#it feels so weird that the one art piece that I'm most proud of just kinda plunged into deep dark water and never surfaced

[annymation]

The Kingdom of Wishes- A “Wish” Rewrite

Chapter 14- I Will Protect You

Chapter 13

"I WHAT?!" Aster exclaims, almost falling backwards from the log he was sitting on. His animation becomes more sketchy and unfinished looking.

"Umm "In love", come on, don't tell me this is one of the things you don't know yet" Hal says with a smile and one eyebrow raised.

"I- I know what it means but- Where did THAT come from? hah ha" The star asks nervously, genuinely not understanding what she's talking about.

"I mean... It's pretty obvious" Dahlia comes in and starts listing all the evidence "From the way you two talk to each other, to how you blush whenever she holds your hand, and how she laughs about pretty much everything you say, I could go on all day, point is that the signs are all there." She explains casually.

Aster's eyes widen "THAT'S what being in love is??? No- no way! I can't be in love, that's... A HUMAN THING. Wishing stars don't fall in love... Do we?"Aster asks now looking up to the sky... No answer, the stars are dead silent, but not because they didn't listen, they just don't want to get involved for now.

Hal smiles with confusion in her eyes, seeing the boy just stare to the sky all of the sudden sure feels quite weird, but she just continues saying "We may not know anything about wishing stars, buuut we know our girl Asha, and it's pretty obvious at least she loves you." She says booping Aster's nose cheerfully.

Aster's turn to look at her slowly "... You think Asha loves me?" The star is stunned, as his mind starts racing, realizing what this means "... Oh... Oh this is-"

Bazeema has both hands on her cheeks as she says in a dreamy sigh "The most romantic thing in the wor-"

Aster has both hands on his head as he says in a panicked voice "Terrible!"

(This image doesn’t really have anything to do with this scene other than it taking place in a forest, but I had to include it in this rewrite cause OH MY GOSH DO YOU SEE HOW PRETTY THIS CONCEPT ART IS?!? AAAAAAH)

"Huh?? How's that terrible?!" Hal asks, now almost looking angry at the star.

Aster starts floating in the air, "Walking" back and forth "If Asha is in love with me an-and I'm in love with her then... She's gonna be heartbroken!" The star looks absolutely horrified with this discovery.

Gabo throws his head back and laughs at that before saying "WOOOW look at you, cape! Already dreading the eventual break up before even asking her out?" Gabo sounds almost proud "Maybe my pessimism is finally rubbing off on him" He whispers to Dario.

"NO nonono! The problem is... I can't STAY here!" They explain, sounding more and more distressed "Once we defeat Magnifico and save Rosas, Asha's wish will come true! And then I'll HAVE to go!"

"Well, here's a thought then: Fight the system." Gabo says with a mischievous look, like he's trying to influence the pure star to go to the "dark side" "Rules are made to be broken. What's the worse that could happen if you don't go back to the sky, hum?"

"I would cease to exist." Aster mutters quietly, still pacing around while flying.

"... Oh..." Gabo says in a deadpan manner "So we have a Romeo and Juliet scenario on our hands" The teen says with a hand on his chin.

"Indeed, it's a tale of forbidden love." Bazeema chimes in, both hands in her heart as she sighs like a hopeless romantic.

Gabo looks at her with a bored expression and says "I meant how they both die in the en-"

Dahlia interrupts him "Okay okay let me see if I understand" She pulls Aster down by his cape for him to sit next to her "After her wish is granted you'll have to leave, and you can't come back? Ever?"

"Yup!" The star blurts out, as he begins to speak quickly "So it's best to just deny these feelings and never let Asha find out, so her heart isn't crushed into a million pieces later, right?" He asks them with a forced smile, hoping they all agree.

"... Wrong" Hal says with her arms crossed "Aster, I get where you're coming from, but do you realize that if you don't tell her, and just leave... You two might spend your whole lives regretting not saying anything?" She asks the star with sadness in her eyes, but then she shakes off the feeling and add one last comment with a sassy smile "And I'm guessing the lifetime of a star is preeetty long, ain't it?"

"... You have no idea." Aster says while looking at nothing with a distant expression... For the first time realizing he's gonna outlive Asha by billions of years. The star looks at all the teens worriedly and asks "But if I tell her, then... Won't she feel even more hurt when I have to leave?"

"Most likely, yes." Bazeema confirms quietly, looking at Aster with a kind smile "But I think, if you two won't see each other ever again, then you should enjoy every moment together like it's your last." The star's eyes widen, not because the quiet girl is speaking more than usual but because those words hit him deeply with a realization, Bazeema continues with her quiet voice full of passion "Then maybe, it won't hurt as much when you go back to the sky and she stays down here, because at least you'll both know you had love... And that love will continue, even at a distance..."

Gabo moves slightly away from Bazeema like he's scared of her "Aight' who are you and where's Bazeema? She never spoken more than two lines in her life."

Bazeema realizes for how long she has been talking and that everyone is staring at her, she blushes and covers her cheeks in embarrassment "O-oh goodness, I didn't realize I was rambling, I'm so sorry."

"No, you're right." Aster says while getting up from the log he was sitting on "I'm gonna tell her." The star is back to his cheerful and confident self, as he starts making his way to where Asha went "I may not be able to spend my life with her, but I'll love her in our last few hours together just as much as I'd love her in a life time!"

Most of the teens cheer him on as he leaves, except for Simon who has just been staring this all play out while eating his soup, with a face of someone who regrets all his life choices... Oh and also Gabo stops cheering to give one last comment:

"Sure thing lover boy, but umm remember we can't have you two kissing and saving the kingdom at the same time, and we're gonna start the plan in a few minutes so-"

Aster is already marching through the forest as he shouts back to Gabo with an ever so slightly irritated tone "I'll love her in these next few MINUTES just as much as I'd love her in a life time!"

Gabo looks pleased because he has been trying to mess with the star's seemingly infinite patience the whole day, just for fun.

All the teens now are staring at each other in awkward silence, Dahlia notices and closes her eyes with a sigh

"... *sigh*... Do you guys wanna go and wa-" She hear the sound of footsteps and when she opens her eyes again, all of her friends are gone "Watch?... Heh heh Asha, you really can't get a moment of peace, can you?" She says while getting up with her crutch, to follow them, and watch how this will play out.

We cut to Asha sitting by the river, trying to draw herself while looking at her reflection. By her side there's a black and white, hand drawn candle lantern that actually emits light. There's also some fireflies flying around the proximity of the river.

Aster comes from behind a tree and takes a deep breath (even though he doesn't breathe) and starts flying to where she is.

Asha has her back turned to him, but she can see Aster's light approaching her, so she turns to look over her shoulder with a smile.

"Hey Aster! Great timing, I was just gonna ask you to come here" Asha taps on the floor next to her to signal that she wants Aster to sit with her

"Really? Well uh... Here I am hehe" Aster does so, they float down and sit next to Asha with his legs crossed "Do you need help with anything?"

"I could use some extra light. This lantern I made is great but your hair is waaay better" She says while placing her sketchbook on Aster's leg, so she can better see her drawings thanks to the light coming from his hair. She was gonna start drawing more but instead she gets distracted and talks with Aster excitedly "Also, I gotta say, it's amazing that my pencil can actually create FIRE! This is gonna be so useful when we're breaking in the castle. If any door is locked I can just burn them, or maybe I could create a giant hammer, or or... You know?! Anything!" She smiles widely at the star, not able to contain her joy, thinking about all the possibilities.

Aster looks at her with that same dreamy look he had at the campfire, admiring how she's just so full of life and hope.

"Yeah, I know, I'm glad you liked it" He says with a smile, Aster is now looking at the water, trying to think on what to say... Should he just say "I love you" out of the blue?... That doesn't feel right. So instead he just expresses how he wishes he could be there to... Protect her "I really wish I could go in there with you all, make sure you're safe"

Asha gives him a bittersweet smile as she explains "I know, but we've talked about this: you gotta distract Magnifico here in the forest and break his staff, while we'll get in the castle, fight the queen, and free all the wishes, so you can un-curse them and give them back to everyone."

(That's it, that's their plan! Will it work? whOoOoOOo KoOoWsSs? Oh wait, I know, hehehehe)

Aster looks at her worriedly "Are you suuuure you guys can handle Amaya on your own though?"

Asha chuckles with the question "It'll be eight teens vs one lady with no powers, if anything you should feel sorry for her haha" She laughs a bit, but then her face turns just as worried as Aster's was, as she thinks for a moment and says "But, you'll be on your own... Are you SURE you can fight Magnifico this time?" She asks him looking at him in the eyes.

Now Aster is the one who holds his laughter "Pfft you mean on my own + all the plants and wild life as my army? I'll manage." Aster says confidently, but then he notices the concern in Asha's expression, so he tells her more reassuringly "Hey, I'll be careful. He won't catch me this time, I promise."

Asha smiles as she holds his hand tightly "I know, I trust you."

Aster's freckles start sparkling and his hair shines brighter with that, they hold her hand back.

Asha also seems to be blushing as she holds his hand

The 7 teens are in the background watching everything with an expecting look, just waiting for Aster to make his move.

Aster notices them staring from the corner of his eye, Asha doesn't though.

The two of them break eye contact as Asha looks back to her sketchbook, while Aster looks at the impatient teens with an angry expression that screams "IM GETTING TO IT! LEAVE ME ALONE!"

The two teens take a deep breath and... They speak the same thing at the same time:

"... I wanted to tell you something-"

The two look surprised. Asha giggles a little as she says:

"Heh heh- okay you first-"

"No! no no no please, you go first!" Aster says, because he's honestly not ready to say it yet.

Asha takes a deep breath as she flips the pages of her sketchbook "Okay... This is gonna sound really out of nowhere but umm..." She stops in a page and takes out of the book... A sword "Wanna practice sword fighting with me?" She asks with an awkward smile.

... That's not what Aster nor the teens watching this behind the bushes expected at all...

Aster looks at the hand drawn sword and then back to Asha with a confused smile "... Eh?"

Asha lowers the sword "I know, I know, kinda last minute. But I just had the best idea!" She get's up and starts to explain while walking around with the sword in her hand "Your magic can't hurt me, and my magic can't hurt you, soooo we are perfect dueling partners to practice, don't you think?"

Aster understands now, she wants to be ready to fight the guards in case they are spotted by any... or even the royals.

"I don't remember sword fighting being part of the plan." Aster notes with a cheeky smile.

"It's not, it's just my own idea, call it a plan C" She says while looking at the sword she drew proudly.

"Sooo are you "planning" to make extra plans from A to Z? heheh" Aster jokes, still sitting down next to the river, looking up to her.

"You know, I actually might. Better be safe than sorry." She says, her smile falters a little, with her eyes revealing that she still has some doubts "I just... I gotta be ready for anything they might throw at us. I want to make sure I can protect my friends... Protect you." She tells Aster like she's letting out something that has eating her up inside.

Aster eyes sparkle with those last two words, since that's the same thing he wanted to say.

"... Well then..." Aster begins to talk with his eyes closed, reaching for something behind his back- "En garde!" He quickly creates a sword made of star dust while she wasn't looking.

The sword hits Asha, and just like how it went when Aster tried to use this trick against Magnifico during their fight in the storm, Asha starts laughing, feeling a sense of joy overtake her.

"Hhahahaahha" She laughs, hugging her sides as Aster get's up, standing in a fighting position holding his own sword "Hey! I wasn't ready!"

"Expect the unexpected, now come on! And don't you dare go easy on me!" He says spinning his sword with a confident look.

"Funny, I was gonna say the same thing!" Asha exclaims with a daring smile.

The two of them duel together around the clearing near the river, snickering the whole way through. Asha lands some hits on Aster, slicing his body made of star dust, but he immediately gets back together with every attack.

When Aster's sword hits Asha, all it does is make her chuckle a little, but she's landing a lot more hits than the star.

The 7 teens are watching all of this in the background, both surprised and endeared by the sight, that's definitely not where none of them expected this would go... But it is kinda romantic in a weird way.

"You're actually pretty good at this!" Aster comments as they're now both looking at each other in the eyes, with their swords pressed against one another

"Thanks! you too... But could be better tho." Asha says with a confident smirk "Good thing I'll be the one actually sword fighting hehe" She teases him

The star makes mocking shocked face "*Gaaaasp* Ooooh you did not! Alright, you asked for it!"

Aster summons a bunch of swords around Asha and makes all of them hit her at the same time, creating a huge cloud of star dust around them

Asha can only laugh as she falls on the grass

"Hhahaaahahah hey no fair!" Asha exclaims while laying on the grass

Aster is now floating with his face close to her's "Thought you said I shouldn't go easy on youuu" They smile playfully

Asha pulls him down by the cape and the two roll around the grass like two kids playing fighting, not even realizing that they're hugging. They both laugh the whole way through.

After calming down, they both lay next to each other and look up at the stars.

"So... Feeling more prepared?" Aster asks while still looking up

"Yeah, I think I can take 'em." She says, feeling reassured "*sigh* I just can't wait for all of this to be over." Her voice is full of hope.

Aster's smile slowly dissolves into a frown as he remembers he'll have to leave once it IS all over.

"... Um-hum, me too... Can't wait." They say, trying to hide their inner turmoil

Asha turns to the star with a curious smile "Ok, now's your turn."

Aster looks at her confused "Huh?"

"You said you had something to tell me, didn't you?" Asha asks, laying down on the grass next to the star

"O-Oh right! heh hehe... Umm" Aster quickly realizes he has no idea how to tell her. The star just begins blabbering nonsense without even realizing " Sooo uh I wanted to tell you- I mean- I actually didn't wanna tell you at first- Bu-but I have to t-tell you while we still have time that I... UUUH... I... I think I am- Ya know?"

Aster.exe stops working while Asha just stares at him in amusement, she never seen him acting like this before.

From the bushes where the seven teens are hiding comes Hal's voice shouting:

"Oh come on! JUST KISS THE GIRL ALREADY!"

(Shout out to @wings-of-sapphire who asked for a Kiss The Girl reference)

Aster discretely uses his magic to make several trees instantly grow in front of where the teens are hiding, creating a wall of trees, Asha doesn't notice as she sits up from the ground and looks back.

"What was that?" She looks around confused, but all she sees behind her are trees

"T-the wind, probably! heheh" Aster stammers out nervously.

Asha get's up and starts walking away from Aster "The other's may be calling us, I think we sho-"

"Asha wait!" Aster quickly gets up and grabs her hand, she looks back at him confused, but wanting to listen. Aster can only sigh as he explains frustrated " I just... I just have SO MUCH to tell you, and I don't know how to put it into words"

Asha holds his hand closely as she says "That's... Pretty unlike you. You've always been good at explaining what's on your mind" It sounds like that's something she admires about him.

"Yeah, but this is coming from somewhere else though." Aster tells her while placing his hand on his chest...

Asha's eyes light up in surprise, like she finally starts to realize what Aster is trying to tell her.

Aster ponders looking at her hand, how can he tell her all these new feelings that she showed him? Feelings that he can't even understand himself? How can he tell her what she's to him... Maybe the same way that he explained to her who she was... When they first met.

"Maybe... I can try beginning to explain this to you... In the best way I know how" Aster repeats the words that he said before they started singing "I'm a Star" on the night that Asha wished upon him.

And so... FINALLY... We get the song:

At All Cost

(Aster holds both of Asha's hands as the music begins, and we see fireflies flying around them. Asha looks at Aster expectantly, already suspecting what he'll say but still not quite believing this is really happening... That he actually feels the same way as her... And Aster confirms her suspicions as he begins to sing)

If happiness was a tangible thing It would be you If you'd have told me the feeling you'd bring I'd think it untrue

(Asha's eyes widen as she hears him, as he tries his best to put everything he has been feeling for so long into words. The star is gazing at her with a shy smile, his cheeks sparkling with golden star dust)

And people search for a wonder like you All of their lives You still amaze me after all this time

(Aster caresses her face gently as they say the line "You still amaze me after all this time", referring to how after growing up and watching her all these years, she still found new ways to impress him. Asha is now smiling at the star with eyes full of passion, confirming to him that she feels the same way, and with that, Aster begins to sing with more energy)

You pull me in like some kind of wind Mesmerized by the hold I'm in Leave you here, I don't wanna I wanna

(Aster pulls her in and starts spinning with her around the clearing, more fireflies start flying around them. Asha holds him closely as he sings the second line. Aster is hugging her as he sings the third line with his eyes showing more sadness, for he knows that eventually he'll have to leave her... And on the last line he looks at her, preparing to actually say what he has been meaning to say all this time... And only then he begins flying with her)

Love you as one does I, I will protect you at all costs

Keep you safe here in my arms I, I will protect you at all costs At all costs

(He holds her in the way one would when dancing a waltz, and starts guiding her to dance while they fly together, Asha is at first caught off guard by the fact they suddenly started floating, but as she looks at Aster in the eyes she knows there's nothing to fear, and she follows his lead. They're now flying above the trees, and all Asha can say while looking at the star is:)

Wow What's pain? When I look at you? No way I could explain you, even if tried to I'll never dream like used to do

(Asha caresses Aster's cheek with one hand as she now begins to put into words what she has been feeling, how when he's around she feels no pain, only happiness, how he changed her whole world and now she'll never see things or dream the same way) If someone tried to hurt you, I don't See how that could happen I'd fight for you in ways you can't imagine

(As she sings while still dancing with Aster and the two keep going higher and higher up in the sky. We see in the background behind her two constellations resembling Magnifico and Amable, and as she sings "See how that could happen" Asha moves her hands in a way like she's waving away some flies and the constellations behind her disappear as if the thought of them also is dismissed. And as she says the last line she boops Aster nose playfully to say how she's confident she'll keep him safe no matter what (You may hear in the distance the writer crying because she hates herself)) Felt this, no, I haven't, I hope It would be all right to stay right here beside you

(She smiles at the star brightly as she expresses she never felt like this before, and hugs him tightly as she sings the second line.) And love you as one does I, I will protect you at all costs

(Aster throws Asha to the sky, making her fly even higher than him, they're approaching the clouds above them. Aster flies to her and they hold each other to once again dance their waltz) Keep you safe here in my arms I, I will protect you at all costs At all costs

(As they dance flying upwards, they pass through the clouds when they sing the line "At all costs") If you're ever feeling like you're lost I'll come find you

(Asha is now above the clouds, she looks around noticing Aster disappeared, but as they sing "I'll come find you" Aster shows up behind her and gives her a hug from her back) Man all fronts, there's no ocean I won't swim across To be right by you

(Aster flies to be in front of her and holds Asha up, twirling with her in his arms, like this)

And not just once, here and now I swear on my response I'll remind you

(Aster let's her down and they gaze each other lovingly for a moment while singing those two lines with bright smiles on their faces) And love you as one does I, I will protect you at all costs Keep you safe here in my arms I, I will protect you at all costs

(They slow dance on the clouds, with the moon light and the stars shinning upon them. We get a shot like this from sleeping beauty)

(And as the song slowly comes to an end, Asha starts closing the distance between them) At all costs

(Asha's face is getting closer and closer to Aster's, as she's going for a kiss, Aster is surprised at first but he slowly goes for it too... Until.)

He stops.

As the instrumentals from "At All Cost" are replaced by different instrumentals

Instrumentals we haven't heard since the end of chapter 7.

The sound of some very angry orchestra instruments starts playing on Aster's ears, only the star can hear them, and that's shown in his face as he looks very bothered with his eyebrows scrunching.

Asha is waiting for the kiss but it never came, when she's about to open her eyes Aster just pulls her for a hug instead.

They hug, both not quite sure where to go from here, but Asha smiles brightly, feeling Aster's warmth.

Asha breaks the silence as she says "This is better than all my dreams...You actually love me back." She says almost in disbelief, but in a good way, like it's hard to believe this is real.

"Your friends said it was pretty obvious heh heh" Aster says chuckling a bit, trying to tune out the stars yelling at him.

"It kinda was ha hah" She says while laughing, because looking back Aster was very much not subtle about it "But I assumed that was just how you acted with everyone..." She admits, showing a bit of how her own insecurities were actually stopping her from seeing the very obvious truth.

Aster let's go of the hug and holds her face gently to say "Nah... Only with you." They smile, looking at her lovingly.

Asha's eyes almost sparkle as she looks to the star. She takes a deep breath and says "Aster... We'll be separated for most of the plan... I won't be there to protect you, so I need you to promise me that when you find-"

"Magnifico." Aster says in a whisper, his eyes not focusing on Asha as he's looking at something behind her

"Yeah, him, I need you to promise me tha-"

"No! Look!" Aster turns her face to look what's going on bellow the clouds.

Asha looks down and sees it... There's an army of guards approaching the forest, and leading them is someone carrying a green light.

Asha gets her sketchbook and draws a spyglass, pulling it off the page, she lays down on the cloud and uses the spyglass to confirm if it is him

Like this scene in the live action Peter Pan movie

And sure enough, it is. But she notices something else:

"Yeeesh! That lightning messed him up more than I thought... He got a huge scar on his face now." Asha comments.

"HA! Nice. I'm gonna drive him nuts when I make fun about that" The star says mischievously, already planning on how he's gonna break that staff.

"Hey, this is exactly what I was gonna talk about! I need you to be careful out there, don't get cocky, and don't fall for his tricks." Asha says sounding more serious, but with worry clear in her face.

"I'll be careful, I promise." Aster reassures her confidently. He pulls her up and holds her in his arms bridal style "Now let's go tell the others we can skip the "get his attention" part of the plan- WOOHUL!" Aster jumps off the clouds.

We cut a montage that consists of Asha and Aster narrating their parts of the plan while those steps happen in real time, we see Asha drawing something while her voice says in the background

"To get from here to the castle we could use Aster's magic, but that’s too risky since his star dust is shiny. I think it's safer if I create flying objects to get us there, it'll be dark, so hopefully if we're quick the guards won't see us."

We see Asha draw a carpet, and once she takes it out from her sketchbook it becomes a flying carpet like the one from Alladin.

Then, we cut to some guards, with one of them yawning in the forefront, guarding the castle’s entrance, while above them in the background we see some dark tiny silhouettes passing by.

We cut to Asha and Dahlia already getting off the magic carpet, now they're at the center of the royal garden.

We also see Safi and Simon flying down on a witches broom, Hal wearing shoes with wings like Hermes, Dario flying on a donkey with wings, as a reference to the short "The Flying Gauchito" from The Three Caballeros (HA! I DID IT! I REFERENCED THE THREE CABALLEROS! THIS IS SUCH A WIN FOR ME AS A BRAZILIAN!!!)

"You sure got pretty creative with these "flying objects" huh Asha?" Dahlia mentions as the others start gathering around

"Heheh thanks, I decided to just let my imagination run wild" Asha says enthusiastically.

"I could tell" Gabo mentions as he lands down on the garden, and we see him riding a happy baby elephant with big ears... So yeah we straight up have a Dumbo cameo "Couldn't you just give all of us flying brooms?"

"And where's the fun in that? Brooms are way too simple to draw." Asha shrugs "Also come on, don't tell me you don't think this one turned out pretty cute" She says cheerfully while petting the hand drawn Dumbo.

"I must say, he is quite adorable hihi" Bazeema comments quietly as she's landing on the garden with an umbrella... Like Mary Poppins.

Gabo just gets off the baby elephant as he tells Asha with a smile, as in, a genuine one this time "Hehe I really don't understand how your mind works, ya know?"

"Neither do I” Asha admits casually, while magically bringing all the living drawings back inside her sketchbook “Alright, Bazeema, where's the secret entrance you told us about?" Asha asks her bashful friend.

We see Bazeema guiding them to the middle of a rose garden. They prickle themselves through the thorny flowers, with Safi sneezing a few times, until they reach a hatchway made of metal with the symbol of Rosas engraved on it.

"Such wondrous things an introvert can find hihihi" Bazeema says quietly and proudly while pointing at the entrance.

We then cut to King Magnifico riding on his horse, leading his soldiers to the forest with an wicked smile, and we hear Aster's narration of his part of the plan:

"Meanwhile, I'll deal with king Magnifico. I just have to annoy him enough to the point where he'll let his guard down and I can take that staff off his hands, and once I do, it's over."

Magnifico prepares to throw a fire spell over the woods while saying "Let's see how long they'll keep cowering in there after THI-"

Something small and round hits behind his head. Distracting him from performing the spell. The king turns and looks angrily at his guards.

"Who threw that?!"

The guards all look at him confused, not even knowing what he's talking about.

"I did!" the voice of Alan Tudyk comes from the ground

(Yeah he doesn't get to voice Valentino, but he get's to voice most of the talking animals, since he's the lucky charm of Disney and all that)

The king looks down and sees a red squirrel (That is native of the Iberian Peninsula, look it up) holding a nut, ready to throw another one at him.

Magnifico stares at the little critter for a second before he starts laughing, turning to look at the forest as he shouts "HA! What's the matter boy?! Too scared to face me yourself?! Come on out, I know you're hiding in there!"

Then they hear Aster's voice echo from the forest, it's a voice full of glee and mischief:

"Hehehe I ain't scared of you, Alan was just eager to get started! I'm just getting warmed up!"

Some of the guards look scared by the echoing voice, while the king still smiles confidently "Oh but you should be scared, or have you forgotten what I taught you last time? That you are NO MATCH for me!"

"Hmmm It's a blur, all I remember is that now you look just as ugly on the outside as you are on the inside! HAH HAHA!" The star lets out an impish laugh, it echos through the woods.

(Aster's Peter Pan side is showing)

Magnifico's scarred face goes from a confident smile to a furious scowl. He rides his horse to go deeper inside the forest, with the guards following along "WHEN I FIND YOU I SWEAR I WILL WIPE THAT SMILE CLEAN OFF YOUR FACE!" He shouts, enraged by the star daring to insult his looks.

"Good luck with that! Cause' ya know, back at that storm I didn't really have anything to work with...But now..."

Magnifico hears screams from the soldiers behind him. He turns around and sees some of them are tangled up in vines, while others are running away from wild critters, and others are trapped inside giant flowers, it's a vision of pure chaos as now the king is on his own.

Magnifico looks at all of that in shock, unaware that Aster is now floating right behind him with a relaxed and confident smile. The star let's his presence be known as he whispers:

"Now I'm in my element." The star says that like a threat.

Magnifico get's startled but doesn't let it show, as he tries to turn around but-

He's stopped by something holding his staff.

As he looks down and sees vines trying to pull it off his hands. Magnifico tries to pull it away from them with all his strength, while making his horse walk backwards, and with that Aster starts talking casually to the horse

"Hey pal, did you know the guy sitting on you tried to kill me yesterday?" The white horse gives him a surprised glance as Aster continues "Yeah, he’s NUTS, I think you're better off without him" Aster tells him warningly.

The horse glares at Magnifico, and stands up on his back legs, making Magnifico lose his balance and fall on the ground.

The horse runs away, but the king is still holding tightly to his staff, the vines are still pulling it. He let's out a furious scream:

"UUUUGHA! You really think it's gonna be THAT easy?!" Magnifico uses a fire spell and burns the vines, once he's free he turns to where Aster was... But the star is no where to be seen.

"Yoooohooo!" Aster's voice sounds distant.

Magnifico turns to where it came from, he sees a trail, and by the end of it up a small hill, there he is, Aster is waving at him, basically inviting the king to follow the trail "Well?! What you waiting for?! Thought you wanted a proper hunt! HAHAH" And Aster flies off so fast it's almost he's just a shinny blur.

The king is catching his breath seemingly already exhausted even though the fight just begun.

His expression at first shows frustration... But it slowly changes to a wicked smirk as he talks to himself sinisterly "Indeed, I was looking forward for a hunt... And your little friends just so happen to be inside our trap."

(Pretend there’s a lightning looking scar on his left eye please, not like Harry Potter, I mean like actual lightning, thanks.)

Magnifico runs to where Aster went.

So we cut back to Asha and the others, as they make their way through a tunnel that leads to the dungeons.

"You're sureee these tunnels will lead us to the dungeons, Bazeema?" Asha asks, she's leading the group while holding a hand drawn torch

"That's what my father told me" Bazeema says quietly.

(Also I guess I should mention her dad also tends to the royal garden.)

Asha nods as she looks ahead attentively "Well I hope he's right, cause' I really don't want any surpri-"

"Maaa"

They hear the familiar bleating coming from behind them, everyone turns around and it came from... Dario, as he tries hiding something inside his shirt.

"... ooooh no no no NO NO NO" Asha says, very distressed while running to Dario, already knowing exactly who's inside his shirt "Dario! We were supposed to leave Valentino with Aster's animal friends! Why would you bring him with you???"

Dario has a face full of guilt and regret as he pulls the happy baby goat out of his large loose green shirt, he lets go of Valentino and begins to explain in sign language "He gave me big sad puppy eyes! I couldn't resist it! Plus, what's the issue? The little guy might be able to help us" Dario signs that last part with a hopeful smile that his friend will agree

Asha doesn't agree at all though, as she takes Valentino in her arms

Asha scolds her tall friend while holding Velentino close to her "I promised myself I would never let him in this castle again, last time he almost got eaten by a lynx and- and what if he gets lost??"

"Asha, calm down." Simon comes in from behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder "We just gotta stick to the plan and stay together, we'll be safe."

Asha notices that he sounds... Very certain about that, which is odd coming from him. But Asha thinks it's a nice change for Simon.

"*Sigh*... Yeah you're right, we just have to stay together" She turns around and smiles at Simon "I'm glad you're not so scared anymore, you seemed pretty insecure about the plan earlier today" She says calmly as she makes he way back to the front of the line.

Dario follows Asha, now walking in front of Simon. The light coming from Asha's torch is distant so Simon is more in the darkness as he says

"I just needed some time to put my thoughts in order" His voice is emotionless.

And we see his eyes glow green for a second.

But immediately after that, he winces quietly in pain, placing a hand in his forehead as if he's feeling a strong headache. None of the other's notice though, as his eyes are back to normal when he opens them again.

We cut to them now inside the dungeons, it's a dark, large and humid corridor with walls made of dark bricks, with jail cells all along the way. Safi keeps sneezing because of the humidity.

(I got this image from a deleted scene from Wish, I swear I had this plot point of them getting in the dungeons for MONTHS and I just watched the deleted scene a week ago, it’s insane how much stuff I came up with seems to be in sink with the movie’s original ideas)

"I hate this place- ACHOOOO!" The boy looks scared as he holds on to his scarf "Are we close to the exit yet, Gabo?"

"We sure are buddy, just a few jail cells ahead and we reach the exit" Gabo says confidently, he knows his way through the dungeon since, as he told his friends earlier, when he was a kid he went to explore it.

(I forgot to mention in the previous chapter but his dad is a guard, that's why he had keys to the dungeons that Gabo stole from him)

"Good, this place gives me the creeps" Dahlia says, while looking around scared

"Look on the bright side, guys" Hal chimes in trying to bring some optimism "At least there aren't any creepy inmates, it's just us and our friendly faces" the girl smiles brightly, hugging Safi and Dahlia by the shoulders.

"And also this poor fella" Gabo says, pointing at a skeleton laying down out of a jail cell, trying to reach for an empty jar of water

Like this one from Snow White.

"... HMMM oooookayy let's pick up the pace, shall we?" Hal says with a clearly forced smile this time, her eyes wide as she starts to walk faster, still hugging Safi and Dahlia so they go with her.

Dario, Bazeema and Simon also start walking faster after the others, while Asha stays still for a moment

She looks down at the skeleton and ponders out loud "... I wonder what kind of people Magnus and Amaya would keep down here... Maybe people who found out about the secret like I did." Her voice is heavy and full of concern.

"I don't like how that implies this could happen to you." Gabo says for once not sounding condescending nor sarcastic, but genuinely worried, he's also the only one that didn't walk away from the skeleton and stayed to talk to Asha "Let's, just this once, assume anything in Rosas is normal and this guy just robbed the crown's jewels or something, now come on" He says, rushing Asha to keep going.

This is probably the closest Gabo ever got to being "Optimistic"... In his own way. Asha smiles at that as she starts walking after him. Then they hear Dahlia's voice coming a few meters in front of them:

"GABO! Is this the way out?!"

Asha and Gabo run to where they are, and all six of them are standing in front of a big wooden door

"YUP! This is it" Gabo says with a huge smile

"Great! Hold this" She hands her hand drawn torch to Safi, as she gets her sketchbook and pencil to draw a key, she then pulls it out of her sketchbook

"How do you know it's gonna fit though?" Safi asks her curious

"I drew it thinking of it as the key to this door, and so-" She fits the key inside the keyhole and the door makes the clicking sound of it being opened "It is" Asha smiles victoriously

All the teens look excited, the plan is going smoothly so far.

Asha gives them one last ted talk before she opens the door

"Alright guys, after we're in the castle we'll have to be VERY careful, yes, it's just queen Amaya in there, and a crazy lynx, but still, she's unpredictable." Her voice is of a true leader.

"Oh nooo! Is she gonna throw hot tea at us or something? Hahah" Gabo laughs at his own joke

Asha begins to open the door while looking down at Gabo. "You have no idea what she's capable of. So when we're in, we just run through the-"

"KITCHEN?!" Dahlia exclaims looking shocked at what's behind the door, all the other teens except Asha are also looking at it, just as shocked as her.

Asha looks at her friend confused "What? No, we're not going even close to the kitchen, we-" Asha turns to look where the door leads to and sure enough...

She sees the royal kitchen.

"... Huh?!"

All of them go through the door. Now they're inside the dark kitchen.

A place Dahlia is really familiar with... So she knows very well this is all wrong.

"Okay... This is freaky" Dahlia says looking around the place "That door was supposed to lead to the pantry, NOT the dungeon" she says scared, pointing at the door they came through.

Asha looks around the dark room, her face becomes more and more worried "This makes no sense..."

"Maybe your magic key messed with the door?" Gabo asks Asha

"No it didn't, this isn't my magic's doing, it's-" Asha looks at the door and realizes... There's something written on it. She gets a closer look, and sees symbols written all over the door, with some words in latin too... "This is the king's sorcery... He made a trap for us..." Asha sounds terrified.

"T-that's impossible, how could he know we were coming?" Hal asks, sounding just as distressed as her friend

"H-he couldn't, I-" Asha takes a deep breath and closes the door they came through "Check the other door!"

Dario runs to the door that leads to outside of the kitchen. It also has symbols written on it, but he tries opening it anyway...

It leads to the dungeons they just got out off too.

Dario looks back at them scared.

"... There's no way out" Asha whispers, sounding more and more distressed by the second. She takes Valentino from the floor and holds him in her arms.

"What about that door?" Simon asks, pointing at another door, but this one has no symbols written on it... And he sounds surprisingly calm for the situation.

"That's just the closet we keep the pans, pots and utensils. That's not an exit…" Dahlia explains, trying her best not to panic.

"Who knows? Maybe it'll lead somewhere, only one way to find out." Simon walks towards it.

He opens it, they look inside, it's so dark in there they can't even see the kitchen stuff that Dahlia mentioned.

Asha starts walking to the door, not sure if there'll be anything at all that can help them escape, but it's worth a shot, after all they apparently have nowhere else to go.

(I just realized there's probably a window in this kitchen and these kids are just being really dramatic)

Asha turns to her friends as she walks to the door "It's gonna be okay, Aster will come here after breaking Magnifico's staff any moment now... I know he will... All we gotta do is wait and stay toge-THEEEEEERRR"

And she falls in a dark pit inside the room.

"ASHA!" All 7 teens scream in unison, and I mean all 7, Simon included, as he genuinely didn't expect this.

(Actually, Dario wouldn't scream but uuh you get the idea)

However, he is the only one that stays outside the room, while all the other six run in, but unlike Asha, they don't fall anywhere, they're simply inside a normal room with pans and pots.

"Where did she go?!" "WAS THAT A TRAP?!" "What is going on???"

All of them speak at the same time, desperate for answers, but in the sea of shouts and questions they hear one quiet question

"Simon?" Bazeema's quiet high pitched voice makes the others go silent as they all turn around and see Simon standing in the entrance.

He looks at them with genuine sadness for what he's about to do.

"I'm sorry." He closes the door with a BLAM and locks it.

...

"... W H A T " Gabo's voice comes out filled with rage. "DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"

"I'm keeping you guys safe, like I've been trying to do this whole time but none of you EVER listen to me!" The oldest of the group says from the other side of the door.

"Si-simon, what's going on, why are you doing this?" Dahlia asks desperately.

Simon takes a deep breath and tries to explain "... Look, I'm going to be straight with you all, I talked with king Magnifico-"

(Hahah that’s a direct quote from Wreck It Ralph, when he betrays Vaneloppe)

"MAGNIFICO?!" Gabo shouts with indignation "YOU DIRTY TRAITOR! YOU SOLD US OUT!"

"No! No it's not like that!... At least, it wasn't supposed to happen, I-I didn't mean to do it-" Simon knows they won't forgive him but he tries to at least explain he did it for their own good "I just wanted to make a deal with him, to give him the star's location in exchange of all of us not getting hurt-"

"OH SO YOU WANTED SELL ASTER OUT!?" Gabo for the first time calls the star by his name

"LISTEN! I was desperate, okay?! I knew that if we just went with this plan things could go horribly wrong, and I knew none of you would listen to me if I tried to stop you, so... I contacted him through a mirror he gave to my dad" Simon is sitting with his back on the door as he explains, sounding more and more scared "And- I- I even realized I was making a mistake... I really did! I tried to break the mirror or throw it away but- I couldn't do it- he just kept talking and talking and- UGH" Simon winces in pain and holds his forehead as his eyes once again glow green, he takes some deep breaths as he ever so slightly calms down "The point is... We made a deal. He promised that if I keep you all in here then you'll be safe. It's the only way I can protect you." Simon's face looks tired as he says those words monotonously, like he's just repeating what he has heard before.

"Then WHERE is Asha?! Or was she not included in the deal?!" Now it's Dahlia's turn to yell at him through the door.

Simon's face instantly turns worried once more as if he's snapping out trance "I- I don't know... He never said this would happen" Simon thinks for a moment "Though... I don't remember much of what he said at all..."

"Ooooooh GREAT! Magnus gave you amnesia, such a trust worthy guy HUMM SIMON?!" Gabo says sarcastically, but his voice is not trying to be funny, he is furious.

"I- I'm sure wherever she is she'll be fine!" Simon tells them... More so trying to tell this to himself.

...

We cut to Asha falling from a dark portal that opened in the ceiling of a room.

She screams while hugging Valentino tightly.

"THEEEER- OOOF" She hits the floor "Ouch... Uuugh... you ok Valentino?" She asks her goat while groaning in pain.

"MaAAaaA" Valentino doesn't sound his best, but overall he's alright.

Asha get's up and looks around to see where she is... The king's study... Right next to the wishes room...

This is actually exactly where she and her friend's planned to go, they wanted to free all the wishes by opening the tower's ceiling, so Aster could use his magic and un-curse them all, then give them back to the people of Rosas...

But her friends aren't here... She's alone.

"How did things go so wrong?" Asha asks to herself while looking around the room, she notices some broken mirrors on the walls, as she sees he own reflection "... Come on Val, I'll send the signal to Aster. Regardless if he broke Magnifico's staff or not, he gotta come here and help me." Asha walks to the wishes room, while flipping through the pages of her sketchbook, until she finds the drawing she was looking for, a firework.

She's about to reach for the firework to take it out off the page... But then she sees the light of the wishes floating above her.

She stops and looks up to them, some of them are still blue, but the majority are green.

She looks up with a bittersweet smile, and says quietly with her voice full of hope "Hang in there just a little bit longer, okay? I promise I'll save all of you."

"It's unwise to make promises you cannot keep, mi rosa."

Asha feels a chill run down her spine. As she turns around quickly with an expression of horror already painted on her face.

Queen Amable is standing a few feet away from her, she's in the study while Asha is in the middle of the wishes room.

The queen smiles at Asha sadistically, with her pet lynx right by her side.

Chapter 15

Final Thoughts

OOOOOOOOH BOY so much happened huh?!

I am going crazy, wacky even, I waited so long for us to get to this part of the story! Not just the "At All Cost" stuff, I mean like THE CLIMAX THAT IS APPROACHING AND IM JUST BUILDING UP TO IT NOW AAAAAAH.

But YEAH let's talk about the At All Cost stuff, cause like... WOOOOAH BOY I love that song, and not just because it's pretty, but because while listening to it I felt like the song perfectly encapsulates teenage love, what do I mean? Because it's all so pure and like the two voices are saying the first things that come to their minds, it feels like a passionate train of thought forming in real time, and that's what I wanted to be like for Aster and Asha, as Aster is trying to figure out these feelings he didn't even know they could have, and Asha is caught off guard but so happy to finally show what she has been feeling too. It's beautiful.

I feel like most Disney couples don't feel like... Teenage love, mostly because the guys are ALWAYS older than the girl, and like, not that there's anything wrong with that... Except in some cases *glares at Snow White and Florian's age gap* but I think it's quite refreshing to see young love being depicted like this, with the two acting awkward and even oblivious because they don't know what love really feels like... And also they're raising a rebellion so that kinda keeps them distracted.

But speaking of the rebellion... It really takes just ONE person not believing in the cause for everything to go down the drain, huh? Yeah, Simon has his own ways of protecting his friends, while Asha chooses to fight, Simon chooses to comply. And really, I feel sorry for him, you guys maybe don't, like, everyone now might be a Simon hater, and I get it, but like, Magnifico played him like a fiddle.

Simon just hoped that if the king got Aster he'd leave Asha alone, but as they were talking Simon realized that Magnifico really wanted BOTH of them, so he realized he made a mistake and even tried to break the mirror... But before he could, welp, Magnifico pulled a Kaa move, and hypnosis happens to be way more effective on people who are feeling sleepy, so really Simon had no chance.

And can I just toot my own horn here and say that I'm so proud that even when Magnifico and Amaya aren't in the scene they'tr still threatening? Because that scene at the kitchen when they realize they're trapped, meaning that Magnifico knows their plan, GIVES ME CHILLS, probably because I hate the idea of being confined in a room with nowhere to leave.

And like... Magnifico is doing this just for the lols really, the guy could've just made Simon tell him where they were and captured them in the forest, but he was like "Ooooh they wanna get in the castle to harm my wife? Well, we can't have that now can we? Here's what I want you to do-" And then proceeds to make Simon betray his friends in such a way they'll never forgive him, oh, and if Simon doesn't do it then the king implies they WILL get hurt, how fuuuun.

It's funny how Aster is just having fun in the forest, messing with Magnifico, going through his Peter Pan arc, completely unaware Asha and the others are going through a living nightmare. Oh but don't worry, he'll join the nightmare too :)

You guys might start to think I'm on the villains side or something because they always get the upper hand, but this is all part of the metaphor of them representing the struggles Asha faces in her life, and let me tell ya folks, life is hard, sometimes just as hard as defeating two villains, but no matter what they do, Asha will keep fighting, and that's what makes a hero, the lower a hero get's, the more satisfying it is when they rise... And the higher a villain rises, the harder they fall :)

See ya'll next time!

Thank You For Reading!

#wish asha #disney #wish movie #wish disney #wish star #wish reimagined #wish 2023 #wish rewrite #disney wish #wish #asha x star boy #asha x star #human star #star wish #disney asha #asha #princess asha #asha wish #magnifico wish #disney wish star #king magnifico #disney wish movie #wish rewritten #kingdom of wishes #Spotify

[crescencestudio]

Devlog #33 | 07.26.23

Hi everyone!

It's only been a month (per usual) since the last devlog. But it feels like so long ago! Very weird that last devlog I hadn't even released Intertwine yet. But here we are, back with another one!

Before we get into things, I want to extend the biggest thank you to everyone who has played and supported intertwine!

if you havent played yet, here it is. this is me on my knees asking because i am quite proud of it and what our team accomplished in two months!

in the almost month it's been out, we stand at almost 15k total plays and 200+ reviews which is so crazy to me. i never would've expected that kind of reception for our little game and when i say it has been so motivating for alaris!!! u dont even know!!!

thank you again for all the kind words---i know you are all Sick of me talking about it but i don't know how else to express my gratitude <3 it means so much to me ;_;

I wanted to make sure I inserted an official section for it in the Devlog just to really thank you all for the support. But with that, I shall get into the updates!

But not before a quick belated happy birthday to Fenir!

Writing

I posted it earlier this week, but I HAVE!!! THE MOST EXCITING NEWS!!! At least for me.

I FINISHED DRUK'S FIRST DRAFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We all know how long this has been in the making. I've been talking about his route for what feels like an eternity. Evidently, it's Very Normal to experience burnout, struggles with motivation, creative ruts, etc. etc. at this point in development. The initial and final stages of development are easier because your motivation is up. In the beginning, it's like Wow!! This is Fun!! And towards the end, it's like Wow!!! I actually Fckn Made It!!!!

And so the middle part of development, aka the stage I just entered with Druk's route, is the slog.

Now that I've overcome that initial hurdle, while I'm not near the end of development, I do feel like I will have a better handle of progress on the following routes since I have a better set of expectations and tools on how to get through this stage (compared to when I initially started Druk's route, and I was like what are all these Feelings?? Why am I Struggling so much??).

That being said, WE ARE OVER HALFWAY DONE WITH THE SCRIPT! It currently stands at 200k words including the demo, and with how each of the routes have been shaping up, we have about 150k left to go. Wow!!!!! It is crazy to know I've written that much for Alaris, and this feels like such an exciting milestone to know that I'm over halfway there for the script!

We also have just about wrapped up Fenir's developmental edits, so that makes Kayn and Fenir's foundational versions of their routes done (all that would be left at this point is line tweaking and/or revisions based on beta feedback)!! Overall, this was a really exciting month for writing updates, and I'm so happy to feel back on track with Alaris development <3 I also finished my dissertation proposal in case anyone is keeping track of that HEEHOO

Art

Most of my attention for art was (un?)fortunately on Intertwine this month AGAIN. I really had anticipated being able to dive right into Alaris and irl work this month after Otojam ended. But the reception to Intertwine made it so I needed to dedicate some time to "marketing" artwork aka the artwork I like to make when reaching certain milestones of support (e.g., 1k downloads, etc.). Obviously these aren't necessary, but I like to show my thanks and appreciation in some way, and the artwork is what feels best conveys my gratitude.

Because we hit milestones relatively quickly, I ended up having to make those pieces faster than I anticipated prior to release. So I spent the first half of this month mostly on intertwine "promotional/apprecation" artwork. Near the tail end of this month though, I've prioritized Alaris artwork and have made progress on both the Kickstarter physical rewards and some CG sketches!

sneaky peeky of pretty mermay Aisa

Vui continues to hit it out of the park with the backgrounds. Most of them are spoilers at this point. But I do have one that isn't too bad of a spoiler! And because you all have been so supportive and patient with me, I show hehe

vui and his bg mastery: a preview of the dragon springs

The demo mentions dragon springs (I..... think......... LMAO), and here is a preview of what those dragon springs can look like. Wonder what the context will be in which we visit them, teehee! I'm in love with the way Vui brings the fantasy world of Alaris to life. I am so grateful for him ^^

Market Research

My wrist was feeling ~delicate~ this month due to Otojam crunch and then post-release pieces. So I don't have any actual art pieces to showcase this month for market research. I did play Otojam games and started Cupid Parasite (ryuki and allan my beloveds). But crescence's wrist needs to relax LOL. So no art pieces more than necessary for this month!

I will send some love to my besties over at Ravenstar Games though! If you haven't heard, they have a game currently in development called Lost in Limbo. It looks sick as hell, and the team is unbelievable talented and hardworking. This month to celebrate Barbie, they were able to sneak this promotional piece in, even while working on their Master's ((Do you see...... a familiar group of people..... heh))

Alaris x Lost in Limbo x Barbie the collaboration of the century

That's all from me for now. Thank you again for all the support and love on Intertwine! I've truly cherished all the fanwork, reviews, kind messages, etc.

That being said, while it was a bit of a struggle getting back returning to the Alaris world initially (I was literally like what.... was the plot of this again... LMAOsazodujf), it's been so rewarding to return to my OG gang. The intertwine release and return to Alaris work has also been strangely sentimental since it's reminded me how far I've come in the two years I've been in this dev Thang. As always thank you for your continued support (and for supporting Alaris since it's inception when I was a Wee Dev), and I look forward to bringing you more updates in the future <3

See you all next month, and stay safe!

#devlog #alaris

[didididraws]

my tablet is currently halfway across the country for repairs (my brother's the most tech-savvy in my family and asking him to take a look at it was cheaper than taking it to a shop) so i haven't been able to draw lately. i've made a bunch of traditional sketches in the meantime, but none of them are presentable enough to post here, so i decided to take a trip down memory lane and fill out one of foxorian's influence maps!

below the cut are the names of the artists featured here, as well as a little bit of director's commentary on how they've influenced me :]

yugo limbo (website, tumblr, twitter) - some time last year, i realized something profoundly unnerving: i actually... don't like the art in smile for me's original release all that much? that's not to say it's bad, just that there isn't a whole lot about it outside of maybe its architecture that stands out to me. which is REALLY WEIRD, considering i wrote a whole retrospective about how much this game means to me. art-wise, however, it was only after smile for me's release that yugo limbo's art evolved in a way that really resonated with me; i love how textured everything is, i love the way they simplify clothing folds and the way that skin wrinkles around the joints, i love their love for puppets; all of those things ended up worming their way into my art style and tastes one way or another, and i couldn't be happier!! it didn't feel right to leave smile for me out of the equation entirely, though, so i chose a piece that was both related to that game and that i felt reflected a lot of what i love about yugo's more recent art.

echobsilly (twitter, tumblr) - oh god, speaking of yugo limbo - god. i fucking love echo's art so much i have no idea how to even do it justice in writing. like many people i first found him through his smile for me/limbolane fanart and animations - and those are some of his best work, don't get me wrong, but i really wanted to include one of his original designs to make a point that he's just fuckin great at art in general. character design, facial expressions, body language, composition, LIGHTING... he makes it all just. so so so gorgeous. i always liked "painterly" art styles for lack of a better word, but i think his art is what first pushed me to embrace that more in my digital art. i also like how he talks about dr. habit like he's his dead wife. i'm very proud to call him a friend these days :]

japhers (tumblr, twitter, instagram) - i first found japhers' art in high school and he very quickly became a HUUUUUGE influence on my taste in character and costume design. one of the big reasons i never fully bought into the idea that men's fashion is inherently harder to design is bc so much of his art is already dedicated to exploring fashion Without the restrictions of a gender binary in place which is to say that he's really good at drawing buff dudes in frilly outfits. i also think he gave me more confidence to draw more intricate costumes without having to worry about super dainty and clean lineart, bc a lot of his art looks like it's kinda been carved/rendered out of sketches, and it is Gorgeous.

moe suppe (website, tumblr, cohost) - another artist i found in high school, albeit originally from a long-gone instagram account. his art is what kickstarted my desire to have some Roughness in my art, some Texture. it may not have stuck to my lineart, but it Definitely stuck to my rendering. it helped that i was going through a pretty big angel/demon phase at the time, which meant i was pretty immediately drawn in by his delightfully weird worldbuilding. i should probably read fear not now that it's an actual serial...

val wise (website, itch.io, twitter, instagram) - a more recent influence, but a pretty significant one nonetheless. i featured the cover of délicatesse here because it was the first thing from him that i had ever read, but in general his grasp on the human body really blows me away given how deceptively simple his style looks at first glance, especially his faces. the way fat and hair sits on her bodies, and how much it varies from character to character... it's beautiful without being So glamorous that it feels untouchable. his costume design is also great. i recommend his comics for low fantasy/ursula k. le guin fans who are Dying to see more fat characters in leading roles. i also just found out that i am of two hearts is free on itch.io, so i'll be treating myself to that over spring break.

partycoffin (tumblr, twitter) - if you have known me for any amount of time at all then this should not come as a surprise to you. i actually wasn't going to include partycoffin in this map at first, because while welcome home has inspired me in Many creative pursuits, i didn't think visual art was one of them? i definitely picked up some of clown's love for dramatic lighting and thinner lines with just a smidge of well-placed hatching subconsciously, though.

ryoko kui - probably the most recent artist featured here? anyways i have a confession to make: i have yet to read dungeon meshi. i just know that when i saw a post compiling a bunch of ryoko kui's sketches from her daydream hour series, i was so overwhelmed with this feeling of, like… "oh, yeah, these capture almost everything i love about women as flesh and blood people. when i draw women this is the kind of beauty that i want people to see in them." of course, ryoko kui is a great character designer in general, but something about her women specifically really speak to me. the earthier color palettes and rendering also do a lot to endear her art to me.

shuzo oshimi - specifically his art in blood on the tracks. something that really stood out to me in that series was whenever the shadows would get really intense, and you'd get these big blocks of black with just the faintest bit of hatching to soften out some of their edges. it was always very effective in creating this sense of claustrophobia. i really want to keep incorporating that in my more intense pieces!

person918x (tumblr, instagram) - i don't work with 3d art often and i don't see myself doing so any time soon, but the composition of person918x's pieces is something i take a lot of inspiration of. i also love his sequential art, as someone who does a lot of dream journaling it's sick to see the exact Vibe of a dream be put to (digital) canvas. i also firmly believe that he's one of the only people out there who knows what he's doing when it comes to using generative AI in art.

oops i made this list too long so now i have to put the last two artists in a new block.

10. meatgiri (twitter, instagram) - definitely the artist i've known about the longest out of this selection. i think i've been following her since…. oh god. since i was in middle school. way before she was meatgiri, even. i think her influence probably shows up the least in my art, but there are definitely some characteristics that stuck with me for a very long time (the lil block of black accompanied by one or two lines for shading on the neck, the looser lineart making it really easy to incorporate soft curves and sharp edges, the Eyes, etc etc.) i chose this drawing of her oc juniper bc i thought it was both reflective of her current art And a good embodiment of a lot of things i wanted to emulate from her art as a young'un.

11. dragan bibin (website, instagram) - specifically his 'deimos' series. much like with person918x, it's his compositions that really stand out to me the most, and you probably know by now that i'm a sucker for high contrast. i find it interesting though that he uses high contrast to obscure more than he does to highlight... helps a lot with giving the deimos paintings that air of Quiet Unease. another thing i want to incorporate in my horror-adjacent art! manmade environments gone wrong!

#not art #influence map #artists on tumblr #yugo limbo #echobsilly #japhers #moe suppe #val wise #partycoffin #ryoko kui #shuzo oshimi #person918x #meatgiri #dragan bibin

[makingspiritualityreal]

Lessons from my Anime Phase

Many years ago, before I matured into my spiritual journey, this used to be an anime blog. I don't regret this phase of my life, even though I completely outgrew it, because I believe it taught me something important.

The content of a creation is more important than the form. There is anime (sadly not as many as you would think) that is a good piece of art. There are regular movies that suck. These years taught me to look deep beyond the surface form and into the meaning of any creation. I'm still waiting for a movie as good at depicting the power of wishful thinking and self repression as Perfect Blue.

Supressing one's emotions leads to serious repercussions. One of the reasons some people find anime so weird is because it is literally an outlet for the collective mentality and emotionality of Japanese societal pressure. It feels exaggerated, but it is a reaction to the external forced numbness and politeness the Japanese society is plagued with. If you don't deal with how you feel regularly and don't express it and process it, if you don't make friends with your demons, you keep bubbling like a cauldron. It leads to having a very edgy, very draining life, not being present with yourself. It leads to not being able to function and ultimately making simple things feel like the end of the world.

Getting older is awesome. I would never come back to my past. Every morning felt like torture. Sometimes, even if life is never perfect, it moves you on in simpler ways that allow for balance. Establishment of healthy routines does wonders for mental peace. The Universe putting you in an environment where you can do that, after years of having that taken away from you, feels blissful. With time comes perspective and you can see your life shaping up and taking you somewhere. That allows you to approach the rest of your life with the same philosophy. I can read this post another 10 years into the future, and think wow, my life got even better. But at least now I am relaxed about it and don't overthink how every tiny little thing can go and I don't try to control or micromanage the future.

Youth is overrated. Hottness is overrated. Very few people really get to enjoy being young and hot, and those that do, are probably on Youtube's most watched list now. Being young and hot only pays off if you happen to be an artist, you're in a good film, or you're lucky enough to be in a music video. With those things, you build a legacy you will have forever. But most young women spend their youth and beauty on dating guys they wish they could forget in their 30s. At least I can say I spent it on spiritual growth, which I am really proud of. I was younger and "hotter" once, but paradoxically I feel like I'm becoming more beautiful. I had absolutely no benefits from being young and hot. I had no good relationships and everyone irl always criticized me for breathing. I never felt attractive. My highlights were compliments from my online friends, because noone around me actually thought well of me in my physical life. I'm married now, but this is my first serious adult relationship. I didn't have any good relationships that really appreciated my looks back then. So whatever has passed, hasn't really been used anyway. I was very insecure because I lived surrounded by unfair criticism from many people, who should have been supporting me but betrayed me. Maybe some people have fun in their youth, I honestly didn't. Moving away from all the people that made my youth something I'm glad to put behind me was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Being different growing up is hell for everybody, no matter what form it takes. Being an outcast is probably the number one debilitating thing that makes youth difficult. You have no role models, you have no support, you endure extra pressure. But over time, even those that are different end up finding their place, and they realise they were just different to people around them in their early environment, but they're not that different from the rest of the world.

#spiritual journey #spiritual growth #spirituality #spiritual awakening #personal

[likesdoodling]

It has been a while since I started digital art,

Quite a while.

So here is a 'progress over the last two years' since I gained access to a drawing tablet.

:D

This is my first ever digitally illustrated piece- compared to my latest one-

So, a little bit different.

I do think my art took quite a jump around June 2022, when I took a break from my Steve comic strip, (for obvious reasons- it was about Technoblade's polar bear so...) and decided to try practicing gesture drawing to see if it helped my general anatomy knowledge. This is before,

And this next one is after.

The most obvious change here is that I switched to using thinner lines. There is a gap of about two months between these.

This was when I realised that you could improve art by practicing it (mind-blowing I know), and then started to do just that. Some other notable jumps forward would be when I discovered the airbrush-

Well, discovered a new method of shading with it anyway.

Then after that I had a few pictures that I actually still like, despite them being pretty old at this point, the one below is actually from September of 2022-

I mean, the hands are a bit iffy, but the rest looks alright. This was when I was going through a bit of a melanie martinez phase-

This next one was from January of 2023, I'd only just gotten into bungou stray dogs via some random memes on pinterest about this weird brown haired guy who had lots of bandages and who had this running gag with wanting to die- I actually looked him up at one point, but that didn't really explain much. The main one that I remember was 'life is short, so make it shorter, shorter than chuuya~'

Which at the time was just kind of confusing,

Then I watched the show and it made perfect sense.

I'd discovered ascendance of a bookworm in like, 2021, but I hadn't really been doing fanart of it since I was mainly doing dsmp related stuff and I kind of assumed nobody would know what on earth I was referencing. Turns out tumblr has a lot more bookworm fans than I orignally anticipated. Instagram still has no clue. I think maybe one person out of my followers on instagram knows what I'm on about-

Then we've got these two which I am still proud of btw-

The first one is from a dystopian/time travel fanfic called viridian.

The second one was after I learned about rim lighting. It was inspired by a song actually, 'crash' by noevaii. (and yes I found that song from a sad-ist animatic, it was cool) The character isn't anyone in particular. They're both from February 2023.

Then there's probably my most liked picture on instagram, (not tumblr, since tumblr knows about bsd and bookworm, but y'know. This was even sadder than I originally intended since the last half of my comic strip was finished AFTER everything happened)

Then the final conclusion of my Steve comic strip in May of 2023.

I don't think my art really changed much in between those, but eh.

Then I switched to doing a bunch of ascendance of a bookworm stuff to see what would happen and turns out there are way more fellow fans out there than I anticipated-

Then I guess my next breakthrough in tumblr popularity, (even if it might not have been a breakthrough in art skills necessarily) was when things went DOWN in the bsd fandom with chapter 109 and I did probably one of my most liked tumblr posts I have ever done-

If you want to see the rest of that, feel free to scroll down on my tumblr page, the original's like eight pages long-

This was before anyone knew what was going to happen btw.

I still think it's hilarious that I put in chuuya having contacts. My reasoning being, they're on a film set,

It was a pretty interesting exercise in shading in monochrome.

Then I started a 30 day art challenge in October that I didn't get past day six of, but it was still pretty fun. This is the best one of those-

After that I spent most of my time studying for the jlpt n5, so I didn't really do that much art related stuff,

This is one of the two non-commission related pictures that I finished over the two months after I kind of gave up on the art challenge. This one's from November,

Then I finally finished an art commission I'd been working on for the three months prior, as well as studying. Here is an example of the type of pictures I was doing for that,

Then I was occupied with christmas and birthday presents for my siblings, both my little sisters are into ascendance of a bookworm- (completely my fault I am proud to say) so I was able to do stuff related to that, here's a couple of snippets, but you guys don't get the colour version hehe

And one of them has also read the entire fma manga just like I have so-

Anyway, it's been quite a progression since I resolved to master digital art in 2021.

I reckon I've come a fair way since then. I mean. My art skills in general are way better than they used to be. The last two or three years have been pretty interesting.

Also-

Just had to include this one, I'm gonna do a more detailed version but still-

I think it's funny so I'm posting it here. Even if it's not really related to art progression-

#honzuki no gekokujou #ascendance of a bookworm #dsmp #dsmp fanart #mha #skvader #viridian #bsd #bsd fanart #technoblade #rip technoblade #i did like a whole comic strip #but didn't get a chance to finish it before june 2022- #its finished now #but like #still... #anyway #steve now has the protagonist au he deserves #fullmetal alchemist #yeye #ive barely done anything to do with that #fanart wise i mean #but i have read the entire thing #i reckon sheska and myne would be bffs #hope i spelt that right- #you know who i mean #the girl who reads a lot #in fma #yeah #anyway moving on-

[overtheimaginationwall]

Favorite boss(es) in No Straight Roads?

Least favorite?

(Sincere apologies. I've been holding this one for more than a year in my box, so I hope you don't mind a really late reply ^^")

(Also Happy 3rd Anniversary, NSR!! 🎉)

I will tell ya honestly - they all are my favourites!

Tho if to be more specific I decided to set them up by TOP.

1. Sayu

Oh Sayu, my beloved <3

The Best Virtual Idol and The Reason I bought this game in the first place!

Her music and style of battle was the most fun and dancy! I still vibe to it to this day-

Sooo many references to Internet Culture and Digital Art fills my heart with warmth and gives me determination just like her song itself as well!

Funny Useless Fact: She is the only boss I've beaten on Rank B on my first blind playthrough!

2. DK West

He's OUR MAN, He's THE BEST!

My second favorite and at the same time the hardest for me to beat.

I personally didn't adore RAP genre at first and never seen anyone preform it as an actual entertaining battle until he showed up...

HOLLY MOLLY DESPITE ME BREAKING MY THUMBS WHILE GOING THROUGH THE PAINFUL DODGE GAME - HIM AND ZUKE RAPPING FELT LIKE I'M WATCHING DISNEY-

LIKE-

I STILL HAVE IDEA IN MY HEAD TO MAKE A SORT OF ANIMATIC WITH "FIRST ENCOUNTER" ALONE!!

Anyway, despite damaged fingers - 10/10, would fight again!

Funny Useless Fact: When I was drawing him for the first time I listened to his theme on loop for 4 days straight in order not to get myself distracted or lose motivation, so I finish the piece.

3. Yinu

Oh, sweet child...

I love Yinu and her theme lots even if I'm not that big of a fan of Classical Music. And her backstory...Gosh! It made me cry a lot.

And I'm still feel ashamed of breaking the piano ;;-;;

Love the pace of how music goes with the fight and it feels even better when you get into actual rhythm. There were issues that gladly wore off thanks to practice and fighting this boss over and over.

Tho those slamming cords haunt me whenever I listen to the song off-battle-

Funny Useless Fact: I didn't like her Mother at first but when I read more about her and relationship with Yinu my opinion completely changed. And this is why I would nominate No Straight Roads for The Best Storytelling and Character Design.

4. EVE

Two-faced, tall woman.

Used to be one of my favorites but due to some circumstances I can't look at her the same way I used to but I still adore her as a boss!

I honestly love her style of the fight and music that changes depending on who you play.

Tho fighting her is literally like eating a lemon but eventually you kinda just accept your fate and roll with weird artistic antics happening around you.

And EVE herself as a character is so fascinating. Like this is the moment where I started to see that these aren't just bosses, they are actually characters that tie this little but complex story together bit by bit. And this is why I would nominate No Straight Roads for The Best Storytelling and Character Design AGAIN!

Funny Useless Fact: EVE was supposed to be a next character to have a complete and detailed art of but due to my forgetfulness, difficulties with her design (and many other things) - it was never finished but I hope to get that dusty sketch out of WIP folder someday.

5. Tatiana

The Bitch. The Boss.

I don't really like her music and rhythm but I can forgive that since it is kind of fitting for conflict between her and the BBJ.

She tries to hide her true image throughout the story and the fight but ultimately crumbles cause escaping from the past isn't the best option to improve.

I love her design and personality and I wish there were more villains like her. Strict, simple, stoic and yet well-written.

Funny Useless Fact: I've never drawn Tatiana until NSR announced their release on Steam with addition of Fanat Graffiti Contest that I certainly didn't want to miss out on. It was difficult but I did it and ngl, I am still proud of the results.

6. DJ Subatomic Supernova & 1010/Neon J

I can't really say anything much about both of them. Sorry, guys...

Their designs and personalities are fun and well-made but due to one of them being the first you fight as "tutorial" and the other appears only at the end of a fight. (1010 band doesn't count as an actual boss to me more like a part of it) They didn't struck me much as the others did...

I will say this thou: their backstories are interesting. One is an academy astrology teacher with a goal of achieving the stars and other is a war veteran who just wanted everyone to live in peace and he himself despite everything never stopped his passion for doll-making and making people happy.

Just simply, beautiful...

Cool Science Fact: Their VAs are GOLD!

#sofiath ask #thanks for the ask! #no straight roads #nsr #nsr neon j #nsr djss #nsr sayu #nsr tatiana #nsr dk west #nsr 1010 #nsr yinu #opinion #sofiath thoughts

[a-s-levynn]

JOOO you used to sell swords?? That's so cool!!! If you feel like reminiscing and using this as an opportunity to tell everyone about that very awsome sounding job, I would love to hear about it :D if not just take this as me being a tumblr mutual who wants to be your friend now even more 😂 swords are so cooool

I sure did! Oooh my god. You have no ide what sort of pandora's box you've opened. I love talking weaponry. I also spent an unreasonably long time trying to dig up old pics.

So i snatched this unreal job by a total accident. During uni, a friend of a friend of mine were preparing to go to study abroad for a few months and needed a temporary replacement. And when we met for the first time, half jokingly asked if i liked swords. Yes, yes i do find all kinds of blades incredibly sexy thank you very much. And not a lot of time later i was sitting behind the counter. And stayed there for roughly three years.

It was a sword and decorational weaponry shop. I mean it still is. But i may talk about it past tense because i'm not there anymore. 😭 We had like functional swords and daggers for HEMA and other traditional stuff. Lots and lots of katanas and a few wakizashis and tantos for martial arts or just for decour. We even had like the long ones.. what are they called.. odachi and nodachi! And that sort of spear like a guandao, naginata. There were khukri knives as well. Modern knives.. A lot of stuff. And then decorational stuff from movies, anime or video games for just to put on a wall or elevate a cosplay.

Even decorational fire arms up until modern stuff. Altho fire arms where strictly decorational items, manufactures in ways that they were safe and unchangable into usable stuff. And a fewfigures, jewellery and some tarot cards and some other nick-nacks that fit the theme.

I don't have access to my drives at the moment but i found some old pictures.

Okay so this was the second showroom, i can't find picture of the old one, i liked that one better but there was a location change and this one is smaller, less packed. But still the important parts are there. These pictures are about 3 years old as well at this point.

Please note the little knight with the megaphone in the corner on the monitor. I designed that one. Precious friend shaped little dude.

This picture is Ezio's dagger from Assassin's Creed. It's not dirty just freshly out of the shipping box, swimming in grease to protect it from rusting. This one was a functional piece. The handle seems wide but it's not disproportionate, only my hands are small.

But we had like.. i dunno sabers of many kinds..and chinese swords with rigid blades to those weird but really fun floppy ones as well.

That green wall belonged to the old showroom my beloved 😭

Also there were pieces of armour and all. Not just full but chainmails and roman style, shields. Bows and Crossbows. Basically everything.

And like besides the selling and online customer service stuff, i did a lot of polishing, i probably enjoyed that the most. Of course the heavier damage or problems were handled by proper craftsmen but a simple polishing job? Gimme! -insert grubby hands- I'm gonna spend half a day on it but you gonna see yourself in it. Like this below. The left side is still unpolished, all foggy, but see the right? You can see the red shirt guy pretty good already. This helmet was so pretty after i was finished with it. I was so proud. 😭

And then there were some modern stuff. With these i also did the smaller mechanical epairs like a jammed spring or a loose trigger and the like.

This beretta was the first i took apart but i conquered it like a champ 😂 I was asking my boss if i could give it a try and he said as long as i don't break any additional parts go a head. Needless to say the second little guy landed in my lap without any question.

And there were so many other little highlights. I loved so many of the customers. I loved talking about their stuff or just listening to their stories. Uhh i miss it so much i can't even begin.

#sorry but this is like ST i can't shut up about it #levynn answers #thejawsoffate #long post #longpost

[bluberimufim]

Writer Q&A Tag Game

Hello. I got tagged for this by @squarebracket-trick on this post and I thought it sounded super fun. So, here we are!

1. What motivates you to write?

I started out as an artist, but I began writing once I realized that visual art as a medium wasn't enough to tell the stories I wanted to tell - it had no way of codifying lore, defining character traits, or even just easily telling a long story. I think it's still largely that, in a way. I come up with all these stories and I "get them out" through writing because I sure as hell can't keep them inside my brain for eternity.

2. A line/short snippet of your writing that you are most proud/happy of. If not maybe share a line of someone else's work you love (just please credit them)

This one is pretty recent, from a few chapters ago in DoS, but I'm really proud of it. I just feel like it emphasizes how much Seth's experience with souls connects with the body, which is the Goddess of Time's domain. A lot of metaphors in this story centre around bodies and physicality because of this. Here's the snippet:

And yet, there was Theo, with her soul so unwound there was no fixing it anymore. The most she could do was keep healing and healing, covering the cracks of the bowl with her own hands in the hope that they'd go back to normal. Keep filling the ocean so that, no matter how many holes lined its bed, it would never be empty. [...] She held her so tight she thought her hands would fuse to her skin. As if she could cover the cracks of her soul with her own body.

Idk, I just vibe with it.

5. What part of writing do you think you are the best at? (Yes stroke your own ego it's okay)

(what happened to 3 and 4? where did they go?)

I'd say back-and-forth banter, probably because of my time in theatre, but also horror description. It creeps up on me. I keep writing horror on accident. And I always really like it. Just something about describing something weird and spooky.

6. What do you enjoy most about the Writeblr community?

Mostly the fact that there's all these other writers who have cool stuff and also wanna see my cool stuff. I already loved writing on my own, but knowing that there are people Out There who also care about my stories just feels amazing.

And also, the casual friendship between people. You interact with someone's blog, they interact with yours, and you suddenly feel like you're friends, kinda. I can only compare it to making quick friends with someone on the playground as a kid. I like it <3

7. A writing tool/device you use that helps you with writing? (It could be speech-to-text, a writing program etc)

I am a very ✨analogue✨ person, so my best writing advice in this scenario is always: put that shit on paper.

Feel unsure about a scene? Put that shit on paper. It's like a 0.5th (hehe "halfth") draft that you will copy onto your document and you will always improve it with that second look.

Worried about perfectionism? Put that shit on paper. Even pencil, at least to me, feels hard to erase. It's mostly about living with the stuff you've written and not looking back - erasing is such a pain in the ass that you might as well just keep going forward.

Wanna write secretly during class/lectures/whatever where you're not allowed to have a device? Wadda ya know, the answer is also paper.

Wanna edit? Printing stuff out helps you get some distance from your own writing and it also makes you see it more as a book than as just something you've made.

It also generally makes you feel less bad about changing stuff later in the document, because you have a solid, physical record of what you've written before.

Put that shit on paper. It works well.

(sorry for the rant sbdhagjk)

8. A piece of worldbuilding that you like in your own story? (It could be the magic system, a particular place in the story, a law etc)

I once made a post about the art movements in the world of the dystopia WIP (yes, seriously) but I can't find it anymore. I'm not gonna explain it again, it was stupidly long the first time around.

I guess, outside the dystopia WIP, I'm pretty proud of the whole Three Sister Goddesses thing from DoS. I have drawn designs, but I'll make another post sometime. I'm also proud of the relationship between the Goddesses tho.

They're at war with each other, but they're just doing it for entertainment. They kiiiinda hate each other but not as much as their desire to have fun. Like, they will send their daughters to decimate each other's armies, but they'll also hang out together in the Plane of the Gods. The war is kind of like a decades-long game of Monopoly they're having at the family function. And I just think it's cool. Goes into that whole thing about mortals being like ants to uncaring gods that I like.

9. What piece of advice would you say to encourage others to write if they are having a rough patch?

Kinda cliché, but I'd say this: it happens to everyone, dude (gender neutral). Everyone has periods of time when they feel bad and can't write. Or where they feel like their writing is terrible. Doesn't make you less of a writer.

Even if you're not as productive as other people: who cares, honestly? As long as you're having a good time and doing something you love, it doesn't matter how much time you need or don't need to finish something. Even if you never finish anything. And if you feel like you're not as good as other people: who cares either, you know? Everybody starts somewhere. And everybody has different strengths. You'll get better. You always do.

At the end of the day, we're all just doing this because we love it. Don't force yourself. The time will pass anyway.

Ooooookay that last one was a bit more serious than the rest. Anyway, I wanna tag, no pressure, @fleurtygurl @stesierra @cheeto-flavoured-pasta and @sarandipitywrites

#writeblr #writing #tag game #ramblies

[fuzzafterhours]

Penny's Big Breakaway

First played on February 21st 2024 https://store.steampowered.com/app/1955230/Pennys_Big_Breakaway/ I have... a lot to say about this game... I love it, I love it so so SO much, BUT it absolutely wrecks me to say that it is a little under baked. I will start off by saying I was extremely excited to play it since the words "from the team behind sonic mania" were uttered on that one Nintendo direct. I followed development closely and consumed every piece of content that was drip fed throughout the months. I was absolutely floored when the game was shadow dropped. Now, I LOVE 3D platformers, and I'm inclined to call them my favorite game genre. Despite all the flaws I do have with the Penny's I would put it firmly in my top 10. I also want to mention that I'm a little freak that plays games I like in weird ways so any strange issues I have with it might not apply to the average person. I want to talk about the movement first as it is the most important thing to me in a 3D platformer. the game is stellar... when it works... Penny's is one of the smoothest platformers I've ever played until your momentum is cut off by some random bit of jank, whether that be the roll move deciding to randomly stop, environmental hazards like water and lava having 0 grace period, and clipping into walls, which happened way more often than id like to admit. Its clear to me that the game needed a good amount of polish time before shipping. Level design in this game is largely fantastic although I think its a bit homogenized if that makes sense. excuse the dreaded act of comparison but, a similar game like super Mario 3D world for example, designs its levels with a central mechanic in mind and then elaborates on it throughout a level. Penny's does this sometimes but a majority of levels feel like a strange blend of ideas that leads them to feel kind of unfocused. this Isn't necessarily a bad thing as I think the game has free enough movement to warrant it. The game never got boring per say, but id be lying if I said it didn't lose some steam towards the end. I think another part of the game that gradually got a little stale is the art direction and environment design. again, never bad, but I noticed areas getting less creative in the last third of the game. I do however want to say, despite my gripe, this games visual direction is OUTSTANDING and like nothing I've ever seen. it starts incredibly strong and despite becoming a little uncreative it is always a treat to look at. An aspect that I can give absolutely nothing but endless praise is the soundtrack of course. Nearly every song is masterfully composed and instantly memorable. As a big fan of Tee Lopes previous work there was no doubt in my mind that this ost would knock it out of the park. although it is not a one man show, Sean Bialo was a more than welcome addition, they are responsible for some of my favorite tracks on Spark the Electric Jester 3 so it was great seeing them here. Some of my favorite tracks on the Penny ost are:

Puppet Pioneer

Jig's Up, Penny

Outside The Eidophusikon

Balearic Birds

Penny in a Pinch and my absolute favorite track in the game:

Refracting Feelings (Pengo Mix)

I want to exclaim once again, I LOVE this game, its currently a frontrunner for my game of the year and I don't want a couple of minor gripes to taint the view of what is otherwise an excellent, beautiful, and just straight up fun game. Play Penny's, listen to its soundtrack, share it around. We need more games like it. I think everyone at Evening Star should be more than proud of what they've created. I can feel this game oozing with love and passion for the medium and I don't think any minor issue I have with it could take away from that. It wants to exist and it wants YOU to play it.

#pennys big breakaway #fuzzdailygames #fuzzafterhours

[foibles-fables]

tag game (Horizon)

stolen from @hellcheercaine!!! Thanks for the excuse to put off starting work for another few minutes.

1.ride or die ship (your otp): Aloy/Talanah. my rotten soldiers my sweet cheeses my good-time gals

2. most annoying ship: nah you know I don't play that game <3

3. second favourite ship: Aloy/Yarra

4. favourite platonic relationship: Aloy and Erend, Talanah and Milu, Aloy and Sylens

5. underrated ship: gonna say Aloy/Yarra here too. Also Fashav/Kotallo, Beta/Milu, Alva/Seyka (thoughts of an angsty Loyalist!Federa fic won't leave my brain ALONE)

6. overrated ship: see question 2 bls

7. one thing i would change in canon: Oh man. There are...many things, lmao. The clear and obvious one is having Talanah join the base (as we now know was the original intention [rolling_in_the_deep.mp3]). But since that one is a given--completely toss the Zeniths out of HFW. Ground the narrative conflict in gathering the subfunctions, the collapsing biosphere, and Regalla's rebellion instead. Bring GAIA back only at the very end. Save the Zeniths for the major H3 antagonist instead, negating the need for Nemesis as the Bigger Fish. How absolutely baller would it have been if the Beta reveal came as a post-credits stinger instead? (Gerard's voice: "Are you ready to finally make yourself useful, Beta?" and then a camera pan over the face of a Sobeck clone, GOD)

8. something canon did right: The entirety of "Deep Secrets of the Earth" in HZD was a masterclass in storytelling. Every part of exploring PZD HQ was remarkable. The datapoints, the juxtaposition of "The Bad News" with "The Good News," the latter of which as the culminating reveal of the mystery that's been building throughout the entire narrative--it's pretty much perfection.

9. a thing i'm proud of creating for the fandom PLEASE BRAG ABOUT YOURSELF I WANT TO SEE/READ YOUR ART: may I present to y'all my AO3 trashpile

10. a character who is perfect to me (wouldn't change a thing): ALVA. My personal shining star amongst the HFW companions. I'm also contractually obligated to say Talanah here, even if I want to shake her by the shoulders sometimes (affectionate)

11. the character i relate to the most and why: This is a tough one. I see pieces of myself in a number of the characters, but I'm not sure if there's one that I'm like, yes, that is ME. I could prrooobably say Alva again? But it's not a definitely one-to-one.

12. character(-s) i hate the most and why: All the homies hate Ted Faro, that's for sure. But that's low-hanging fruit. So I'll give Amadis as well, though not for the seemingly-obvious reason--I cannot stand the sole purpose for which he was written, from the comic all the way through his weird unsatisfying ending in HFW. He's a repeated character with a repeated conflict that was already handled much more compellingly through Nil and is rendered useless and storyless by the end of Need to Know. Bringing him back in H3 would be the sorest mistake the narrative could make aside from a sacrificial ending for Aloy. He's just unneeded character bloat in an already-admittedly-bloated cast.

13. something i've learned from the fandom: You will make some of your very best friends here. Everyone is creative and hilarious and so smart. We all connect to the Horizon universe in a different way, and sharing your enthusiasm with others is what just makes the world feel even richer than what you could have imagined.

14. three tags i seek out on ao3: I typically don't browse AO3 directly!

15. a song i strongly associate with my otp/favourite character: you're gonna make me pick ONE?? oh man, okay. so this changes by the day, and today I'll say Oceanator's "I Would Find You" is THEE Hawk and Thrush anthem.

tagging: since I stole this untagged, I challenge YOU to do the same! Choose your fandom and talk about it!

#tag games #horizon zero dawn #horizon forbidden west

[pathetic-gamer]

obligatory 2023 highlight reel 😤

This isn't by interaction metrics, but by how much I like them/how proud of them I am. Also, I tried to pick these to show some range lol

Fics:

Lost and Found - a fun little netteflix romp full of twists and turns and violence :)

Angels in the Architecture - going all the way back to Jan for this one! the angstiest of angsty netteflix

How Terribly Strange - fluff and romance ^-^ mostly netteflix, but some background dimimari!!

Art:

(list first, then the art)

tie between Lyn, emblem of blazing, and Felix, shield's successor - picked these ones for the "inked" art style, which I did quite a few of this year! most of my favorites from the year were actually in this style, but for variety's sake, I'm only including two lol

felix color wheel, i mean, this one is obvious, right? I think it really accurately represents my art style, down to the messy sketchy vibe and the overwhelming amount of Felixes lol

All-in-all, I think it was a good year for my art/writing, but there's always room to improve! I'll talk about my goals for 2024 below the cut. I'm including these mostly so I can have them clearly stated in one place for the sake of keeping myself on track ^-^

enormous thank you to yall for being so kind and supportive!!! this feels like a silly thing to say when there are like maximum 3 people actually reading this, but I really do appreciate you, my beloved friends and mutuals and all my fellow weirdos who live in my phone ❤️❤️❤️ Happy new year!

okay, sorry for getting sappy - i really do feel a little weird being like "thank you to my loyal fans 😌" LMAO

anyway, my goals for 2024 are mostly quality oriented - I want to spend more time on things in general so I don't feel like I'm just generating stuff for likes. specifically, I want to:

Do more full-color, complete illustration type pieces, setting a tentative goal of five. That doesn't sound like a lot, but I only made one in 2023, because I'm just not patient enough and get intimidated.

practice drawing a wider variety of poses and expressions. enough 3/4 busts/headshots! draw some bodies! draw someone other than felix!!

stay more focused on individual fics/spend more time on each one to keep the quality, style, and tone more consistent.

and, of course, I do want to draw more things for other games than fe3h, especially triangle strategy. I also want to write something for kentlyn (fe7).

We'll see how far I get with literally any of these goals, but my hope is that this post will at the very least keep me on track 🙃

okay that's all, love you bye!!!!

#fe3h #fe7 #felix hugo fraldarius #annette fantine dominic #lyn fire emblem #netteflix #my art #my writing #2023 recap #fe3h fanfic #fe3h fanart #☕️🥧

[whypolar]

Gundam Unicorn OVA 3: The Ghost of Laplace

Some of the most stunning visuals from these OVAs yet. What a beautiful piece of animation.

Choosing which screenshots to use for this post hurt me. If I had my way, I would include multiple shots of every sequence where something explodes. Many, many things explode.

I'm glad I don't have problems with flashing lights. The lasers in this one get pretty intense.

This post is very long. There's a lot of novel stuff I want to talk about. Let's get into it!

(Previous posts: Day of the Unicorn, The Second Coming of Char)

I won't lie, they got further into the plot than I thought they were going to. I was expecting more time in Palau and then Riddhe and Mineva arriving and doing stuff on Earth, with the confrontation in the ruins of Laplace being saved for the next one. If I'd paid attention to the title I could have realized they were going to go to the coordinates, but I obviously did not. It caught me pretty off guard!

I definitely feel like this one benefits from multiple watches. They all do, for sure, but this one had a lot of little moments that were much stronger the second time through. A lot happens very quickly! Taking the time to pay attention is rewarding, especially in terms of emotional stakes. It was easy on a first watch to just get caught up in the spectacle and not fully process everything that's happening-- and that's for me, who already knew the background context and plot beats going in.

The Obligatory Music Section

Some of these tracks were probably also in the last two, but I didn't link them so it doesn't count. Here are the standouts I'm highlighting this time:

Bring on a War -- I love the strings on this track. Guitar? The instrumentation for this entire soundtrack is so fun and complex. The intense drums! The woodwinds! The weird ghostly vocals! That repeated noise that sounds like a gunshot and breaking glass! So good.

Capture -- Equal parts jaunty and menacing. I like the bells at the start.

Merry-go-round -- The credits song. Pop music with lyrics about the inescapable repetition of history: it's a proud Gundam movie tradition.

Environments

You guys remember places?

We're spending time in and around a large colony again, so the sweeping establishing shots are back. The space port is so beautiful, and so alien in how you're expected to traverse it.

I definitely will be looking up the staff once I'm done watching these. For many reasons, really, but I'm very curious about who was doing the environmental art and design.

And while we're talking about environments--

Operation Billiard

The most important reveal: the glowing orb pillars in the purple palm tree lounge are low-gravity hologram pool tables.

It turns out that the vaporwave room was a billiards hall this whole time! I assume this is a nod to how the attack plan on Palau was named "Operation Billiard" in the novels.

We get a quick explanation of the plan in the OVA (separate the asteroids that make up Palau, seal the military port, rescue Banagher during the confusion) but they don't bother to explain the mechanics in detail. Why would they need to? When you see a bunch of explosions and a giant fuckoff laser, it is immediately obvious why that might be a problem for Neo Zeon.

Fuck that one Eye-Zack in particular

If you're curious about why it's "Operation Billiard": Palau is made up of four asteroids. They planned to use the force of the Mega Particle Cannon to knock them all into each other. This would obstruct the exits for the military port in the centre of the asteroid cluster, trapping the Zeon forces inside.

The manoeuvre worked as intended, but Frontal knew the attack was coming, so he was able to move all his forces off Palau ahead of time.

(A small number of other random Zeon-aligned soldiers were deliberately left out of the loop to act as bait, because the Sleeves didn't care about them. The way the guys that try to escape through the cracks get picked off one by one is kind of horrific. They might as well be marching single file into a mech-destroying meat grinder.)

I do think the attack on Palau is more harrowing in the novel. In terms of the combat, I'm not sure if that could be avoided. It feels inherently easier for me to remember that every mobile suit is a person while reading textual description than when there's a beautiful laser light show going off before my eyes.

That said, in some places the framing is just different:

I really love this scene, for the record.

In the novel, Nashiri is a perspective character during the battle. We are reading from his viewpoint inside the cockpit with his crew while they pick off Zeon soldiers one by one-- and then the Sinanju swoops into view, and they immediately know the plan is compromised and that they're going to die. They are burned and vaporized to dust, and then we switch to Angelo's perspective.

What I find memorable about the novel scene is the loss of life: how methodically they had been killing, and how quickly the Sinanju does the same to them. How they saw it coming but could do nothing. How living, breathing human beings could be reduced to literally nothing in an instant.

The OVA positions the camera outside, with the Sinanju. We see Frontal slowly and deliberately carving out the Loto's entire chest to make sure he got all of them. We do not see or hear any of the Loto's pilots. We see inside Frontal's cockpit, for a shot of him looking cooly down at his handiwork before moving on. What I find memorable about this scene is that Frontal is scary.

(Imagine me here getting stabbed with a beam weapon, saying "Wow! Cool Antagonist!")

It's not like death isn't thematically important in the OVA-- they absolutely remind you with dialogue that every mobile suit blowing up is a person dying. We see a shot of this same Loto and its partner after the battle as burned out wrecks, and it's clear Daguza and the other ECOAS guys are thinking about their dead comrades. Riddhe and Banagher both deliberately attempt to spare enemy pilots. The level of destruction is immense! The robots are simply too cool. It can't be helped.

This is one of the benefits of multiple watches. When you've already seen the cool robots once before, you can focus in more closely on what they're doing, and what that means.

There's another reason the battle loses some emotional charge: focus is drawn away from noncombatants almost entirely. We see very little of the regular people who live on Palau.

For all Riddhe assures Mineva that they have no intention of attacking the areas where civilians live, it is unavoidable that slamming the asteroids they live on together will have consequences.

The novel describes intense earthquakes. Two residential blocks collapse. Residents are rolling and tumbling around. Windows of the houses that stay standing shatter. You get a real sense of fear on the civilian level.

The OVA gives us a quick scene with Tikva. There's some dust and some shaking, but he stays standing easily enough. We don't see anything collapse on screen. We hear people screaming in confusion and terror, but none of them are visible. Likewise, the streets are totally empty of people and identical to their first appearance when Banagher is making his way to the space port. Civilians are basically not relevant.

The novel spends a lot more time on Palau even before the attack. We spend time with Gilboa's family. Banagher genuinely befriends these people! He plays with Gilboa's kids and fixes a machine they use to make a living. It's a bit sad to lose all that, but I get it.

There's also scene in the novel where a truck driver in one of the connecting tunnels gets blown back fifty feet by the force of ECOAS' bombs going off, slams into a wall, and passes out. He wakes up when he's discovered several hours later, after the attack is over. It's more funny than anything, because he's just like, fine, lmao. I was so sure he was done. Fifty feet just intuitively sounds like too much to be survivable, until you remember there's no gravity.

Anyway, you wanna know something that was appropriately menacing during the Palau attack? The Unicorn. The Unicorn was perfect.

The joy of a hunter.

Marida vs. Banagher

Oh... this sequence is so visually striking.

I was shocked by how quickly it all happened. This isn't a criticism. I guess I was expecting it to linger more, like the scenes with Amuro and Lalah in '79. The amount of concrete "information" conveyed here is so much more than that, and yet it covers it all in less than two minutes. You certainly get a sense for how instantaneously Marida and Banagher are communicating, and how overwhelming it must be for both of them.

I will likely revisit Marida's backstory in future posts, in relation to other scenes that happen later. For now, I'll just say I was surprised and impressed.

I'm admittedly very curious how this scene reads for people who don't already know the backstory going in. Hell, how does it read for people who aren't familiar with Gundam ZZ?

(I put on the dub for my second watch. This is the first time I heard how "Ple" is pronounced in English. Fucked up.)

I wish I'd taken notes on specifics, but I think they shifted some dialogue around between combat, the Newtype link, and the scene in the hospital room. It's not really important, but I think it's interesting how scenes with similar dialogue or themes can be folded into each other in an adaptation.

Some stuff cut from the hospital scene:

There's a CT scan of Banagher on the wall in novel. "You checked whether I was a Cyber-Newtype too, didn't you?" When I read the English translation, I thought they dodged telling the audience what the result of the test actually was. I thought that was a really interesting choice. Unfortunately, I don't think it's actually the case, having checked the Japanese. I can't be 100% sure, but I think the meaning of the line is that as far as the doctor could tell with the equipment they had available, he detected no evidence of Banagher being a Cyber-Newtype. 😔

When Banagher and the doctor discuss Newtype theory, they cut a line where the doctor suggests that a world where everyone knows what everyone else is thinking without obfuscation or deception might not be the magic bullet to end war, and could even be more violent. He's also a little more direct in the novel about implying that the emergence of Newtypes could create a divide between them and "Oldtypes."

The doctor points out that Newtypes are theorized to evolve in space, and how this would be a problem for Earth-Space relations. Banagher says that they should just make everyone evolve all at once. The Japanese line seems a bit vague, but the English translation interprets this as him suggesting they pull a Char / Mafty and send everyone into space. I think that's a fun way to take it, particularly because Banagher thinks it's a childish idea even as he says it. It's cute to me.

Full Frontal

In the novel, we see Frontal arranging his battle plan before the attack begins-- we see that he knows the attack coming, we see him move his troops off Palau, and we see him give orders to leave the Unicorn where Banagher will find it. In the OVA, we learn most of this in retrospect. I don't think the framing changes much, except insofar as it means less screen time for him and Angelo.

The big scene we lose is the one where they speak to one of their major sponsors in Neo Zeon, the guy who owns Palau. He tries to goad Frontal into officially admitting to being Char and taking off the mask, implicitly threatening to rescind his support if he doesn't. Frontal responds to this with "That's okay. I actually came by today to tell you we're leaving! How convenient. Bye."

Frontal speaks very differently to this guy than he did to Banagher, even beyond refusing to remove his mask. It's a fascinating contrast, and I like it a lot. Frontal is very good at being threateningly passive-aggressive in multiple registers.

A good and telling bit of dialogue from Frontal that we lose by cutting this scene: "Char Aznable is a man who lost."

I still don't understand what they're doing with Riddhe, and I'm getting increasingly concerned about it.

I cannot believe how many Riddhe opinions I apparently have had this whole time, just waiting to be revealed.

OVA Riddhe does not feel like much of anything to me so far, which is bizarre when his novel counterpart has so much going on. His blandness is even more noticeable when he's spending so much time with Mineva, who is a very strong-willed character with defined beliefs.

I would say his characterization has been made subordinate to hers, except she doesn't even gain anything from it? Cutting his screen time also cuts hers as well. He's the character that she's interacting with most for this entire section of the story, so making him less interesting just means she has a less interesting conversation partner!

Riddhe is a major character, and there are events later that hinge on the audience giving a shit about him. He needs to have substance, because the story is going to treat him like he has it. If he doesn't have it, it will fall flat.

Here are the key points I want to go over:

Novel Riddhe's values and beliefs are made very clear, while OVA Riddhe feels more ambiguous and flimsy.

Novel Riddhe's relationship to his family is far more complicated and compelling than anything we've been told about OVA Riddhe so far.

Novel Riddhe is shown to have strong emotional ties to the crew of the Nahel Argama.

Novel Riddhe has many clearly established reasons not to do what he does-- personally, professionally, and legally-- and chooses to do it anyway.

This scene was funnier in the novel, because it tells you they have a telephone for each member of the family, but they're all in the same room where they get answered by the same butler.

Novel Riddhe is thoroughly established as a person with opinions and a strong moral compass. He does more to help others, at greater difficulty than anything OVA Riddhe has been faced with thus far, and the negative consequences he knowingly takes on are made more explicit.

In the novel, there's a whole extra step before taking Mineva to earth. Mineva has been moved off the Nahel Argama to another ship, the Alaska, which was going to bring her to a be held at a base on the moon. Getting her out of there is a lot more convoluted than knocking out a single guard and then sneaking down some hallways when no one is looking.

Riddhe sets off a bunch of smoke canisters all over the ship to cause confusion, knocks out some guys, flees the Alaska in a shuttle, shakes the mobile suits tailing them by flying through a debris field, lies about his reason for returning so they let him back on the Argama, and ultimately sneaks Mineva back onto the ship and into his mobile suit. Since the battle has started at this point, it's impossible for the Argama to contact the Alaska or vice-versa.

It makes sense to cut this for time. It's an extraneous trip just to return to the status quo of them needing to sneak off the Argama again anyway. There are other ways to show Riddhe's determination without giving him a dramatic heroic sequence.

But here's the problem with removing it: Riddhe doesn't just rescue Mineva. Takuya and Micott are also on the Alaska. It is strongly implied that they're going to be disappeared.

(There are people from the Intelligence Department on the 'Alaska', so leave the prisoner to them. Don't ask any further.) "Then what about the civilians? They..." (Will be treated as those who violated confidentiality and dealt with as appropriate. You have no need to be involved with them.)

That's significant! Mineva is a person with obvious political importance, and Riddhe became emotionally attached to her before he even knew that. It is entirely possible to interpret rescuing Mineva through a lens of selfish motivations, especially in an adaptation where we aren't privy to his inner thoughts.

Riddhe has no special attachment to Takuya and Micott. He saves them because he has an obligation to do so, because leaving them behind would be wrong.

Are you wondering why the Alaska came to pick them up in the first place? It happened because Riddhe contacted his father at the request of Captain Otto, even though he really didn't want to, in the hopes that he could prevent more deaths by requesting additional support for the Argama.

But Riddhe's father didn't send the support Riddhe requested-- he sent a ship to pick up Riddhe and the prisoners. Why send military support when he can just remove his son from the battlefield that he never wanted him to be on anyway, right? He doesn't even respond himself, some random military guy does it for him.

... this admiral might not have even thought of him as a person. He was just looking at the shadow behind his back-- the authority of Senator Ronan Marcenas. Riddhe felt the emptiness of talking to a wall as he yelled, "WHY ONLY ME...!"

To me, novel Riddhe's frustration with his family is the single most important character trait he has. It informs every single one of his decisions. And so far, in the anime, it has not come up even once.

Riddhe is not just a bit distant from his family. He is repeatedly described as having run away from home. We are told he has not spoken to his father or his sister in some time. He literally refers to his 'family' in scare quotes while thinking about them.

Riddhe too felt repulsed by the fact he had to rely on the 'family' that he had been hiding from at this point, but there was no other way.

[...]

There’s no other choice. Riddhe returned back to his room and ended up spending 2 hours writing a mail to his father. He had never sent a phone call for the past few years, let alone a message. His body did not have a function to communicate with his father, and he felt a chill when he started off with ‘Dear Father’.

[...]

"Since I entered the army with the family's objection, I never intended to come back, but just this once, I have to do this."

The car ride with his father when they first meet and head back to the house is incredibly miserable. They casually drop that Riddhe's mom is in a nursing home, and then they sit in total silence.

Riddhe was looking in front silently, not looking at the greenery passing by outside the window. He was about as silent as the time when he piloted the “Delta Plus” into the atmosphere—no, he might be a lot more tense here. Sitting diagonally in front of him was Ronan, who had his mouth shut, not intending to look away from the notebook terminal. As for what they actually talked about on the limousine, there were only two lines, “Mom?” “She’s in a Nursing Home in Switzerland.” What was left was the heavy and unbearable silence passing between them.

Eventually, Riddhe starts speaking to Mineva while she's looking at the scenery, very obviously as a way of needling his dad. It's an insanely loaded conversation. He basically says "hey Mineva, have you ever read Gone with the Wind? Did you know it takes place here, in Georgia? Just thinking about wealthy white farmers enriching themselves by exploiting Black slaves as we drive to my rich politician dad's house, for no reason."

The dig is not subtle. His dad sarcastically responds to it by pointing out the comparison, as if pretending he isn't extremely aware that's why Riddhe brought it up in the first place, and then they go back to totally ignoring each other.

This is something I think is important: in the novel, Ricardo Marcenas-- Riddhe's great-grandfather and first Prime Minister of the Earth Federation-- is not white. He is stated to be mixed race both during his political speech, when he talks about his heritage, and later when Mineva sees his portrait.

It is an unbelievably pointed choice to have Riddhe and his father be white-passing and from the southern US while the dead great-grandfather with lofty ideals who was implicitly assassinated by his own government was visibly (and proudly) multiracial.

Between the family's politics and Riddhe's sister being in an arranged marriage for political and business reasons, you can guess that this is more than just a coincidence of genetics. Ricardo's descendants wanted to hold onto power, and power was disproportionately held by white people, so that's who they married. Fukui is hitting me with a big cartoon mallet labeled "racism and its consequences persist in the politics of the Earth Federation."

And this... just doesn't exist in the OVA, I guess. They cut the lines about Ricardo's heritage from his speech, and he looks like any other white guy.

The anime as a whole so far has a general trend of cutting anything that directly mentions real-world racial identity or politics, without exception (see also: Syam and Banagher). They've also been erring on the side of lighter skin tones across the board, even in cases where novel description says otherwise.

The doctor on the Argama is described as Arab, with light tan skin. They coloured him half a shade darker than Banagher, who is half a shade darker than Mihiro.

Gilboa is Black. He's still Black here, but they gave him the absolute lightest possible skin tone that still reads as brown. He's way more ambiguous than his wife and kids, and they also have light brown skin. He's described as dark-skinned in the novel!

Yeah, people can have these skin tones with those backgrounds. Obviously. But they've chosen to convey information that is clear in the original text ambiguously, and they've done it to multiple characters.

I'm going on a bit of a tangent here, but this felt like the most appropriate place to bring it up. IT BOTHERS ME.

Anyway. Do you know who is the first character in the novel to bring up the rumours that Ricardo Marcenas was assassinated by the Federation? Because it isn't Daguza in the cockpit with Banagher-- that's later. It's Riddhe.

Riddhe is the one who suggests conservative elements within the Federation might have wanted to a eliminate a more liberal and idealistic Prime Minister while also providing an excuse to root out separatists on the basis of anti-terrorism. Riddhe is the one who gives a scathing account of what his family did in the aftermath of the assassination, where Ricardo's son took advantage of the situation to gain power with the support of the same conservatives who killed his father.

Riddhe says all that directly in front of his dad, who yells at him for spreading nonsense conspiracy theories, tells him he doesn't know anything about politics, and says that he abandoned his family. Wrow.

Riddhe is ultimately ashamed of himself for provoking his father just because he's angry. He thinks it's selfish and childish for him to risk jeopardizing the relationship when he's relying on his father's power to accomplish his goals and protect Mineva.

Calm down, he's a Senate Council member who can deal with the army that will suck up to him. I have to put aside all personal feelings and tell him.

Riddhe took Mineva's line about her responsibility as a member of the Zabi family very seriously. He comes back to it repeatedly. He doesn't want to have anything to do with his family, but he knows there are things that only he can do to help, precisely because of his family-- and he has an obligation to try.

There's a very interesting tension, where Riddhe is only even able to survive and successfully enact his plan because of the otherwise unwanted privilege conferred by his father. It's made clear that even that might not have saved him if he hadn't gotten extremely lucky! It comes up again and again, at every step of the plan.

No matter whether the "Nahel Argama" survives or not, Ensign Riddhe's military career will be at an end.

[...]

"I'm risking my life here as well. I might even end up facing the firing squad if I mess up here, you know?"

[...]

If the situation had happened during a Parliamentary Session, the contact would definitely bounce around amongst the secrataries, and the "Delta Plus" would most likely be shot down without any confirmation of its identity.

Even after they manage to land safely by using the name of his family as a shield, the guards surrounding them when they disembark are hostile and keep rifles trained on them the whole way.

I feel like this element of luck is part of why they swapped his model airplanes for a good luck charm, but it's still so weird to me. His luck is important because of the risks he's taking, and they're not really playing that up as much as they could be. They could tell us in retrospect, but Riddhe knew the risks going in, and that's important.

One thing he knows he's going to lose, unavoidably, is all of his established social relationships in the military.

Survivor's guilt and having lost friends is something that comes up a lot in Riddhe's internal dialogue after the destruction of Industrial 7. I talked about it a bit in the last post. His crewmates are people he cares about, not only in an abstract sense of duty and obligation, but as people.

He's clearly deeply hurt by lying to the crew about his real intentions during the attack on Palau, especially as some of them are glad to see him back and praising his bravery as a soldier.

Does OVA Riddhe have strong relationships to anyone on the Argama? Maybe. He gets some advice from a superior officer. He banters with one of the other pilots for three lines or so. The doctor certainly believes that Mihiro is on edge specifically because of Riddhe's "death", but there are no particularly significant interactions between them to confirm it.

Riddhe's romantic interest in Mihiro is established very early in the novels, when he asks her out to a movie before launching for the first battle. He says he needs something to look forward to so he'll come back alive.

This comes back again when he's heading out for the Palau mission, when she specifically privately contacts him:

(Good luck, Ensign Riddhe. I haven't forgotten the promise to watch a movie.)

And he just has to agree, knowing that he's not coming back and she's going to be mourning him, thinking he's dead. Man.

When it becomes clear the battle isn't going to go as planned, Mineva can sense Riddhe's hesitation. She tells him to stay and fight, because otherwise he'll regret it for the rest of his life. While this works as a character moment for Mineva in the anime, I don't feel like it's a convincing one for Riddhe. What made it work in the novels was that we already knew this was an accurate assessment of his feelings. In the anime, rather than her resolving the conflict for him, it almost feels like he hadn't even fully realized he was having one until she told him.

Maybe I'm being uncharitable and nitpicky, and this all comes across just fine to people without my preconceptions. I just can't shake the feeling that too much scaffolding for his character has been removed, so now even big character moments are failing to stand up on their own.

Riddhe's latent newtype connection to Banagher and their Man's Promise is plot important, but on an emotional level it is nothing to me. I don't care about Riddhe's masculine pride. I care about him having a fraught relationship with his shitty rich dad who he has deliberately avoided for years. I care about social bonds. I care about sacrifice.

Banagher's trust in Riddhe in the novel is meaningful because the audience has reason to believe that Riddhe deserves that trust.

I really hope they can integrate at least some of this stuff going forward, but I also worry it might be too late. I can imagine it failing so easily-- like if they give me Riddhe yelling at his dad, but without all the established context it just comes off like he's a brat throwing a tantrum.

I'm pretty sure his crush on Mineva is going to start becoming relevant now, too, so I need them to give me something to work with as soon as fucking possible if they don't want me to become a relentless little hater. Please.

I want to believe they can still flesh him out enough to work for me, even if it's not perfect.

Micott's arc is altered by changes to Riddhe's arc.

This isn't a super dramatic change, since she's not a load-bearing part of the narrative like Riddhe. I do think how they shifted things around is interesting and worth talking about, though.

In my post on OVA 2, I mentioned that Micott is the one who snitches on Mineva in the novel. This was removed in the anime, where instead Daguza just recognizes her face himself. Now the reason becomes clear-- they moved it here, instead.

In the novel, the second part of the conversation they have in this scene happens on the shuttle back from the Alaska. Since the Alaska was cut, they obviously couldn't do that, but having the betrayal without including the resolution would defeat the purpose. Their solution was to combine the betrayal and reconciliation into a single scene, by having Micott consider reporting Mineva's escape but ultimately back down. I think that's a very clever way to handle it.

Micott is more emotional in the novel version. The circumstances are completely different, so the difference in tone makes sense.

"I know this isn't something I should be saying. But sorry, I have no intention of apologizing to you. Your army was the one that decimated our colony." ... "But, I want to apologize to Banagher. If I don't, I..." The rest of her words were vague due to her crying.

She apologizes to Banagher in the novel equivalent to the hologram billiards scene, when Takuya deliberately leaves them alone for a bit so they can talk. Banagher is puzzled by her apology, and they just kind of cyclically apologize to each other for a bit. It's cute.

The novel version of the conversation is very unsubtle about implying that Banagher implicitly believes Riddhe is trustworthy because they have a psychic connection. Micott's line in the anime, where she just comments on Banagher behaving differently than usual, is more vague.

Micott also sticks up for Mineva to Banagher, which I thought was sweet.

"But since you helped her out once, you have to bear responsibility and help her out until the end. That girl's feeling rather down inside despite making a strong look."

The Vist Foundation: Martha, Alberto, and Gael

God, I love Martha. I've been waiting for her desperately. I loooove her anime design. She looks so good. My evil wife.

The Vist Foundation is much less present in the narrative than expected, so far. I'm not entirely sure what to think, but unlike Riddhe's changes, it doesn't raise any alarm bells for me (yet). The Foundation itself is central to the conflict, what with 『The Box』, but all the individual people in it are minor characters.

Do you remember Gael, Cardeas' bodyguard? At this point in the novel, Gael is on the Garencieres. His interactions with Zinnerman and the rest of the crew are very tense and uneasy, but he's a key player in the plan to rescue Marida. He talks to Banagher briefly during the battle as well, just like Gilboa.

Gael wants to capture Alberto and force him to publicly reveal information about Martha, thus ruining her reputation. This allows him to have his revenge for Cardeas without killing her (since Syam objected to him doing so).

For Marida's escape-- rather than being blown out into space, the guys transporting her are gunned down by Gael, and that's when she takes the opportunity to slip out of her bonds.

Gael confronts Alberto about killing Cardeas, and Alberto has some interesting dialogue:

"THAT MAN ONLY CARED ABOUT HIMSELF! HE THOUGHT THAT HE COULD DECIDE EVERYTHING JUST BECAUSE HE'S STRONG! HE THOUGHT THAT PEOPLE WHO WERE WEAKER WERE JUST SLACKING OFF... BUT I'VE BEEN WORKING SO HARD!"

[...]

"Aunt [Martha] was very kind ... She was willing to recognize and accept me. Dad doesn't know about such things."

I could imagine Alberto having a conversation like this with Marida instead, since it's related to her reason for saving him in the novel-- she recognized his connection to Banagher. When Marida saw Banagher's mind, she saw the burden placed on him by Cardeas, and she sees the same thing in Alberto. She mentions that they both have the same sadness in their eyes.

(We still haven't seen Martha tell Alberto that Banagher is his half-brother, by the way. Is Marida going to tell him instead? Does he know? I need to know if he knows!)

Anyway. Alberto shoots Gael and more crew from the Nahel Argama arrive, having heard the commotion. Gael flees.

The scene keeps going, but I'm stopping here, since we might be getting into stuff for the next one.

Daguza has a lot of backstory that doesn't make it in.

Man, this guy is carrying around so much baggage. Banagher has no idea. Content warning for child death for this part. Scroll down to the screenshots if at any point you decide you don't want to read it.

After the conversation with Banagher in the tea room, we get a much longer conversation between Daguza and the other ECOAS guy. We learn about "The Sweetwater Operation", during which ECOAS murdered a bunch of children as collateral while trying to take out a group of terrorists. Yes.

Sweetwater was a refugee colony. The living conditions were terrible, basically a slum, and it eventually became a hub for anti-Federation activity. During Char's Counterattack, it was a working base for Neo Zeon. After the conflict ended, it became "a breeding ground for terrorist planning."

"Those terrorists ignored human rights and laws, so their crimes that went beyond the law should be punished by means beyond the law" -- gee, where have I heard that before? What could Fukui possibly be referencing here?

To summarize: intelligence failed to report the presence of a school bus, ECOAS blew up a bunch of kids along with the terrorists, 33 of them died, and the four who survived were disabled for the rest of their lives. Investigators covered up the incident and it was reported as an accident, but rumours still spread within the Federation special forces. ECOAS was nicknamed "The Manhunters."

Honestly, I think it's a kind of contrived scenario compared to the much more cruelly mundane way that kids and other innocent civilians get murdered during anti-terrorist raids and drone strikes in real life, but I see what Fukui was going for.

From that point on, ECOAS continued to be given dirty missions due to their reputation. I would bet those 33 kids are not the only children they've killed during their career.

They do a lot of justifying it to themselves during the conversation. "It was the intelligence branch's fault, we couldn't do anything." "Well, we were facing a group a group of people who would drop colonies and asteroids on the Earth. If we didn't take them down all at once, there might have been more children killed." "Yes, we have to allow a little sacrifice for the sake of the many." Again, all very familiar.

Despite his words, it's very obvious that Daguza feels guilty. His discussion of himself as a cog is a lot more charged when you know exactly what kind of violence he enacted as part of the machine.

Let me ask honestly, what is this order we have to protect even if it means killing children? [...] Despite understanding that, I still continue to kill myself off, telling myself consistently that it can’t be helped. Won’t I become a real cog gradually? I swallowed reality and sold out myself bit by bit. In this sense, I’m a foolish creature who’s sealed in this shell called an adult.

While they do talk about how Banagher is a child during this conversation, we don't get the line from the OVA here about never having had children and Daguza's implicit fatherly feelings toward Banagher.

The idea does come up later, with Daguza expressing that no matter what the box is, it's not worth exchanging for the future of a child like Banagher. It's pretty clear that this is the reason he's so ready to go to his death.

And what a death it was.

He wanted to hand his life to a child, a child who would think about the future. Of course, he did not think that he could wash away all his guilt after all the atrocity he did, but he felt surprisingly happy that he could do this. He, who only knew how to act on priorities to fulfil his duties, was leaving everything to a young life that had no blood relations or bonds with him ...

Holy shit.

I love the Sinanju with its busted face. Such a look.

Anyway, this death is one that I think is more disturbing than it was in the original text. The decision to let his rocket launcher float just far enough from the beam to survive and then splatter against the emblem is downright nasty. It allows for a person whose body has been totally vaporized to still look like they're leaving behind remains. It feels like a full body gore splatter, even if closely watching the sequence makes it clear it's not. That rules.

And that's when we get our second Destroy Mode activation.

A Gundam is a monster. A Gundam is a devil.

Do you ever think about how Frontal is tactically the single most important person on the battlefield for his side, but he puts himself at risk of burning to death to stop the Unicorn from killing Angelo? Because I do. I think about it a lot.

RIP Gilboa. It really hit me while watching that Banagher has multiple potential surrogate father figures who explode directly in front of him, much like his real dad did. So far, Otto is the only adult man to survive giving Banagher friendly paternal advice.

If you've read all this, thanks for indulging me. I hope it was interesting.

I'm really looking forward to watching the next one. I've heard good things, and that arc of the novel, uh... well, it's a lot. I'll have to think about how much I even want to get into it.

#remibloggue #gundam unicorn #gundam

[go-go-devil]

My friend @silenthillmutual tagged me to answer some fic writer's ask game questions, so without further ado...

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

17 as of right now.

2. What is your AO3 wordcount?

181,115

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly Hylics, but I've dabbled in several different fandoms. I've also written for the band Ghost, Pathologic, Knock-Knock, created the Neverending Nightmares tag on AO3 which still only contains the 3 fics I wrote for it, and am currently writing an epic novel-length Dark Souls fanfic!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1) Outcasts in an Overcast - 109

2) Dedusmuln Uncharted: The Hunt for the Paper Cup - 78

3) Molding A Legacy - 61

4) The Moon is Down - 60

5) Chaos Inverted - 51

Basically most of my Hylics fics lol 🌙 🎸🌯

5. Do you respond to comments?

I always try to respond to every comment I get since it's not often that I get any. There were a few that ended up slipping through the cracks of my memory, and to those I'm sorry since it now feels kinda weird to respond to a comment written years ago, but mostly if you see a comment that I haven't answered it most likely means I've already responded to the person on another social media site.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Definitely a tie between The Moon is Down and Chaos Inverted, but frankly that's to be expected since Gibby's such a doomed character. Out of all the blorbos I had to write Shakespearean levels of angst for it somehow ended up being the clay alien who's head looks like an orange and/or zoopals plate XD

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Ironically it's a Pathologic fic I wrote two years ago called Like A Fire Melting Us Down. Basically a hurt/comfort fluff fic featuring Murky and Daniil bonding over both being autistic. It's probably the only fic I've written fic I've written that has a definitively happy ending, as in there's no room for darker speculation for the future or anything like that.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Thankfully no. If anyone out there doesn't like my fics they've done good not to harass me about it.

9. Do you write smut? If so, which kind?

No.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest crossover you’ve ever written?

The only crossovers I've written thus far both involve the game Knock-Knock; either the Lodger interacting with Thomas Smith from Neverending Nightmares or Daniil Dankovsky from Pathologic.

The latter comes from the fic Intruder, which I'm most proud of of all the crossovers I've done so far, yet I'm kinda surprised no one else has attempted this themselves or entertained the idea of my fic since Knock-Knock was what inspired Pathologic: The Marble Nest to begin with. I guess it's true that there are only 12 Western Knock-Knock fans left on the internet...

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Also thankful this hasn't happened yet.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but if anyone wants to please let me know. I'd be more than happy for my stories to cross language barriers!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

One time my fellow Hylics fic veteran bombcollar wrote a story called Dedusmuln's Dossier, which is all about Dedusmuln documenting all of the enemies in Hylics 2, and which I contributed two pieces of writing for The Hand of Moodbleen and Carassius! It's an awesome fic I recommend any Hylics fan check out, and I had some good fun thinking of what I wanted them to say about these two uniquely annoying enemies.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Goddammit I don't fucking know lmao. I don't take shipping as seriously as other people do. For now I'll say Burakhovsky for all the beautiful art I've seen for it, the Hylics crew being in a queerplatonic polycule and, just to throw an insane curve ball at everyone in the room, Siegmeyer/Domhnall ;-)

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I'm gonna finish 'em all one day. I will not leave my children to rot in the pits of Writer's Block Hell...

16. What are your writing strengths?

I've been told by many people that they tend to really love the way I write dialogue for each of the characters I work with, original or already created. I'm also a lover of environmental descriptions and am always trying to build upon and improve in that aspect into my works.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Probably fight scenes since I've had so little practice, and due to a lot of the books I read not really having that many. I'm hoping To The Accursed can help me improve on that front, since Dark Souls is so heavily combat-oriented.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I haven't gone farther than using singular words in other languages as of right now. That's something I'm definitely gonna need to step up on later down the line, particularly since there will be Dark Souls characters I'll be writing soon who will be speaking some sentences in Latin and Welsh respectively.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

The Swedish metal band Ghost! It was a story called For A Divine Cause which was about Papa Emeritus Primo realizing he suffers stage fright right before he's supposed to start touring for the first album, and thus summons his younger brother Terzo to help shape him up into being a good front man.

It's without question the worst of my fics from a writing and technical perspective, but it was the first one I ever wrote so that's kinda to be expected. I am pleasantly surprised it has so many kudos and bookmarks after all these years!

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Honestly, I'm think I'm gonna have to make it a tie between Dedusmuln Uncharted and Chaos Inverted.

The first is the fic where I truly started getting more creative in my writing (and is my first full made podfic which I'm even more proud of!), while the latter was sooooo much fun to write and gave me the confidence to write novellas. The Hylics fandom has been so supportive of my work, and I thank you all for being the best fandom experience I've ever had <3

That was fun! I'll tag @bombcollar, @pinkiepiebones, and @brainshock-alpha for this one ✏️✨

#tag game #my writing #fanfic

[unicyclehippo]

This is anon from earlier. I didn't mention Laudna's role because you already had, and I interpreted Imogen as the only one inviting my unhinged input. I simply believed your big beautiful brain had tomes already covering the subject so I stepped back. In fact, Laudna is my #1 favorite CR charcter of all time to the point that talking about her makes me shy?? so even focusing on Imogen that much was probably a good exercise for me. I'm looking at a Dark Crystal art book on my shelf as we speak. The puppeteer concept owns my ass.

yeah that makes sense 👍 talk abt her more! shyness is not being sure if what u say is good or beautiful or funny enough or attention seeking whatever i tell u fuck it up!!!!! yell scream holler!!! this is not just abt laudna it’s midnight for me n im fucking pissed talk loud talk shit make weird art make crude jokes im sick of POLITE im sick of SOFT im sick of every weird thing being apologised for or hidden away loud n proud baby make weird art make weird characters try smth new be messy be in the moment try your best do it loud

anyway i hope i didn’t sound too rude before i was being a little bitch abt ppl not giving laudna enough attention but it wasn’t abt u specifically. here’s a snippet i wrote when i should have been working:

The show is going to be a fucking disaster.

Imogen hasn’t said those exact words out loud yet because if the actors hear her they’ll go into hysterics; she’s considering it still, despite that, because at the moment it feels like she either tells them they’re fucking stupid or she personally strangles someone. No one has learned their fucking lines, or their blocking—despite Orym diligently taping it out for them; FCG keeps trying to find a way to get the flamethrower into the show; the leading man and his understudy got into a fistfight—and Imogen still can’t figure out what the fight was about (except that Fearne was involved, of course), if Fearne encouraged it, and whether she needs to fire these guys or just give them a stern talking to—and as if all that weren’t enough, the set is falling to pieces. That wasn’t the troupe’s fault. Or Imogen’s. The moving company fucked it up on the move from storage when the theatre was getting repaired and after a very, very, very long back and forth, the theatre is going to get some kind reimbursement from the insurance but she doubts very much that the cash will make it to them in time for everything to be fixed by opening night. Basically, they’re fucked.

‘Why don’t we take five?’ Orym suggests, very quietly over his walkie. ‘I can hear you grinding your teeth from here,’ he jokes.

Imogen hopes it’s a joke. She tries to look for him but gives it up as impossible—most likely, he’s backstage or at Props and she can’t see him from her place in the third row. She relaxes her jaw. Rubs her temples for a second before fumbling for her walkie talkie.

‘Might as well. We could take twenty and it wouldn’t fix shit.’ Movement on the stage. Imogen looks over—and locks eyes with big, bright, hopeful eyes. She jams her finger onto the talk button of her walkie. ‘If FCG comes a step closer to me, I’ll kill ‘em.’

‘Roger that. I’ll send Ash to distract.’

Imogen drops heavily into the back of her seat. Scowls as she takes in the stage. She doesn’t notice actors throwing themselves bodily out of her line of sight.

Truth is, it’s going to be fine. There’s two weeks until dress rehearsal, and three until opening night, and—as it has with every show Imogen’s directed—it will come together. The actors will figure it out, maybe fumble a line or two. FCG can be handled, flamethrower drastically underpowered (or denied entirely, as is Imogen’s preference). Fearne…is Fearne. Still more talent than trouble, barely—which was really saying something, since she was maybe the most talented actor Imogen had ever met.

It’s the set that’s the real problem, the real reason Imogen hasn’t been able to sleep at night. Whenever she looks at it, her heart feels like it’s going to crack open. And every bright idea and directing cue she adds to make up for it is just a band-aid barely holding it together. It’s ridiculous to be so upset about it but…

Every year. Every year, the Bertrand Bell’s House of Entertainment, Leisure, and Luxury (most just call it the Bell Theatre) puts on Matilda & Delilah. It’s an old play and a crowd favourite for a reason—performers come and go, costumes change, sometimes a bold director changes the setting to something more modern, but it’s the set that keeps people coming back to see it, year after year. The tree. It’s the heart of the entire play. For Imogen, it’s the heart of the entire theatre. There wouldn’t be a Bell Theatre without it; there wouldn’t be an Imogen without it.

The tree is old and gnarled. One big piece that looms in the back of the stage—when the lights fall on it, just right, it is impossibly huge in the tiny little theatre. The shadow it casts stretches across the back curtain, branches twisting and grasping like crooked fingers, and every year Imogen lives for that moment when the lights shut off—all but the one behind the tree, and those same branches crawl out over the crowd. Menacing them. Trapping them. It’s dark and, when it’s done right, genuinely frightening.

But it’s broken. Half the branches snapped off, and the mechanism to wheel it up and down the stage busted. The cage doors won’t open either, and the colour has bleached in odd places. Imogen half-suspects the moving company hadn’t stored it at all. This wasn’t her tree at all, just some shoddy replica.

#imodna #tagging my stories #you can ignore this #sorry for the rant lol im v tired

[animeomegas]

I'm currently also dying in the heat so I'll play your game.

Lee, Iruka, Neji, Itachi, Naruto, and Kakashi

Who’s most likely to steal Artist!/Crafter!Alpha's 'failures' out of the trash because fuck you, what do you mean they are bad? *inspired by my friend who stole several pieces of watercolor practice pieces from my garbage can and then raided my failure pile*

Haha, why does this ask not surprise me at all? XD Also, drink lots of water, that's a threat 😠 @omeganronpa

Hmm, this is a hard one, but I'm going to go with...

Most:

Lee - Creativity is so Youthful!! Is anyone surprised that he's at the top of this list?? He's so upset when he sees you've thrown out some of your amazing work! He thinks it's indicative that you aren't confident and tries to rectify that. I hope you enjoy random, passionate outbursts about how proud and impressed he is by you!

Naruto - He's got just as much passion about your talent and your creations as Lee, he's just slightly less likely to realise that you've thrown anything away. (It's because you definitely have to take out the bins in this relationship. Lee takes out the bins no matter how much you might try to do it so you can't hide it.) He's genuinely in awe of your talent, and he cannot understand a) how you do it and b) how you could think this is bad??? He is genuinely so in awe, it will be great for your self esteem, I promise.

Iruka - Will he take something he likes from the bin and pin it on the fridge? Maybe... He'll also maybe admonish you because the work is amazing, don't throw it away!! Also, making mistakes is an important part of learning and getting better, don't be ashamed of that!

Kakashi - Man, he wants to rescue every 'failure' from the rubbish bin so bad, he thinks you're so talented and he loves it, but he's also scared you'll think he's weird or creepy if you catch him doing it... He will only rescue the art pieces that he believes he can hide from you, so he waits until he really likes one of the rejects.

Itachi - He understands the instinct to throwaway non-perfect creations. When he was learning to cook, he would throw shuriken at you if you attempted to eat any of his failures, and he doesn't want to be a hypocrite. But, if he really likes something you've made, and he sees you throw it out, he might rescue it and put it somewhere secret, just for him.

Neji - Neji isn't going to rummage through the crafts you've rejected, it feels like an invasion of privacy and a little weird. He's happy to wait until you've got one you're happy with to show to him.

Least:

#who is most likely to #omegaverse #a/b/o #hcs #headcanons #alpha!reader #naruto #reader insert

[artichow]

Hey! It’s CureDeity (sorry tumblr makes me ask from my main). I am here, in your inbox today, to rattle my little empty coin can and ask you to list some of your favorite beyblade fanfics! I’m going around asking a lot of people this, so feel free to ignore it if you want, but I thought this might be a good way for people to shout out some of the fanfic they really enjoy! Btw, if you can, I thought it would be helpful to list which site this fic was on so others could find it easier if they wanted to. Also, if you’ve written any fic (or have fic ideas, as we all know, imagining the same scene over and over again is the bread and butter of a writer), please also take this chance to have a massive, amazing ego and tell us which of your fics you're most proud of/is your favorite/etc.

oooohh yes yes yes!!!

i'll preface this by saying that i haven't/don't read as much fanfics as i want to and there are just so many amazing stories being made in this fandom honeslty!! also as a non native english speaker i'm always blown away by certain phrases or paragraphs that just scrtch my brain just right it's really inspiring to see what people can do with words in different ways and styles.

So first i thought about @little-christmas-song's secret santa gift to me so this is christmas (the war is over) because TFRGEHYSJ IT IS!!! so good!!! i loved reading it, the ideas and just the feeling of the setting being so well built around me while i read it!! the characterization was so good and that's really amazing because ryuga is a hassle to write right imo,, anyway really amazing style and i can't wait for other pieces from Song (i can confidently say the next one will be a banger :>)

then from @artisadie, her fic the previous wielder (is just a guy) was so emotional and like so nuanced too? like grhjesk i loved it the vibes were really good and the structure made it really pleasant to read

so many others i have to read (i'm sorry guysss) but one fic from @lady-lazagna that i felt was really on point character wise was Pumpkin head it is such a good Yu characterization me think and also Tsubasa's character is really interesting when laz writes him!! makes me appreciate him so much more

I really really loved @andro-dino's toby fic this body of mine, it's been a while and i forgot a lot of it unfortunately but i remember being just !!!!!! aaaaa so touched by that fic like,, it's so well written and just hits close to home in subtle ways and just makes you love Tioby even more if that's possible

But but but i also really loved constants because,, hyoma. And axel writes hyoma so well and i just love him so much

okay now for your fic deity!!! i have,, a lot but i tried to make it a little smaller selection, here it is: first i think aquario's refrain (and also aquario's reawakening) really marked me it's such a good read and expendation on hikaru's character and just,, so so good,, the way you write hikaru's mental health issues and fights is just amazing!!

then i looked through ao3 real quick just now and i thought back to mayblade, the last day actually!! chapter 18: moon this. this gingka, the way he is written and also just how you managed to write so many characters and keep the rythm going and just write an amazing conclusion in general aaaa i still love it immensely

and last but not least Gingka's also adopted?! because man... MAN!!! this fic kncked me down kicked me and brought me back to life and gave me just one of the best aus and ryo characterization ever i just love it it's so good i think it might be my favorite deity fanfic! everything, the different times it takes place in, the phoenix bit especially and just,, the feels so many feels

alright and also i want to take this opportunity to thank the people i've talked to and shared my silly headcanons, ocs and au ideas with, it really is a huge source of joy for me to connect with people through art, through this weird 13yo show we're invested in for one reason or the other. And even though i struggle with writing/can never finish any wip or plan any story for some reason i just love thinking about aus and my shoyo being part of this world too, thinking way too deeply about hyoma or ryuga's characters :') so thank you everyone who has let met talk about all of that with them i love you <3 and thank you for sharing your little aus, ideas, your ocs and everything in between with me too, it's really an immense pleasure to read and exchange about them every time!!

#alright i'm done :D #fanfic day!!! so cool it makes me feel really positive #very nice #mfb #thank you sm for the ask