#drawing this series made me appreciate starters more
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↪ 𝑺𝑳𝑬𝑬𝑷𝒀 𝑯𝑶𝑳𝑳𝑶𝑾 . ( a series of sentence starters from the 1999 film “ sleepy hollow ” . adjust phrasing as necessary . )
help , here — lend a hand .
just a moment , if i may —
i stand up for sense & justice .
do make certain you meet with success .
such a day for such a sad farewell .
this is such a silly game .
be a sport & stop complaining !
play along , you must .
forgive me , i didn’t know .
we haven’t heard your name yet , friend .
you need some manners .
if we could speak alone ?
how much have your superiors bothered to tell you ?
you are horribly old - fashioned , aren’t you ?
feel free to form your own opinion , though it appears you already have .
it seems i’ve made matters worse .
i’ll leave you to your business .
excuse me ... i should apologize .
is it me , or are you this nervous around all women ?
do be a dear & tell me all about it .
sounds like an extraordinary place to live a life .
there is no such thing as magic .
to call a person superstitious is to imply they fear magic .
poets have silly notions .
you do believe me now , don’t you ?
you need less big words , & more common sense .
what the hell are you doing ?
i am not here for revenge . i am here to bring justice .
i manage fine alone .
i deserve to help you . don’t you see how much this means ?
what are you spying on ?
i beg you , no more , please .
i will not allow it . i will not !
why was i not told of this ?
you should step outside .
sorry for disturbing you . i thought a forgotten candle was burning .
having trouble sleeping ?
i have something to show you , if you have a moment .
these scars . how did you get them ?
oh , you are hopeless .
i have a gift for you . true magic which even you will not be able to deny .
are you saying i should be frightened ?
what will it take for you to realize this is no laughing matter ?
don’t be afraid ... don’t be afraid .
you promised justice . people have put their trust in you .
why would you do such a thing ?
leave me . you are not welcome here .
allow me some time .
the things i said to you before ... i was wrong to say them .
every word you spoke had truth in it .
if you want me to go , i will . do you want me to leave ?
i no longer know what i think or what i feel .
why are you so afraid ? is there truly such harm in uncertainty ?
i should be going ... good day to you .
i’m one of the few people who likes you .
i apologize if i worried you .
my god ... what has happened ?
yes , i did notice that , thank you .
i am a bad habit . there’s nothing for it .
don’t let him get you .
lay still , [ name ] . do not move .
i’m drawing bad blood from the wound .
you were half - drowned when they found you .
i serve a fine purpose alive .
midnight seems an appropriate time .
hide in my room & bolt the door til i return .
i was getting worried .
do you have anything to clean it with ?
i know you saw me .
i know you followed me last night .
i appreciate your concern .
you are so upset now ... & yet , you seemed in such good spirits last night .
why have i not seen your face for so long ?
i have been reading your journal .
what would you have me believe ?
if you think i am behind this , say it .
call me a liar , then , & a murderer .
what is stopping you ? what has happened to your ability to transcend sentimentality ?
don’t dare stand looking as if you still care for me , after all that you have said .
if i were to confess , would that ease your suffering ? would that make it easier for you to hate me ?
the next person to lay hands on me will have a bullet .
you do not know all that has happened .
why ... why are you like this ?
to hell with this place & all the people here .
won’t you change your mind ? what can i say to convince you ?
take me with you . there’s nothing left for me here .
forgive me . i failed you .
you ... you’re alive .
no one will believe your lies .
i am not going to kill you . not me ...
you cannot kill what is already dead .
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shattered
twenty-five: the confession
chapter summary: Kate, Nancy, Robin, and Steve prepare to defeat Vecna in the Upside Down.
chapter warnings: language, steve's lil speech again
word count: 2.7k
series masterlist | masterlist
KATE, STEVE, ROBIN, Nancy, Eddie, and Dustin were going over the plan one last time before they split off for the night.
They had already dropped Max, Lucas, and Erica off at the Creel house for their part of the plan. Now they sat parked on the side of the road before they went through the gate.
Kate didn't exactly like how they'd been split up. She didn't like that Lucas, Max, and Erica had been sent off by themselves to the Creel house, for starters. What if something went wrong and Max got hurt? The fact that there wasn't anyone there that could do anything to help made her sick to her stomach. Then there was the fact that they were leaving Dustin and Eddie to be a distraction—she didn't like that, either. Dustin was just a kid, and this was Eddie's first time dealing with something like this. She couldn't believe that Steve hadn't volunteered to stay behind with them, just to insure at least one of the kids' safety.
She didn't see the point in four of them going to kill Vecna. Realistically, the only people that needed to go were her and Nancy, maybe Robin or Steve, but not both of them. She would've preferred Robin, and, realistically, she would've appreciated if Steve would've let her at least check on his wounds rather than him just quickly shower himself off in the Winnebago bathroom. She hated that he was coming with them. It just seemed too dangerous with the condition he was in.
Kate, however, wasn't the one calling the shots.
"Okay," Nancy said, "I wanna run through it one more time. Phase one."
"We meet Erica at the playground," Kate said. "She'll signal Max and Lucas when we're ready."
"Phase two."
"Max baits Vecna," Steve said. "He'll go after her, which'll put him in his trance."
"Phase three?"
"Me and Eddie draw the bats away."
"Four."
"We head into Vecna's newly bat-free lair, and—" Robin held up a Molotov cocktail— "flambé."
"Nobody moves on to the next phase until we've all copied," Nancy said firmly. "Nobody deviates from the plan, no matter what. Got it?"
"Got it," everyone repeated in sync.
The group of six, suited with their makeshift weapons, walked swiftly to Eddie's trailer, trying not to alert anyone in the trailer park of their entry. Whenever Steve got inside, taking off his backpack before he climbed up, Dustin gave him an unreadable look.
"Be careful."
"Thanks, buddy." He put his hand on the rope, beginning the climb. "Here goes nothing." Steve quickly made his way up the rope, flipping down onto the ground. He landed right on his feet, looking back up to everyone at the top of the gate and shrugging before walking to grab the mattress.
"What does he want us to do, applaud?" Robin mumbled sarcastically, earning a stifled laugh from Kate—she figured some type of praise definitely would have sufficed for him.
Steve flopped the mattress down as a launch pad on the Upside Down part of the portal. "All right, let's go."
Kate pulled her gun off of her shoulders, stepping on Robin's two hands to help herself up the rope. Whenever she flopped back down onto the mattress, she grunted, and Steve stuck his hand out to her. "Gotcha." He pulled her up so close to him that their lips were inches from each other, making them both tense up before going back to the task at hand.
Robin and Nancy threw down all of their weapons before they both followed down, and Eddie and Dustin threw their weapons down before falling onto the mattress themselves. Whenever they'd gotten ready to split off, Nancy led Kate and Robin out the door, Steve following closely behind. Eddie and Dustin followed, only stopping on the outside of the trailer.
"Hey, guys, listen," Steve said, turning around to Eddie and Dustin. "If things here start to go south, I mean, at all, you abort, okay? Draw the attention of the bats. Keep 'em busy for a minute or two. We'll take care of Vecna. Don't try to be cute or be a hero or something—"
"Does he hear himself?" Kate mumbled to Robin during his speech to Dustin and Eddie, earning a stifled laugh.
"—Okay? You guys are just—"
"Decoys," Dustin said, emphasizing the word as if he'd heard it a hundred times. "Don't worry. You can be the hero, Steve."
"Absolutely. I mean, look at us," Eddie said, looking at Dustin. "We are not heroes."
Steve nodded once before turning away, but stopped in his tracks when Eddie called his name again.
"Hey, Steve?"
Steve, as well as the three girls in front of him, stopped to look back at Eddie.
Eddie hesitated, almost as if it hurt him to say it. "Make him pay."
Steve nodded once before walking away with Nancy, Kate, and Robin, beginning their journey to the playground.
As they walked through the woods, Robin began to panic.
"Uh... I don't mean to freak anyone out, but I swear we've seen this tree before," she said, stopping in front of a tree.
"That's impossible," Nancy said, standing next to her.
"That would suck, right?" Robin asked. "If Vecna destroyed the world because... 'cause we got lost in the woods?"
"We're not lost, Robin."
Robin chuckled nervously as she and Nancy walked ahead, leaving Steve and Kate alone once again.
"Hey, watch out for vines!" Kate shouted. "Hive mind, remember?"
"Thank you!"
"Don't worry about her," Steve said, reading Robin perfectly. "She's just stressed. You know, scared."
"Yeah," Kate said. "Yeah, I... I know. It's just..."
"She's a super klutz?" Steve asked.
"The worst!" she said, chuckling. "One time she told me that it took her longer to walk than most babies, and I completely believe her. Without a doubt."
Steve chuckled. "I really shouldn't laugh. When I was a baby, I actually crawled backwards."
"What?" Kate said, turning to him sharply in disbelief. "You're lying. I've never heard you say that."
"I'm not making it up!" he said, still chuckling. "Seriously, you know, I'd push with my hands like this." He demonstrated with his hands as he made a beeping noise, similar to a large vehicle going in reverse. "Always in reverse, you know? I mean, come on, it makes sense. You push to move, right?"
"No." She tried to contain her laughter. "How the hell does that make sense?"
"Well, it did to my tiny little Harrington brain." He sighed. "That is until I reversed my baby butt down a flight of stairs and thumped my head really good."
"What?" she repeated, turning to him again. "You are such a liar."
"I swear I'm not, okay? Ask my mom next time you see her, I'm sure she'd be thrilled to tell you." He chuckled. "I'm surprised this, uh... hasn't ever come up before. I seriously never told you?"
"No," she said, astonished. "I mean, it explains... so much."
"Yeah," he said, chuckling. "I think it kinda does. I think, like, right out of the gate, like, I'm super confident, you know? But I'm also, like, an idiot. Which is just... I mean, it's a brutal combination."
She grimaced. "You're not an idiot."
"I am," he said, shrugging. "I've come to accept it. But, I mean, the good news is, I get a big enough thump on my head, I can change, you know? I can learn. I can... crawl forward."
"Or you can get serious brain damage."
He sighed. Kate didn't know what he was trying to say. She stopped walking, making him stop in return.
"Listen, I guess what I'm trying to say in a stupid, roundabout way is, um..." He clicked his tongue. "...is thank you."
"Thank me?" Kate asked, almost laughing.
"Yeah."
"What the hell are you thanking me for?"
"For giving my head the biggest thump of its life two and a half years ago," he said, looking at her fondly.
Kate sighed softly.
The "thump" in question had been during their junior year of high school whenever they stopped being friends. It had been back when Steve was a complete asshole, back when Kate was willing to throw away years of friendship because of the way he treated people. They stopped being friends for about a year, and they both remembered the pain that had brought on for both of them, even if they had connected with other people during that time. During that year, Steve cleaned up his act, dated Nancy Wheeler, and the night of Halloween their senior year, Steve and Kate finally spoke again, leading to their eventual relationship not long after. She hadn't realized until much later what her renouncing their friendship did for him: she couldn't imagine Steve as that guy now. Not anymore.
"I needed it. It's changed my life." He walked ahead of her, looking back at her. "And now I'm crawling forward. Slowly." He paused, trying to collect himself as he walked next to her. "I just wonder sometimes... you know, if all of this didn't happen... would things have been... different?"
"How so?"
"I don't know, I just... Maybe if we would've waited, you know? Waited until we got older, or if, like... if–if we were meeting together for the first time right now, part of me..." He stopped walking again, making her stop, too. "I dunno, part of me thinks we would've made it."
Kate's heart dropped. "Steve..."
"Remember the dream I told you about?" he asked. "About the Winnebago? Seeing the country with my six lil' nuggets?"
Kate's eyebrows furrowed together. "Yeah?"
"It's all true. Every last word. But I left one part out. It's the most important part," he said, looking at her fondly.
Her heart was beating out of her chest. She couldn't believe that Eddie had been right about what Steve had said—she would definitely have to tell him about it later.
"You're there." Whenever she didn't respond, only stared at him in response, he smiled softly. "You've always been there."
Her breath caught in her throat. "You're so cheesy."
Steve gave her a confused look. "I just poured my heart out to you, and that's all you have to say?"
She hesitated, almost like she couldn't respond. "You're so... goddamn cheesy, oh my God."
He stifled a laugh. He finally understood her. "Can I kiss you?"
She blinked once, almost like she hadn't heard him correctly. "What?"
"I want to kiss you."
She scoffed. "Since when have you ever asked for permiss—?"
Steve cut her off by cupping her face with his hand and pressing his lips to hers. She immediately kissed him back, putting her arms gently around his neck so as to not hurt him.
She'd forgotten what it felt like to kiss Steve Harrington. Everything that was him was so intoxicating that she seemingly forgot about everything else just for a moment, the only two things in the world being him and her. She broke away for a moment and pressed her forehead to his, just long enough to catch her breath. "I hate you."
He chuckled. "I love you, too." He barely had enough time to catch his breath before she pressed her lips to his again, tilting his head in her direction and digging her fingers in his hair.
God, she'd missed him. She'd missed the feel of him, his sappy remarks that she loved to act like she hated, his stupid hair. Even though they were in the Upside Down, she didn't care—she was kissing him again. She was with him again. Everyone had been right in telling her she was an idiot for breaking up with him. She'd never make that same mistake ever again.
"Hey, guys!" Robin said, running back to them with Nancy in tow. "You guys! Awesome news—oh!"
Kate and Steve both immediately pulled back from the kiss whenever Robin's voice came within earshot, her and Nancy both standing in front of them awkwardly. Steve sighed annoyedly—this was the first time he'd kissed Kate in two hundred and fourteen days and Robin had been the one to get in between them? Tough break.
"Yes?" Steve asked, annoyedly.
"Looks like we weren't going the wrong way, after all," Robin said sheepishly, still out of breath. "Come on! Let's go!"
Steve and Kate both exchanged glances as Robin and Nancy walked ahead, and he nodded off in their direction, telling her to start walking again. If he survived the night, he would definitely make sure they would be picking up where they left off on that.
"Ro... Slow down! Ro–Robin!" Steve shouted, trying to keep up with her. He turned to Kate, speaking softly. "Can I hold your hand?"
"Again, you and the asking for permission."
He scoffed when she stuck her hand out to him, which he very quickly accepted. He chuckled as he watched for vines, holding her hand tightly in his. "I didn't realize it would be that easy to win you over again."
"Easy?" she asked, acting somewhat offended. "Am I easy to you?"
"What, no!" he said quickly, shaking his head. "No, I just... I just didn't think you liked me like that anymore."
"What are you, five?"
He chuckled. "Yeah. Yeah, sure. So the six kids and the Winnebago did it for you, huh? Reminded you of how much you love me?"
She laughed uneasily. "Actually, no. Six is... insane. I still think that is insane. You sounded like a damn Catholic whenever you said that."
"All right, that was low, okay? Low." Whenever she stifled a laugh, he sighed. "How about five?"
"Nope."
"Four?"
"Still too many."
His eyebrows furrowed together. "How many do you want, then?"
"Jesus, Steven, I don't know! I don't have my entire life planned out in terms of how many kids I want to have. All I know is I want a dog named Leia, that's it."
"So three isn't out of the ballpark?"
"You are annoying, you know that?" she said, shaking her head. "You and your theoretical children."
"You mean our theoretical children?"
She rolled her eyes, pink slightly tinging her face. "You're completely pushing your luck, Harrington."
He smiled contently. "You still love me."
"Sadly." Kate sighed slightly, still not losing her smile. "Seriously, though, I missed you. I feel like a dumbass for breaking up with you. I wish I wouldn't have done it."
"Hey, you're not a dumbass, okay? But I, uh... I also wish you wouldn't have done it," he said, squeezing her hand. "Would've saved me a lot of money, let me tell you."
"Okay, your nicotine addiction is not my fault."
"You stressed me out!"
She stifled a laugh, unable to get rid of her smile. "All right, well, problem solved. Stop smoking."
He nodded once, pressing his lips together. "Got it."
"Are you guys coming or what?" Nancy shouted way up ahead of them.
"All right, Jesus, we're coming!" Steve shouted back. He lowered his voice as he and Kate picked up their walking pace, dropping each other's hands. "She's just jealous."
"Oh, I'm sure she's jealous," Kate answered sarcastically. "Definitely not annoyed or anything."
Whenever Steve and Kate had caught up to Nancy and Robin, they found the playground that sat right in front of the Creel house. As bats flew around the house and red lightning struck the sky, they looked to the playground, seeing a light of some kind.
"Erica," Steve said, looking at Kate.
Phase one was about to be completed.
next chapter
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@thatsonezesty13 @cece5298 @thepowerstoner @alovelytardis @coolchick333 @stand-tall-pineapple @littlet-holmes @guichu @cinderellacauseshebroke @blackbirddaredevil23 @mads-weasley @ilovemarauders @pearlstiare @liableperfections @khaylin27 @girlwiththerubyslippers @cyarikaaa
#steve harrington#steve harrington x reader#steve harrington x hopper!reader#stranger things 4#steve harrington headcanon#steve harrington x oc#steve harrington series#steve harrington stranger things
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[Image Description: Red, the masculine protagonist of the gen 1 Pokemon games and their gen 3 remakes, as well as the "ultimate" challenge of the gen 2 games and their gen 4 remakes, with his Charizard. Red is depicted in his appearance in the gen 3 and gen 4 remakes. He has one hand in his pocket, the other casually tossing up a red and white Pokeball. His Charizard is standing behind him, one hand on his shoulder, with a confident smirk on its face. The background is the snow-covered peak of Mt. Silver, with a dull blue cloudy sky overhead. End ID.]
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“...”
Funny thing, I drew all the important characters in two separate sets of games now, but I never drew the guy who is arguably the most important character in the irl history of the franchise. That's partly because of my choice to draw the protagonist that I chose to play as for each game for this whole series, and partly because I knew that I would be drawing Red eventually regardless of whether or not I included him in the FRLG set :3c And yeah, I know that his Pikachu is his strongest Pokemon in pretty much every encounter that's not level-capped (hence why for the Cantessy stuff I made Pikachu be his son's ace), but I couldn't resist the thematic parallel with him using Charizard alongside the starter choices featured in my FRLG drawings (Leaf getting Squirtle and Blue getting Bulbasaur). Besides, this series is partly to get me to draw Pokemon I otherwise wouldn't, plus I'll be drawing Pikachu eventually anyway ^u^
And with that, the HGSS series is complete! You can probably guess what's coming next, but first I'm gonna give myself a lil break from Pokemon hehe :3
💖🐶 Check out my pinned post for ways to support my artwork, among other things! 🐶💖
~Likes are appreciated, but reblogs are preferred as they let more people see my artwork! If you have something to say, feel free to give feedback in tags/comments/replies as well!~
Red, Charizard, and other Pokemon concepts © Nintendo/GameFreak
Artwork © PuppyLuver Studios
#pokemon#pokemon heart gold#pokemon soul silver#pokemon trainer red#charizard#jess drew the thing#sfw#image description
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Please tell me some of your favorite books 👀 (I trust your tastes and I need more things to read)
Book recs! Book recs!
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang: Short story collection, all of them very good. Really captivating blend of mythology and sci-fi. The movie Arrival was based on one. Another was the only time someone has ever pulled off the "what if we made a guy's brain better" premise without giving me an allergic reaction from bad neuroscience.
The Three Body Trilogy (The Three Body Problem/The Dark Forest/Death's End) by Cixin Liu: Incredibly interesting series about aliens making first contact with China during the Cultural Revolution. Author has a way of making you actually appreciate the scale of things happening in space. I have never feared extraterrestrial life except while I was reading The Dark Forest holy crap.
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman: I know tumblr already knows about Neil Gaiman because he lives here in our house like our collective favorite uncle, but Neverwhere is my favorite of his. Nice vibes. Draws you in.
Basically every book Terry Pratchett ever wrote:
I'm a giant Discworld simp. It's not just funny fantasy with occasional biting social commentary--which is good on its own!--Terry Pratchett also has THE BEST PROSE I KNOW. People will post clever sentences online but it doesn't capture the way the cleverness is effortlessly woven into the very fabric of every paragraph. The whole book is like that. All the way through. My whole blog is gushing about nitty gritty details of sentences being neat. I'm all over that sh*t. Eternal favorite author.
There's a lot of Discworld books, many of them at least loosely connected in little mini-series with multiple other books. Don't get overwhelmed by reading order suggestions, most orders are fine. My own favorite starter/standalone books are Mort, Guards! Guards!, Small Gods, and Going Postal. Pick one. Read it. The prose is like that all the way through.
Pandora Hearts by Jun Mochizuki: okay that's a manga series but not enough people have read it. Come for the pretty people acting mysterious, stay for one of the best plot twists I've seen in fiction.
I also desperately want to recommend some books by Kotaro Tsunekawa, but I don't believe there are English versions of any of them (though his prose is simple and efficient if any learners want to take a crack at 夜市 or something!) Hot damn that man can worldbuild. They don't WARN you when you start learning a language that you're gonna have book recs for people who can't read them. Maybe one day I'll finally snap and fan-translate a short story on here.
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World of Memory: A Personal YGO Retrospective
(I don't fancy myself a writer, but these thoughts just poured out of me. This is for me, more than anything. But if anyone reads it, I hope it's amusing enough.)
I must've been in the second grade when Yu-Gi-Oh came to the US.
I remember all the boys in my class trading cards and challenging one another to duels. I remember gazing wistfully at the checkout of every major supermarket chain, pleading with my parents to buy some cards. When they refused, I decided to make my own fantasy trading cards! Using graph paper! But I quickly learned how hard it was not only to create the cards but also to design mechanics that people would actually want to play.
I remember my parents surprising me that fateful Christmas of 2002 with the original Starter Deck Yugi. Even though 90% of the monsters were weak and vanilla, the smell of the freshly unwrapped cards was CRACK. Better yet, I was finally cool enough to hang out with the boys. Well, I didn't actually play the game very much with people other than my sister, and eventually, the school administration banned trading cards altogether. But it was endlessly fun to talk about. I even went to China one year and bought a TON of fake YGO cards to flaunt and trade with the other kids. Yes, we were all kids cheating other kids.
I remember my heart absolutely racing in anticipation of watching the show on Kids WB, and the crushing disappointment of turning on the TV just a moment too late (I'm reminding myself that Netflix didn't exist back then). The visual style was just so striking, so much cooler than Pokémon's. The plot felt so much more serious. And don't even get me started on the characters. I was literally head-over-heels in love with a Nameless Pharaoh. I was a Revolutionshipper before shipping was even a thing. It's pretty obvious from my Tumblr archive lol.
I remember the first fanart I made, which was me trying to copy the cover of the Starter Deck Yugi instruction manual. It was the hardest thing I'd ever drawn up to that point, and I specifically colored Yugi's eyes gray. Because people didn't have purple eyes, of course. I wish I held onto that drawing because it sparked something in me. Maybe it was my obsession with ancient Egypt, which predated my obsession with YGO. Maybe it was my frustration with my drawing skills. Whatever it was, it would stay with me for a long time. Beyond classmates paying me in change to draw their favorite monsters. Even beyond my fairly brief stint posting YGO fanart to DeviantArt (yikes).
I remember finding the original manga at Barnes & Noble and feeling very confused. Why didn't Yugi have a nose? Where was Duel Monsters? Wait, are people actually dying?? These were the questions I asked myself as I learned what manga actually was. Subsequently, I would devour every copy of the manga and even Monthly Shonen Jump that I could get my hands on. In that way, YGO actually became a gateway to several other manga/anime series. It was a gateway to my now lifelong appreciation of Japanese culture as a whole.
20 years! 20 WHOLE YEARS after my first love of YGO, I can look back and laugh at how much money I spent on the TCG and manga. I can cringe at the silly fanficcy stories locked up in my head and the overly sentimental (or just straight-up copying) fanart I drew. I can, as an adult, appreciate the themes, but also be more critical of certain elements (the whole Doma Arc, how the series portrays women, the ancient Egyptians themselves, the clear references to the occult...etc.).
YGO shaped me into who I am right now: a designer who dabbles in fanart, an avid Egyptology nerd, an appreciator of animation and sequential art, and even an aspiring developer of a card-based game (my grad school thesis! For real). And as much as I sometimes weary of this dumpster-fire world, I still thank God that I was born at a time when I could experience the original YGO and grow up alongside it.
With all these fond memories of YGO, you can imagine my utter shock and sadness when I learned of Kazuki Takahashi's passing. It's even more surreal because I'm still following the man, himself, on Instagram. I hope he truly knew the depth of so many people's love for him and his work. And I hope that, one day, as the endless ages roll on, I'll find him and thank him, myself. For now, this rambling and a few pieces of art will have to do. Rest in peace, Sensei.
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Texts from the Lost Tomb part 6.1
🎶 Back on the bullshit I never got off🎶
Is this another unnecessary story arc?? With three sections??
Yes.
Wushanju Crew Chat
Wang Meng: You know, I’m someone who appreciates consistency in my day. My life is pleasant, very few issues indeed if you ignore the big ones. And yet. Yet here we are. With unresolved messes at the end of a day.
Wang Pangzi: SOMETHIN YOU NEED TO SAY MARY POPPINS
Wang Meng: We need to talk about Huo Daofu and the glittery bead curtain.
Wang Pangzi: MY FAVE TEEN WIZARD SERIES
Wu Xie: did you turn on that suggested word thingy lol
What glittery bead curtain
Wang Meng: I closed the shop at 6:00pm this evening on the dot. I locked all of the doors in and out of the shop very carefully, especially in light of recent events. The hall leading to the back office was empty. I filed the day’s paperwork, updated and sent emails, and then spent an extra hour organizing receipts and dusting. When I came back out, there were glittery iridescent bead curtains over the front entrance to the shop.
What could this mean?
Wu Xie: uh that you need to spend less time at work?
Wang Pangzi: LOOKS LIKE WE GOT ONE FOR THE DETECTIVES. THE MYSTERY OF THE BEDAZZLED THRESHOLD COMMENCES
Wu Xie: I think we can be relatively secure in thinking a glittery bead curtain isn’t a hostile threat
Wang Pangzi: SAYS YOU
I REMEMBER YE OLDE EXPLORATION TIMES HOW FAST THINGS GOT FURIOUS
BEANBAG CHAIRS SET AFLAME AND LEFT ON DOORSTEPS AS A WARNING
GLITTERBOMBS FOR DAYS
PANIC AT THE DISCO
Wang Meng: Ugh, forget it. I should have just taken them down, regardless of who they belong to.
Zhang Qiling: They are not mine.
Wang Pangzi: A BOLD STATEMENT COMING FROM OUR PRIME SUSPECT
SOMEONE QUICK GO DRAW CHALK AROUND THE DOORWAY TO MARK THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
Wang Meng: Do we know anyone who *would* sneak in and put those up? For whatever reason, legal or not? Even as a joke?
Wang Pangzi: ARE YOU SERIOUSLY ASKING WHETHER WE KNOW ANYONE WHO IS CHAOTIC, AN OUTLAW, A PRANKSTER AND/OR SNEAKS INTO PLACES
BECAUSE THAT WOULD MEAN OUR SUSPECT LIST IS LITERALLY EVERYONE WE KNOW EXCEPT FOR YOU.
Wu Xie: okay let’s think about this; for starters, I didn’t break into my own shop
Wang Meng: You would be in danger of doing some work in the process, that’s true.
Wang Pangzi: LOL
Wu Xie: ANYWAY let’s keep going. For example, Xiao Ge would only break in somewhere for a good reason. Xiao Ge, did you do this?
Zhang Qiling: No.
Wu Xie: okay who’s next
Wang Pangzi: YOU REALLY MISSED YOUR CALLING IN INTERROGATION TIANZHEN
REALLY PUT THE SCREWS TO HIM
IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE;)
Zhang Qiling: How can we be certain *you* didn’t do it?
Wang Meng: Admittedly that was my guess, too.
Wang Pangzi: WOW I SEE HOW IT IS
BLAME PANGZI AS USUAL
ANYWAY HOW DOES HUO DAOFU FIT INTO THIS
Wu Xie: Oh yeah him! Oops I got distracted
Wang Pangzi: UR ENTIRE HISTORY IN A NUTSHELL
Wu Xie: Ugh fuck off
Wang Meng what abt Huo Daofu??
Zhang Qiling: ?
Wu Xie: oh sorry xiaoge I didn’t realize you wouldn’t have spent much time around him last year
He and I go way back
Zhang Qiling: Way back where?
Babysitters Club Chat
Wang Pangzi: I CANNOT BELIEVE HE IS BUYING YOUR INNOCENT ACT
IF YOU EVER TURN TO EVIL WE ARE FUCKED
Zhang Qiling: ?
Wang Pangzi: YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHO HUO DAOFU IS
YOU WERE EXTREMELY POLITE AND BORDERLINE FRIENDLY TOWARDS HIM
Zhang Qiling: I wanted him to feel welcome. I wanted to be sure he understands he has a place here. A specific place.
Wang Pangzi: FOR A SILENT GUY YOU ARE A MASTER AT SUBTLE POWER PLAYS IM ALL TINGLY
LMAO THE IDEA OF WU XIE LEAVING YOU FOR HUO DAOFU IS HILARIOUS AND ALSO NOPE
Zhang Qiling: Rationally, I understand that.
Main Chat
Wang Meng: Huo Daofu is coming for the weekend—didn’t Wu Xie tell you? Wu Xie asked me to check in a week ahead so we could start getting ready for his arrival
Wu Xie: oh yeah I did do that
Wang Meng: Fortunately I know you and so I already went ahead and took care of everything.
Re: the trip
He made a deal with Wu Xie’s doctor that he would do periodic checkups on him here at Wushanju
Bc Wu Xie hates being in the hospital
And frankly the hospital hates him too
Wang Pangzi: FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTEMPT LOL
I FORGOT HUO DAOFU WAS DOING THAT
A VERY CHIVALROUS GESTURE
WOULDNT YOU SAY
XIOAGE
Zhang Qiling: Is it safe for him to be here with a criminal loose on the premises?
Wu Xie: Right, back to the curtain! Let’s focus on the curtain, hmm?
Wang Pangzi: I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS WEEKEND.
ALSO WE CAN RULE OUT XIAO BAI FOR THE CURTAIN SHE JUST SENT A SELFIE FROM NORWAY COVERED IN GREEN SLIME WITH ZERO CONTEXT, UR PROTEGE INDEED
Wu Xie: okay but who else would do something so oddly charming yet illegal and—wait.
Snake Eyes Chat
Wu Xie: hey, Glasses hasn’t been in touch lately right?
Li Cu: uh nope
Unless u count the outdated memes
Why, is money or Xie Yuchen missing
Or is this curtain related, I saw Wang Meng’s tweet
Wu Xie: haha no nothing to worry about really
(I mean maybe? but who knows)
Wang Meng is probably just getting a little paranoid in his old age
Li Cu: better than getting reckless and stupid as hell in ur old age
Wu Xie: …hey:(
Unknown Number: Li Cu, we discussed this.
Wu Xie: ????????
Li Cu: *sigh* fine, reckless and stupid as heck
Unknown Number: …close enough.
Wu Xie: EXCUSE who is that
Madame, Sir, Non-Binary Tree Spirit, etc—whomst the fuck
Are you
Li Cu is underage FYI
So Im staying on this chat
Li Cu: okay first of all, it’s not like that
Second of all I’m literally not underage I s2g
u threw the embarrassing surprise bday party, okay so u should remember
And C, that’s my counselor and I invited her. She wanted to meet u and I knew u wouldn’t agree to a visit so I added her to our chat
we have been discussing u
Wu Xie: Oh wow!!!!!!!
What a surprise:)
hi so nice to meet you:)
Main Chat:
Wu Xie: RED FUCKING ALERT
FUCK THE CURTAIN FUCK THE VISIT
IVE BEEN TRICKED INTO FAMILY THERAPY BY A SMUG TEENAGER WHO TEXTS UNKNOWN NUMBERS
Wang Meng: I assume that means something to someone here?
Not my problem? Good.
Wang Pangzi: AHAHAHA GOD I LOVE LI CU
HES LIKE ADORABLE KARMA FOR ALL THE SHIT YOUVE PUT ME THROUGH
IM RAISING HIS ALLOWANCE
Wu Xie: wait i give him an allowance
has he been collecting on two allowances??
Zhang Qiling: Three. I knew about both of yours.
Snake Eyes Chat
Wu Xie: so uh may I ask your name?
Unknown Number: you can call me Ms. Lee.
Now, if you’re comfortable talking in this format, why don’t you tell me how things have been going?
Wu Xie: oh everything is normal and fine and safe as usual, why do you ask:)
Li Cu: I heard about ur necklace thing. nice of you to NOT mention it.
another dangerous adventure. again. prick.
Ur lucky your cool boyfriend cares about you so much or you’d have already died like ten years ago
Wu Xie: lol try twenty years ago
Li Cu: That isn’t funny.
Unknown Number: …What?
Wu Xie: shit ur right, okay that was a bit glib, my apologies.
…I use humor as a coping mechanism?
Unknown Number: and Li Cu, how do you feel about that?
Li Cu: he doesn’t even know what that phrase means
He doesn’t cope, like ever
In fact
It’s kind of why we met
Which is a funny story in retrospect tbh
Wu Xie: haha what are you talking about sweetie hahaha need I remind you of certain anecdotes that could idk send me to jail maybe lmao
Unknown Number: …You know, perhaps an in-person meeting might be more effective?
Wu Xie: haha such a nice idea but why
Main Chat
Wu Xie: If I go to jail, I’ll have to create alliances for protection, right, that’s how it works on tv
Who do we know who spends time in jail
Other than Hei Yangjing, he’s only ever there for like 12 hours and i suspect he just gets himself arrested bc he enjoys the breaking out process
Also how’s the curtain case coming along
Zhang Qiling: Has someone threatened you?
Wu Xie: well not yet but soon I’m sure
Wang Pangzi: WHERE WAS THIS PARANOIA WHEN WE GOT TAKEN TO THE TEA HOUSE HUH
Snake Eyes Minus Your Fucking Therapist Chat
Li Cu: okay how tf did u pull off spy and undercover shit
u are sus as hell
Wu Xie: damn son is it pick on Wu Xie night
I missed the flyers or I would’ve invited my uncles
Also re: the curtain it’s been mostly solved
Li Cu: I’m not your son, idiot.
Wu Xie: …oh. Sorry, sorry, you’re right, bad choice of words, haha
Forget i said anything
Delete this chat even
Li Cu: shit I meant
Legally, biologically, I meant—
shit
…I turn into an asshole as a coping mechanism?
Wu Xie: oh that’s all okay! I have to go do something else now let me know if you need anything okay kid thanks!
Li Cu: goddamn it calm down who’s the kid here
lemme organize my thoughts so I can articulate my emotions fuckin healthily or w/e
Ugh maybe for like one afternoon we could go to Ms. Lee together? She knows how to word stuff
Wu Xie: uh…okay.
Li Cu: Anyway you don’t need to worry abt jail
As if you would survive prison for one day you’d piss off half the place in like an hour or less
I gave Ms. Lee the heavily edited version of the desert highway to hell roadtrip and i discussed it more in terms of like “nightmarish but still wouldn’t take any of it back”
Well maybe the sand
that shit was everywhere
Wu Xie: oh kiddo. It’s fine, really…You don’t have to explain yourself to me.
Li Cu: no, no it’s just
I do technically have a dad
who is an asshole. Being a son doesn’t really mean shit to me bc it sucked.
So you need to stop backing down just cuz ur guilty abt stuff. I’m really really glad ur not my dad in a good way. Do u get what I mean there
Where’s the mafia widower I followed into hell, huh
Wu Xie: Ur a good kid, despite my influence. I’m really glad you have someone to talk to after everything I…after everything. Wow this talking through feelings thing is kind of weird but nice ur right
Jfc no wonder it took me and xiaoge so long to—you know what, we won’t get into that
Li Cu: ew tmi
Also re: this week’s recent necklace fuckery
I moved my stuff here, I live here now
So you can’t die anymore
Or else…Idk I don’t have a threat planned
anyways abt the curtain
Wu Xie: oh my god, kid…kid you have no idea
I am in tears.
Li Cu: see this is why I can’t be nice to you I can sense the hallmark channel from here
Ugh don’t be sad in ur room that’s dumb
Go hug Pangzi or something
Maybe delete this chat
Or the curtain thing
Focus on the curtain thing
Just stfu and go away
Wu Xie: <3 screenshotting this <3
Li Cu: I take back everything I said. This is why Xiao Ge sleeps on the roof. I hope the ghosts of the Wangs put up that curtain to strangle you somehow. Go die in a stupid way, it’ll suit you.
Wu Xie: lol don’t worry I’m not gonna embarrass you with it or anything
Main Chat
Wu Xie: omg guys look how cute my kid is *sending screenshot*
Wang Pangzi: I MEAN
HE IS WISHING YOU DEATH
BUT SURE
CUTE I GUESS
Wu Xie: no but read the whole thing:):):)
Zhang Qiling: It is indeed very hard to remain angry with you. And you are welcome to join me on the roof.
Wang Pangzi: UH NOPE
NOT WHENI HAD TO BLEACH THE COUNTER IN THE KITCHEN
DONT TRAUMATIZE THE EARLY BIRDS THEYRE ALREADY FREAKED OUT BY U YA HOODIE CRYPTID
Wu Xie: ok true but babe ur like a sexy cryptid
Wang Meng: so, are we just accepting that there is a glittery curtain of unknown origin, and Huo Daofu is going to have to see it while he’s waiting for you at Wushanju bc you’re going to family therapy?
Wu Xie: right
Wang Pangzi: SHOULDA TAKEN EARLY RETIREMENT HUH
Wang Meng: I’m going to go dust something.
Unnamed Chat:
Unknown number: so the curtain…
Unknown number 2: yep, not my best work but I kinda panicked last minute u know
Unknown number: what is in the water at Wushanju that makes everyone dumb and attractive
Unknown number 2: relax they’ll figure it out
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It’s You and Me - Chapter 6
It’s You and Me: A Hawkeye Fanfic
Series Masterlist
PREVIOUS //
Buy me a ☕
Character Pairing: Clint Barton x F!Reader
Word Count: 1588
Rating: E
Warnings: Nothing much this chapter
Synopsis: You and Clint Barton go way back. Since you joined the circus as a child, he took it upon himself to keep you away from the people who really wanted to hurt you. For years the two of you danced a line between dark and light.
When he chooses light the two of you go your separate ways.
Fifteen years later he tracks you down. Those feelings the two of you shared never went away, but now he is not only an Avengers but a single father. Can the two of you make it work after all this time when your lives have gone in such different directions?
A series told in flashbacks and current day.
Chapter 6: Then
Clint swung the sword in a lazy arc from left to right and back again as he watched you stretch. The springboard was set up between the two of you, and Clint hadn’t quite worked out how they’d hide that in the arena to make this look like you could get as much air as you needed without assistance. That was if the two of you could get it to work at all.
You’d come a long way since you first came to him for help. In the year and a bit since it happened you and he had started performing together. To begin with, Clint had just started training you to use the sword and the bow. While you learned he had incorporated you into his act doing simple things that didn’t require you to have any actual skills. Shooting an apple off your head. Putting you on a rotating wheel and firing arrows around your body.
Jacques kept complaining that it wasn’t enough. He tried to argue that anyone could stand there while Clint shot at them. Thankfully it was enough for the Ringmaster, and so Jacques couldn’t touch you. Maynard Tiboldt was the head of the circus, and what he said was law. Clint had known that it wouldn’t be long until Jacques got in the Tiboldt’s ear and he’d come for you again, and if not that, that Tiboldt himself would think up some criminal activity he needed you to do. So Clint honed his act as you got better. New tricks were added and he trained you in more things. When he started training you in acrobatics, he knew he was on to something. You took to it even faster than you took to the sword. You were a natural and Clint ended up roping in the other acrobats to help train you.
The act gradually grew as your skills became more honed. Little routines were added that had you backflipping out of the way of his arrows even though he was aiming not to hit you, and having you do handstands while he shot through your spread legs. As you got better the routine became more complex. Most recently Clint had you doing flips over the arrows he shot at targets as they traveled through the air. You’d even gotten to the point you could fire an arrow with your feet while you did a handstand. You weren’t particularly accurate but it served as a good starter for Clint to copy and spit your arrow in two.
He knew - the way he knew it about himself too - that you needed to keep getting better or it wouldn’t be enough anymore and they’d drag you right down into the pits with them. So he kept planning out more things you could do together. You were good with the horses, so he thought about incorporating them somehow. He thought about trick arrows and how the two of you could use them together. Anything that would keep drawing in a crowd and make the circus money so neither of you had to make it elsewhere.
“You ready?” He asked.
“Yeah. Are you?” You answered.
He nodded and thrust the sword forward as if he was going to stab you. You jumped rotating straight up through the air and landed with both feet, on the flat of the blade. Clint’s shoulder strained and the blade wobbled. You managed to stay standing on it for less than a second, but Clint couldn’t hold the blade steady and you slipped. You managed to get some leverage off the blade as you fell and turned mid-air, landing in a crouched position on the ground.
“Shit,” Clint cursed, rolling his shoulder. “Sorry. It’s the weight when you land. It’s hard to keep steady.”
“I could just immediately backflip off again,” you suggested. “Make it look like I kicked you in the face.”
Clint laughed. “I mean, sure we can start with that. But I think the crowd would appreciate it more if they get a moment to applaud it.”
“Yeah, but if I wrench your shoulder you’re not going to be good for anything, are you?” You said.
Clint looked down at the blade. “Reinforcing the blade helped with its stability. I wonder if we could rig something for me.”
“I dunno, Clint,” you said. “You’re better with those gadgets than I am. But wouldn’t that make shooting an arrow harder?”
“We can do an overdramatic jacket removal,” he suggested.
“Anything to get your shirt off,” you teased. “You trying to scare the customers away?”
“Why you little shit,” Clint gasped playfully and lunged at you, you ran but he got his arm around your shoulders and pulled you into a headlock and ran his knuckle back and forth on the top of the head.
“Clint!” You squealed, trying to struggle out of his hold. “Stop it!”
He stopped rubbing your head but kept you held under his arm. “I dunno if I should. You’re a big bunch of trouble.”
“I’m gonna kick your ass!” You shouted as you struggled.
“Yeah, yeah. How are you gonna do that when you’re trapped under there?” He teased.
The sound of someone clearing their throat cut through the clearing and Clint turned you to face Eden who was standing at the side of the tent. “What are you doing, Clinton?” She asked.
Clint rubbed the top of your head again. “Someone seems to think I am some kind of hussy that likes to use his body to get attention.”
“And you’re not?” Eden teased.
“Not you too!” She said, and dragged you after his girlfriend, as she backed up against the tent.
“Clinton Francis Barton, you had better not!” She shouted.
He wrapped his arm around Eden’s shoulders but instead of putting her in a headlock, he dipped her back and kissed her passionately, which only made you struggled under his arm more.
“Stop it! I don’t wanna be pinned here while you make out!” You yelped.
Eden pulled back laughing and Clint looked down at you with a smirk, before letting you go. You backed off of him scowling. “You suck.”
“Oh come on now,” Eden said. “You could have broken out of that, surely. Clint? Aren’t you teaching her how to fight?”
“Well I could have punched him in the nuts, but who knows where those have been,” you teased.
“Why you little…” he said and lunged at you. You ran away laughing as Eden caught his wrist.
“Let her go,” she said. “You spend entirely too much time around her anyway.”
“She’s in my act,” Clint said. “We have to rehearse. I was thinking of adding horses… I saw this thing where people did this act, riding them standing up. Jumping on and off. I reckon I could do that and maybe we could do the handstand arrow while riding next to each other. I bet that would…”
Eden stopped him by pressing her lips against his and pushing him up against one of the tent poles. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her even closer, trying to push out the thoughts of potential acts as her fingers tangled into his hair and ran along his scalp.
“I think you spend entirely too much time with her,” Eden said. “I thought I was your girl.”
“You are, baby,” Clint assured her. “She’s just a kid. I only have eyes for you.”
“She’s not so much a kid anymore,” Eden said. “She’ll be turning seventeen soon.”
“Pfft,” Clint scoffed. “She’s a kid. You don’t trust me?”
Eden raised her eyebrow at him. “Do you always trust me?”
Clint furrowed his brow. The truth was he wasn’t sure if he did always trust her. Which had nothing to do with Eden at all, and everything to do with him. It was hard to equate trust and love together when all the people who showed him any kind of affection always hurt him so much. Even his brother who had spent his life protecting Clint was just as likely to hit him as he was to save him. So despite the fact that Eden hadn’t done anything to make him not trust her, anytime he saw her even next to another guy he felt possessive.
“See,” she said. “Maybe we just need a little extra reassurance.”
Clint nodded and pressed his forehead against hers. “You don’t have to worry about me and her. It’s just our act and I gotta keep it fresh so Jacques doesn’t make us take part in his schemes.”
The shadow of a frown fell on Eden’s face so briefly that Clint wasn’t sure if it was really there at all. “Do you worry about me like that?”
“Of course I do, babe,” Clint said. “You and me, we’re gonna keep our noses clean.”
“What if they tell me what I’m doing isn’t enough?” Eden asked.
Clint cradled her jaw and looked into her eyes. “Who said that? Did Jacques - “ he pulled away and squared off his shoulders. “I’ll fucking kill him.”
Eden grabbed Clint’s arm. “No one did anything. It was a; ‘What if…?’ I’m fine.”
“You’ll tell me… if he does? You’ll tell me?” Clint asked.
“I’ll tell you, Clint. It’s fine,” she assured him. “Hey. How about you and I find somewhere quiet, so we can… you know?”
Clint smirked, the worries about trust and Jacques quickly pushed away. He took Eden’s hand and the two of them went to find somewhere private together.
// NEXT
#clint barton#clint barton x reader#hawkeye#hawkeye fanfic#fanfic#fanfiction#reader insert#it's you and me
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Oh my, yet another sunday and I'm here to write a blog. I might actually see it trough for a year hahahaha we'll see. For this blog I wanna get all the art out of the way first and then talk about what else happend this week!
Week 3: Febuary 21st to 27th 2022
First artwork
"The special find" (Art trade with GddsAlexis)
This is the second out of my big 3 art trades I did this month. The only Zora out of the 3. For 2022 I made the resolution to make illustrations that tell actual stories and don't just look pretty, so I have to try to come up with a concept for every illustration which can be quite difficult if it includes characters that aren't yours. I was inspired by one of the artworks my partner sent me for reference, the character was holding a cool sword so I decided to create an (unofficial origin story). The illustration turned out pretty neat, the lighting is mad cool and has to be my favorite part tho.
Second artwork:
"Following the canyion" (art trade with warwick)
The last art trade I did. For this I tried to simplify the background to give the artwork more dimension, I had the feeling that the bgs in the other artworks were too bussy and took away from the actual character. Here I feel like the character is the main focus and everything else is just a bonus. Also I've hidden a bunch of Koroks in the illustration, can you find them all? (Idk how many there are tbh just a bunch)
Third artwork
Series "canine warriors" from Ōkami
Last post I was talking about drawing the canine warriors and well, here they are. All of the pups were drawn yesterday in one day. (I finished the last one at midnight). Here you have a selection of my favorite ones, find all of them on my instagram. This little series was so much fun, I enjoyed drawing all of them so much. They are quite simple, to fit into the Ōkami artstyle (which I'm pretty good at might I add). Now that I started a new game plus I might be motivated to do even more Ōkami art in the future!
Bonus wip
"By the light of Lumious" sketch
This concept came to me when I had a terrible migrane on Friday. I was laying awake in my bed, unable to sleep and the light from outside was shining in my face. In those moments my mind often wanders and this time it let me to Lumious city. Pokemon X and Y are my favorite pokemon games and they are usually bashed in the community, which isn't fair. I hope to bring some much needed appreciation to the beautiful Kalos region with this illustration.
Oki update:
Here is a little update on my Betta fish Oki, who moved in last week. I want you to know that he's doing great, even started to built some bubble nests. Alltho he turned a little hostile towards me, which is probably just the normal nature of a betta fish.
Life stuff:
Lastly I wanna talk about how my week went, as my last week of my break. To be honest this week wasn't that great as there was a covid case in the family and me getting sick (not with covid). I've spent my last week mostly asleep and feeling a little sick. On top of that creating such big illustrations back to back burned me out quite a bit from digital art, leading to me not drawing as much as I could. On a brither note, I've gotten back into animal crossing and Splatoon2 and launched a new pokemon collab over in my server.
On the topic of pokemon: today they revealed the new gen 9 games (as I predicted) and they look pretty awesome. The overworld looks really fun to explore and the cities are beautiful! However I'm not the biggest fan of the startes, as we've already had a cat and crocodile starter. Something new would have been appreciated tho they are quite cute. My biggest gripe is the character design of the human characters. These people do not look like pokemon characters to be, but remind me of those new anime esque switchsports miis. My guess is that after Leon and Adaman they were convinced they could not create something better in the future and jumped the ship. It's just my educated guess tho. Yea maybe I'll warm up to them if I see more characters like Gym leaders, etc. but we'll see. I'm excited non the less.
That was it for this blog, have a great next week. See you on Sunday!
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BBS Prompts #163
BBS Dialogue & Sentence Starters: [7]
VANOSSGAMING
What was the point of that, that was out of nowhere.
It kind of got me, a little bit.
Was that supposed to be a jumpscare?
You are one smart lobster.
I’m not scared of no ghost.
I’m like a reporter in the heat of battle.
Why are you echoing?
Oh God, he’s fucking killing me.
I actually appreciated it in there.
Best of luck with the box.
Alright, I got a sniper rifle, alright, I’m gonna go die in the corner.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m busy filming a movie.
Why are you a different character?
I like to casually talk to my ghost.
Wow, we’re making zero progress.
I don’t know what ‘roll up on me’ means.
Honestly, just fucking crash it, who cares.
You fucked him up.
It just knew where you were headed in life.
Hold on, I gotta clean up this Goddamn mess.
SMII7Y
It's the best feeling, I swear.
I can't wait to complete this thing, it's going to be so satisfying.
Draw a line down the middle, make it nice and easy.
It doesn't feel like I fell of the roof, you know, I'm so into this.
I almost fell off the roof again, not like it would've mattered.
Dude, I took him out of the driver's seat.
That's a fucking tall fence, my guy, I'm going to be real with you for a second.
I was getting there, fucker.
Why do you have to speed up my jokes, bitch?
I see him all the way over there.
BIGPUFFER
Guys, how'd I get up here?
You better have money, bitch.
You guys have one shot, don't fucking miss!
They're probably near.
Let's not point fingers, let's just move on.
Yeah, I was waiting for your answer.
I already knew that was rigged.
What the fuck, what did we do to fate?
Oh my God, why didn't you tell me that earlier, I wouldn't have agreed to that.
Guys, we're stuck!
TERRORISER
Look at his shit dance moves.
We kind of made it.
Our most valuable player.
You're so lucky.
Point the laser into something.
I overshot it!
But the memories are forever.
Do you want me to just leave?
Okay, then shut the fuck up.
It's so much easier just to kill them.
DAITHI DE NOGLA
We can make it more interesting, you fucking bitch.
No, I heard you loud and clear.
Ah, not the meatballs again.
That was not a good decision.
Teleport in my vehicle.
You have so much space, shut up!
I fixed it, you're fucking welcome.
I have butterflies in my legs.
This is so fucking difficult.
I ruined it.
RACINGCATZ
Yeah, he's immune.
I need someone to teleport me, please.
The drugs are already affecting him.
I got four cigarette's, two of grandma's pills, and three moonshine.
Scavenge the body.
Is this like the Matrix?
I'll fuck him up.
I just clicked the guy and he said congratulations.
You just gotta go fast.
And just like that it's all over.
SARK
Almost out of time.
I couldn't finish typing, apologies.
This is just words, it's just a series of words.
It's impossible!
It's like there's two of you.
The ASMR section took a hit though.
Oh, thank God, it's over.
With my fingernails.
Alright, Mario style, got it.
Sunsets always makes me hungry.
#banana bus squad#bbs#banana bus squad dialogue prompts#bbs prompts#writing prompts#vanossgaming#smii7y#bigpuffer#the terroriser#daithi de nogla#racingcatz#mr sark#rpf prompts#text#words#tw swearing#tw drug mention
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The Budget Garden 6: Unrivaled Bruce (Overdress).
“Kept you waiting, huh?”
Hello Cardfighters. Excuse me for my prolonged absence, as I mentioned in my previous post, a combination of “living life” and “my local Vanguard community being non-existent” has lead me into not playing/testing quite as much as I would have liked. However, the final semester of my English Studies term will start in a few days, and I really wanted to discuss one of my favorite decks in Overdress, a format that I have completely neglected for the past few months.
Now, I am not gonna keep it a secret that I am not a massive fan of Overdress. It is a very well designed format that has a few issues that spoil the amazing card design and game-flow, as well as wasting some of the best original designs ever added to the game. However, I made a deal with myself. I would attempt to buy the majority of the Dark States Overdress cards, both to support a game that I adore, as well as in a vain attempt to “be ready” for when our local game stores are open for tournaments once more, so that I may have a competitive, ready-to-play deck.
This lasted for one set.
The price of the cards, especially Bruce and his Diabolos comrades, was, and still kinda is, fucking CRAZY. Playing the deck at full force means that you would be set back about 100+ euros, which is what decks cost at the middle of the V-series, and close to what they cost while G-units were still standard-legal.
THAT IS SOMETHING THAT WE SHALL (attempt to) CHANGE TODAY! I have tasked myself with building a competend Bruce/Dark States deck for under 35 euros, so that the rest of the Spike Brothers fans out there, just like myself, can play a deck that is very close to the original spirit of Spikes, while also being a deck that is quite competent and can steal games from decks such as Bastion, who are still a force to be reckoned with.
We begin our line up by discussing the first thing that every single Overdress deck needs, the ride deck.
Our ride deck of 4 cards cosists of the following cards:
[AUTO](VC):At the start of your Ride Phase, you "Final Rush" until end of turn.
[AUTO](VC):When this unit attacks, if you are in "Final Rush", COST [Soul Blast (5)], and [Stand] all of your front row rear-guards.
[AUTO]:When this unit is placed on (VC), COST [put a rear-guard into your soul], and draw a card.
[CONT](RC):If you are in "Final Rush", this unit gets [Power]+5000.
[AUTO]:When this unit is placed on (VC), choose a card from your soul, call it to your back row center (RC), and Soul Charge (1).
[CONT](RC):If you are in "Final Rush", this unit gets [Power]+5000.
[AUTO]:When this unit is rode upon, if you went second, draw a card.
Let’s begin in order, by starting off with Matt.
Matt is the basic starter, who, for the time being, shares the same ability with the rest of the starters in the game. As such, there is not a lot to talk about.
Things get interesting once Steve rolls out into the battlefield. He is our first ride, and he lets us start stacking our soul very early, and since this is a deck that wastes a LOT of soul this is very much appreciated.
Richard is a draw engine. While you do need to shove a rear-guard into soul, as per his cost, Steeve already calls Matt out from the soul, so it’s not really a cost that we are not equipped to pay.
Bruce is our main boss unit… is what i would say if this was a traditional Bruce list. Bruce is, in general, a very powerful unit. Probably the second best, next to Bastion. However, he is very much reliant on getting a Persona Ride off, in order to use his skill to the maximum extend. However, this mechanic will not be present in this particular build, which means that Bruce is a glorified Vanilla Unit. He still looks really cool though.
(So that is the ride-line. An important thing to note is that this ride-line is made to fill our soul up, so while we supplement our deck with a lot of ways to soul-charge, this line is still important to mention:
First ride equals 1 card in the soul, as Matt leaves the soul and Steve soul-charges 1 card.
The second ride, as we ride up to Richard equals 3 soul, as riding him means that now Matt, Steve, and the one card we soul with Steve are now in our soul.
Riding Bruce means 4 soul.
Then, riding to our main boss unit, Unrivaled Bruce, gives us exactly 5 soul, which means that his skill is usable right away.)
We now move towards the cards in our main deck, starting with Bruce’s new, shiny form, Diavolos, Unrivaled Bruce.
[AUTO](VC):At the start of your ride phase, until end of turn, you "Final Rush".
[AUTO](VC)1/Turn:At the end of the battle this unit attacked, if you are in "Final Rush", COST [Counter Blast (1) & Soul Blast (5)], [Stand] all of your front row units, and this unit gets drive -2 until end of turn.
Now THIS is a fucking BOSS UNIT. Let’s take him apart, bit by bit.
The first auto ability is worded in a very awkward manner. Riding him implies that, since It is no longer the START of the ride phase, then you are not in final rush, and need to wait a turn. That is not true, the wording is just a tad bit awkward. The grade 3 Bruce already puts us, the players, in the “Final Rush” state, which is a fancy way of saying that some of our abilities that usually wouldn’t activate, now do. While this is something that most people most likely already knew, I felt like giving everyone a quick refresher, as this skill confused me to no end when I first read it.
Confusing conditions disguised as “skills” aside, the second skill fucking rules. The old Bruce re-stood the front row as well, however with the addition of a counter-blast, we also stand Bruce himself. The minus two drive is also not as big of a deal as one would expect, as all of the grade 4 units already check three times instead of two, meaning that we’re gonna have a very sizable hand by the end of our turn. The restanding skill is going to be abused even further with some powerful front row rear-guards that allow get a lot of power, so that the lack of the Persona ride Icon is mitigated by quite a bit.
Unrivaled Bruce is also the most demanding card in the deck, in terms of actual cost. At the time of writing, Bruce sits at a nice, comfortable 6 euros. While you don’t really need to purchase 4 copies of him, having maximum consistency is key, so having 4 copies is a quite the boon to your deck.
We have moved through a lot of the technical aspects of the deck, but now we can get into the nitty gritty and discuss some of the possible options that we can add. However, I’m gonna present this list as I am using it right now, of course cards can be changed accordingly.
We begin with all of the grade 3 cards I run, which are all very potent attackers.
These are the cards we will be using:
Diabolos Striker, Bryan
Pandemonium Tactics
Upward Acrobat, Marjorie
[ACT](RC)1/Turn:COST [Soul Blast (2)], until end of turn, all of your front row units get [Power]+5000, and if you are in "Final Rush", choose one of your vanguards, and it gets [Critical]+1.
Play this with COST [Counter Blast (1)]!
Soul Charge (4). Then, if you are in "Final Rush", perform all of the following according to the number of cards in your soul.
•6 or more - Draw a card.
•8 or more - All of your front row units get [Power]+10000 until end of turn.
•12 or more - Choose one of your vanguards, and it gets [Critical]+1 until end of turn.
[AUTO](RC)1/Turn:When this unit attacks, if you are in "Final Rush", COST [put one of your other rear-guards into your soul], draw a card, Soul Charge (1), and this unit gets [Power]+10000 until end of turn.
This is the line-up we will be using. Let’s discuss ‘em one by one
Bryan was made to have perfect synergy with our Unrivaled Bruce, and we can pay his cost very reliably. The 5k that he gives is present in the entire front row, which becomes way more potent when all of the units that get the buff will restand, whilst keeping said buff. The extra critical makes Bruce way more lethal as well.
Pandemonium Tactics is a mediocre card that works expertly well with out gameplan. As discussed previously, the first turn that we are on Bruce, we have, at the bare minimum, 5 cards in the soul. Charging 4 cards means that we will be able to resolve the two first skills of the card, one of which draws us a card, so that we dont lose advantage, and the second one being a pseudo-persona ride effect. This card is one of the reasons as to why we can reliably pay Bryan’s soul-blast 2 cost.
Marjorie also accomplishes all of the things that the two cards above her accomplish. She fills our hand and our soul, as well as making herself another very potent attacker. Do not be fooled by the rr rarity that is on her, she is still a card that is quite affordable.
Moving on to the grade 2 units that we will be using, we have 2 units that will both fullfill our game-plan, as well as allow us to have a cleaner way to pay our costs.
These two cards are:
Diabolos Striker, Lyle
Electro Spartan
[AUTO]:When this unit is placed on (RC), COST [Counter Blast (1)], and this unit gets [Power]+5000 until end of turn. Then, if you are in "Final Rush", Soul Charge (2), choose a card from your soul, and call it to an open (RC).
[AUTO]:When this unit is rode upon by "Master of Gravity, Baromagnes", COST [put a card from your hand into your soul], draw a card, and Soul Charge (1).
[AUTO]:When this unit is placed on (RC), COST [Counter Blast (1)], and Soul Charge (2).
Let’s discuss these two units.
Lyle is, honestly, one of the best cards in the deck. Not only does he soul-charge twice, which is great for how much we use the soul, but he also allows us to find one of our powerful grade 3 units from the soul, if we so happen to have soul charged them with Pandemonium Tactics, or our next card, Electro Spartan.
The Spartan isn’t all that special. As he is a part of the Baromagnes(aka best boy) ride-line, he has an adjacent effect that assists that particular strategy. However, he has a very handy on-call skill, that just allows us to turn any spare counter-blast we may have into two cards in the soul, which helps alleviate our costly combos.
Finally, let’s discuss the grade 1 line-up. Our grade 1 units have some big shoes to fill, as we are gonna need as many resources as we can muster. That’s why our grade 1 line-up consists of cards that give us more soul and more resources, so that we can comfortably pay the costs that our cards need, as well as give us some additional power and utility.
The grade 1 units that I am using are the following:
Evil Eye of Prohibition, Quen Lu
Monitoring Gear Dober
Recusal Hate Dragon/Psychic Prima, Miranda
[ACT](RC):COST [Put this unit into your soul], choose one of your rear-guards, and it gets [Power]+2000 until end of turn. Then, if your soul has seven or more cards, your opponent cannot call grade 1 or greater cards from their hand to (GC) for the battle that that rear-guard attacks this turn.
[AUTO](RC):At the end of the battle this unit boosted, if you are in "Final Rush", COST [put this unit into your soul], choose one of your units, and it gets [Power]+10000 until end of turn.
[CONT]:Sentinel (You may only have up to four cards with "[CONT]:Sentinel" in a deck.)
[AUTO]:When this unit is put on (GC), choose one of your units, and it cannot be hit until end of that battle. If your hand has two or more cards, choose a card from your hand, and discard it.
[CONT]:Sentinel (You may only have up to four cards with "[CONT]:Sentinel" in a deck.)
[AUTO]:When this unit is put on (GC), COST [discard a card from your hand], choose one of your units, and it cannot be hit until end of that battle.
There are some very interesting options in this line-up, which is really great, as we will take what we can deck with decks that are on the cheaper side.
Quen Lu is honestly one of my favorite designs in Overdress, as she gives a very annoying and potent guard-restrict skill to any rear-guard, which is going to activate twice, as we are always restanding our rears. The fact that she also puts herself into our soul also helps quite a bit with our costs.
Monitoring Gear Dober is much of the same. He puts himself in the soul, but instead of the guard-restrict skill that is present in Quen Lu, he gives one of our units a nice 10k boost. What’s also important to note is that his skill activates after his boost, so the 10k won’t you a body on the board before the end of that battle.
The final two cards are paired together because, simply put, there need to be sentinels in our decks. Recusal Hate Dragon is, by all accounts, the better out of the two cards, and he literally has one more line of text that is all upside. For budget reasons, run Miranda, but if you can get your hands on the dragon, run him instead.
Our trigger line-up is actually quite interesting, as there are many cases to be made for each individual option. We also need to keep in mind that no trigger is allowed to exist in a deck at more than 8 copies of said trigger. Therefore, while it would be optimal to play 12 crits, it is simply not allowed. For now, the Trigger line-up I would recommend is the following
4 Critical Triggers
4 Front Triggers
3 Draw Triggers
4 Heal Triggers
1 Overtrigger
This goes without saying, but all of these triggers, except the heal, have an effect version that is always quite better.
As for the overtrigger, Both the basic one that is in the trial decks, as well as the Dark States overtrigger, work really well in this deck.
List and Final thoughts
Budget list (28-30 euros)
Ride Deck:
1x Bruce
1x Richard
1x Steve
1x Matt
Main Deck
4x Unrivaled Bruce
4x Diabolos Striker, Bryan
4x Pandemonium Tactics
3x Upward Acrobat, Marjorie
2x Diabolos Striker, Lyle
2x Electro Spartan
4x Monitoring Gear Dober
3x Quen Lu
4x Sentinel of your choice
4 crit
4 heal
4 front
3 draw
1 overtrigger (pls ban)
Non-Budget list (95-100 euros)
Ride Deck:
1x Bruce
1x Richard
1x Steve
1x Matt
Main Deck
4x Unrivaled Bruce
4x Diabolos Striker, Bryan
4x Pandemonium Tactics
3x Upward Acrobat, Marjorie
4x Diabolos Returner, Deryck
4x Brainwash Swirler
3x Monitoring Gear Dober
4x Recusal Hate Dragon
Effect triggers plus Dark States Overtrigger.
Well, thank you all for your attention if you have read this far, and excuse me for taking so long to post another one of these. As I mentioned in the beginning, I’m gonna be quite busy in the following months, but I promise that in periods where stuff clears up a little, I’ll try posting a few more of these, as I never stop building and testing decks, even if it takes a little longer.
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a message on discord (Bloom#8890), I would love to answer any questions you may have.
Special shoutout to my best friends, Ophelia and Mush, for helping me out during this very busy period of my life.
Thank you for reading <3
Bloom, aka thebudgetgarden
#cardfight!! vanguard#cardgame#cards#Vanguard#overdress#cardfight_vanguard#diabolos#bruce#unrivaled#budget#budgetdecks
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Dead?-Spencer Reid Imagine Part Two
GIFS ARE NOT MINE!
Spencer Reid X Mikaelson!Hybrid!Reader
Criminal Minds X The Originals
(Summary: After believing your brother has been framed you and your sibling try to get to the bottom of it.)
Word Count: 2K
Warnings: This won’t make sense if you don’t read part 1. Probably one or two curse words.
pt. 1 pt. 2 pt. 3
REQUESTS ARE OPEN!! It can either be crossover (scroll to my first post to see who I write for!!) or just a normal imagine! Also thanks for a lot of likes on my first post in the ‘Dead’ mini series I genuinely appreciate it :))
Rebekah and I enter Rousseau's and grab a seat at the bar. “Nice you see you back here. I was starting to think the Mikaelsons went extinct.” Camille says, passing Rebekah and I a drink. “Don’t worry it’s not poisoned.” She says laughing and walks away to attend other people. “Why do you believe our brother was framed Y/N?” Rebekah aasest taking a sip of her drink. “Well for starters my team and I came here to investigate murders of people being drained and suddenly waking up and leaving. When we got there the detective was immediately drawn to accuse our family and made Spencer and I call Matt Donovan. So I gave Klaus a warning after but the detective told me not to. But that’s not the crazy part Bekah! She made my brain almost explode! She’s a witch. She knows, well thinks the Mikaelsons are apart of it.” I say quickly gulping down my drink as it slightly burns my throat. “What was the witches name?” Rebekah asks fully, gulping her drink and stands up. “Greenwood.” I say standing up with her. “I believe you but we need to figure this out before your team decides to tear down a village to understand our family.” She says as we exit Rousseau's. We speed over to the family house and enter. This place hasn’t changed. “Klaus!” I exclaim as I set my jacket down. “Great another sibling who will forcibly give me an interrogation.” Klaus says emerging from the study. “Let’s get this quick so you can go to your mundane life with your human boyfriend who seemingly doesn’t know about your family secret nor of your siblings.” He continues grabbing a stool and sitting on it. “I’m not here to argue Niklaus seeing that has definitely worked in the past. I’m here to help you. I think you’re being framed by a witch-” I start. “Great more witches.” Klaus says clapping his hands. “Let me guess they’re the one leaving bodies on our bloody doorstep.” He says standing up. “Her name is Mallory Greenwood and I think she has help.” I finished. Elijah comes into the room glancing at Rebekah and I before walking up to us. “I heard the conversation, sorry to intrude, but what has this witch done that you believe our brother is innocent.” He says before standing next to Klaus. “She didn’t want me to warn you. Also my team believes I’m a Mikaelson, although I am, I told them I was a Gerard. I left my things at the station but I can’t go back there Elijah. We have to do this the only way we know how.” I say to him softly, nearly tearing up. “And what way is that?” Klaus questions. “By fighting fire with fire.” I say grabbing my jacket and exit with my family on my tail.
“Where are we headed?” Rebekah says speeding to my side. “The station I can show you the witch girl. Then we go back home and act like normal, human normal. If they decide to arrest all of us we need to stick together.” I say turning to face them. Elijah and Klaus look amused at the plan. We all speed to the station. Elijah and Rebekah instantly head to open the doors. “Wait!” I say, grabbing them and place Klaus’ hand on my shoulder. “Invisique.” I say turning us all invisible. We step inside carefully to not draw attention to the opening door. I spot Detective Greenwood talking to Spencer. I feel my blood boil a bit but brush it off he wouldn’t intentionally hurt me. “Who’s that?” I hear Rebekah whisper to me. “My boyfriend and the witch. Actually let’s all step out and I’ll go in alone.” I whisper back guiding the circle of invisible people outside of the station. I let go and we all appear slowly. “Okay I’ll go in and do what.” I say facing Rebekah and Klaus as Elijah wanders around. “I would say compel the little witch to give us our answers.” Klaus says clasping his hands together. “I can’t compel her in front of them are you insane!” I exclaim looking at Klaus like he's grown five heads. “I would’ve done it but I think they already have wanted posters printed out for all of us.” He says pointing to all of us. “I’ll just go in and talk to my team and if I get stopped by the detective I’ll compel her.” I say straightening out my jacket. They all nod and I start heading inside towards the team. “Welcome back. Cleared your head.” I hear Derek say laughing. I laugh slightly and grab my gun and badge, putting them in their respective places. Hotch and JJ look at me confused, Spencer and Emily just sigh in relief that I’m back. “Hello the Mikaelson family is outside.” A deputy says rushing into the room. “What!” I blurt out. The deputy smirks delighted. I roll my eyes and head out not worrying about my team. “I know you can hear me.” I hear the deputy say. I stop just outside the door as it shuts behind me. “Warn them your team dies.” He continues. “I will shove a wooden stake so far up your ass that the person that turned you would feel it.” I say clenching my jaw. “I have a proposition, an eye for an eye, I will give you Mallory for your stupid family.” He says. “What about my team?” I ask. “They look mighty delicious, especially the skinny one, what’s his name Dr. Reid.” He pauses for a moment. “Fine I’ll give you your team and Mallory for your family.” He says. I turn back and open the door. I glance towards the deputy smirking. I run over to him and grab him by the neck pinning him to the wall. “Threaten my family and team I’ll have your head strung up like a trophy at Mikaelson Manor to remember the idiot that tried to strike a deal with me.” I spat into his face my words stunning him. Hotch and Morgan pull me back as the deputy falls clutching his neck coughing. “Et dormient donec redire.” I whisper looking at the deputy. He falls snoring softly. I shrug a Morgan and Hotch off of me and run out of the station. I run out seeing my sibling dead on the floor, obviously a neck snap. I wait for a moment as they come back to life. “Who did this?” I ask them. “A tall guy that was canoodling with the witch. Melinda?” Rebekah says standing up. I automatically know who she's talking about. “Mallory? But we don’t have to worry about him he’s asleep until I get back to the station. We just have to figure out what she wants with our family.” I say as Elijah and Klaus get up. They both look at me confused. “Let’s just go home and figure this out. Get Marcel and Davina, potentially Kol and Freya so we can stop all this mess.” I say speeding off to the manor.
_____________________________
We enter the manor dropping our things on the couch and head towards the kitchen. The front door opens and familiar voices drown into the kitchen. “Explain to us in detail of what is going on.” Davina says immediately. “Hey Dav nice to see you too.” I say laughing. “But in all seriousness I think Klaus is being framed by a detective and a deputy. One is a witch and the other is a vampire, I think.” I say. “So this whole thing can end one or two ways. She kills all of us or we kill them.” Marcel says entering the conversation. “We can’t die but they can. So I vote we kill them.” Rebekah says hopping off her stool raising her hand. Klaus seems to agree but I immediately shoot down her idea. “No Rebekah because we can probably get arrested.” I say lying slightly. I don’t care for the fact that we get arrested but for the fact that my team has no idea this world or lifestyle exists. “It’s something else spill.” Rebekah says walking up to me. “None of my team knows about all of us being vampires, hybrids, and witches. I can’t just freely compel them, it feels wrong. They’re like my second family. They’re human and I like that they aren’t involved in our crazy messed up life. Of course one day I would’ve had to tell them but I didn’t expect that moment to come so soon.” I admit to her sighing as a heavy weight gets lifted off my shoulder. They all look at me sympathetically. “Tell them once this mess is all over. Then if all goes well we can all have dinner.” Rebekah says hugging me for a moment. We all stare at each other for a moment before a series of knocks abrupting the silence. “Mikaelson family! FBI!” I hear Derek say. “Let’s all get arrested I guess.” I start before hearing knocks again. “We can compel for freedom; all things are off the table. I will tell them about it later.” I finished as the door burst open. Spencer looks at me with pure confusion on his face as he comes over to arrest me. “I know my rights Spence just get this over with.” I say as he cuffs me. “Why?” He says his voice cracking slightly. “There’s a certain side of me I’ll explain after this is done.” I say as a tear slips out. He sighs softly guiding me outside into a police car. He jumps into the passenger's seat. I look out the window catching eyes with Davina. ‘Now’s the time Dav make us all invisible.’ I say telepathically. She nods. ‘On the count of three’ I say. ‘One’ I say looking around. “Y/N tell me what’s going on?” Spencer says. “Spencer I love you just know that.” I say breaking my gaze from Davina looking at him in the eyes. “What I’m about to do will make no sense, don't even try figuring it out.” I say tearing up. “You probably won’t see me for a while depending on how this goes.” I say as a tear slips out. He wipes the tear. “What do you mean?” He questions his voice laced with concern. “I love you Spencer Reid.” I say. I shift my elbow rolling down the window. I look over to Davina who’s getting loaded into a cruiser. She makes eye contact as I nod towards her. “omnes supernaturali creatura invisibilis verto.” We say aloud making every supernatural creature around us turn invisible. Spencer looks stunned looking around to see if anyone noticed what he saw. All the police officers and my team members look around stunned. No one says anything. I break the handcuffs and step out of the car noticing all the car doors are open. Thankfully they all got the memo. “Hotch what the hell was that?” Derek says aloud. “I have no idea.” Hotch answers confused. “Reid are you okay?” Derek says jogging to Spencer. “They said they loved me. I didn’t say it back. Now I have no clue if I’ll ever see them again.” Spencer says sadly running his hand through his hair. Trust me we will. I sped over to the police station hoping that’s where my family went. “Are you all here?” I whisper knowing if they’re near they can hear me. “I am.” I hear Marcel say. “Here.” I hear Elijah, Kol and Klaus say in unison. “Present!” I hear Davina and Rebekah say. “Where’s Freya?” I question. I wave my hand in the air making us all visible. All of them appear except Freya. “Are you guys the Mikaelson family?” An officer says coming up to us. We all nod staring at each other. “Here.” He says handing me an envelope. I open the envelope pulling out a card. I turn to my siblings opening it. ‘Meet us at The Abattoir 8PM.” I drop the card on the floor looking at all of my siblings. This is a full fledged war. Let the games begin.
#spencer reid#spencer reid imagine#the originals#spencer reid x reader#the originals imagine#criminal minds#criminal minds imagine
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I Regret Buying Pokémon Shield
I told myself I wouldn’t do it. I’ve seen time and again the lack of innovation from main-series Pokémon games, and I insisted nothing would convince me to buy this latest atrocity. Yet here I am, reviewing the game I said I’d never purchase. I should have listened to myself. I KNEW BETTER! Strap in, ‘cause this one’s pretty long.
Pokémon has been around for a long time—like, a long, long time—and I’ve been around for every single new main-series game that’s been released since the franchise’s first arrival in North America back in 1996 with Red/Blue. I was not yet 10 years old, and I still remember the childlike excitement of finding rare, never-before seen creatures, the stress of trying to catch a wily Abra or elusive Pinsir, and the challenging first encounter with the Elite Four and the Champion, a 5-man gauntlet of trainers with powerful Pokémon rarely (if ever) seen in the game prior to that moment. It was exhilarating in a way that keeps me coming back for more, hoping to rekindle those same flames of wonder.
While the main gist of the games hasn’t changed much over the years, one of my favorite parts of playing a new Pokémon game is seeing the improvements each game brings to the series. Many of the initial sequels made huge leaps in progress: Gold/Silver introduced a plethora of new mechanics like held items and breeding; Ruby/Sapphire introduced passive abilities and was the first to include multi-battles in the form of double-battles; Diamond/Pearl was the first generation capable of trading and battling online and brought us the revolutionary physical/special split so elements were no longer locked into one or the other. These changes all had significant impacts on how players approached battles, formed their teams, and used each Pokémon.
Those changes, combined with the addition of new Pokémon to catch, regions to explore, and enemies to fight, were enough to keep me interested. But I know I wasn’t alone in imagining all the possibilities of taking the franchise off the handheld platforms and moving the main series games over to a more powerful home console. In the meantime, each generation that followed Gen IV highlighted a new, troubling pattern that became more and more prevalent with each addition to the series.
1. Gen V: Lack of meaningful gameplay innovation
By Generation V with Black/White, not only was Game Freak quickly running out of colors, they were quite obviously running out of ideas for significant gameplay innovation. The bulk of Black/White’s biggest changes were improvements on or adaptations to existing staples to the franchise: many new Pokémon, moves, and abilities were added, and the DS platform allowed for greater graphical quality where Pokémon could move around a bit more on-screen during battles, the camera wasn’t as rigid as it had to be in previous games due to machine limitations; perhaps most importantly, they FINALLY decided to make TMs infinite. Thank goodness. While the updates were nice, they were nowhere near as impactful on the game as previous generations’ changes were and served more as needed quality of life adjustments.
I would also argue Gen V also had the least inspired Pokémon designs (like Vanillux and Klinklang) with the worst starter choices of any Pokémon game, but that’s a discussion for another time. Excadrill and Volcarona were pretty cool, though.
2. Gen VI: Gimmicks as the main draw
Pokémon X/Y (See? They ran out of colors) continued this new downward trend in innovation. Mega-evolution—while admittedly pretty cool—wasn’t enough to carry the new generation into an era of meaningful improvement because it was equivalent to adding new Pokémon rather than developing innovative gameplay, ushering in a new era of gimmicks in lieu of substantial updates.
Though the gameplay innovation for X/Y was minimal, the graphic updates were substantial: Pokémon X/Y was the first generation to introduce the main series to a fully 3-dimensional world populated by 3D characters. However, since X/Y was on the 3DS, it was a ripe target for the 3D gimmick seen in almost all games on the console, which I personally used for all of 5 minutes before feeling nauseous and never using the function again.
Despite the fresh look of the new 3D models, the battle animations were, to be frank, incredibly disappointing. Pokémon still barely moved and never physically interacted with opponents, nor did they use moves in uniquely appropriate ways. To my point, for years now there’s been a meme about Blastoise opting to shoot water out of his face rather than his cannons. I was sad to see that they didn’t take the time to give each Pokémon’s animations a little more love. But I figured, in time, when or if the franchise ever moved to a more powerful machine, they would be better equipped to make it happen, right? I also convinced myself that the lack of refined animations were kind of charming, harkening back to the games’ original (terrible) animations.
3. Gen VII: Focus on Minigames
The main innovation (gimmick) that came with Generation VII, Sun/Moon, was the lack of HMs in lieu of riding certain Pokémon. Sun/Moon also added Ultra Beasts (essentially just new Pokémon) and Z-moves (just new moves) which only added to the number of gimmicks present in the games. These changes, which provide some mild adaptations to gameplay from previous generations, don’t fundamentally change the way players go through each game, the way that updates in the earlier generations did. I personally played through the entirety of Sun/Moon without using a single Z-move or seeing a single Ultra Beast outside the one you’re required to fight to progress the main story. Ultimately, these changes were not a significant enough experience to warrant an entirely new game that is otherwise full of more of the same stuff with slightly different creatures who have slightly different stats and occupy a slightly different world.
Though Sun/Moon was comfortably embracing the franchise’s affinity for gimmicks, it brought to the forefront yet another troubling trend: mini games. Between photography, the Festival Plaza, and Poké Pelago, the focus on and attention to detail toward mini games had grown considerably over the years. Pokémon games have always had minigames and other time-sinks—which is great! Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate having more to do than trudge through the main story. But it is apparent that, with each new generation, more time seems dedicated to development of these extras. Pokémon Contests, Secret Bases, Super Training, feeding/grooming; a lot of their larger innovations after Gen IV were centered on non-essential parts of the game, which results in diminished game and story quality overall.
Admittedly, Sun/Moon did have some of the best exploration moments of any of the Pokémon games, which I did very much appreciate. More on that later as it relates to Sword/Shield…
4. Generation VIII: You Can’t Be Serious
When Game Freak finally announced they were launching Generation VIII, Sword and Shield, on the Switch rather than a dedicated handheld console, I was beside myself with excitement.
And then I saw gameplay footage like this, and my heart sank.
What is the purpose of launching the game on a stronger console if they are going to continue copy/pasting their sprites and their animations? If they aren’t going to provide the Pokémon any unique flair or create more appropriate animations? It was disappointing enough seeing the same animations/models from X/Y for Sun/Moon, but that was sort of expected since the games were on the same console. But now that the game has moved to the Switch, this is unacceptable.
When I learned that they were significantly cutting the number of Pokémon available in the game, I thought for certain that would translate to more time dedicated to the ones that made the cut, to focus on adding animations and character to the critters to make them feel like real parts of the world, rather than avatars of a child’s imagination, unable to fully process how the world functions. Alas, what was I thinking?
I thought the Dynamax gimmick would be one of my biggest gripes because it’s so pointless, or maybe the Wild Area’s severe lack of organic belonging (all Pokémon are just wandering aimlessly, weather can change drastically after crossing an invisible line, trees look like they were cut and pasted out of Mario 64, you can’t even catch Pokémon if they’re too high a level) but honestly the most disappointing part of the game for me was the pitiful routes between towns/gyms. Previous installments of the game included routes full of trainers and puzzles you needed to defeat or solve before you could progress—in Sword/Shield, the only thing that ever prevents you from progressing are some Team Yell grunts barricading paths the game doesn’t want you to take yet, for literally no reason. It completely removes player autonomy and a sense of accomplishment earned through overcoming challenges—now instead of learning that you need to find an item that allows you to cut through certain trees to gain access to new areas, you simply follow the story beats and then, upon returning, the path will be open. It’s inorganic, it’s clunky, and it’s extremely lazy.
Speaking of lazy, the story itself was another massive disappointment for me. Pokémon games are not particularly known for having deep stories, but Sword/Shield takes it to a new low. Every NPC simply pushes you to battle in gyms, and every interesting story beat that occurs happens just outside the player-character’s reach. Any time something interesting happens, you are shooed away and told to let the grown-ups handle it while you just get your gym badges. There COULD have been some interesting story moments where your character gets more involved with helping fix the havoc occurring around the Galar Region, but instead we as the player are simply TOLD what happened, why it happened, and who fixed it (usually the champion, Leon).
I honestly think having the game focus on the story of Sonia, Bede, Marnie, or even Hop (was not a fan of this kid) would have been a much more interesting game, because those characters actually had some depth to them, some bigger reason for taking on the gym challenges than simply “I want to be the very best.” Albeit those stories would have required a tremendous amount of work to add depth and details, the potential for a better story is in those characters. There is just no story at all to the main character, who is ushered from gym to gym because…because? Because that’s what kids do? I’m not even really sure what the motivation is.
There are SO MANY exciting, interesting, innovative ways Game Freak could drive Pokémon into a new and exciting direction while still maintaining its charm and building on existing mechanics, but they instead choose to demonstrate their lack of interest in significant graphical and gameplay innovation. I imagine this is largely because the masses will eat up just about any Pokémon product produced so long as there’s a new bunny to catch, and Pikachu is still involved. I’m disappointed, and I wish the Galar region could meet the expectations of my 10-year old mind’s imagination.
When abilities were added, we suddenly had to consider whether our Earthquake could even hit the enemy Weezing and adapt to the tremendous changes the passive skills added, reconsidering how we faced each battle. When the physical/special split occurred, entirely new opportunities opened up and certain Pokémon who were banished to obscurity due to their poor typing and stat distribution, like Weavile, were suddenly viable. Some even became incredibly powerful, like Gyarados, who had been hit pretty hard by the Special attack/defense split. There were also already-powerful Pokémon (Gengar, Dragon-types) who became even more so through access to STAB moves that benefited off their strongest stats.
I want new games to include updates that feel as impactful as these changes. If you’re interested in how Game Freak can improve on the main gameplay, I have some fun ideas that will be fleshed out in another article: How to Breathe New Life into the Pokémon Franchise. That article will be dedicated to explaining what those changes are, why I want them, and how they can improve future games.
#pokemon#pokemon shield#pokemon sword/shield#game review#review#hilltop sunset#streamer#gamefreak#gen viii#gen 8
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I Give Up on Anime (Almost) - A Discussion on Anime vs. Manga
Over the past few years, I started to enjoy anime a lot less than I used to. I used to watch quite a bunch of anime series around 2013-2015. Since then, my anime viewing has went down to almost zero while my manga consumption increased steadily. I sometimes felt I was the only person left behind as almost all my friends and peers talk about what’s hot and not each and every new anime season.
I don’t know if it was a sheer coincidence, but I found a Reddit manga thread that spoke to me and maybe some other people. A user on the platform honestly asked “Is anyone else literally unable to watch anime since you got into manga?”
The premise behind the post was that the user felt like anime takes too long to get going while in a few short minutes, plot development in manga ramps up. There were about 750+ comments chiming into the discussion. A majority of fans do feel that anime wasn’t worth their time as manga is still serialized even when a 12-24 episode anime season ends. Some fans feel that a lot of anime adaptations tend to be subpar. There’s also still the argument that anime adaptations are just advertisements for the source material that is the manga. Some discussion about clever usage of manga panels telling a quicker story was mentioned as well. And of course, multiple fillers is another big reason for fans’ preference of manga over anime.
But when I think about the argument about anime adaptations being ads, isn’t that a good thing? This is true especially in America, where most fans tend to read/buy manga after noticing how hot an anime series is. In Japan, a decent number of manga sells well before an anime adaptation is announced. However, even constant “ads” become annoying over time when the novelty wears off.
It doesn’t mean that certain series are necessarily better as manga though. The best example I can give is Gintama. Sunrise, the studio behind the anime adaptation, goes balls-out on the series. I love how all the Gintama voice actors take so much pride in their roles. I sometimes find Hideaki Sorachi’s art to be lacking in certain areas and Sunrise helps to enhance it. It’s funny because reading chapters of the Gintama manga made me enjoy seeing its eventual anime adaptation. I think it depends of the kind of series you want as anime. I don’t think every seinen series should be anime as a good number of them are much slower-paced even if there’s action. Certain slice-of-life series (Yotsuba&!, a much-demanded series for an anime adaptation, comes to mind here) might have pacing issues when put on a TV screen versus a drawing board.
Someone on the Reddit thread did point out a potential elephant in the room - isekai light novel adaptations. Isekai is pretty much everywhere and a lot of the series aren’t always of the best quality. But so many fans worldwide eat it up because of fantasy tropes. I remember reading a convention recap of New York Comic-Con one year and the writer, who is a manga reviewer, of that recap noted that while waiting inside a panel room for a manga panel, he went through a Sword Art Online panel. The writer found it somewhat depressing that there were a ton more fans at the SAO panel compared to the manga panel that happened later. I think he said what he said because the lovable diversity of manga titles out there is being passed over for an isekai series whose reception gets divisive pretty fast.
What to say about fantasy tropes? I remember trying out one of the hottest video games today, Genshin Impact. After playing it for a few hours, I just gave up and that’s not because of the gacha mechanics. I wasn’t invested in the story as it sounds like stuff I’ve heard over and over again. Genshin Impact plays up fantasy anime tropes that I’m mostly over at my age.
I think maybe my mind is not satisfied by tropes that are just easily rehashed. However, that kind of thinking has been challenged at times. For starters, I really enjoy Kaguya-sama: Love is War. I don’t like romantic comedies, but the way the story is told in Kaguya-sama and how it gives every character a good amount of emotional depth has left me impressed. The serious stories being jumbled in reminds me so much of Gintama.
Maybe the real elephant in the discussion is the usage of common tropes and how often they’re used to cater to the lowest common denominator. I know manga can be guilty of this, but anime adaptations make them a lot more visible. That’s because most people would prefer watching anime a lot more than reading manga. Anime is a more mainstream form of media. You need to appeal to those fans a lot more as they bring in more money via other means (The Demon Slayer: Mugen Train movie is a big case of this right now) than just manga volumes.
Combine that with how consuming anime is more passive than reading a manga and you may have fans who just don’t stop and think about the media they consume. I sometimes feel that anime production committees view fans as mindless consumers of media and only think of them as such. I also wonder if fans reinforce that thinking since corporations enable them to do so.
Honestly, I think in my case, when you learn something that’s outside your comfort zone, you start to come down with uncomfortable truths. I’ll admit that there’s a little cognitive dissonance, but I’ve accepted that my mind has changed. Maybe I was never much of an anime fan in the first place. Maybe I realized watching anime takes up much of my time. A lot of folks stay away from certain truths since people are afraid to admit that they may be wrong about certain things. This is what happens when you begin to understand more about the psychology of crowds/groups and public opinion. I like being in solitude to reflectively gather my thoughts. Being outside of a “popular” group doesn’t subject you to certain cognitive bias that can become damaging over time.
I watched a panel featuring the digital manga service Mangamo and one of its executive editors said that he’s always been more of a manga guy. He said he doesn’t watch much anime with some exceptions (Japan Sinks 2020 was a relevant example, he gave). I’m still going to watch anime series here and there because hey, I got to preach some notable series worth everyone’s time.
I know I’m talking out of my butt here, but I feel that discussing a topic like “why manga over anime?” and vice versa (in a way that doesn’t become a shouting match) is warranted. Hell, I think it’s best to discuss both at the same time. It’s conversations like this that develop into newer insights. I wish more people realize that despite whatever you prefer, anime and manga are very much yin and yang to each other. I think experiencing both anime and manga worlds lead to a better appreciation and understanding of why Japanese pop culture media fascinates us and will continue to do so.
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(PnF) Headcanon #11 Thomarie Nitpicks #2 Pt.1 Clothing
This is sort of a sister post to post #6 & #7, it mentions characters from post #6, and is connected to my current series of post about the problems I have with the MnT(Marie and Thomas) Universe. I want to make it clear that I like these characters...to an extent, but to another extent I don't. I want the best for them as they were a big part of my childhood, and so in this post I want to make some tweaks to their clothing and personalities, as I find them currently sporadic and dated.
*Disclaimer: The MnT Universe is centered around (OC)Maria Flynn & (OC)Thomas Fletcher. Marie belongs to angelus19 & sam-ely-ember deviantart. Thomas Belongs to Melty64.
Maria's Child Clothing: Okay, so a lot of people have made the claim that Maria's design is generic which I will not deny. It's a blatant ripe off of her mothers clothes with a change of color palette, and while I enjoy the idea of Phineas designing her clothes to be that way, it's a waste of potential(as are most things I will mention in this post). Maria canonically adores France, and in my headcanon was born there, so I think some Parisian style could be added to this design. I'd draw instead of writing about this, but I have no artistic talent. For starters, based on my research(as I myself am not French)puffed sleeves are a common occurrence in French clothing culture, so giving Marie puffed sleeves in place of her mothers regular ones would be nice. Instead of basic shoes, ankle boots are also a common item in French clothing followed by white and/or black tights. Now, ironically enough the style of belt Isabella has on her clothes is similar to a French Skinny belt called a Maison Boinet, so just change it from being one color to a light brown with a metal clip, and it can stay-as can the main outfit. Lastly, to quote https://leoncechenal.com/french-girl-style-guide/ 'And I think the ultimate goal of all French girls is to find their own style (what they like and what they don’t) and to stick to it.', so in summary this doesn't need to look perfect or fancy it just needs to look natural.
Maria's Teen Clothing: Okay, this one is even worse in my opinion, but the whole one color thing is killing me! So, for this I did a COMPLETE recall and came up with this; A purple beret, orange bow wrapped around her neck mimicking a Parisian scarf, dressed in an orange & purple horizontal striped sweater dress that hangs off her shoulders, and a pair of black single buckle ballet flats. She would have a gold chain-link belt to replace her Maison Boinet one, a cameo necklace of the Virgin Mary, and a gold choker with small bells. Based on my research actual Beret's aren't that common in French culture anymore, though ironically striped shirts and dresses are, but Marie's is canonically the one her mother wore in the episode 'Summer Belongs to You' and familial connection is super important to Maria-so I decided to keep it. I kept her Garcia-Shapiro bow as I am appalled they tried to get rid of Isabella's in AYA(Act your Age)! Vivian clearly still has her from when she was young, and I believe every Garcia-Shapiro who wants one should keep them to some extent throughout their life! Off shoulder tops and dresses are pretty common in France as are sweaters, so I gave Maria an off shoulder sweater dress. And, ballet flats are some of the most common footwear for woman in France, they have many styles like the single buckle that don't actually look like ballet flats we American's would usually associate with ballet. The jewelry wore by French woman is wore all the time, and is rarely below the quality of 10-carrot gold. Layering necklaces of different sizes such as a cameo necklaces and a choker is normal, and chain-link belts are considered appropriate for any and every outfit. Chokers are a bit longer than some might expect them to be, and I went with a cameo necklace of the Virgin Mary as I headcanon Maria to be a serious Jew. Lastly, make-up in the French world is some of the most neutral in color and shade, so I gave Maria a soft pink lip and nose bridge blush at best.
Thomas' Child Clothing: I heavily dislike Thomas' child design. It lacks any personality in my opinion when compared to Ferbs or Vanessa's. I appreciate that it isn't a ripe off like Marie's, but that doesn't make it good or interesting. Also, this ties into my biggest problem with Thomas, but he's too...boyish. There is nothing wrong with having a practically boyish character, but that kind of personality and style is better used on a character intended to be boyish, and not characters who happen to be boys. I mean Thomas is the son of one of the most headcanon'd nonbinary characters in the whole show, and one of the most headcanon'd bisexual's in the whole show. This is why I mentioned these characters being a bit dated. They definitely came out before LGBTQ+ representation became popular in the fandom-at least compared to the extent of today. So, for Thomas I want to propose a few heavy changes to his child design, starting with...SKIRTS. I petition Thomas to have an either black & white(or purple and green), plaid skirt that reaches his knees. This style of skirt is popular in both British and German(Drusselstein) clothing culture, and is something his family would so support! I mean the potential Thomas has for normalizing clothing as gender neutral is being completely wasted! A white polo shirt inspired by his fathers and his original design underneath. A tweed blazer-of the same color scheme-which is considered always in style in Britain, and the Haferlschuh which are the most popular type of shoe found in Germany-and suit any outfit. Add some tracht socks in white and you have the perfect style!
Thomas' Teen Clothing: This design wasn't horrible, I actually quite like the overall vibe it was going for, but it's not specific enough. I don't find this design to be more than a vibe; It doesn't go deeper than that when it could. So, I summarized it into this; Ripped up, leather pants, sleeveless, white turtleneck, high-heeled, black boots, and to top it all off a trench coat and leather satchel. Considering Thomas is the lead singer and bass guitarist for a classic/heavy rock band I think some ripped leather pants with a bell bottom are perfect. I kept the sleeveless, white classic turtleneck that came from his original design as I do think it's appropriate. I also wanted to pay homage to his mothers almost iconic heels by giving Thomas a similar pair himself; A pair of black, over the knee boots, with a stiletto heel. The trench coat MADE his original design, and the traditional leather satchel is a perfect accent to it, both are British classics in the world of fashion.
Thomas' Rock Outfit: I'm added a subsection for Thomas' clothes as we NEED to talk about his band outfit. I want to say this first, I don't like the original name for the band. Clair is a generic name that doesn't sound too rock-ish in my opinion. It's supposed to represent Maria as it is a French girls name, but it's too simple for someone like Thomas. So, I changed it to Église des Gémeaux which represents Maria in more ways. The name literally translate to Church of Gemini from French to English. It represents Maria's French heritage, her connection to her Jewish Religious roots, and contains a reference to her birth month of June-her birth sign Gemini. The band in itself is canonically represented by The Spill Canvas which is an American Alternative rock band which I also changed. I gave the band a more Eisbrecher/Queen style as Thomas is German(Drusselstein)/British. Eisbrecher is a German Neue Deutsche Härte rock band(translating to New German Hardness aka Industrial Rock), and most of us know Queen the British rock band known for helping to start the rock genre making them a Classic rock band. Major headcanon to this band I want to add, Thomas primarily sings in German(Drusselstein) as he himself has a heavy German(Drusselstein)/British accent. His canonical outfit is a leather top similar to his mothers teenage attire, some basic jeans, and some black boots. I have rewritten this design as such; Ripped up, bell bottom, leather pants, long-sleeve, purple, deep V-neck top, covered by a studded, leather jacket, and keeping his pair of black, over the knee boots, with a stiletto heel. Accent this outfit with some studded, leather cuff bracelets, silver chain choker, and industrial piercing as well as some crescent moon 2nd/Upper lobe piercings. Now, the style of rock/punk is highly personal and changes heavily from generation to generation, but as someone whose family is highly involved in the antique business; It can be expected that Thomas would have a classic rock style inspired by the band he loves such as Eisbrecher, Queen, The Rolling Stones, Mozart L'Opéra rock, Amon Düül II, etc. Some of the elements of his outfit repeat such as his pants and heels, though his deep V-neck is inspired by a picture of Queen. His studded jacket is inspired by MANY rockers of the past. And, his jewelry has a very punk aesthetic. His make-up can be expected to be heavy with intense eyeliner, mascaras, and aided with a plum lip to match his V-neck. While I do enjoy the Grunge style take for Fred & Xavier; I personally find it underwhelming for someone such as Thomas.
I'll end the post here for now as it's getting pretty long. I'll make a post about personality changes at a later point(likely my next post). If you have any questions, comments, etc about what changes I've made feel free to share them! If you have any expertise with French, German, British, or Rock attire and believe I've been misinformed than please tell me! I remind you I am not an expert on fashion, character design, and am only aware of American trends. These changes are entire based on what knowledge is available to me, and my own personal feelings about clothes and characters, but I'm open to learning! I apologize if my opinions come off as harsh, I am merely opinionated about things I enjoy, but I hold no ill-will towards anyone who thinks differently. At the end of the day, I don't own Marie or Thomas or Phineas and Ferb, and am merely expressing my freedom to make or suggest changes. I encourage anyone reading this post to do the same, and be has intense as you feel, of course WITHOUT being insulting of the people you disagree with. Thank you!
#phineas and ferb#marie and thomas#headcanon#oc#clothing#marie flynn#thomas fletcher#phineas flynn#isabella garcia shapiro#ferb fletcher#vanessa doofenshmirtz#next gen#phinbella#ferbnessa#pnf
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FIC: Not What It’s Cracked Up To Be ch.1 (baon)
Summary: Edge and Stretch are finally getting back on an even keel. Edge's broken leg is healing well, Spring is finally here and the flowers are close to blooming.
Be a shame if anything disturbed their domestic bliss.
Tags: Spicyhoney, Kustard, Established Relationships, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Fluff, Chickens
Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.
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Stretch had always liked taking a walk on the science side. Even when he was a kid, he’d loved it, digging soggy books out of the dump that no one else wanted about exotic things like physics. Yeah, sure, he’d taken a detour for a little while in his life, spent some time as a sentry in Snowdin, but here in the Aboveground, he’d gotten back into it, reluctantly at first and then with the same enthusiasm he’d had in his striped shirt days. He loved science and experiments, coming up with theories and either proving them or setting them in the ‘learning experience’ pile.
Confirming a hypothesis, that was what he did, but even he had to admit, this was one he could've lived without. But hey, now he had empirical evidence to explain why he was never double-dog-dare ever taking Edge on the bus again.
It hadn't even been his idea. Everyone with a driver’s license was busy today so there was no one to cadge a ride from. Didn’t help that Edge wasn’t exactly great on the passenger side anyway, he took backseat driving to new and historic levels. Even Andy started getting a weird tic in his cheek the last time he gave them a lift and in the interest of not giving his best bud a stroke, when Edge suggested they take the bus to his doc’s appointment, Stretch went along with it.
Yeeeah. He’d made worse choices in his life, but this was hovering right at entering the top ten.
To begin with, it seemed like that when he made the suggestion, Edge didn’t fully realize it would require sitting on a grubby seat inhabited daily by dozens of other butts, something Stretch’s personal neat freak was not keen on exposing to his own pelvis.
But there was no way he could stand with the cast holding his leg together, that was kinda the reason they weren’t taking Edge’s car. Probably the only thing that could make the seats actually tolerable for Edge was a good power washing, but Stretch did the best he could with the baggie of antiseptic wipes he’d stashed in his backpack. That at least got Edge's nonexistent butt in the chair, even if he sat so close to the (heh) edge that one hairpin turn was gonna send him rolling across the floor.
If the universe were kinder, that probably would have been the worst of it. Stretch sat right next to his baby and held his hand for moral support, the bus route took them right past the hospital so there wasn't even a changeover. All they needed to do was sit quietly and get off at their stop. Stretch did it all the time, all by his lonesome. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Only, fate seemed to be in the mood for a different kind of citrus, choosing the path of difficult difficult lemon bullshit because they’d only been sitting for about five minutes when an older Human lady got on. She shuffled on over to sit right next to Edge even though there were a dozen other seats available on the bus and before the bus even pulled away, she’d started talking to him. And talked. And never actually stopped talking.
Blue once told Stretch, fondly and with only a sprinkle of salt, that when Stretch got going, he talked like he was trying to qualify for the chatter Olympics. This lady not only qualified, she’d swept away the competition and gone home with the gold.
To be fair, it was miles better than her screaming and tossing a shoe at their heads, sure, but Edge usually took a while to warm up to people as it was, especially to Humans. Considering that some Humans took one look at Edge coming their way and crossed the street? That kind didn't look at him as a person with feelings who could see them, thanks, even if Edge would never admit how much that fucking hurt, and sorry, did he say Humans? He meant assholes. Assholes saw Edge as a threat before they ever even met him.
Betty White over there wasn't at all put off by the sharp teeth and the crimson eye lights. She'd found a captive audience and watching his baby struggling to be polite while she chatted about her newest grandbaby, complete with actual photos scrounged out of her handbag, was setting off the cringe meter, big time.
About ten endless minutes in she’d shown no sign of losing steam. Stretch did make an attempt to help. His thinking was that if he moved to sit on Grandma Moses's other side, maybe she'd chat with him instead. He was pretty good at oohing and ahhing over pics of the potato babies. But the second he tried to stand, Edge's hold on his hand tightened like an iron claw, hard enough for him to feel the pinch of his sharpened fingertips even through gloves. Whether he was afraid Stretch was going to abandon him to his fate or didn't like the idea of him sitting next to unknown Humans, Stretch wasn't sure, but he wasn’t gonna argue with The Claw.
He sat back down and leaned against Edge instead, like maybe he could osmosis some soothing vibes his way. Never worked before, but hey, it was worth a shot.
Whistler’s Mom paused. “are you two boys…together?”
“Yes,” Edge said shortly. Stretch struggled not to wince as the grip on his hand dug in. The last thing he wanted was another bus fiasco. For starters, Andy wasn’t here this time to play white knight and he seriously doubted the Embassy would appreciate dealing with an all new public relations nightmare involving Edge getting into a street fight with an octogenarian.
So, Stretch put on his very best hundred-watt smile and leaned around his husband to shine it towards the old lady. “yes, ma’am, we’re married.”
He expected maybe a little outrage; he and Edge pretty obviously identified as male and Humans could be, ah, tetchy about that. Enough offense and maybe she’d go move to sit up at the front of the bus. But Queen Elizabeth over there just beamed happily, clasping her hands to her chest. “Isn’t that nice! You two make a lovely couple, aren’t your rings beautiful! Have you been together long? Ah, you’re newlyweds, aren’t you, I can tell!”
Next to him, the tension was slowly draining out of Edge, his kung fu grip loosening. Stretch lowered the wattage on his smile to merely friendly levels and asked, “how’s that, ma’am?”
She gave them a watery-eyed wink, “To begin with, you’re still holding hands.”
That was about all it took to tenderize Edge’s steak. He still didn’t chat, but he didn’t look like he was about to throw himself out of a window at any given moment, piece by piece if necessary, and that was a hell of an improvement.
By the time they’d gotten off the bus, Beatrice had shared a recipe for strudel that Edge promised to try and Stretch somehow ended up wearing a new knitted hat topped with a bright pink pompom, because in the words of the immortal Beatrice, he was too skinny and he might catch cold in the bright spring weather. He had a feeling if she could’ve smuggled him home in her handbag, he’d be holed up right now in a cozy kitchen mainlining soup made with fresh noodles and no amount of protesting that skeletons kinda couldn’t get fattened up would save him.
“see, babe,” Stretch teased, handing over his crutches once Edge made it down the stairs back to earth. He waited until the bus was out of sight, taking Beatrice with it, before taking off the hat and adding it to his backpack stash. “take the bus a few more times and pretty soon you’ll have as many friends as i do.”
“I’d rather strip naked and run a marathon through a pack of hungry dogs,” Edge told him feelingly.
Yeah, okay, that one made Stretch burst out into unexpected laughter. He was still chuckling as they headed into the doctor’s office. “i swear, babe, no one ever believes me when i tell them you’re hilarious.”
“That wasn’t humor,” Edge said dryly as he crutched along, “that was a promise.”
The appointment itself was the usual doctor bullshit, starting with an endless fifteen-minute wait before the doc even came in the room, long enough for Stretch to inspect every drawer and jar in the room before Edge told him to sit down. Which, yeah, okay, it was his appointment and fidgeting around the room probably wasn’t doing much for any anxiety Edge had.
Not that he looked like he had much and Stretch honestly envied Edge’s ability to seem coolly serene in any given situation. It was less appealing that the skill made it impossible for Stretch to know if he was genuinely relaxed or hiding it from the world, but eh, that much he was used to. He could read his baby like a well-loved book, but damn if the cover wasn’t inscrutable some days.
By the time the doc came in, Stretch was ready to vibrate out of his damn shoes, but he kept his trap shut and let the doctor do his job. Highly trained professionals, he’d told Edge, who knew what they were doing, and Stretch could do healing magic but that was his limit. The fine tuning was up to the guys with the stethoscopes.
So he played on his phone, messed around on twitter, kept one suspicious auditory canal tuned in to make sure that the doc didn’t have any strong opinions on how Edge was healing up. In less time than they’d spent waiting, the cast was removed, cut right through the drawing of Undyne flexing, and the doc was checking the bones out, making positive little sounds as he poked and prodded.
That got his reluctant curiosity going and left him torn between getting a look at what he hadn’t yet seen or waiting a little longer for the scars to fade.
He hadn’t chosen a side by the time Edge decided for him, “It’s fine, love, have a look if you want.”
The doc obligingly stepped back and let him take a peek at what the cast was hiding. Even if the freshly healed breaks weren’t still chalky-rough, he would have been able to pick them out of a line up. He knew every scar on Edge’s bones, knew how they felt beneath his fingers, knew which ones were sensitive and which had little feeling to them at all.
Edge was right, they weren’t bad, all things considered. Tori must’ve poured on the healing because the scars weren’t much more than hairline fractures. A lot of hairline fractures, too many, and Stretch blinked hard, turning away to flump back into his chair. Way too many fucking scars, his leg must’ve been…it must’ve…
He probably wasn’t hiding his upset very well, his poker face wasn’t up to standards these days, because the doctor said, gently, “He’s healing very well. A few more weeks and he should be able to resume his normal routine.”
They both seemed to be waiting for some kind of answer from him, so Stretch slumped back into his chair and muttered, “that’s good.”
He pulled out his lighter, flicking it absently through his fingers, listening to the rhythmic clicking of metal against bone as the doc stepped up again.
Pretty quickly Edge was Velcro-ed into a sort of boot that went up to his knee and sternly told not to stand more than two hours at a time, ice it at night, yadda yadda, it was all on the instruction sheet. He went from crutches to a cane and they’d be sending him one of those knee scooters for when he went back to the Embassy. That was a photo opportunity waiting to happen.
The ride home was a lot less eventful. The only other person on the bus for most of the trip was a Human that Stretch only knew in passing and they were eating a sandwich so aggressively that Stretch was afraid to get too close, lest he get sucked into the chomping vacuum.
Edge didn’t talk and Stretch kept busy on his phone, ignoring the quiet of the bus around them. Stretch usually wore headphones when he rode the bus, he had about fifty different podcasts he listened to and Cabinet of Curiosities just released a new one today. He didn’t feel like listening right now though and if anyone told him an hour ago he’d be missing Beatrice’s chatter, he’d have told them to retune their Ouija board.
The only real transfer was from the bus proper to the New New Home shuttle and they were the only Monsters on it except for the driver.
“hey, angela, you know why you’re the best driver?” Stretch asked cheerfully when they got to the stop. He didn’t wait for her to answer. “it’s ‘cause you’re so good at telling people where to get off!”
Angela rolled her eye, “Sans told me that one last week.”
“of course he would,” Stretch sighed, “sans is never short for time when it comes to a joke.” That one got him a chuckle from Angela and a sigh from Edge as she shooed them out the doors. Before he could take so much as a step towards home, Edge had him by the arm, tugging him over to sit on the nearby bench.
“wha…you okay?” Stretch blurted. The anxiety that was slowly easing ramped it back up to high. As far as he saw, Edge was walking pretty well with his new gear, but maybe— “is it hurting, do you need to rest a minute? i can call the doc, hang on…”
Edge gently stopped him from scrambling for his phone, shaking his head. “I’m fine, love. I’m more concerned about whether you’re okay.”
It would’ve been easy to tell him yep, sure, 100%, doing great. Dig up another 100-watt smile out of his reserves in a lie that Edge wouldn’t believe. Instead, he slumped, leaning against Edge’s side and letting his skull drop on his shoulder. “can’t fool you, huh.”
“I don’t want you to fool me,” Edge told him. He reached up, his gloved fingers gentle against Stretch’s cheek bone, his jaw line. “I want to know when you’re upset. Even if I can’t really help, I at least want to know.”
Stretch sighed heavily. “i’m okay. no, really,” he insisted when Edge made a skeptical sound. “i’m just…i don’t like to see you hurt.”
Edge shifted and there was the light touch of a kiss being pressed to his skull. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t really like being hurt. I’ve been injured in the past, you know that, but this is my first experience at being off my feet for so long and I hate it,” Edge said, frankly. “I don’t like not being able to go through my normal routine, whether it’s my work at the Embassy or simply baking bread, I don’t like being—” he hesitated, then, softer, “vulnerable. I don’t like feeling as if I can’t keep you safe.”
The last was said at a mere whisper, a confession Stretch hadn’t expected, and he sat up, wrapping both arms around Edge and held him tight. They sat like that for a while, arms around each other with spring sunshine pouring down over them and Stretch loved him, so, so damn much.
He could hear someone walking up the street, probably heading to wait for the shuttle, and Stretch reluctantly drew back, pausing to press a light kiss against Edge’s cheek bone. “welp, you’re a couple steps further along in getting back on your feet, anyway. what’re you gonna do first?”
He was kinda expecting a shower. Edge never complained but it was hard not to notice that he didn’t enjoy wrapping up in plastic like last night’s leftovers. But Edge was packed with the unexpected today so Stretch was a little surprised when he said, “I’d like to work on my garden. Spring planting isn’t for a little while yet, but my perennials will be coming up and I need to clean out the winter detritus.”
Yeah, okay, that sort of made sense. May as well get as dirty as possible before hitting the suds. They made their way back to the house, a little slower than Stretch’s preferred pace but not by much. Stretch went in the house and aside from Edge taking him on a quick field trip outside for an informational lecture on the different flowers that were already starting to spring out of the ground, he left his honey to get to the gardening. And if he was keeping an eye on the clock to make sure Edge didn’t go over the two-hour mark, eh, Edge said from the start he was going to follow the doctor’s orders. Stretch was only helping him keep a promise.
It was closing in on an hour-fifty when the unexpected knock came from the front door. That had Stretch curious; Edge was in the front yard, any visitors would be bypassing him, so who would be coming specifically to see Stretch?
Welp. There was only one way to find out.
Read Chapter Two
#spicyhoney#papcest#keelywolfe#underfell#underswap#underfell papyrus#underswap papyrus#by any other name
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Sushio’s latest Kill la Kill fanart got me thinking.
[Image description: A sketch. Ryuko walks briskly, her hands in the pockets of her jacket. She smiles at Senketsu beside her, who appears to be very happy.]
See, Senketsu... doesn’t exactly get a ton of stuff like this. Kill la Kill animator doujin and Twitter accounts won’t include much content featuring him.
And that’s totally fine, of course! These are drawings the staff do for fun, and I completely understand if drawing Senketsu ain’t as fun as drawing human characters.
But I actually got the Kill la Kill Starter Book recently, which was originally sold at Comiket 84 and then included as a purchase bonus on Aniplex+:
[Image description: The cover of the Kill la Kill Starter Book. It's an illustration of Ryuko Matoi and Senketsu by Hiroyuki Imaishi. Ryuko stands, smiling, wearing an untransformed Senketsu and holding her Scissor Blade.]
And flipping through the book, I was reminded that while Senketsu may not get a lot of animator fanart, he does get some good official art.
Now, I dunno how "official" the Starter Book really is. (I mean, it was sold at Comiket originally, so maybe it’s more in the “animator fanart” category, but at the same time, it is also a product kind of featured on the official Kill la Kill site, and, like, the SSSS. Gridman Starter Book was sold on Trigger’s online shop....)
But if you do consider the starter book to be official merchandise, then Sachiko Yajima's piece is not only my favorite in the collection but one of my favorite pieces of official Kill la Kill art, period.
The image is very simple; it's an illustration of Ryuko holding her bag behind her, smiling down at Senketsu. It’s nothing elaborate, but its sweetness means the world to me. With Kill la Kill’s fast pace, we rarely get those quiet moments where these two are just happy together.
And there’s more good stuff where that came from! Here are some more of my favorite pieces of official/semi-official Kill la Kill artwork that feature Senketsu!
1. Hug
[Image source]
[Image description: Ryuko hugs Senketsu, naked, smiling. He looks up at her, his mouth around her arms. Sparkles surround them, implying that they're Synchronizing through the hug.]
First, the final Blu-ray/DVD cover, by Sushio (sushio_)! So sweet. This is what Kill la Kill ultimately wants you to take away from it.
The recently released Promare Blu-ray/DVD cover gave me flashbacks:
Two characters and a representation of their synchronized way of fighting together. My heart.
2. Waving Goodbye
[Image source]
[Image description: Three characters are pictured. On the top, Senketsu waves goodbye. Below them, Ryuko smiles in Senketsu-Kisaragi and waves goodbye, winking. At the bottom, Guts sleeps with a big snot bubble coming out of his nose.]
Then, also from the final Kill la Kill volume, the adorable side art by Mago (magodesu)! Ryuko and Senketsu happy in Senketsu-Kisaragi, and Senketsu waving goodbye? My heart. Again.
I love Ryuko's winking. Her hand covers Senketsu's right eye, she's closing her left... the symmetry....
3. Date
[Image sources: 1, 2, 3, 4]
[Image descriptions: The first image depicts Ryuko in a yellow bikini, smiling as she holds Senketsu’s sleeves. The second image is of a figure designed after this image. The third and fourth images are cards made from this image, called “Swimsuit Ryuko” and “Senketsu’s Date with Ryuko.”]
And of course, I can't talk about favorite official Senketsu art without mentioning Akira Amemiya's "Senketsu's Date with Ryuko"! An illustration, two cards, a figure... this is one image they really want you to see. Kill la Kill is actually adorable.
4. Don’t Look...
[Image source]
[Image description: A double-sided dakimakura, with one side featuring Ryuko in Synchronized Senketsu and the other side featuring Satsuki in Overridden Junketsu. Ryuko looks bashful and tries to cover Senketsu's eye. Satsuki looks angry and ready to attack with her sword, Bakuzan.]
Next up, I don't think I'd call this a "fave" exactly; it breaks my heart. But I appreciate (?) that Senketsu is acknowledged in the semi-official dakimakura.
Ryuko and Senketsu were drawn by Shota Iwasaki (tarou2), and Satsuki and Junketsu were drawn by Mai Yoneyama (yonema).
5. Shocked
[Image source]
[Image description: Official Kill la Kill breast mousepads. There is one for Ryuko in Synchronized Senketsu and one for Satsuki in Overridden Junketsu. Both girls have their arms up. Ryuko looks bashful. Satsuki looks angry. Senketsu is shocked.]
On the same note, I could say similar things about these official mousepads found on Trigger's Kill la Kill site. Why is it that fanservice products pay more attention to Senketsu's character than a lot of discussion on the show? I cry.
6. Bath Time
[Image source]
[Image description: A figure. The description on the site reads, “This figure captures the Kill La Kill protagonist at an awkward time, as she's just getting out of a hot spring. Water drips down her body, and the only thing keeping her from being totally exposed is a tiny, soaked towel. While she looks shamed and demure, she still has a chance to take it out on you with severe prejudice. Her trusty Scissor Blade is just mere feet behind her, and Senketsu, her sentient uniform, is grasping onto her thigh, ready to help her suit up and unleash all her power towards any peeping toms foolish enough to sneak a peek.”]
And I’ve already talked up a storm about the bath figures, but to keep it short, let’s just say that I’m glad Senketsu is included because he wants to cover Ryuko and prevent any creeps from peeping on her. And also Synchronize with her so they can take out the creeps together. He is drinking all the Respect Women Juice.
7. Stickers!
[Image source]
[Image description: Ryuko and Senketsu stickers sold in Trigger's online shop. There's a sticker of Ryuko in her tracksuit wearing scarf!Senketsu. There's a sticker of Ryuko in untransformed Senketsu. There's a sticker of Senketsu posing and a sticker of Ryuko posing. There's also a plain sticker of Senketsu looking forward.]
But on the more adorable side, these stickers by Sushio! The artwork is from SUSHIO CLUB LOVE LOVE KLKL, which has tons of cute Kill la Kill content. Of all the stickers from the book sold in Trigger's shop, these are the only ones sold out....
8. Dressing Up
[Image source]
[Image description: Senketsu has become a red dress, and his eye and eyepatch are integrated into a ruffled design. Ryuko wears two red bracelets on her left wrist, red lipstick, and brown boots. She has her jacket slung over her shoulder, and her hair is styled with a clip.]
Another Sushio piece, Ryuko and Senketsu being fancy together! The art was done for an Aniplex display at AnimeJapan in 2014 and is also included in SUSHIO THE IDOL.
See that extra bit of red in Ryuko's hair? It implies they Synced to make that dress!
9. Bikini!Senketsu
[Image source]
[Image description: A sketch. Ryuko wears bikini!Senketsu and sandals.]
I also totally headcanon that Senketsu can transform into other outfits, and the official manga adaptation with art by Ryo Akizuki (akizuki072) includes a snippet of Ryuko in bikini!Senketsu in the third volume! The full image (above) was posted on Twitter.
10. Nendoroid Love
[Image source]
[Image description: Chaos. Aikuro sits at a table and has a huge glass of wine. Next to him, Tsumugu cleans... something? Shiro scowls at Houka, who has perhaps taken Mako's laptop, as its adorned with a bunny image. Mako opens a fridge; a chicken comes out. Satsuki has her arms around a horde of Nendos of her, Ryuko, and Mako. Nonon and Uzu are scowling in the back. Ryuko smiles at her Nendo.]
This next one is more minor, but Sushio's art for this Kill la Kill Radio CD just gets to me. Ryuko's admiring her Nendoroid... which features her and Senketsu. She's like, "We look so good together, don't we, Sen?"
Idk, I think it's cute....
11. Into the Stars
[Image description: My photo of the “ambiguous” and “Sirius” album art. Both are star themed. For the “ambiguous” art, Ryuko smiles in Synchronized Senketsu, up in the stars. Below her, Satsuki, Soroi, and the Elite Four (with Mako on Ira's shoulders, looking up in awe) watch. For “Sirius,” Ryuko and Senketsu shoot up towards the stars. The Mankanshoku family try to run after them, their arms outstretched, but can't keep up.]
And on the topic of CD art, the "ambiguous" and "Sirius" album art by Sushio are adorable! My photo isn't great, but I get so emotional at Ryuko and Senketsu flying up into the stars together. Nobody can keep up with them. They are on a whole 'nother level. So precious.
12. OT3
[Image source]
[Image description: Ryuko, Senketsu, and Mako hold each other, posing for the camera.]
For this next one, a WonderGOO purchase bonus for the Kill la Kill game drawn by Kengo Saito (kengo1212), I know Senketsu is often ignored. But I was so happy to see him acknowledged and posing for a photo with his loved ones. So cute. I bought this bonus!
13. I Don’t Think He’s Her Dad...
[Image source]
[Image description: A poster of Ryuko transforming with Senketsu. She is naked, her eyes shut as strands of Senketsu's fabric wrap around her.]
For another poster, by Sushio (thank you for confirming, @dont-lose-your-edge!), I wouldn't say Senketsu is characterized exactly, but I think it's one of the most sensual pieces of official Kill la Kill art. It really makes the “Senketsu is/is like Ryuko’s dad” reading very implausible to me....
14. Best Box
[Image source]
[Image description: An image of the All the Anime Collector's box. The right side has the Kill la Kill logo, the left side has art of Ryuko and Satsuki looking at each other, and the spine has Ryuko hugging Senketsu. The three volumes that All the Anime sold the series in can be placed inside the box.]
I don't have much else, but since I love that final volume cover art so much, I have to say that I so appreciate All the Anime for placing it on the spine of their collector's box.
That is what Kill la Kill is all about, y'all. Not fighting. Not fanservice. Shirt friendship.
#kill la kill#senketsu#ryuko matoi#sushio#mago#magodesu#kengo saito#akira amemiya#shota iwasaki#mai yoneyama#ryo akizuki#hiroyuki imaishi#this took so long...... i should have just posted a link to the twitter thread instead of trying to format it for tumblr 😫#i don't think it even looks that good here lol#but i did it so here it is!#oh also#promare spoilers#?#maybe a bit
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