Do you have tips for drawing cleanly on heavypaint?

@marigoldfool UMM LOL I LIKE ONLY USE THE FILL TOOL so maybe use the fill tool? Fill and rectangle are good for edge control as opposed to the rest of the heavy paint tools which can get sort of muddles. And also I use a stylus so maybe if you’re using your finger, find a stylus that works with your device instead. That’s all I’ve got, frankly I don’t think my drawings are particularly clean lol.

f) Tips on improving backgrounds/scenes making them more dynamic practicing etc?

Ive given some tips about backgrounds/scenes before so I’m not gonna re-tread those but here’s another thing that might be helpful...

I think a good way to approach backgrounds is to think of the specific story or even mood you want to convey with the background first. Thinking “I just need to put something behind this character” is going to lead you to drawing like... a green screen tourist photo backdrop. But if you think “I need this bg to make the characters feel small” or “I need this bg to make the world feel colorful” then it gives you requirements and cues to work off of.

If I know a character needs to feel overwhelmed and small, then I know I need to create environment elements that will cage them in and corner them. If a character needs to feel triumphant/on top of the world then I know I need to let the environment open up around them. etc. If I know my focal point/ where I want to draw attention, I can build the background around that.

Also, backgrounds like figure compositions will have focal points of their own and you can draw attention to it/ the relationship the characters have with the bg element via scale or directionality or color, any number of cues. I think of it almost as a second/third character in a scene.

Not every composition is gonna have something so obvious like this but it helps me to think about these because then the characters feel connected and integrated with the environment.

Some more general art questions

a) Do you have any process/tips to start drawing character/bodies/heads?

I tried to kind of draw something to answer this but honestly this is difficult for me to answer because I don’t think I’m that great at drawing characters LOL. Ok, I think I have two tips.

1) flip your canvas often. A lot about what makes human bodies look correct and believable is symmetry and balance. Even if someone has asymmetrical features, the body will often pull and push in a way to counterbalance it. we often have inherent biases to one side or another like dominant hands dominant eyes etc. you know how right-handed artists will often favor drawing characters facing 45 degrees facing (the artist’s) left? that’s part of it. so viewing your drawing flipped even just to evaluate it helps compensate for that bias and makes you more aware of balance.

2) draw the whole figure often. I feel like a lot of beginner artists (myself included for a long time) defer to just drawing headshots or busts because it’s easier, you dont have to think about posing limbs etc. But drawing a full body allows you to better gauge proportion, perspective, body language, everything that makes a character look believable and grounded.

Like if you (me) have that issue where you draw the head too big and then have to resize it to fit the proportions of the rest of the body, it’s probably because you (I) drew the head first and are treating the body as an afterthought/attachment. Sketching out the whole figure first or even just quick drawing guides for it will help you think of it more holistically. I learned this figure drawing in charcoal at art school LOL.

oh. third mini tip - try to draw people from life often! its the best study. if you can get into a figure drawing/nude drawing class EVEN BETTER and if you have a local college/art space/museum that hosts those for free TREASURE IT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT, that’s a huge boon that a lot of artists (me again) wish they had. though if youre not so lucky and youre sitting in a park trying to creeper draw people and they keep moving.. don’t let that stop you! that’s good practice because it’s forcing you to work fast to get the important stuff down LOL. its a challenge!

b) I’ve been pretty out of energy and have had no inspiration to draw but I have the desire to. Any advice?

Dude, take a walk or something.... Or a nap? Low energy is going to effect everything else so you gotta hit that problem at its source.

If you’re looking for inspiration though, I’d recommend stuff like watching a movie, reading a book, playing video games etc. Fill up your idea bank with content and then give yourself time/space to gestate it into new concepts. Sometimes looking at other art works but sometimes it can work against you because it’s too close.

Also something that helps me is remembering that art doesn’t always have to be groundbreaking... like it’s okay to make something shitty and stupid that you don’t post online and only show to your friend. That’s all part of the process imo. If you want to hit a home run you gotta warm up first, right? Sports.

I should probably compile everytime i give tips on stuff like this but that’s getting dangerously close to being a social media artist who makes stupid boiled down art tutorials for clout which is the last thing i want to be... the thing I want to stress is that art is a whole visual language and there are widely agreed upon rules and customs but they exist in large part to be broken. Like there's an infinite number of ways to reach an infinite number of solutions and that’s actually what makes it really cool and personal for both the artist and the viewer. So when you make work you like or you find someone else’s work you like, take a step back and ask yourself what about it speaks for you, what about it works for you, what makes it effective, how to recreate that effect and how to break that effect completely, etc. And have a good time with it or else what’s the point.

for the first 2, I direct you to my FAQ

For the last one, I don’t actually believe I’ve ever addressed artwork as insp for stories/rp but I’ll say here and now yeah go ahead! As long as you’re not making profit or taking credit for my work then I’m normally ok with it. Especially anything thats private and purely recreational, that’s generally 100% green light go. I only ask that if you post it anywhere public that you please credit me.

(and I reserve the right to ask you to take it down if I see it and don’t approve of it’s use but I think that case is pretty rare.)

a) @lemuelzero101 Thank you!!! I haven’t played Life is Strange but actually that series’ vis dev artist Edouard Caplain is one of my bigger art inspirations lately so that’s a really high compliment lol. And yeah I hope we get 5-8 too...!

b) Thank you for sticking around! I’ve been thinking about Digimon and Infinity Train in tandem lately, actually. They’re a little similar? Enter a dangerous alternate world and have wacky adventures with monsters/inanimate objects that have weird powers... there’s like weird engineers and mechanisms behind the scenes... also frontier literally starts with them getting on a train. Anyways if anyone else followed me for digimon... maybe you’d like Infinity Train? LOL

c) @king-wens-king I’M GLAD MY ART JUST HAS PINOY VIBES LOL I hope you are having a good day too :^)

a, b, c, d) yessss my Watch Infinity Train agenda is working....

e) aw thank you!! i think you should watch infinity train :)

#ask #trying this new thing where i tag people in the body of the post instead

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franki-lew-yo · 3 years

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The Romantic (2009, R, Gothic Fantasy/Horror), aka the most forgotten animated film in the world

What if I told you there was a movie under serious threat of becoming lost media with no clear reason as to WHY it's been lost other than no one has apparently watched it besides me and a few people on Reddit? What if I told you that movie wasn't half bad and would no doubt have some interest peeked if anyone DID know about it?

The name of that movie is The Romantic.

It was released in 2009 and it's Rated R for nudity and sex scenes [insert Robbie Rotten meme here], though none of it too graphic. It was a pet project created by animator Michael P. Heneghan, originally starting as a flash project for his animation class before he expanded it into a feature film. The film was inspired by movies such as The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, but what I see every time I look at it is a touch of Jhonen Vasquez, Tim Burton, and Roman Dirge- the guy behind Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl. It's flash animation especially remind me of the puppet-rigged toons of the 2000s (again like Salad Fingers or Lenore). It's not bad, it's just not inherently 'feature film' quality flash, nor is it exceptionally artistic like Sita Sings the Blues in it's simplicity. Like, really, if you happen to find this thing it's not the worst animated project at all it's just amateur for a professional production. I've seen worse flash movies. Heck, if The Romantic were released in separate parts on youtube or Newgrounds as a series (ala Homestuck) I'm sure it would have been really successful and totally in it's element. But it wasn't.

Because next to no one has seen it and I'm lucky to have not only ever seen it when it was available for free but have also found it recently (hush hush, I ain't telling you how) I'm going to actually give you all a plot synopsis under the cut. There will be some details I leave out and I think I've spelled some characters names wrong. It's a bit of a surrealist film as well, so you might need some things explained.

Spoilers ahead:

The Romantic is set in an autumnal, surrealist world inhabited by humans and monsters and ruled by three gods; Po the goddess of love; Pik the god of Hate; and Pjorrc the god of time though Pjorrc was made to live inside a pumpkin moon as everything he touched rabidly aged and died.

((Tapestry art featuring the main three gods of the film.))

A young man (called “Romance” or “The Romantic” by the other characters) performs a bull sacrifice in order to summon Abbledepopa, the unseen creator of the other gods and ‘storyteller’ of the world. The sacrifice does not conjure Abbledepopa but, when Romance spares a monster that was ready to eat him, the monster tells him of a profit named Patience. Patience is a foul-mouthed dwarf living alone with an army of babies who points Romance in the direction of Po.

((Romance outside of Patience's house.))

Romance wants the god’s help because he has fallen out of love with his girlfriend. Po grants him his desire and restores his love only for Romance to return home and find his girlfriend with another man. Blinded by heartache and rage, Romance kills her. He then swears vengeance on the gods for ‘making’ him do it. In the midst of this vow, a corrupt prophet called Fat Daddy kills the queen of Vauxhaul (Romance's home) and her guards, and forges a new body for his newborn son with their bodies. Fat Daddy rallies the townsfolk behind him in supposedly finding the Queen’s murder into follow a new religion called "The Poetic End".

((Romance (right) besides the monster he spared at the beginning of the movie.))

Patience accompanies Romance on his quest and tells him to take Po’s mask, which hides her true face, once he kills her. Romance buys Po’s trust by weaving her a tapestry that tells her story: in the dawn of time Po and Pjorrc were in love. However, Pjorrc gradually became distant and Po became resentful when their daughter, Love, earned Po's original title as the god of romance and love.

In the present day, Romance sleeps with Po for over a year before finally killing her and taking her mask. He and Patience return to his home of Vauxhul only to be chased out by Fat Daddy’s personal army. They flee to Marshallton, the town nearest to the god Pik.

((Romance's hometown of Vauxhul. ))

The king of Marshallton, King Crookie, tells Romance of a prophecy he, Patience, Fat Daddy and all the gods are a part of and that the world is soon to change. Romance then fights and successfully kills Pik when he shows the god of hate his reflection in a mirror King Crookie gave him, but not before losing his hand to Pik.

When Romance comes down the mountain he learns from Patience that nine years have passed since his fight with Pik began. Patience reveals to Romance what Pik saw in the mirror that allowed Romance to take the killing blow; after Love had grown up and married, Po asked Pik to tell her where her husband was always running off to. Pik reluctantly revealed Pjorrc was disguising himself as a human and married a mortal woman. Po found Pjorrc and his pregnant second wife, forcing Pjorrc to leave his human family behind, but not before asking his wife to name their son “Patience”. In retaliation for his treachery, Po proceeded to sleep with fifty men and produce the fifty bastard children in Patience’s house.

((Fat Daddy, the main villain.))

Marshallton and the entire rest of the world has fallen to the rule of Fat Daddy, who captures Romance and Patience. Fat Daddy tortures Patience into telling him how to get to Pjorrc but is unable to convince Romance to take part in his ‘new world’ or give him Po’s mask. Romance and Patience escape and leave the village to be torn apart by the fifty babies Po had, now transformed into veracious monsters after Patience didn’t feed them for the past ten years. Romance confronts Patience when he realizes the latter is Pjorrc’s son. Patience calls Romance out on his mantra of vengeance and points out that all his decisions are his own, not the gods, and instructs him to seek Love herself in Po’s basement. Patience then attempts to confront Pjorrc but is cornered and killed by Fat Daddy before he can do so.

In Po’s basement, Romance finds Love nailed to a wall, her face torn off and half eaten by her deformed husband. Love tells Romance that Po ripped off her daughter’s face in rage over Pjorrc’s infidelity and Pjorrc did not intervene fast enough. Po then threw Love into her basement, turned Love’s husband into a monster, and wore her daughter’s face as a mask - which Romance had broken into pieces moments ago after Patience had shown him his face in King Crookie’s mirror. Romance then finds Pjorrc hanging himself. As he dies, Pjorrc tells Romance to take the hand Fat Daddy had cut off and sew it onto himself, which will in turn help Romance defeat Abbledepopa.

Romance traverses the wasteland and does not find Abbledepopa, but instead a golden loom. Having seen all the destruction he and others had caused, Romance sits upon the loom and accepts his fate as the new ‘storyteller’ of the world, as he begins weaving a new one...

---

I mentioned before the animation quality of the film and why maybe that caused people to overlook it. The only other thing I could complain about on a technical level with The Romantic is it's sound design. Some of the voices and music is a little too quiet and so all these key details I had to go through the film a few times to really piece together. But that leads me to the thing I like about this movie and I'm sure others would to: the lore.

It's very hard to create a new fantasy world w it's own customs, religions, history and rules out of the blue as any YA Harry Potter/Hunger Games ripoff book could tell you. The Romantic is so unique in how it handles the pantheon and culture of these three gods and their kin; really only four or five characters throughout the entire story aren't connected to the gods or prophecy in some way, as there's the main three gods, Abbeldepappa, and the prophets Patience, Love and Fat Daddy, who make up your main cast besides Romance. There's a lot that's intentionally left unexplained and other info that must be explained, like Pjorrc and Po's marriage and Romance's feelings towards the gods, if we want to understand the former. The movie is paced pretty well and knows when to follow up on what, it's just that again some of those animation and editting shortcomings might make it hard to understand...but I don't think THAT hard. Look, if someone can enjoy Starchaser: The Legend of Orin or even better surrealist world-building films ((Fantastic Planet comes to mind)), then I say there's no reason The Romantic wouldn't have a following. There's no other way I can articulate why and what doesn't work about the story except just to recommend you watch it yourselves, but before I get into that I want to talk themes...because I love the themes and tone of The Romantic.

I revisited The Romantic a week before I made myself watch Centaurworld and The Owl House for the first time...and what a week that was~! The Romantic has the vibe of those kinds of shows along with Adventure Time and Infinity Train ((so I hear, I haven't watched the latter)). It's surreal and you'll only marvel at 'woooah wut an acid trip' for so long before you get into the vibe of the universe. It also reminded me substantially of the Broadway musical Hadestown and not just because this movie is also a self-contained, somewhat self aware fable about the relationships between humans and gods - it's very raw in how the characters talk. It's very emotional and blunt in how kind and how cruel they can be, and it doesn't make excuses or really worships any one of them. Romance himself is the world's most likable Incel: he murders a woman he thought he needed to love and blames his emotions on the gods of those passions...except the gods AREN'T the manifestations of love, time, and hate - they simply dictate and oversee it in the lives of men. It's a dynamic I really like in religious works where Gods are powerful but not all knowing or puppet masters to everyone's design- they have morality too and there is only so much you can blame and get from them.

"You made your gods into excuses and your excuses into gods!"

-Patience. This here is a cool quote. I like this quote.

No matter what, The Romantic is not gonna be a film for everyone. We all have our tastes - I think I'm drawn to it and accepting because I've come to love these kind of worlds that used to keep me up at night - these trippy 70s inspired fantasy landscapes given a whole Avatar: The Last Airbender degree of worldbuilding and character worth. It also doesn't feel exploitive in it's violence, it's sexuality, it's grimmness - it doesn't feel like it's trying to hard or going over the top because it happens to be an adult animated film, something that I love in movies like 9 or Hair High but really turns me off in stuff like Sausage Party or Wizards. Whatever go watch The Romantic...

if you can.

-----

When I first saw this film in 2016 it was actually very accessible and was even uploaded to youtube by the creator himself. I don't know WHAT happened to Michael P. Heneghan, but simply put, the man's disappeared...like...REALLY disappeared.

Lookit his IMDB. He has The Romantic and a wapping two other projects to his name. His Twitter isn't very helpful either. He last updated in early 2020 and he says next to nothing about The Romantic. It's so odd that he would one day be happy with the film enough to host it on Vimeo and Youtube but then just cop out.

According to a Reddit user: "On Valentines Day 2011, Heneghan released the film for free online through all kinds of platforms including direct download, bittorrent, Vimeo, and even directly through Archive.org. He even joked about releasing a 300 gig uncompressed version.

I know I watched it on Vimeo probably as recently as 2016. Now I can't find it anywhere. The website is dead, the Vimeo video went private, even the archive.org version has been taken down. It really looks like he wanted to wipe it off the face of the internet. His newer website mentions it, but again, the Vimeo link is dead and even that website is closed for business."

It's weeeird. What happened Michael?

And yes, obviously, other people worked on the movie.

No - I can't find out anything about them either.

I'm betting on three theories at the moment: 1) this film is an SCP or some Candle Cove weirdness with only me and a handful of people ANYWHERE remembering it, 2) something weird is going on w Michael Heneghan and it involves too something about this film. It was a scam or a scheme or a hidden agenda weirdness, 3) Heneghan's doing okay he just doesn't like this film anymore and wants it hidden while he takes a break.

Look, I get it Michael! What was once our life's worth can become cringe as you improve as an artist - you're not the person making the stuff you were ten years ago...but you should still have the film kept alive somehow. Someway.

I'm seriously the only person to have ever made fan art of this movie on the internet. That just doesn't happen, and I don't think I like being in a fandom of one. The Romantic is a testament to the power of design and storytelling > animation quality itself. Too often I see people equate good animation with smooth animation, with a budget with squash and stretch. These animations are good but art is diverse and there's so many kinds of films out there, the value of the medium can't just be in one style/form. There's a lot of honestly wonderful pieces of art out there if you know where to look and you're willing to see where it leads you.

Don't let The Romantic be the most forgotten movie of all time. Reblog this post. Show it to your friends. PM the animation community reviewer people like Saberspark and someone who isn't Saberspark and smuggle them a copy.

Keep telling the story...

#Franki's Features #The Romantic #The Romantic Michael Heneghan #The Romantic 2009 #animation #animation community #underrated animation #lost media #horror animation

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fill-me-with-your-memes-daddy · 3 years

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Watching the Rise of the Titans movie and I'll be documenting all of my thoughts/reactions here. [Spoiler Warning]

So instead of reblogging every new update, I'm just going to have this post up on my phone as I watch and type my reactions in a bullet list format.

Nari's human disguise is so cute. As someone who does have a cottagecore aesthetic, I want to cosplay her so bad

Are Skrael and/or Belroc non-binary coded? Regardless, I'm also obsessed and I want to fuck Skrael and be Belroc.

STEVE CARING ABOUT JIM BEING HURT YESSSS!!! My god his redemption has probably been one of the greatest there is because he doesn't just suddenly go from being a bully to a completely good person. You can see the gradual shift in learning better throughout the shows which is awesome.

IN NEW YOOOOOOORRRRRRRK!!!!!! CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!

The mugshot montage reminded me of season 1 of trollhunters when toby and Jim were arrested at the museum.

STRICKLER PUT A RING ON IT??? HE'S THE ONLY DILF IVE EVER ACTUALLY AGREED WAS HOT WYM I CAN'T HAVE HIM??? well I'm still really happy about his arc over the series probably one of my favorite character growths.

Eli my guy got his growth spurt!!! As an 18 year old who is still 5'0", I'm happy but envious for him

So I went into this movie without watching any trailers or promo, but I doubt anything could have prepared me for the existence of mpreg. In fact, I wasn't going to document my reactions until I saw that.

NAMURA!!!!!!!!! MY BELOVED!!!!!! I CAN STILL THIRST FOR YOU WITHOUT GUILT

The coach teacher just called the kids zoomers so I have to dock one point from my final rating just because of that. Unforgivable

Those husky animation models suck lmao

Oh fuck the titans got power ranger zords!!

God why did they include the mpreg??? This movie would have been perfect without it.... After that plot point being revisited only one time I'm already beyond done with it

Like it's bringing me back to the v*ltron days where they're was a suspiciously high amount of klance omegaverse and mpreg fics and art created and it physically hurts because Steve and Keith's voice actor is the same person meaning this is especially cursed to me since I was unfortunately in the v*ltron fandom and remember all of that

But like on another note, how old are these characters again??? I haven't checked any wikis because of spoilers but is Steve an adult??? I know aja might be technically a lot older than 18 because alien but is whatever age she is equivalent to an adult as far as emotionally and physically in Akaridion development??? IS THIS A TEEN (M)PREGNANCY IN A KIDS SHOW????

Like bruh I saw a singular post on here before going into the movie that was like "rott spoilers without context" and there was a pregnant belly but I was absolutely not expecting the actual context of it. I'll find the post after I finish and edit this post to tag the creator right here: @makoden

This entire post is just gonna be me ranting about mpreg huh

Anyway I love the whole roundtable allusion to the legends of king arthur (not the toa version but the one he's based off)

THERE'S 3 TO 5 BABIES????? I need to take a break bruh this is just too much

Alright I've taken a 30 minute break got some food and did some things i love (decompressed by tactile stimming with some owl plushies and watched some videos on my favorite owl, Garu. He lives in Japan with his owner and is a domesticated eagle owl who basically just acts like a sky cat. If anyone else needs some eye bleach, here is their YouTube channel)

Blinky and ARRRGHHH!!! saying their "if one of us doesn't make it" talk my god one of them is going to die I can see it and I will be utterly crushed. Jim can't lose another father figure and Toby can't lose his wingman again I will riot if this happens

On a similar but unrelated to the movie note, can we just talk about how toa started with Jim having 0 dads and (if strickler and blinky live to the end) will end with 2 dads? Like I just really feel happy for him that he has two dads who actually figured out how to put the past behind them to not have any infighting between them so that both of them are healthy father figures. Jim has already been through literal hell and back losing his actual humanity in the process so if he loses one of them, I'm going to be really pissed because at this point, this is just Jim torture porn. Y'all know how as SpongeBob SquarePants went on, the show just became Squidward torture porn? It's starting to feel that way for toa and I really hope they cut the shit by the ending

Jlaire is such a good ship but like I feel like it's too perfect they never disagree with each other

YESSSSSSS Someone finally doesn't treat toby like a fat waste of space who messes stuff up!!! I think out of all the characters that would have been most deserving of a rewrite, it's Toby. Sometimes I just feel he's only comic relief and any heartfelt moments he's had in the series was also born of stupidity (ie his flour baby project being unharmed was seen by him as divine intervention from his parents but was actually just Eli and Steve behind the scenes).

Ohhhhh yesssssss Archie's father!!! I was hoping I'd see him again because we got so little of him last

Ooooooooooh Asian trollmarket!!!!!

Oh never mind slavery trollmarket

Bruh titanic camelot

I feel like we're not seeing enough of the villains because I completely forgot about the power ranger zord things

NAMORA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY LAST CRUSHHHH

STRICKLER NO NOT YOU TOO PLEASE

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE ONLY TWO CHARACTERS I SIMP FOR ON THIS SHOW DIED WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF EACH OTHER

THAT WHOLE ASS RANT I WROTE IS COMING TRUE FUCK THIS MOVIE THIS SERIES IS JUST JIM TORTURE PORN

WAIT JIM'S SPERM DONOR INFO?

Oh thank God I don't want to know anything about that person

For the record, I call that man Jim's sperm donor because he has no business being called a father to him. All he did was donate some swimmers to the creation of him and give him abandonment issues

Oh another blind troll elder???? This fucker is just if vendel was a bad guy

Bruh I was grieving

PACIFIC RIM WITH GUN ROBOT VEX AND THE BELROCZORD? I've never seen that movie but I know the reference

Bruh Blinky doesn't read horoscopes? Does he realize conspiracy theories are just the manly version of horoscopes?

NO DON'T KILL VEX STOP KO-ING FOUND FAMILY MEMBERS

Oh thank God he's okay

NO NOT ARCHIE AND CHARLEMAGNE OH MY GOD

oh never mind they're just gonna coup de tat I believe in them :))

But I want to see him again

But I'm glad to see vex

Yay they're in arcadia!

But yeah I wondered why the trolls and Merlin didn't keep the whole "daylight doesn't hurt trolls" feature from the eternal night but now Guillermo del Toro I see you were playing the long con in that just to kill my girl Namora :(((

Oooooh I love the animation of the Narizord over Chihuahua!! It looks very good and realistic (if only they could have put some of that into those huskies from before smh)

Bruh the character designs of the arcane order are so good I want to be them

Nari making sure the Skraelzord doesn't crush the bus

DAMN DOUBLE HOMICIDE

Bruh I'm just glad we finally have an answer on why arcadia had everything going on as opposed to literally anywhere else!! I always found that as a weird coincidence for plot convince.

BRUH WERE BACK TO THE MPREG IM SO JEALOUS I FORGOT ABOUT THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BECAUSE I WAS GRIEVING THE LOSS OF MY LOVELIES.

Oh that's real convenient that the ninth configuration meant all of them. Way to not decide which character gets more attention. Though it probably was a smart way to not have any infighting in the fandom between each character's stan group.

Bruh I just realized where is Barbera did they just ditch her on the Camelot ship???

And where are the other trolls that migrated at the end of trollhunters s3? They said something about new jersey but obviously Jim and the other main characters got on Camelot instead.... This feels like a plot hole

And we never learned the process of how changelings are made and bonded to humans and stuff. We just know it's super painful but I'm curious ffs!!!!

THE DONT THINK BECOME HERO SPEECH ALL SAID TOGETHER!!!

BRUH THEY REALLY HAD TO SHOW HIM GIVING BIRTH??????? WAS THAT AN ABSOLUTE MUST??????

Plus the main audience for this series is little children (the rating for the movie is literally TV-Y7) so even though my adult ass is not in the target audience, I STILL DONT UNDERSTAND WHY WOULD MPREG AND ANAL BIRTH WOULD BE AN IMPORTANT THING TO 7 YEAR OLDS???? THIS IS A LITERAL FETISH HIDDEN IN KIDS CONTENT ITS ELSAGATE ALL OVER AGAIN Y'ALL 😭😭😭😭😭

Though it's probably hypocritical of me to think fetishes don't belong in kids tv when I've openly admitted to thirsting for strickler and namora

HUZZAH

NEW AMULET WAZ GOOD????

STAB THAT BITCH JIM

WAIT NO I SAID STAB NOT GET STABBED

Alright good job just missed the directions at first but you fixed it

SEVEN KIDS?????????

T O B Y ????????????

W A I T NO

N O

IS HE ACTUALLY

OH MY GOD THERE'S HOPE

NO THERE ISN'T

F U C K THIS SHIT THEY REALLY JUST HAD HIM TO BE BULLIED THEN KILLED

Y'ALL IM ACTUALLY CRYING THIS NEVER HAPPENS

I NEVER ACTUALLY GET SO EMOTIONAL OVER MEDIA THAT I CRY IT ONLY HAPPENED ONCE AT THE END OF VOLTRON BUT AHHHHHHHH

W A I T

HE'S GONNA BE BROUGHT BACK?????

HOLD UP THEY'RE JUST GONNA BRING ALL THOSE DEAD PEOPLE BACK??????

WAIT IS HE

BLINKY CALLED HIM A SON

HOLD ON IS THIS GOING TO BE A CLIFFHANGER???????????

BRUH THEY REALLY JUST CAN'T END THE SERIES WITHOUT CLIFFHANGERS like there's always an open ending

TROLLHUNTER TOBY????? You know what forget the whole rants I had on how toby was written they just redeemed it all

And that's all! I'd rate it a 6.5/10 because it's definitely the weakest of all the sequels but still had amazing animation and some good plot points. It's just really hard to look over the bad stuff enough to rate it any higher.

#tales of arcadia #rise of the titans #trollhunters #rott #rise of the titans spoilers #rott spoilers #toa #3 below #athena's own original post!#jim lake jr #claire nuñez #toby domzalski

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comedicreliefonlyworkswhenfunny · 3 years

Text

I am against the "Americanization" of fandoms.

What this applies to

Holding non American characters (and sometimes even fans) to an American moral standard. This includes

Refusing to take into account that, first things first, America is NOT the target audience, so certain tropes that would or would not pass in the west are different in Japan.

Like seriously, quite a few of the jokes are just not going to pass or hit, because they require background information that is not universal.

Assuming all American experience is standard. (This could mean watering down just how much pressure is placed on Japanese youth irl by saying that sort of thing is universal (while it is, to a degree, Japanese suicide rates are pretty fucking high because of how fast paced and work heavy some of their loads tend to be), and it's really annoying and rude when someone is trying to speak out about how heavy and harsh the standards are placed on them to succeed just for some American whose mom occasionally yells at them to do their homework dropping by to say "it's like that everywhere")

Demonizing (or wubbifying) a character using American morals, including and up to harassing fans over their interpretations or gatekeeping whether or not a character "should" get development (while you shouldn't do that fucking period, it's rude and annoying- this is specifically for the people who use American standards without acknowledging the cultural gap between them and, you know, the fucking target audience) ((Like seriously, saying "It's different in Japan" is not the end all be all excusing someone's actions, but sometimes the author didn't immediately think that maybe (insert vaguely universal thing) was that bad or that heavy of a topic before they put it into their media. If you don't want to see things like that? Pick a different series and stop harassing the fans))

Getting mad at or making fun of Japan's attempts to satirize their own culture. (A good example is Ace Attorney! To most of us, it's just a funny laugh can you imagine if courts were actually like that- guess what? Japan's are! (Not that America's are actually that much better, they just look good on paper))

Making America/American issues the center of your fan spaces

(Usually without sharing or bringing light to the issues that other countries are going through)

Your

Experiences

Are

Not

Univseral!

Seriously, very few things across America, even, are universal. Texas things the hundreds are nothing while Minnesota's like "oh it's only thirty degrees below zero"- so for fucks sake, stop assuming that all other countries work in ways similar to America.

It's good and important to share Ameican issues with your American followers, but guess what? America isn't the only country out there, and it's certainly not the only one going through bullshit. Don't pull shit like "why's no one reblogging this?" or "why should I care about what's happening in (X country)?"

Don't assume everyone lives in America.

Stop assuming everyone lives in America.

America is not and has never been the target audience for anime, and it's certainly not the only country outside of Japan that enjoys it.

Like I said above, sometimes Japan attempts to satirize its own culture. We can't tell what is and isn't meant as satire, because it's not our culture.

Social media activism can be tiring and maybe you don't have the energy to focus on things that are out of your control, but, if someone tells you about the shit they're going through, don't bring American politics up.

For the neurodivergent crowd out there thinking, "But why?" it's because a lot of social media, especially, is very heavily Americanized- sometimes to the point where people assume that everyone is American. Not to mention, it's disheartening. I'm sorry to say, but you're not actually relating to the conversation, you're often diverting the focus away from the topic at hand. Even if you mean well, America is heavily pedestaled and talked about frequently, and people from other countries are tired of America taking precedent over their own issues.

Don't divert non-American issues into American ones. Seriously. It's not your place. Please just support the original issue or move on.

Racist Bullshit

This especially goes for islanders and South Asian characters, as well as poc characters (because, yes, Japan DOES have black people)

Making "funny" racist headcanons. Not fucking cool.

Changing the canon interpretation of an explicit character of color in order to fit racist stereotypes.

Whitewashing or color draining characters. Different artistic skill sets can be hard, yes, but are you seriously going to look at someone and say "I don't feel like accurately portraying you or people that look like you, because it's difficult for me." If someone tries to correct you on your cultural depiction of a character and/or their life style, don't be an ass. (If possible, it would be nice for those that do the corrections to be polite as well, but it does get really frustrating).

Seriously, no offense guys, but, if you want to persue art, you're going to need to learn to depict different body types, skin colors, and/or ethnic features.

On that note, purposefully, willingly, or consistently inaccurately portraying people or characters of color (especially if someone in the fandom has "called you out" or specifically told you that what you're doing comes across as racist and you continue to do it). If you need help or suck at looking things up, there are references for you! Ask your followers if they have tutorials on poc (issue that you're having), whether it be bodily portrayal, facial proportions, or coloring and shading. Art is so much more fun when you can depict a wider variety, and guess what? Before you drew the same skinny, basic, white character over and over, you couldn't even draw that!

Attempting or claiming to DEPECT CULTURAL ACCURACY within a work or meta, while being completely fucking wrong. ESPECIALLY and specifically if someone calls you out, and you refuse to fix, correct, or change anything.

*little side note that the discussion revolving art is a very multilayered conversation, and it has quite a few technical potholes, which I'll bring up again farther into this post.

Fucking history

Stop demonizing or for absolute fucks sake wubbifying Japanese history because UwU Japan ♡0♡ or bringing up shit like "you know they sided with Nazis, right?" It's good to recognize poor past decisions, but literally it's not your country keep your nose out of it. And? A lot of decisions made by countries were not made by their general peoples. Even those that were, often involved heavy propaganda that made them think what they were doing was right.

Seriously, it's not your country, not your history. Unless you have some sort of higher education (but honestly even then a lot of those contain heavy bias), just don't butt in.

^^^ this also goes to all countries that are NOT Japan (specifically when people from non American countries talk about their history while in fandoms and someone wants to Amerisplain to them why "well, actually-"). When we said, "question your sources," we didn't mean "question the people who know better than you, while blindly accepting the (more than likely biased) education you were given in the past."

What this does NOT include:

Fanfiction

FANfiction

FanFICTION

FANFICTION.

Seriously, fanfiction is literally UNPAID WORK from RANDOM FANS- a lot of which who are or have started as kids. ((No, I'm not trying to excuse racist depictions of people just because they're free, please see above where I talk about learning to grow a skill and how it's possible tone bad and get good, on top of the fact that some inaccuracies are not just willful ignorance))

"Looking it up" doesn't work

"Looking it up" almost never works

Please, for fucks sake, you know that most all online search engines are heavily biased, right? Not to mention, not everything is universal across the entirety of Japan. You want to look up how the school system works in Hokkaido? Well it's different from the ones in Osaka!

Most fanfiction is meant to be an idealized version of the world. Homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, and racism are very prevalent and heavy topics that some fan authors would prefer to avoid. (Keep in mind, this is also used by some people in those minorities often because thinking about how relevant those kinds of things are is to them every day).

A lot of shit that happens in writing is purely because it's an ideal setting. I've seen a few arguments recently about how fan authors portray Japanese schools wrong- listen, I can't tell you how many random school systems I have pulled from my ass purely because (I need them to interact at these points, in these ways). Sometimes the only compliment I can think of is 'I like your shirt' or sometimes I need character A to realize that character B likes the same thing as they do, so I might ignore the fact that most all Japanese schools require uniforms, so that I can put my character in a shirt that will get someone else's attention.

Sometimes it's difficult to find information on different types of systems, and sometimes when you DO know those things, they directly rule out a plot point that needs to happen (like back on the topic of schools (from what I've seen/heard/read- which guess what? Despite being from multiple sources, might still be inaccurate!) Japanese schools don't have mandatory elective classes (outside of like gym and most of them usually learn English or another language- I've seen stuff about art classes? But the information across the board varies.), but, if I need my character to walk in and see someone completely in their element, I'm probably not going to try and gun for accuracy or make up a million and two reasons as to why this (non elective) person would possibly need something from (elective teacher) after school of all things.)

Some experiences ARE universal- or at least overlap American and Japanese norms! Like friends going to fast food places after school doesn't /sound Japanese/ or whatever, but it's not like a horrible inaccuracy to say that your characters ate at McDonald's because they were hungry. Especially when you consider that the Japanese idolization of American "culture" is also a thing.

Also I saw someone complaining about how, in December, a lot of (usually westerners) write Christmas fics! Well, not only are quite a few of those often gift fics, with it being the season if giving and all, but Japanese people do celebrate Christmas! Not as "the birth of Christ," but rather as a popularized holiday about gift giving (also pst: America isn't the only place that celebrates Christmas)

But, on that note, sometimes things like Holidays are "willfully ignorant" of what actually happens (I've made this point several times, but (also this does by no means excuse actual racism)), because, again: plot convenience! Hey what IF they celebrated Halloween by Trick or Treating? What if Easter was a thing and they got to watch their kids or younger siblings crawl around on the ground looking for tiny plastic eggs?

Fanfiction authors can put in hours of work for one or two thousand words- let alone ten thousand words, fifty thousand words, a hundred thousand words. And all of these are free. There is absolutely no (legal) way to make money off of their fanworks, but they spent hours, days, weeks, months- sometimes even years- writing. It is so unnecessary to EXPECT or REQUIRE them to spend even more hours looking up shit that, no offense, almost no one is going to notice. No one is going go care that all of my combini prices are accurate or that I wrote a fic with a Japanese map of a train station that I had to backwards search three times to find an English version that I could read.

Not everyone has the attention span or ability to spend hours of research before writing a single word. Neurodivergent people are literally a thing yall. Instead of producing the perfectly pretty accurate version of Japan that people want to happen, what ACTUALLY happens is that the writer reads and reads and reads and either never finds the information they need or they lose the motivation to write.

^^^ (This does NOT apply to indigenous or native peoples, like Pacific Islanders or tribes that exist in real life. Please make sure that you portray tribal minorities accurately. If you can't find the information you need (assuming that the content of the series is not specifically about a tribe), please just make one up (and for fucks sake, recognize that a lot of what you've been taught about tribal practices, such as shit like human sacrifices or godly worship, is actually just propaganda.)

Not to mention, it often puts a wall in front of readers who would then need to pull up their OWN information (that may or may not be biased) just in order to interact with the fic ((okay, this one has a little bit of arguability when it comes to things like measurements and currency, because Americans don't know what a meter is and no one else knows what a foot is- either way, one of yall is going to have to look up measurements if they want to get a better understanding of the fic)). However, a lot of Americans who do write using 'feet, Fahrenheit, dollars,' also write for their American followers or friends (which really could go both ways).

On a less easily arguable side, most fic readers aren't going to open up a new tab just to search everything that the author has written (re the whole deep topics, not everyone wants to read about those sorts of things, either). Not only are you making it more difficult on the writer, but you're also making it more difficult for the reader who's now wondering why you decided to add in Grandma's Katsudon recipe, and whether or not the details you have added are accurate.

Some series, themselves, ignore Japanese norms! Piercings, hair dye, and incorrectly wearing ones uniform are frowns upon in Japanese schools- sometimes up to inflicting punishment on those students because of it. However, some anime characters still have naturally or dyed blond hair some of them still have piercings or wear their uniforms wrong. Some series aren't set specifically in Japan, but rather in a vague based-off-real-life Japan that's just slightly different (like Haikyuu and all of its different prefectures). Sometimes they're based on real places, but real places that have gone through major changes (like the Hero Academia series with its quirks and shit).

Fandom is not a full time job. Please stop treating it like it is one. Most people in fandoms have to engage in other things like school or work that most definitely take precident over frantically Googling the cultural implications of dying your hair pink in Japan.

Art is also meant to be a creative freedom and is almost always a hobby, so there are a few cracks that tend to spark debate. Like I said, it is still a hobby, something that's meant to be fun (on this note!)

If trying new things and expanding your portfolio is genuinely making you upset, it's okay to take a break from it. You're not going to get it right on the first try and please, please to everyone out there critiquing artists' works, please take this into account before you post things.

I'm sorry to say, but, while it gets frustrating to see the same things done wrong over and over again, some people are genuinely trying. If it matters enough for you to point out, please offer solutions or resources that would possibly help the artist do better (honestly this could be said about a lot of online activism). I get that they should "want" to do better (and maybe they don't and your annoyance towards them is completely justified- again, as I said, if this becomes a repeated offense and they don't listen to or care about the people trying to help them, yeah you can be a bitch if it helps you feel better- just please don't assume that everyone is willfully ignorant of how hurtful/upsetting/annoying a certain way of portraying things is), but also WANTING to do better and ACTUALLY doing better are two different things.

Maybe they didn't realize what they were doing was inaccurate. Maybe they didn't have the right tutorials. Maybe they tried to look it up, but that failed them. Either way, to some- especially neurodivergent artists- just being told that their work is bad or racist or awful isn't going to make them want to search for better resources in order to be more accurate, it's just going to make them give up.

Also! In fic and in writing, no one is going to get it right on the first try. Especially at the stage where we creators ARE merely in fan spaces is a great time to "fuck around and find out", before we bring our willfully or accidentally racist shit into monetized media. Absolutely hold your fan creators to higher standards, but literally fan work has so little actual impact on popular media (and this goes for just about every debate about fan spaces), and constructive criticism as well as routine practice can mean worlds for representation in future media. NOT allowing for mistakes in micro spaces like fandoms is how you get genuinely harmful or just... bad... portrayals of minorities in popularized media that DOES have an impact on the greater public. OR you get a bunch of creators who are too afraid to walk out of their own little bubbles, because what if they get it wrong and everyone turns against them. It's better to just "stick with what they know" (hobbies are something that you are meant to get better at, even if that is a slow road- for all of my writers and artists out there, it does take time, but you will get it. To everyone else, please do speak up about things that are wrong, but don't make it all about what's wrong and please don't be rude. It's frustrating on both ends, so, if you can, please try not to escalate the situation more.)

Anyways, I'm tired of everyone holding fictional characters to American Puritanical standards, but I'm also tired of seeing every "stop Americanizing fandom" somehow loop into fanfiction and how all authors who don't make their fics as accurate as possible are actually just racist and perpetuating or enabling America's take over of the world or some shit.

Fan interpretation of published media is different than fan creation of mon monetized media. Americans dominating or monopolizing spaces meant for all fans (especially in a fandom that was never meant for them to begin with) is annoying and can be harmful sometimes. Americans writing out their own personal experience using random fictional characters (more often than not) isn't.

#just google it #better represent real life #if you tell a fic reader to ngl you're being pretty ableist and don't really have a good idea of how search engines work #also when people DO try to make culturally accurate fics often times at least one or two people will pop in and say 'actually that's wrong'#not to mention sometimes they might not even be right to begin with...#and okay once or twice it is what it is #but seriously if this keeps happening over and over most people are just going to stop writing or caring #fanfiction #fanfiction is literally free #fanfiction is free labor #adding layers upon layers of research and knowledge needed- on top of how difficult it can be to portray human emotion #it's not going to it's just going to make once starry eyed writers loss their ability to enjoy their work #and guess what #some ACTUALLY racist (or homophobic or transphobic or misogynistic) writer is going to swoop in not giving two fucks #and they're going to go on and get their work published because they don't care about accuracy

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happyselves · 3 years

Text

Private Fansign { Daniel Ricciardo x reader one shot }

You are a fan of Daniel Ricciardo and everyone around you knew that so they weren't really surprised when you announced that you were going to go to the next GP at Spa Francorchamps. What they didn't know is that you were one of the lucky fans to have a private conversation with mister Ricciardo himself and you didn't know how to react to that. You weren't even sure to be able to say anything to him and as the day was getting closer you were getting anxious. You could do it, he was a normal human being after all, no ? A very sexy and attractive human being you might add. Fuck you were so fucked up.

The day is here, it was today the day you will meet him, Thursday, media day. How to dress ? You didn't want to be all " pretty " . You wanted to be you, be like nothing was happening, like how you were everyday. You end up driving alone to the circuit because after all who would come to the circuit on a Thursday, it wasn't really interesting, but for you this 20mn ride was hell, you thought again and again about so many scenarios of what will happen. Obviously you couldn't find one that would make perfect sense and your mind was wandering everywhere.

As you came in front of the paddock gate, someone asked you who you were and of course they didn't know so they had to call someone from the team to come and make sure you were allowed in as it was close for fans, especially on media day. Apparently you were the last one to arrive which mean that you will be the last one to see Daniel, which didn't help you in your affair cause that would mean more time to stress beforehand, but the Pr assistant told you in your ears that it might also mean more time with him and your anxiety level went to the top and beyond.

You've waited for what felt like hours, seeing everyone getting out of Daniel's driver room all happy and content with the moment they shared with the famous australian. Finally after 2 hours it was your turn and you were feeling bad for him now. He had to spend all those time with everyone when he should be relaxing and you felt out of place here. As you knocked on his door he opened the door, the biggest smile on his face like he didn't spend this much time repeating the same thing other and another to every fan he meets. You knew you only had like 20mn with him but it was already too much for you, you didn't know how your heart would take it this far between the guilt of using his time and your selfish excitement to finally have him in front of you. He was perfect, even more perfect than on tv or on picture. You were stunned by his beauty and how muscular he was. You couldn't find your words and he had to speak first.

Dan : Hi, You are " YN " right ?

He knew your name ... of course he knew your name, you bet his assistant told him before. You didn't know how you found the courage to stumble and respond to him.

You : ahhh yeah that's me hi nice ... nice to meet you

Dan was smiling so brightly, he made a gesture for you to sit next to him on the couch and you did as he asked.

Dan : So how is it going for you ? Ready for the weekend ?

Okay it was time to build up character here and be who you are, be a strong person and be confident in order to have a normal conversation with him, like you told yourself for weeks now, he is a human being like you.

You : Well I'm doing good, really looking forward to this weekend.

Dan : Nice, do you have any for me ?

You had so many questions for him, but you also wanted to be honest with him and honest with you.

You : Well I do but honestly I don't really want to bother with them, you must feel exhausted after speaking with everyone and I really don't want to be one of those. I never thought I would have won this contest for meeting you as I entered it, but here I am in front and I can't even say two words without sputtering.

His eyes grew bigger as he looked at you for the first time, you pierced him, really saw how he was right there and that cut him off guard and now he was intrigued and was fully awake for you.

DAN POV :

She wasn't like the others fans, she looked like one of them, but she had no filter, she saw how tired I was and she looks at me with her two eyes, her two beautiful hungry eyes, beautiful shape, beautiful color that I drown myself in them for a second before snapping back to reality. I need to distract myself, I need to change, to eat something, I need to focus on something else other than her eyes, or her body or her lips ... oh god her lips, gorgeous lips, very plump lips. No nope not happening Daniel no you need no woman will distract you this weekend. Not that they were already distracting me cause it's been a while since I .... NOOOO

You POV :

He stood up abruptly,surprising me in the process, looking confused. He had a nervous giggle.

Dan : Oh that's very nice of you, I'm fine don't worry ... I just remember that I need to change my shirt because I will have the press conference after our talk and ...

You stop him mid sentence.

You : Go ahead, it's okay It's not like I never saw a man shirtless before.

The fuck did you just say that, very suttle, very no filter of you, lord nice one. When you were flirting with him now, you couldn't stop yourself wouldn't you ? You almost had a boyfriend, but Daniel ... Daniel was unique and he was on your list ... Yeah you know the list of them you could cheat with without feeling guilty. Ohh come one mind why are you thinking about this right now. You looked at him turn himself so quick, hiding himself from some blushing of embarrassment, embarrassment was more like it.

Daniel POV :

Oh fucking hell, I was biting my lips so hard right now, hiding my face for her not to see that I like it, I like every words that was coming out of her mouth. She is getting so interesting and is already making my day worth it. And I was about to make hers cause I definitely saw that she was looking at me like I was a target. She is straight forward without noticing it, her body is speaking for her.

You POV :

He took off his merch shirt and the only thing you could focus on was his back, his muscles. As you were licking your lips to water them because he makes them dry off, you've met his gaze in the mirror. Crap .. You look away so quickly and he notices it, but your eyes bring themselves to him again, your head tilting as if you were watching some beautiful art in a museum and this time when his eyes meet you again you don't flinch, instead you sustain your eyes to him. What was happening to you, that's not you, it's your inner self talking there, the woman that was finding this man hot and sexy and perfectly at your taste. He was going for it too,you noticed that the tension between you two was waking up . Not what you were expecting at all even after all these scenarios you had running in your head earlier.His aura was so attractive and you really hoped at this moment that you were the only one with whom he had this weird feeling and weird connection. Jealousy you weren't sure yet but it was bothering you to imagine him being flirty with other people even if you knew the character that he was. He took his time to put on his team shirt and you were enjoying every second of the show he was offering you. As he was trying to put his polo on you noticed his face making some grins ... he had some bad tension on his neck and shoulder and you were feeling bad for him because he will have to wait again before his coach will be able to give him some relief massage. The thought of you having a degree in physiotherapy and being able to help him came through your mind. You stood up and went behind him, he was still looking at you in the mirror, wondering in his gaze.

You : Just don't move, I know what I am doing, I know it's not my place to do that because you have your coach and all, but you can't stay with tension in your muscles, remove the shirt.

You were giving him an order and he was weirdly glad to obey you. You put your cold hand on his neck, started to massage him and he felt the tension leaving his body right away and couldn't help but close his eyes and moaned. That excited you so much, that sound, you wanted to hear it more and it was really starting to get hot in here. Your hands were getting warmer as you worked your way on his back to massage him, he was feeling so relaxed now and you could technically stop now but your hands weren't moving, instead your massage was turning into caress on his skin making him shiver. You were probably insane for doing what you were doing but you wanted to taste his skin so much that your lips connect to the back of his neck and going down to his trapezius muscle, his eyes still shut, his mouth opening, his head tilting, all these signals were screaming green light for you to continue. After all it is scientifically proven that love language could release the tension in the muscle. You start kissing his back, following the line down his spin before going up again to kiss his shoulder. Your mind wasn't thinking anything anymore and you didn't care at all what could happen next or if you had to be surprised, you wanted him,not you as a fan wanted her favorite driver but you as a woman wanted this man in front of you.

Dan : You need to stop before I do something you might regret.

He was breathless, his words came out more in whispers than anything else and you couldn't get enough of it.

You : I think I will go to hell anyway.

He turns so abruptly, catching you by the neck and bringing you closer to him, connecting your lips in a crash, literally eating you alive. All that passion burning was leaving in this kiss, he was catching your lips making it his, biting them or more like torturing them until they were on the verge of bleeding. This man must have some serious sexual tension going on down there for so long and he was finally freeing it all. That was good cause you too needed to blow some steam, you just never thought it would be with Daniel Ricciardo. You felt him getting away from you, loosen up his grip on you, before suddenly opening his eyes, realising what he just did.

Dan : I am so so sorry, this is ...

You : Shhh don't that's on me I shouldn't massage you, I know that as a physio, releasing tension can provoke some reaction, releasing lust and desire, that's really on me.

Dan : Still I shouldn't have changed in front of you in the first place.

You were too far gone now for not being honest.

You : I like the view thought and I still enjoy it

You were looking at his trail going down to his belt, playing with his hair there, looking at him all innocent where inside you were burning for him.

Dan : You are making it very difficult for me to stop things here, I knew you were trouble as soon as I saw you enter that room. I really wanna kiss you again really but I need to change and go, trust me I didn't plan this at all and I would love to stay here with you and take care of this * putting at his well awake bulge * but I have an obligation.

You were pouting now, very sad but you understand, and you let him go.

Dan : Oh don't look at me like that, I already miss your touch, your fingers are magic and I swear I should fire Michael right now and have you as my new coach but I feel like we wouldn't do the right kind of training for you and I.

You were both laughing now, it was the truth, something about this man was attracting you in a way that nobody could understand and you felt he was living the same experience as you.

You : Well I'm here all weekend, all by myself, I wouldn't do that normally because that's not me, but I'm gonna shoot my shot. There is my number here and the address of where my hotel is, just ask for my name at the reception and I'm sure they will let you know my room number.

He was smiling as you gave him a piece of paper with the information on it.

Dan : There are so many women trying to get into my bed, but rarely are thoses who let me come into their, you are the unique one and you will be the only exception, I will text you the hours okay.

You were back to your flirty but shy self, almost childish self.

You : Well I hope you will like some sweets cause I'm planning on ordering strawberries.

You were obviously referring to that picture of him eating strawberries in his garage, making him understand that you are having some thoughts about a night together with him and he was getting excited just by the thought of it.

Dan : Well I believe I do.

You both heard an assistant of his calling him outside to the room, his cut to go and leave you, before he could say anything you just took your thing and head to the door but before leaving him with himself and his thought you slightly turned toward him one last time.

You : Well Mr Ricciardo, it was such a nice delight to meet you, did I ever tell you, you were my favorite driver ?

And then you left him with a smile on your face and a smirk on him. For sure he knows now you were but did you both know that at that moment you were becoming the favorite person of each other ? How can a private fansign like that could end up changing your life forever ? You didn't even get an autograph, what a shame, you needed to make sure he would make up for that later and add an extra to it for the inconvenience.

Masterlist

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gb-patch · 3 years

Text

Ask Answers (February 22nd, 2021)

Hello! Here’s another collection of anon ask answers all put together in one big post.

This might be strange considering how upbeat yall are about the fandoms for your games in general, but is there any particular trope or ship you WOULDN'T want us writing/drawing/etc. in relation to your stuff? (IE, any canon you don't want us 'overwriting' or something like that?)

Of course we would want the fan content people make to not be racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted, harmful, etc. But in terms of generally doing non-canon pairings or adding in headcanons or stuff, we really don’t mind that. People are welcome to have fun and explore their own ideas.

for the 1.2 Android update was it meant to download as a separate app? I really want to keep my previous save files but they don't show up (also thank u for the updates I'm really excited to get back into the game!!)

We had to change the name of the file and unfortunately for some phones that meant it’s treated as a brand new game. I’m sorry your saves didn’t transfer over to the new version. You can try to look up your specific phone and see if there’s a way to access save files for games on your device and then transfer those saves over to the new build manually. It may or may not be possible.

I'm having some trouble figuring out how to get the update from Itichio without losing my save files? Is it the same game or a folder I can put in the properties? Sorry if this question is not worded well or if this isn't the avenue you'd want to take technical questions on

Are you using Android? If so, the above answer may apply to you. If you’re on PC or Mac, the save files will automatically still be included.

Hey. I really loved playing our life. It was a fun experience and I never thought I would like it this much. I do have a question, I am currently replaying the game and I am choosing choices I never chose at first. In step 2 during the road trip arc, I decided to ask Cove about what he liked to see on people. One of his response was anklets and black eyes. My MC have just happens to have black eyes. Do Cove say black eyes cuz my mc have it or it was just a coincidently programmed into the game?

He uses your eye color intentionally! If you changed your eye color he’d change what he said.

Will step 4 have 10 moments like steps 1-3?

Step 4 is only an epilogue. It plays like the openings/endings of the earlier Steps where it’s a bunch of scenes all in a row, there aren’t any individual Moments.

hi! who was/were the artist(s) for our life?

who is the artist for Our Life: Beginning and Always?

Main Sprite and CG Artist: Addrossi

Main Background Artist: Vui Huynh

Main Interface Artist: Winter Slice

Other artists who helped out can be seen in the credits of the game.

In the new ol, there are two main love interests... Would it be possible to pair them together or is that weird?

You can’t stay single and pair them together. If we are going to add all the extra content to have a route where the two LIs get together, it’d be a full poly route where them and the MC were all dating. And that’s not a for sure option yet because it’d add a lot of extra complications. But either way, in OL the relationships all gotta be about the MC, haha.

In OL2, there will be extra LIs in form of DLCs? Like Dexter and Baxter.

Maybe! We’ll see how it goes.

Since Cove will have 2 diff body types in s4, will the storyline and dialogs reflect this? Or all of it will be the same? Btw love the game and sorry for bad english. Hope this doesn't sound rude 😅

Some descriptions and pieces of dialog will change, but it won’t impact the story really. And you don’t need to apologize! It’s all good.

Will you ever release the transparent sprites of the Our Life characters?

Probably not, I’m afraid. They’ve got a lot of pieces and it’d just be kind of hard to deal with, aha.

Something I was curious about, what was your inspiration for making a game with so much customization?

Initially, the idea was just about having a romance where you actually grew up with the LI. But it was pretty stressful to try deciding how fast the relationship would progress with it taking place over such a long period of time and with no real storyline carrying it. People might not wanna play a game where the characters don’t get along as kids, but other people might not bother with a game where kids immediately liked each other. So the obvious answer came, just let the player pick themselves how it goes. From there we simply continued to add more flexibly with the MC due to the same thought process of wanting to make sure people were onboard with how their life was going.

What made you decide to change the artstyle for ol 2 so much? I of course respect all your decisions and will buy the shit out of everything related to ol 2, but i love the original style and i m honestly not a fan of the styles shown on patreon, despite me liking the painterly style in general. (I don t mind the style being changed, just that the examples shown so far all feel like there s something wrong with them.)

We’ve always used different art styles for each of our projects. They all have distinct looks from each other. It’s just nice to do something new. I’m glad you really like how the first game looks, though. And those samples were only general concepts, rather than the exact options being decided between. We wanted to see reactions to different options. The art style we’re going with won’t be exactly like those, though I personally like all of them. I think players are gonna enjoy the style Our Life: Now & Forever when it’s revealed.

Hey! Is it ok to ask what gender ourlife2 protagonist will be and if we'll be given the same opportunity to customize an MC? Totally understand if you're keeping this under wraps for now if u don't wanna say!

OL2 will have the same type of MC customization as OL1, but even more refined! So their gender will be up to you.

Hi! I happened upon Our Life on Steam by pure chance. It is such a great game, I am super excited about the DLC, and I just want you all to know that you are awesome! :D I have a question, and I'm sorry if it's been asked before. Do you have plans of making more games similar to Our Life, with customizable player character? The customizable player character was probably the one thing I personally have been desperate for in romance VNs. So glad there finally is one and would love to see more.

Thank you! And yep, we do have plans for more games like Our Life, most notably is another game in the franchise- Our Life: Now & Forever. We’ll also likely have other, non-OL, games with customizable MCs, though we may still have some games with set MCs in the future as well.

On the patreon dlc just curious but is it possible to play it without actually sleeping together/getting the nsfw content? I just want to spend more time with Cove

Yeah, you can still choose not to go that far. Though the event is shorter if you pass on the 18+ stuff.

At the beginning of Step 2, did Cove end up accidentally falling asleep in your bed? Or did he fall asleep on the floor?

He fell asleep sitting on the floor with his body/head leaning against the side of the bed.

This may seem like a weird question, but what exactly is the difference between "direct" and "relaxed" on the comfort scale?

Direct is blunter and more teasing, relaxed is lighthearted and goes with the flow.

can the MC have tattoos in step 3?

Not in Step 3, but you can in Step 4.

how would Cove react if he visited somewhere like North Carolina in winter where it can get in the 20s(F) at night sometimes?

He would be shocked and unprepared for what serious coldness is really like, haha. The poor beach baby would wanna go home.

Hello! I just joined the PATREON!! It’s amazing! I love your games! I have a question, approximately how much after will the nsfw be out? After or before the dlc 3 and step four? Sorry my English isn’t the best!❤️❤️❤️

Thanks so much! The NSFW DLC will be out after the Step 3 DLC but before Step 4. And you don’t need to apologize for that ^^.

This might be obvious but, will step 4 have dlcs? Also, where will the nsfw dlc happen? Won't bother me at all if it s in in our or his house but i do think it d be moderately funny

Step 4 will have the Cove Wedding DLC and the Derek and Baxter romance DLCs each add a lot of new content to Step 4, though they’re also partially set in Step 2 and Step 3 respectively. The NSFW DLC happens in Cove’s room.

I keep wondering what would've happened if Mr. Holden met Lizzie first instead of the MC. I can't see that turning out well somehow lol.

It wouldn’t have made a difference. He met the MC’s parents first and they told him about their two kids. He wanted the MC specifically to be Cove’s friend because the two were the same age.

Even though we have a way to go I'm really excited for OL 2! I was curious though, is the next main character going to be adopted again? I thought it was really clever to make the first main character adopted so when players are customizing, they can make them look how ever they like without worrying about pesky genetics. Just wondering!

The OL2 MC is not adopted. We wanted to go for a new dynamic. Instead their parents are their biological single mother who is partially customizable and an off-screen sperm donor father. So the mom will look generally like the MC and any other traits not from her can be assumed to come from whoever the father was.

—– —– —–

Thank you so much for all the asks ^^

FAQ If you prefer to just see the main posts without all the asks/reblogs, feel free to follow our side account instead: GB Patch Updates Blog

#our life #Our Life Beginnings & Always #ourlifeba #ask #gb patch #gb patch games #Our Life: Now & Forever

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lyrebirdswrites · 3 years

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not me drawing and interpreting proper astrological birth charts for the jjk main trio now that the official fan book finally gave us their birthplace in addition to their birthday 👀

Explanation under the cut! (edited to be more beginner friendly)

Quick disclaimer ig: this is just my personal interpretation of these placements. If you read the way I describe something and you think to yourself “hang on, I have this placement and this doesn’t sound like me at all” that would be because a) I am an amateur astrologer and I do this for fun, I don’t know everything about every sign/planet, and b) no placement exists in isolation - it’s influenced by the house it’s in as well as any other planets aspecting it - so it’s possible that the placement manifests in a less conventional/standard way due you because of such factors.

EDIT: my first draft of this post was not super beginner friendly so here’s a quick astrology 101 to help people understand wtf I’m talking about. Skip to the next photo if you don’t need a primer.

Everyone has ten main planets in their birth chart, each of those planets will fall under a different sign depending on when and where you were born. The planet governs an area of your personality, the sign shows what that area of your personality is like. Some quick definitions of the relevant planets for this post:

Sun: the one everyone thinks of when asked ‘what’s your star sign’. Your basic personality, your core, your ego.

Moon: symbolises emotion, intuition, your private internal world, and how feelings are expressed.

Mercury: symbolises communication, intellectual reasoning, and how you learn.

Venus: symbolises romance, aesthetics, how you socialize, and pleasure-seeking behaviours like shopping or sightseeing.

Mars: the source of your passion/drive/motivation. Symbolises where and how you expend your energy.

Retrograde: not a planet, just something the planets do sometimes. At some points in the year the planets look like they’re moving ‘backwards’ through the sky, and this alters their influence on the birth chart.

I think that’s probably enough but shoot me an ask if you’re curious/confused! I’m always happy to talk astrology (clearly lol)

Megumi... I always suspected he had scorpio influence somewhere in his chart and turns out I was right!! Not only scorpio venus but scorpio mars too?? I’m obsessed with this. Scorpio is a water sign (read: big on emotions), the embodiment of the phrase ‘still waters run deep’, and though scorpio placements are not always loud about their affection they tend to bond in a pretty intense way with their chosen people. Those venus and mars placements together really do speak of ride or die devotion - no wonder he’s Like That when it comes to Yuuji people he cares about.

His jupiter and saturn are both in retrograde; I would not have predicted it because I don’t think about natal retrograde all that much, but it actually makes a lot of sense imo. Retrograde jupiter usually indicates someone who is internally very philosophical in the sense that the person will define their own firm moral/ethical code instead of following a familial or societal belief system, which is pretty much megumi ‘I save people according to my own conscience’ fushiguro in a nutshell. While retrograde saturn is basically like. On the outside you’re stoic but on the inside you’re a worrywart, and you take responsibility Super Seriously but you also don’t like people with authority pushing you around needlessly. Which is also megumi in a nutshell lol.

His leo moon was a surprise but I honestly think it works for him because this is definitely where Unhinged Feral Megumi comes from: when he decides to go all out he gets such a flair for the dramatic. capricorn sun and capricorn mercury are pretty intuitive tbh, he really gives off capricorn vibes - practical, reserved, loyal, ambitious and tenacious, possessing a dry wit, capable of putting in steady hard work to get to where he wants to be.

I was already aware of Nobara’s leo sun because we’ve had their birth dates for a while now (birthplace is the new info which lets me draw the whole chart). But her cancer moon is such a lovely placement under that hard outer shell of hers. Nobara seems like she does not have a nurturing bone in her body, but it’s wrong to stereotype cancers as exclusively homebody motherly types - they have deep loyalty for their chosen family/home and they’ll go to the ends of the earth for those people in their own way whatever that may be... she really is a softie deep down 🥰 she really does care 🥰 thinkin about the end of her ch 125 flashback in this context

Nobara’s virgo mercury is actually kind of funny to me because while it indicates a natural gift for intellect and a talent for sorting out the fine details, it also has the potential to make someone a harsh critic who can nitpick and be quite blunt in stating their opinions... this is very Nobara, she does Not spare the feelings of anyone she is talking to lol.

Libra venus!! She has libra venus that’s so perfect!!! this placement is sophisticated and charming and always classy, these people adore that classic chocolates-and-roses romance but they turn love of all kinds into an art form. Traditionally the placement is also associated with people who care about beauty and harmony, who will go out of their way to look good for their companions. Also her leo mars... I love that. It’s really amplifying her bold outspoken flashy self-loving take-charge nature. Queen energy right here.

She has a bunch of natal retrogrades but the one I want to talk about is retrograde uranus... this one is Very fitting and again almost funny in the context of her character. You know how she’s always convinced she’s the only sane person in the room when actually she’s the unhinged one 24/7 and not self aware about that in the slightest? Yeah. That’s big retrograde uranus vibes.

Oh Yuuji... I could talk about your pisces sun all day 🥺 I could get Very technical and meta about the pisces association with the twelfth house and the fact that it’s ruled by neptune and what that says about his character, but I don’t have the room or the time so I’ll save that for another post. For now I’ll just say that the fact that he cares so deeply for others regardless of how well he knows them, the way he feels his feelings so intensely and is very intuituve/sensitive to others needs, him being interested in the occult before he ever found Sukuna’s fist finger, it all just seems more pisces to me than any other sign. And him having pisces mercury + pisces uranus in addition to his sun is also very sweet... our boy really thinks with his heart at all hours of the day doesn’t he?

His libra moon is such a fitting placement, too, because this moon is all about relationships - not just romance but bonds of all kinds, friends and family and companions of any sort. Yuuji as a character is so motivated by the bonds he shares with others and his desire to not be alone, especially on his deathbed. Libra moons are charming and personable and find it very easy to connect with others, they are deeply concerned with justice and will be accepting of everyone except for people who are cruel (exhibit a: just look how he responded to mahito). I think it’s a very apt moon for him to have.

Tbh if I were picking and choosing I might have loaded him up with yet more pisces energy and given him my favourite placement in the whole world, venus in pisces. But he actually has an aquarius venus and I think that’s so interesting! The part of this placement that speaks to his character for me is the way that aquarius venus love is defined by radical acceptance - there is never any judgement (I won’t judge you, Junpei!), because this venus seeks not only to see and understand but to be seen and understood in turn. Some say aquarius venus is an emotionally detached placement. I think that’s a mischaracterisation, but it is true that aquarius placements can be low key scared of intimacy and vulnerability even when they crave it lmao. An aquarius venus will sort through turmoil in their heart by retreating to think it over in isolation, rather than by submitting to the mortifying ordeal of being known and reaching out. Manga readers if u know u know

All I can say about his capricorn mars is that it definitely embodies that determined protagonist vibe. Thoughts like ‘I want to get stronger, I want to be the best, I’ll put in the work to come out on top’ are very capricorn thoughts to have, and the drive and forward momentum associated with mars really push them to the front of his character. But also, again; an underdeveloped capricorn mars under stress will shut out possibilities for connection with loved ones by dedicating themselves to their job or cause. Yuuji learn healthy coping mechanisms challenge 2k21.

#I’m surprised all the placements mapped on to the characters so well!#especially since I’m sure akutami was not manipulating their birthday/birthplace to fit western astrology #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #fushiguro megumi #megumi fushiguro #kugisaki nobara #nobara kugisaki #itadori yuuji #yuuji itadori #itadori yuji #yuji itadori #jjk meta #this was fun I can’t wait to do more once the official fan book comes out #jjk astrology #originalcontent #long post

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picnokinesis · 3 years

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fic writer review

tagged by the wonderful @swinging-stars-from-satellites whoop!! Let’s go!

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

Fourteen! It was thirteen until yesterday, which appealed to me a lot, but I decided that posting pirate!thoschei was worth changing that number hahaha

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

394,102

3. How many fandoms have you written for?

Technically five, because I’m not counting Avengers and MCU as two different fandoms hahaha. But they are: Doctor Who (2005), MCU, Stargate Universe, The Greatest Showman, and X-Men (comics) - the latter, though, wasn’t really for that fandom, because I was writing a TGS X-Men au hahaa

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

Liminality , with 195 kudos - I am not surprised about this one, since it’s probably the most ‘readable’ of my fics, being a oneshot, not shippy, and also not being stupidly long haha!

Renegades in the Ring , with 144 kudos - I didn’t realise how much kudos this one got? I guess it helped that the fandom was very active when I first posted this. Alas, if only I had finished this one...I have a lot of nostalgia for the idea, but I don’t think I’ll ever return to it, simply because it would take about as much effort as campervan au is taking me right now.

i need a place to hide (before the storm begins) , with 125 kudos - which I am genuinely SO happy about because ahh! This is my big project and to know that 125 people said ‘yes this is good’ is just...really really nice?? Especially when it’s such a niche, specific au.

Tropospheric Disturbance , with 125 kudos - honestly, I’m surprised this one has as many kudos as it does, since I regularly forget I even wrote it hah! It’s a weird one, because it’s not actually in my usual writing style, but I am very proud of it!

and they did live by watchfires , with 109 kudos - and I’m really really happy to see this one here, because I think this is probably the favourite thing of my own that I’ve written.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

YES absolutely!! I love comments so much, and I really love to ramble about my stories because I almost always have a LOT of thoughts hahaha

6. A fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I mean, it’s probably a toss up between i need a place to hide (because I ended it on that twist/cliffhanger), Retrograde (which is another cliffhanger ending, leaving all the characters in a REALLY BAD situation), or maybe the new problem kid, you’ll taste all the salt in my lungs, because, uh, it basically ends with the Doctor saying ‘the person I was before this moment is dead’ HAHAHA. But, to be honest, I don’t know if I would call any of those endings VERY angsty? They’re more like ‘AHHH WHAT HAPPENS NEXT’ endings rather than angst. I don’t tend to write angsty endings because I love angst but I always prefer to end it on a hopeful note...otherwise it feels very unsatisfying for me to write, personally.

7. Do you write crossovers?

Technically? I mean, I see Renegades as an au more than a crossover, because it’s merely set in the same universe as the X-Men comics, and the only crossover element is Nathaniel Essex being in it...and I never even wrote those scenes hahaha

8. Ever received hate on a fic?

Nah, people are wonderful!

9. Do you write smut?

Since I’m sex-repulsed, this is a hard no HAHA

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know!

11. Ever had a fic translated?

I have not

12. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Me and @sunshinedaysforever have a collab-wip graveyard in our dms HAHA - but I am actually working on cowriting a fic with some other wonderful folks at the moment! I am. Supposed to have my part finished by the 6th. Hm.

13. All time fav ship?

Right now, it’s thoschei/spydoc, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that’s my all time favourite, because my favourite changes a lot. I do have a HUGE amount of love for Clintasha and Rush/Young though!

14. WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Hmmmmm, there’s a few. I mean, at the moment, I feel like The Grandfather Paradox will NEVER get finished, but I like to think that if I’m still into Doctor Who enough when I finally finish campervan, I might take a crack at it? Grandfather Paradox is more solid atm than some of my other wips...(see: deathless, disarmed). Oh, I know which one I almost certainly won’t finish - this one I came up with waaay back before In the Wind, which is set between O55 and Telsa, which is about telepathy and not listening to warnings from the past, amongst other things.

15. Writing strengths?

I’ve been informed that I’m really good at character voices, and I also think that I’m quite good at expanding characters we see very little of and fleshing them out a lot more. I’ve had to do that a lot for campervan and it’s been really good fun!

16. Writing weaknesses?

I think I can get kinda tangled in the emotional plot lines sometimes, and it makes everything get convoluted and messy and hard to follow? Also I’m not very good at...taking a good metaphor and expanding it? If that makes sense. I’m also actually kind of terrible at subtle, clever foreshadowing because half the time I don’t know what’s happening HAHAHAHAH but sometimes I do manage it!! I’m trying to do it in campervan at the moment. Also I. Can’t write short things HAHA. My characters always think and talk a LOT and sometimes that’s good, sometimes not so much

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I’m actually doing it currently in part 5 of campervan, since Gabriela and Jamila both speak portuguese (and I’m learning portuguese!)

18. First fandom you wrote for?

On ao3? Stargate Universe. On the internet? The Avengers. Ever? Uh. I honestly don’t know. I made up ocs based on two unicorns in the aftercredits sequence of a My Little Pony VHS tape, does that count?

19. What’s your fav fic you’ve written so far?

I mentioned it earlier, but I’m extremely proud of and emotionally attached to and they did live by watchfires

If anyone wants my ao3, it’s right over here!

And oh, who to tag!! No pressure, of course, but: @sunshinedaysforever @theplatinthehat @taardisblue @hetzi-art @krebkrebkreb @echo84 @theoreticalabsurdity @1-of-those-things @walker-lister @timelostdoctor and anyone else who wants to!

#taka gets tagged #this was an interesting one!!#thanks for the tag!

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miru-n · 3 years

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★A3! BD Scout has begun!★

The June Birthday Premium Tryouts have begun! Today (6/5) is your only chance to get a birthday-themed SSR of Miru! Or is it? Check in-game for all the details!

I usually just do silly doodles for my birthday, but hey, spoiling myself is not bad every once in a while hehe

Imma rambles about my self insert and what i put on these fake Glitter card, this will be long so no need to read this~

First, I'll talk about flower motif!

I choose hydrangea as my flower motif for my a3 self insert.

Hydrangea is one of my favorite flower, along with Hyacinth and Orchid.

My knowledge on hanakotoba is basically 0 lol but i feel like hydrangea resonates more with me, both the positive meanings (desire to understand others, sincerity/honesty) and the negative meanings (boastful, distant, bitter, regret).

When I was a kid, grandma told me the story about the Japanese emperor used the flower to show how sincere he is on his apology to his wife? Someone idk. And she also told me that one story someone burried a dead body and then bright colorful hydrangeas started to bloom on the patch where the body got burried. The duality lol

I also love this fun fact about hydrangea because honestly? Mood. I'm needy and clingy, so i love affection ww. But if you shower me with too much love? I go bye-bye lol

I had a hard time making the symbol of the flower for the card that fits with the other characters flower symbol, but i managed to make with the same style. I used photos bellow as my reference

Second, backgrounds for the unbloom card!

Drama card because other June boys' Glitter cards are Comedy and Action. Ok easy.

When making the card, I keep in mind if I can stitch my card with other characters.

Green on left because previous birthday in a3 was Citron. Yellow on left because Misumi's birthdaybis next after mine (mine's 5th June, his is 6th hehe).

The star balloons is such a coincidence on technical wise lol. Misumi got them on his unbloom card, that's one of the excuse why I put those. But! I love stars so it works out well when making my unbloom card lol. I love stars, but I can't identify any star or constellation if my life depends on it ww the only constellation I know is Gemini. Which is a coincidence because it's also my zodiac. So that's why from all the random balloon stars and the glittery star accessories on the background, you can spot Gemini on bottom left.

If you see on bottom right, you might notice something that does not look like a star or constellation.

It's the symbol of High Priestess. Besides star, I also love tarot ww. I was so into tarot on my middle school era and still got a deck of tarot cards on my table (blame Persona 3). Everytime I do a tarot reading by myself, from random internet quiz, from an actual tarot reader, that fucking card always pops out. And the way it reads always pissed me off www even more pissed because everyone I know said 'yeah that's so you/oof that sounds just like your luck'. WTF DOES THAT MEAAAN AHDJDKAKA. Anyway my self insert arcana on Persona Series is The High Priestess so... LOL

Purple is one of my favorite color (besides yellow, red and black). So I just decide purple as the background color

And last but not least, the bloomed card!

Tried to do the same concept of using mirror to symbolize my zodiac like the other June boys.

Why is the glass art contains Mondrian art and not just my flower motif like other characters? I want something obnoxious to scream 'hello i'm an artist' lol. I wanted to do Alphonse Mucha art (since he is my favorite old timer artist) with beautiful hydrangeas as the glass art.

........But i still love my hands ok, not today carpal tunnel. So I noped out and settle with Mondrian instead (flashback to uni year where I got assignment to mimick your favorite artist and god do I regret loving Alphonse Mucha's art. Atleast I got A on that class so it paid off 🕺)

The gold patterns on my Glitter outfit is a Batik pattern! Hohoho Indonesia History time for anyone who still read up to this point! I took Batik class on uni and worked as Lecturer Assistant y'all better listen to me or I'll kick your kneecaps.

It’s loosely based from Batik Truntum! It’s from Java, and means ‘love and loyalty’ or ‘loves that blooms again’. History wise, the royalty family give this Batik to someone they love, trying to court or just a gift to family. The name Truntum itself came from the word ‘Taruntum’, which means ‘to grow/bloom again’. There’s so many romance stories behind this Batik. But this one I found so fucking funny because a king is trying to marry a new woman (idk the english, you know, when king got married millions of women?). His queen got so sad, so she started making a Batik to cheer herself up. She ended up loving the result and gave it to the king as a present. Then the king goes ‘damn she gave me this Batik, that means she’s loyal. looks like I won’t marry another women’ wwwwww

For the outfit, hoodie is because I love wearing one even when it’s 45 degree celcius outside lmao dont judge me.

The ring is what i usually wear. It’s a promise ring. The ring cost 1$ tho LOL that’s how cheap my promise is, so don’t hold onto any of my promise ww

The scarf that wrap around my body is... kinda sentimental symbol. I’d rather not explain that one ww maybe one day!

That’s all! If you read it all till this part, thank you so much ww

#miru in a3!#< mute that tags if you didn't wanna see my self insert #a3 #a3!#a3! fanart #act! addict! actors!#self insert #persona #digital art #fake card #thank you for everyone who's been supporting me by like/rb my art! means alot!#i'm now 23 lol #trying to mimick Ryo Fujiwara's art style is a pain in the ass i swear

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emsartwork · 4 years

Note

i forgot to add: how do design ????!?!??????

So I’m not expert but this is how I think of character design! (also sry if you were asking about clothing/outfit design thats a little different)

under the cut because this is long im so sorry

So in my opinion there are three really important aspects for character design!

AESTHETIC: obviously everybody’s aesthetic is different, but this is more about what vibe the character has, what makes them THEM design wise.

INTENTION: who is the character supposed to be? this can range from their personality, their back story, their occupation, or their role in the story, but the design need to fit that intention.

COHESION: does the design go well together? or do certain aspects clash too much? obviously you can have disjointed parts of a character design, and if those serve a purpose then thats fine, but if its so disjointed its distracting from the character as a whole you might need to tweak things.

AESTHETIC: the contrasting part of the design (white flowers in dark hair, dark trim on dress, and dark shoes) provide interest to the eye. The mixing of round and sharp shapes also keeps the design from feeling “boring” even though its relatively simple.

INTENTION: so what role would this little doodle character have? according to her design elements, shes cute and friendly with her round shapes (bouncy balls, babies, etc), but could have a sharp/fast/active or even dangerous edge to her with the triangles (arrows, knives etc). of course the design doesn’t limit her possible roles. She could be a bubbly younger sister who teases the older protagonist, or maybe she’s the villain hiding in plain sight. the shape this character design doesn’t really have is squares(think bricks and rocks), which communicates that she might not be really strong, steady, or reliable.

COHESION: repeating the curves across her whole design builds cohesion, it communicates that “yes, these are all part of the same character”, it also allows the eye to “rest” on a familiar shape or line.

NOW LETS LOOK AT SOME DESIGNS

(Boku no Hero Academia) so both of these characters are super heroes, but have vastly different design elements. so lets analyze them.

OCHAKO(the pink one) is all rounds, with a few pointed shapes in hair mostly, but a little on her costume as well. Her personality is cute, bubbly, and friendly which perfectly suits her soft and bouncy design. Howevre she also has a very slight edge to her, which is seen her determination and drive to improve herself over the course of the anime.

KIRISHIMA(the red one) at first glance, seems to be super pointy!! shapes that are usually seen on villains or really dangerous characters, but while he IS sharp(literally sometimes) and sometimes aggressive, he is also made of squares, which perfectly suits his loyal “i gotchu bro” attitude towards most of the other characters in the anime.

ISSUE AREAS: so the only problems i have with Ochako and Kirishima’s designs is that their costumes each have one area that clashes a little too much for my taste. With Ochako, the belt over the color blocking stripes down her crotch are......questionable taste wise. I think the design would be better if the pink chest ended above the belt in a shallow v. not only would this mirror the triangle aspects of her hair, it would fit the belt outline, and continue the trend her costume has of being “grounded” or “heavy”. Kirishima has those.... gears??? around his shoulders??? and while the gear teeth are technically squares, the gear shape itself is a circle, which is a shape that isn’t present anywhere else in his design. I think changing the gears to something similar to his boots or his mask/headgear would create a more cohesive design(also the gears just look hard to move in)

These two characters are presented as individuals so their costumes don’t have to match at all even though they are still seen as “connected” because of the art style for the face, hair, and body.

In a group giving the outfits cohesive motifs is an easy way to present a strong team image! In Yuki Yuna is a Hero, the girls all have colored lines(usually princess seam placement), armor or fabric hip accents, covered arms, and similar flower shapes in their hair. The Aesthetic of each girl is strong in a monochrome signature color, but not over whelming as the black+white connects them even in color so they aren’t out of place.

Speaking of color! if your characters are all similar looking (like same body for all of them) you can communicate their personality and aesthetic just with color! (only gonna talk about a few of the ponies) Pinkie Pie (the really pink one) is energetic and playful, so her color scheme is a variation of the primary colors(happy, child like), and have one of the more saturated colors(high energy, intense) of these characters in a large quantity. Apple Jack (the orange one) is a down to earth farm girl, and her color palette is accordingly, mostly earth tones, its also warm analogous colors, which makes her appear un-complicated and warm personality wise. the pop of red is a nice touch to add interest, but notice that its uses sparingly in her cutie mark and tail accessory. Rarity on the other hand is elegant and fussy, her high contrast scheme of white and dark blue/purples gives her more visual interest and is something that makes her appear more “complex” in addition to the gradient thats included in her hair. the colors are also all cool colors, bringing to mind cool glass or water which both have connotations of grace and beauty.

however all the characters here are unified by their colors being on the pastel side, which is also important for a cohesive cast.

another, short, note on color; making the color/line/shading of your figure different from the background can help them stand out, this is used ESPECIALLY in children’s media, but can be applied to any illustration or animation as needed.

Color can also help your characters “read” quickly on screen, the powerpuff girls are a prime example, of having a distinct color blocking and silhouette. even the color blobs at the top and my crappy hand silhouettes STILL read as the characters despite being broken down into abstract elements. I also really enjoy the thick outline in the powerpuff girls, it really makes the characters pop to the foreground even though they have pretty simple designs and are often in a colorful setting.

Also, for a lot of animation, silhouette is INCREDIBLY important for your characters, some designers sketch silhouettes and then design the particulars its so important to nail the shape. These examples from Coraline are some of my favorites (though Laika wins in my heart every time no matter what lmao) because the simple shapes are SO CLEAR and indicative of the character, you literally don’t need to have watched the movie to know these are each different characters with different personalities and roles.

silhouette can also help tell the story. In Kubo and the two strings (another Laika film) the above three characters are sisters. One has chosen to leave her home in the heavens to live on earth, and the other two stay in their roles as “heavenly” warriors. This is even shown through their designs, the two sisters are weighted on top and their cloaks don’t even touch the ground, while the first woman has trailing, heavy sleeves, hair, and robes all grounding her and emphasizing her connection with the earth.

another example of shape/silhouette reflecting the story, In The Croods, the family of cavemen are for the most part very top heavy, with large torsos and arms, usually in a more hunched over position, while the newcomer, Guy, is bottom heavy with thin arms and stands more upright. In the plot, the family represents the old ways, the strength and rules that have helped them survive, they look like very stereotypical “cavemen”, while Guy resembles the modern man, and appropriately is associated with new ideas and forward thinking.

MORE SHAPES, in DC super hero girls each girl has a distinct personality emulated by her shape language. Zatana is dramatic curves and edges, Super girl is hard, straight edges against curves, giving her a solid muscular shape. Wonder Woman, though also strong, is taller and leaner, lending to a confident leader type. Green Lantern is slim, her lines all flow into each other giving her a go with the flow look. Bumble Bee is, of course, tiny, but her boots and gauntlets add weight and strength to her otherwise small frame. Batgirl is lanky and has a lot of pointed style lines, reminding the viewer of a skinny cat (ironic what with cat woman i know) or weasel which mirrors her preferred “sneaky” crime fighting style. (also yes this was just an excuse for me to gush abt how much i love the dcshg designs shut up)

so in my opinion, Cartoon Saloon’s The Secret of Kells is PERFECT in aesthetic, intention, and cohesion. Kells focuses very strongly on creating silhouette WITHIN the larger figure shape via color and line, most of the characters pictured here have no neck, the one who does, Brendan, is the main character and the use of negative space that cuts into his shape is used to draw attention to him. Kells is also very strongly inspired by Medieval Illuminated manuscripts (namely, the book of kells lmao). The characters still manage to stand out against outrageously detailed backgrounds via their simple shapes and strong color blocking.

Aisling, a secondary but very important character, is not human, and has a totally different shape language from the rest of the characters. She is thin and pointy, while most of the others are round or square. Aisling also has the most negative space making up her silhouette, compare the triangles made by her arms and legs in the above picture to the figures in the first image where everybody’s body is self contained with no negative space. She is also very different color wise, very pale and cool colored, as opposed to the warm saturated colors of the human characters. (yes this was another excuse to gush abt one of my fave pieces of media deal with it)

hopefully that wasn’t too rambley and actually helps? if yall have more specific design questions lemma know lol

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