#I FORGOT THE LITTLE WHITE HIGHLIGHTS *THAT* WAS WHAT I FORGOT id go in an change it but its already been reblogged and i dont think itd

[fullonfandomindulgence]

The Same People (3/4) - ID version

Following are five black and white comics pages of characters from Mob Psycho 100, each with an image description below it.

ID: Six panels.

First, Mob and Tsubomi in the park, a vending machine and a bench visible among the trees. Mob looks away, cowed, while Tsubomi leans her head over and looks at her fidgeting hand. Mob says, "Yeah. I'm... gonna go."

Closeup on Mob's eyes as he says, "Thank you for waiting for me, despite everything. You had faith in me, even through all that."

Then Tsubomi's face, neutral, looking down.

Then the same view of Mob's eyes but his hair is spikey and his irises are big and dewey. Little sparkles come off of him. He says "Thank you for everything. Just for being there, not for me, but for everyone, for yourself. We're not who we were but I'll always be greatful for you--" "Hold it."

Mob blinks away the sparkles while Tsubomi looks mildly annoyed, low eyebrows, wide, flat mouth. "I'm not leaving for like, two weeks, Mob. You're still gonna see me in the hallways and stuff. No final goodbyes. It'd get weird."

Finally they look goofily away and think, at the same time, "It already is."

End ID.

ID: Four panels.

First, a wide view of the park that Mob and Tsubomi are in. Mob looks away and back, holding the wrist that holds the flower, while Tsubomi hunches and looks sidelong at her fidgeting hand again.

Then a closeup of Tsubomi's fidgeting hand. Off-panel Mob says, "So I guess,"

"See you later." This panel is mirrored from the first page of this whole fancomic, Mob stepping over the same tree.

Tsubomi picks up her bag from under the bench and waves back, expressionless. Again this is a mirror of when she saw him while she was sitting at the bench in the very first panel.

End ID.

ID: Five panels.

First, a view of Tsubomi from above. She is slumped over, arms hanging and head hanging heavily so her hair obscures her face entirely.

Second, the trees around Tsubomi seem to lean forward as Tsubomi approaches a tall, wide tree. Her form is hunched and angular as she says, eyebrows low, eyes wide, mouth open, "God dammit."

Third, a caption box shows the words "TREE KICK: One of Tsubomi's special moves." Tsubomi turns into all angles, hair flying up behind her as she kicks the trunk as hard as she can, effects lines exploding off the blow. "GOD DAMMIT!"

Then Tsubomi tilts her head back and closes her eyes in defeat, slumped into curves. The trees lean away.

Finally Tsubomi reaches the exit of the park and responds "Oh what the hell now" to the rubble and destruction outside. I stole this background from the original mob psycho comic.

End ID.

ID: Six panels. Every character except Tsubomi is someone I made up for this scene.

First, a boy rushes nervously past a door to a classroom. On the wall a poster says, "Solving Quadratics." Someone off-panel asks "Tsubomi, did you end up talking to Mr. Yubata about openings at your cram school?"

Two girls gawk into the classroom as they walk by. The perspective is warped so the blackboard leans over Tsubomi and so the speaker Kaoru is looking up at her despite being the same height. Kaoru blabbers nervously, "Sorry, I know what you said about the waitlist, but my parents really really want me to go there. I need to get into a good high school. I know I'd be a good fit, and you're a great student, it'd be easy for you to convince him, right? Worst case I could take your spot once you leave, right?"

Three boys look into the classroom as they walk by. One of them, highlighted, looks very hostile.

The board, covered in illegible chalk markings, again menaces over Tsubomi, as does Kaoru. "I really don't know what I'm gonna do if this doesn't work out." Tsubomi pinches the bridge of her nose and says, "Yes, sorry, I forgot. It's, this whole mess, with the rejections…"

The perspective flattens so it's just a face-on view of Kaoru in front of the board. "JANUARY 27," "PROJECT 4 - CRAB," and "POSITIVITY" are visible on the board and an adjacent poster. Kaoru's expression is mild, but ambiguous as to her disbelief or scorn: "Oh. Is it… really that bad?"

Finally Tsubomi, smiling easily, tucks her hair behind her ear and says, "No, you're right, not really. I'll talk to Mr. Yubata for you. Have a good day, Kaoru!" Kaoru, off-panel, says, "O-oh! Um, thank you!" The doorframe and grid of posters on the wall behind Tsubomi, all scribbled, lean over her.

End ID.

ID: Six panels.

First, a little panel where Kaoru exits the room. Her comment "I really really owe you" is cut off by the doorframe.

Second, Tsubomi stands in the classroom. Two students are still sitting near the door but otherwise it's empty. The black, empty board behind her is enormous, and the image turns abstract and disappears on its right side.

Then Mob starts to walk by the door, not yet noticing that Tsubomi is in the room. But Tsubomi notices him.

She turns away so the reader can't see her face. The scene around her is abstract, just a black rectangle in perspective. She thinks, "He's gonna stare at me again…" Off-panel, though, Mob says, "Hi Tsubomi."

Then the panel borders are the doorframe. Mob has a hand up and is looking at her, but he isn't stopping. He wants nothing from her. He is just saying hi. Behind him through the window is the school courtyard, where a black vine has climbed gently over the brick wall on the opposite side. The perspective makes it look like it's coming off the top of Mob's head.

Then Tsubomi leans out the door to watch Mob walking away, frank and surprised. She gets out "…hi."

End ID.

[marblerose-rue]

click for better quality!!

muddyclaw/request

FOREVER AND EVER in love with james barry's art

[martyrbat]

Hi! Um, I thought I would offer you these panels from utrh of Dick with a knee brace, as per your last few posts about disabled representation in comics. Also indirectly answering that other anon who said that representation in comics isn't exciting and can't work with them being superheroes...

And I mean, you can totally write intriguing and interesting stories about a character coming to terms with their disability and figuring out that while it makes them different from who they were before, they're still a fucking hero. (Like Babs becoming Oracle after losing the use of her legs. Making her walk again and be Batgirl again... Idk how you can call that anything other than ableism?? She's seriously cool as Oracle, that def didn't need any retcons.)

Anyway, I think the problem is that many people associate being disabled with ableist prejudices of helplessness, without even being fully aware of it. Which is exactly why more rep in any type of media would help!

my friend! your post is as wonderful and insightful as always and thank you so much for the panels, i forgot which comic they were from! this it was exactly what i was referring to and imagining when talking about his knee brace, thank you again!! i love how its something that allows him to continue being a hero and that it just exists instead of being a big plot point. just casual and normalized use of mobility aids my beloved <33

and absolutely agree in it creating interesting stories of them adapting and handling the changes they need to make because of their disability and how it doesn't make them weaker! i think to this panel from the batman chronicles specifically:

[ID: Barbara Gordon smiling at white birds as she's in her wheelchair. Behind her un-detailed people are walking as they go about their lives. Her hair flows slightly in the wind and her internal narration boxes read, "A little over a year has passed since my old life ended, since I died and was reborn. The shadows remain, but only to give contrast to the light. I am no longer a distaff impersonation of someone else. I'm me - more me than I have ever been. My life is my own. I embrace it, and the light, with a deep, continuing joy." END ID]

the entire issue is so well done in her voicing her discomfort and fear and anger at her sudden disability and the change. because of course its frustrating to have that sudden change. of course she feels lost when she based her purpose on being batgirl, something that depended on her being physically abled. and seeing that voice and feelings being represented alongside of it highlighting and showing that she still has purpose and is just as powerful and capable of doing what she loves is so <3 she found her identity, not as an extension of anyone else but just as herself, as a disabled woman. and how happy she is!

i think abled people tend to be so uncomfortable with the idea of disabled people (especially physically disabled people) being happy or still being powerful. they hate the idea of disabled people not being weaker to them while also hating the anger and frustration that can come with being disabled. they hate seeing us successful and just as capable and hate seeing us as human rather than a "poor victim" to put up on a pedestal for inspiration porn that makes them feel better about themselves.

we're allowed to "motivation" to them as they simultaneously think its unnatural for us to be happy or successful on our own. we're either looked down at or held to standards that abled people arent - never to be equal. im allowed to be just as pissed off as someone that can walk and move around freely. i should be allowed to be as messy or rude as someone thats neurotypical without being viewed as a child to pity or as someone that should be better than them in my behaviour. i should be allowed to be smart and sexy and funny and complex as anyone else. my disabilities doesn't make me more or less of a person. it just makes me a person thats disabled.

disability is such a broad spectrum. from paralyzed, needing canes or wheelchairs or any mobility device, needing hearing aids or anything that's physically noticeable. to chronic pain and neurodevelopment disorders and other invisible disabilities. and everyone's experience is different with each one and its so vast. the opportunities it allows and how fascinating and empowering it'll be to see this range and how these characters handle it is unbelievable and such wasted potential. from dealing with the sudden frustrations and limitations to it just being part of them.

it can literally be one panel in a random comic that says nightwing needs a knee brace because of worn cartilage and have it be part of his character casually and consistently. have an ongoing arc and theme of random brain injury side effects because of the head trauma hes taken and have a moving moment in being reassured and how he struggles with it. have something.

theres so much they can do and just refuse not to. the only reason disabilities isnt represented is pure ableism, there is no excuse.

[faraway-in-headspace]

I?? I searched Chicken Choice Judy on google out of curiosity because it sounds oddly familiar like there’s a similar-sounding name and I found 4 websites selling the shirt design. But the descriptions on these pages are BUCK WILD??

Written version of the descriptions under the cut (very long).

[Begin ID

First image states:  Long ago, when I had hair, I was an undergrad living in a house with nine other men. Near as I can tell, three of them (not sure which three) never bought food, just lived off what they stole from the Chicken Choice Judy shirt But I will love this other seven. We had several house meetings about it, but nothing changed. One day, I came in from grocery shopping. By coincidence, all 10 of us were in the kitchen. I started putting my stuff away. 1st thing I pulled out of the bag was my half-gallon of milk. I opened the carton, took a couple of drinks from the carton, then gargled some of it, and spit it back in. I opened my tub of margarine and licked the whole surface. By now, the room chatter had stopped because the other nine jaws had dropped open.) To your original question, those specific topics would take several years to build, as they depend on several layers of pre-requisites, which would require either that more advanced topics such as algebraic topology to be taught in elementary school, or that the buildup process happened blazingly fast during high school – both of which probably stretch the biological limits of what pre-teens and teenagers can reasonably be expected to accomplish. I spit on all my veggies, took the bread out of the package, and licked and spit on it, then carefully put it all back in the plastic bag. Remind teenage daughters to look through them before going on date with the boyfriend, in case they want to use one. I labeled it all and put it away. None of it was stolen. I never said a word, but I made it a point to repeat the performance anytime anyone was around to see it. Others began to emulate my approach and food theft stopped. Even I found it revolting, but it solved the problem. Works even better if you are sick or can at least make your thieving roommates think you are. While some cities are starting to reopen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, people around the country are continuing to wear masks in public and practice social distancing. Vogue is committed to staying safe, and offering hopeful, optimistic content that highlights moments of camaraderie and exceptional acts of heroism from around the world. We are all looking for a little comfort too—be it a soothing Instagram account or a stylish creator on TikTok. It reminds us of the power of little things.

Second image states:  A couple of guests informed me my office was too minimalist and that they expected more things to be hanging on my wall the Chicken Choice Judy shirt besides I will buy this next time they visited my wife’s and my home. I kinda hope they held their breath while they were waiting for our next invitation. They both went on to backstab me and my wife pretty bad a few years later. Another set of guests tried to squat. I had driven them all the way from Florida to Massachusetts under the impression that they had jobs and a place to live lined up. They offered no money for gas, hotels on the three-day trip, or compensation for the inconvenience and effort. He even tried to weasel out of the dinner he offered as a thank you by forgetting his wallet. The dude got me off the streets years ago and I wanted to pay him back in some way, but my wife and I were in no position to have extra residents in our home. We just don’t have the room or money. I made all of this VERY clear and told my old buddy that we could only house them for a couple of days max. There are MANY other details, but the disrespectful thing my former friend said was wordless. As I was kicking them out and they were angrily loading stuff into my car to bring them anywhere but here, my buddy left his gigantic knife right in the center of my wife’s desk. Like that was supposed to make us change our minds and let them stay? In the days of dial-up, I had a family call and not be able to get through because we were online. They decided to show up unannounced. They literally caught me in my underwear as they were let into the apartment before I could even react to being rudely surprised. Some of my family members have a history of abuse, violence, and stalking, something at least one of the visitors, my mother, was quite aware of since she lived through it with me. Her tagalong friend decided to put in her two cents and tell me I should get a call waiting or a second line because they were trying to call me. That did it! I suddenly forgot I was just wearing underwear and angrily asked my mother’s friend if she was paying my phone bill. My mother-in-law, stepfather and mom’s friend beat a hasty retreat and NEVER did the pop-in ever again.

Third image states:  That was why when we did get to reality shows, Etro and then Dolce & Gabbana plus Jacquemus later in France, it was wonderful. Clothes are all about contact: As a wearer, you feel them on your skin, and as a watcher, you process them with your eye. The watching part can be done secondhand, but the Chicken Choice Judy shirt in contrast I will get this impact will always be second to the real thing. I read some commentators in the U.S. saying, “Too soon” or “Wear a damn mask!” which I always did, but these opinions while valid enough lack perspective. Milan and its surrounding region Lombardy went through what New York did but earlier. Through sagacious governmental management much more effective than that of the U.S., Italy has managed dramatically to flatten the curve across the rest of its territory. These shows just like the reopening of flights, stores, factories, and restaurants were symptomatic of recovery that, far from being taken for granted, is being tended to with vigilance and cherished with gratitude. The digital Fashion Weeks were better than no Fashion Weeks at all, but as an upgrade on the real thing? Nah. Like everyone, I missed the shows in the experiential sense this season. But for the first time since I began covering the collections several years ago, I didn’t miss a single brand or designer’s contribution to Paris Fashion Week. Which is to say, thanks to the Fédération’s online platform, I was able to watch every name on the haute couture and men’s calendars. This brand on-demand convenience not to mention being spared the logistical headaches of zigzagging across the city was pretty great. Also, everything was on time, from the films to the manner in which we filed our reviews. While efficiency can be satisfying, it’s not necessarily exciting. Ultimately, we had to accept that the focus this season wasn’t going to be the clothes but rather the brands conveying some combination of identity, process, and values. And in the absence of standardized criteria as in, showing a minimum number of looks, specifying a time range, it was interesting to observe how heterogeneous these experiments proved to be quasi–ad campaigns versus short films, conceptual or fantastical visions versus raw and documentary style. A proper kimono takes nearly an hour to put on – I’m sure most Japanese girls would much rather spend a few seconds and slip on a dress. Get survey responses from targeted consumers today.

Fourth image states:  Around a decade ago, not long after he started his own label, Massimo Alba made a great mistake. A batch of shirts and T-shirts he was working on that had already been garment-dyed one color were mistakenly exposed to another. Speaking at his showroom presentation this weekend, Alba said: “It’s very interesting to me that so many good things start out as mistakes like this.” That accident was to Alba what the Chicken Choice Judy shirt moreover I will buy this mold-infected petri dish was to Alexander Fleming: a stumbled-upon eureka that led to a career-defining course of the investigation. This collection featured a series of softly tailored jackets, corduroy pants, and shorts, plus light cashmere sweaters that were hand-overdyed two, and sometimes three colors. It’s a process that led to variations in tone that included acid-trip floods of purple on purple to subtle bleeding of magenta across mustard yellow. Like most of Alba’s garments, these dyed pieces appeared at first glance conventionally prosaic. The more attention you gave them, however, the more their exceptional qualities became evident. Take a pale blue jacket, for instance, which at that first glance seemed passingly related to a surgeon’s scrubs. To the hand it was light and almost textureless in its softness: The fabric was a cotton mousseline developed for Alba by Albini. Long-sleeved, in a delicately mottled finish of washed-out sky blue, it made for an ideal mid-summer shake in pink, sleeveless, it was an impactful shirting second skin. Other interesting developments this season included a cotton pant named the Myles with acutely kinking stitched gather at knee-level on both legs and another handsome pant, baggy in white poplin, with patch pockets. A blue tropical weight jacket named the Lenny, after Bernstein, was Alba’s interpretation of a bohemian creative’s ideal piece of workwear. Collarless shirts in ripstop linen and button-up short-sleeves in terry were further finely effective coups de théâtre. Alba is a self-deprecating yet dangerous designer: Try just one carefully chosen piece and that’s it, you’re spoiled for good because nobody else quite compares. The museum in Prague where this portrait is held describes the ring on her first finger as the ring given to her at her wedding. It’s not comfortable. Maybe a lot of girls think that a see-through blouse can attract the attention of boys or they think that it will make her look much smarter. Meghan has no dress sense: no knowledge of fabrics, fit, styles that flatter, proper tailoring, Her father raised her in L.A. Enough said. Her idea of dressing for an event is “dress up” like a little girl dressing up as a princess. Shiny! Tight! Celebrity “fashion” not elegant, just flashy.

/end ID]

[jaskiersvalley]

So because I also have been reading your stuff on ao3 (it's good and wonderful thank you) and on here (i couldnt believe they were both you) (like how dare you be such an amazing writer). Thank you so much I have all the emotions reading your fics. I cannot thank you enough. I dont have the words to. So here have a bunch of purple hearts! 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💛

Purple hearts!!! Of all the colours to pick, you’ve managed to choose my favourite

Time was a funny thing,Geralt mused. He wasn’t affected by it like humans so it held little meaning to him and he forgot how humans aged. Jaskier, on the other hand, was painfully aware of it and the longer Geralt spent time with him, the more he realised Jaskier was rather vain. The various creams and lotions in his bag grew and he spent more and more time each morning to get ready. Not that it made much of a difference in Geralt’s opinion. There were still wrinkles and bags under Jaskier’s eyes. Only once did Geralt make the mistake of pointing out grey hairs on Jaskier’s temple and he was greeted to a full blown, rather dramatic wail.

Still, nothing stopped the marching of time and Jaskier started to be more shy around Geralt. It had been so long since he’d last seen his bard naked. They had enjoyed many an evening together but perhaps age had affected that too. The doublets Jaskier had been so fond of looked a little tighter. So perhaps time wasn’t as kind to Jaskier as hoped and he was ashamed. Next to Geralt, no human really looked impressive but with age, a little more weight and maybe even a bit of sagging, Jaskier felt inadequate. Little did he seem to care that Geralt still loved him regardless of his looks. But his ageing lark seemed so self-conscious, Geralt was content to love him in any capacity he was allowed. Sometimes he wondered whether age had brought other, more embarrassing complications for Jaskier in the bedroom department too but it wasn’t a question he ever asked.

Over time, Jaskier had gone completely grey, had a little paunch but his voice was still just as strong and he kept up with Geralt on the roads. So even if Geralt wondered whether they should settle somewhere for Jaskier’s twilight years, he couldn’t find a reason to suggest it because outside of cosmetics, Jaskier didn’t seem any different. Except for if Geralt saw him before his morning ritual of what he called skincare, Jaskier screeched and ran, hiding himself. But that was just Jaskier’s brand of dramatics.

They were walking through the edges of Vengerberg when a disbelieving voice called “Jaskier?”

Geralt watched Jaskier freeze, face looking pained and obviously trying to think of a way to run away.

“I don’t believe it! Julian! What the hell have you done to yourself?”

“Valdo,” Jaskier ground out and turned. “Please don’t-” Whatever he had been about to say, it was silenced as Valdo Marx marched up to him and swiped a thumb over the swell of his cheek.

“What is all this? Why are you marching around like some old man?” Valdo licked his thumb and swiped again. It was like he was wiping age from Jaskier, where he touched, youthful skin peeked through. “And what’s this?”

Playfull, Valdo patted the small stomach and laughed brightly. “Pillows? Really my dear? What’s the meaning of all this?”

Jaskier’s gaze slid to Geralt and Valdo’s followed. A frown morphed into realisation before Valdo burst out laughing.

“It just got awkward to mention, okay?” Jaskier pouted as Valdo clutched his shoulder.

Now that Geralt looked, Valdo looked no different to how he had been all those decades ago when they met at a banquet once. Still as cocksure, ageless in a youthful way and dressed just as garishly. It seemed that time hadn’t just been kind to him, it had all but forgotten him.

“You’ve always been an idiot,” Valdo snickered and ruffled Jaskier’s hair, hand coming away a little white. He looked at it and laughed again, shaking his head. “This is priceless. I’ll be singing about it for a century, that’s for sure.”

Finally having enough, Geralt stepped closer, trying to figure out just what the hell was going on. Plus, Jaskier was looking and smelling more stressed and embarrassed by the minute. Id didn’t help that where Valdo had swiped a thumb over his face was dusted in a healthy pink.

“If we go to an inn with a bath, I can explain,” Jaskier mumbled, uncharacteristically quiet. It only made Valdo snicker.

“Well, nice to see age hasn’t brought you any wisdom. I’ll see you around, Jaskier.” With that, he flounced off, laughing to himself like an idiot.

Silence engulfed them and Jaskier looked rather miserable. Going to the inn was like taking him to the gallows. The bath was called and Jaskier waited for it to be filled, nervously fidgeting with the hem of his doublet.

“Just don’t be mad, okay?” he said and Geralt nodded, sat on the bed and confused. Slowly, Jaskier stripped. A few oddly shaped pillows were pulled from under his doublet, as he stripped, Geralt was struck by one thing. His body didn’t match his head. There were no wrinkles, no signs of ageing, his chest hair wasn’t silver like his head. In fact, his body looked no different to the last time he had seen it. After a moment’s hesitation, Jaskier stepped into the bathtub and dunked himself under with a deep breath, hands scrubbing at his face and hair. The water clouded white and when Jaskier resurfaced, his hair was back to its usual brown, face wrinkle free and youthful. On the bed, Geralt was perplexed.

“Surprise?” Jaskier gave an awkward jazz hands for effect.

“I don’t understand.” Geralt truly didn’t. One moment Jaskier was a grey haired, older man and one dunk in some water later, he was back to his ageless youthful looks. “Are you rejuvenated by having a bath?”

A bark of laughter erupted from Jaskier before he clamped hands over his mouth the stifle the slightly hysterical sound. “No. It’s easier if I show you.”

He climbed out of the bath, uncaring of his nudity and went to his bag, pulling out all the lotions and creams Geralt had watched him hoard like a dragon. There were powders, all shades of white.

“Watch,” the command was gentle and Jaskier began to apply the various things with a practised hand. Within minutes, Geralt’s old companion was back, minus the white hair. There were shadows highlighting wrinkles, his skin looked more weathered and aged. “I liked spending time with you. But you thought I was human.”

Walking back to the tub, Jaskier dunked his head under and washed all the make-up off with ease.

“You...,” Geralt was a little speechless.

“I made myself look like I’ve been ageing because I didn’t want to lose you. It got to a point in our relationship that I couldn’t turn around and say ‘by the way honey, I don’t get old’ because too much time had passed.”

“So, instead, you spent coin on things to make you look older. How did you think this was going to end?” Geralt frowned.

“I thought you’d get tired of me and leave me behind one day. Deem me too old to keep up with you. Thought maybe if we stopped having sex, you wouldn’t want me around but-” Jaskier broke off with a small, sad smile.

“But?”

“But you kept loving me. Kept me around, made plans to settle just for me. And I couldn’t figure out how to stop the charade. Valdo, as much as he is a blight upon this world, actually did me a favour even if he just wanted to mock me.”

There were so many things rolled up in such few words, Geralt was offended Jaskier had thought he could just leave his bard behind one day. Rather than deal with the big emotions, Geralt kept things simple.

“To get this clear, I thought you were a human, to keep up my belief in that, you made yourself look older through make-up and hair dye.” He watched Jaskier nod and look contrite. “We stopped having sex because you couldn’t disguise your body like you could your face.” More nodding. “Now that I know, does that mean we get to have sex again?”

[evabellasworld]

Storm of the Republic

Chapter 8

AO3 Link | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

——————————————————————————————

Summary:  When Tup murdered General Tiplar during a battle, Anakin Skywalker and Captain Rex dispatched Ahsoka, Fives, and Yara to solve the mystery that was plaguing the Clone Army. Meanwhile, Senator Padme Amidala contacted Commander Fox, Commander Tori, Riyo Chuchi, and Dipper to help her continue investigating the death of Palpatine, suspecting that Dooku was behind the evil plot. But when Dooku send an ISB agent to stop them, the team had to race against time to search for the truth, which could alter the course of the galaxy.

————————————————————————————

Clad in a strawberry pink dress, Tori tightened her brown combat boots as she tied her white ribbon above her curly locks. With permission from Riyo, she applied a darker pink blush to her cheeks and glossy lipsticks, highlighting her beauty.

Throughout her entire career as a clone commander, she never got to dress up nicely, and this mission allowed her to feel what it was like wearing civilian clothes. The strawberry dress originally belonged to Riyo, but thanks to her sewing skills, it fit perfectly well for her height.

She twirled in front of her mirror and played with her hair, smiling at her outfit. I am keeping this outfit after this mission.

“Mama, you look pretty,” Frieda praised her, sitting on the dresser. Tori could only smile as she grabbed a hair ribbon and tied her hair into a small ponytail.

“You’re a pretty girl too,” she complimented her, as she dusted off her matching dress. “Do you want a kiss on the cheeks?”

The little girl shook her head. “No, thank you, mama.”

“Alright then,” Tori respected her boundaries, as she put on a white shoe for her child. “Now come on, Uncle Fox, Uncle Dipper, and Aunt Riyo are waiting for us.”

“Yes, mama,” she said, as Tori walked out of Riyo’s quarters and headed towards another ship, where she found the others in the cockpit, with Commander Fox in the pilot’s seat, dressed in a tuxedo.

“Took you long enough,” he scolded her. “We’ve been waiting for you for almost 20 minutes.”

“Oh, yeah?” Tori rolled her eyes, holding her child in her lap. “Well, try dressing up for two. You know it’s difficult being a mother these days, especially when you’re fighting in the frontline.”

“That’s not an excuse. Every minute we waste, Senator Amidala is closer to danger. Now come on, we should leave right now.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Dipper said, his eyes glued to his datapad. “By the way, where’s Riyo? It’s been a while since we’ve waited for her.”

“I’m here,” Riyo walked into the cockpit, dressed in her salmon pink beret and blouse. “Sorry I’m late. I had to deal with my period.”

“No worries, dear,” Fox’s lips curled upwards, passing her a heating pad. “Period can be painful and exhausting for women. I hope you pack your menstrual cup though.”

Tori squinted her eyes at her brother with exasperation. A few minutes ago, she was chastised for being late. But when his partner was late, he showed his concern to her. What a sly fox.

“So, shall we get going?”

“Of course, senator,” the Marshal Commander winked, as the ship took off from the Raxus base, heading into space. Frieda felt her ears pop when she was above ground, but then cooed when she saw the enormous amounts of stars surrounding her.

Even though she had followed Tori into battles many times, the little girl never got bored with the colourful galaxy she saw with her eyes. Everything fascinated her, even when it was the same object. “Mama, stars,” she pointed with her fingers.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Tori responded positively, holding her hands. “How many stars can you count right now?”

As the child counted, Fox placed his hands on the gear and was about to jump into hyperspace, but observing Frieda’s curiosity made him delay his actions. He was once like her as well, except he counted raindrops instead of stars.

It was always raining on Kamino, so he never had the same privilege to enjoy the wonders in the sky. But it was fun though. Fox enjoyed watching the raindrops on the window racing against each other, wondering which one would win. Come on, Lenny, you can do it. You can win this race this time.

He wished he could experience something like that again, where everything was simple and less terrifying. “So, how many stars did you count, Frieda?”

“There are 150 stars in the galaxy,” she answered, much to his amazement.

“150 stars? That’s a lot of stars you counted, kiddo.”

“150 is a big number,” Riyo chimed in. “I only reached that amount when I was 8 years old. You’re such a clever girl.”

“What can I say?” Tori shrugged, proud of her daughter’s accomplishments. “Frieda is a smart kid.”

Pulling the gears, their ship jumped into hyperspace, prompting him to turn around and face his crew members. “Alright team, we’re on our way to Coruscant and I’m only going to explain this plan once, so pay close attention.”

Dipper bobbed his head as he put away his datapad, his gaze focused towards his superiors.

“So, when we arrive at Coruscant, we will stand by for inspection by the patrols, along with our chain codes. So make sure we all relax and act naturally, like what normal people do.”

“That’s not so hard for me,” Riyo stated. “I can act as natural as possible.”

“I know you can do it, Riyo, but I’m not sure about those two,” Fox gestured to Tori and Dipper on their outfits. “I mean, you both stick out like a sore thumb.”

“Choerry said that ripped jeans and neon green hair are a trend,” Dipper defended his style choice. “Plus, I look handsome as hell.”

“I like your hair,” Riyo praised him. “I thought you looked like a rockstar.”

“See, she agrees with me. You’re just jealous that you can’t pull off this style.”

Fox shook his head. “We’re going on a stealth mission to help Senator Amidala, and you both look like you’re going to a Moachella instead.”

“That’s the whole point, Foxy,” Tori raised her eyebrows. “We’re dressed like average citizens of Coruscant. But you look overdressed. I mean, who wears a tuxedo on a normal day?”

“First, it’s Fox,” he corrected her. “And second, every secret agent in movies wears a tuxedo, and it makes me look smart too.”

“But you’ll get caught easily,” Dipper gave him a reminder, which irritated him. “I mean, isn’t a tuxedo inconvenient, especially since you’re running and all?”

As much as Fox hates to admit, the ARC Trooper made a good point. But it was too late for him to change clothes, as he’s already in hyperspace. Besides, Riyo was the one who suggested that he wear a tux. She told him it highlights his good looks.

“Whatever, do you remember to bring our chain codes, Dipper?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, as he took out five chain codes from his backpack and passed it around to the others. “These are from General Brinks. She was the one who taught me how to make a fake one.”

“These chain codes looked genuine,” he praised his efforts. “The Empire will easily be fooled. Well done, vod.”

As Tori received two chain codes for her and Frieda, she read the names on the card. Rina and Lara Young, well, that’s a pleasant way to remember Lira and Eva Bella Young. They would have loved to go on a stealth mission as well.

“So what are these for again?” she scratched the side of her head.

Fox turned to her with a scorned look on his face. He couldn’t believe that Tori wasn’t listening. “In case you forgot, the Imperial used these as IDs. Not having one is illegal and could face two years in prison.”

“That’s harsh,” Riyo gasped at what she heard. “But it’s also an efficient way to keep track of their citizens.”

“And outlaws too,” Dipper growled, remembering the plot to one of his favourite novels, where Big Brother was watching everyone’s moves, even if they’re innocent.

“Anyway, so what happens once the Imperials allow us to enter the planet?” Tori asked another question.

“Once we got in, we parked our ship at Level 1312,” Fox continued, explaining his plans. “From there, we’ll have to take a taxi to Senator Amidala’s place.”

“Wait, why can’t we land near her penthouse?” Riyo wondered, seeing that was rather difficult.

“That will make us more suspicious, and that’s the last thing we want.”

“Okay, so what do we do once we make it to the senator?” Dipper raised his hands.

“We’ll help her with the investigation of the Chancellor’s death, and then we get her out of here,” Fox finished his briefing. “Now, do we have questions about this mission?”

Tori, Dipper, and Riyo exchanged a glance of confidence within themselves, determined that their mission will be successful. Things will go just as planned, the Pantoran was sure of herself.

“No questions, Uncle,” Frieda spoke, shaking her head. Her response brightened the cockpit as Fox chuckled and ruffled her hair, when the panels were beeping rapidly, signalling to them they had arrived at Coruscant.

[macklives]

homestuck recap

i hated this so fucking much bc my 2 am bitch-ass didnt want to read a recap thats probably longer than any slowburn out there

anyways here it is

also, uhhH sorry im using this as a end of session discussion bc that shit gets explained in her as well. and im not writing up more recaps of a recap so this is where im done for the day. (by done for the day i mean last nights session, im still doing a liveblog soon. i just wrote this yesterday)

also that this is long

you dont have to read it, theres nothing of importance

ive been coping with humor to get me through it

neato.

have fun with what i suffered through:

why was “beta” the only thing unhighlighted?

like did i miss a page???

OH its the beta version of HS thats why

damn its like 5 pages and thats it

mmh

well youll all be happy to know im clicking every single one of these links again bc i like looking back like ahh i remember that. good times. also in case i forgot some shit existed.

do you think andrew had fun writing this? or was he like “fuck”

thats a lot of fucking package talk. good thing im not confused as of now and remember it pretty clearly. of else, this early on in the recap, id be screwed.

god remember when i did an analysis on each item and what it did

i feel as if i have the technology engrained inside my head right now

cruxite, alchemeter, all that jazz

flashbacks are starting up already

yeah, that was the good part in homestuck where i knew 100% that i probably would continue on this liveblog in its entirety, ngl

that one explosion scene. bc it kept me going.

OH W A IT SHIT

i just realized how the intermission spades probably fucking foreshadowed the whole jack revolts thing and gains the ring, which was also technically JOHNS fault considering he slashed up the doll in the first place

my god, i guess thats the only good aspect of the recap. looking back at things and realizing the missing pieces.

oh that makes sense for the whole “this prototyping had no effect on the enemies, since he was already in the medium” i didnt actually think about that

little did rose know where that would get her right now

oh yeah

there’s still the whole entire lab terminal thing and how mom basically knows the place exists. i guess we’re still venturing onto that and itll come up later when we find out how mom knows SO MUCH about the game.

still think shes some weird spy or secret agent

i kinda love her ngl

anyways, theres literally no reason for skaia to produce a cloning machine. so technically, they only sent the meteors in, right? so who put the cloning machine in if not mom?

oh yeah that impact was nerve wrecking asf

and still at this point in the comic i called dave fuckboy red

huh, how times change

i hated reading that whole paragraph ngl, the frustration just kicked me in the boobs again

yeah nobody else got tornadoes, huh?

OH that makes also much more sense

bc she did prototyped them before she entered the medium.

i gotcha

man one of my favorite edits i made, rose hitting that meteor with a bat

are you

telling me

the exiles structures they arrived on were in the form of the items the kids used to enter the medium?

THE EGG

THAT EXPLAINS “EGG”

of course it was 413 years ago. that was never explained. simply vague “many years in the future....” but i expected no less from this

man serenity is the most wholesome character in hs no doubt

damn thought andy here was really gonna spoil us jade’s planet

okay cool, im glad i now have the layout to the whole “their stations went to the coordinates of the home button” shindig

man i honestly dont know what else to say besides “yeah cool recap” when i already pretty much know what went down? ofc im looking into each link and shit and adding in things when i see fit, but otherwise its just me going “ah good times” yknow

the whole meteor thing kinda makes sense now?

we’re still missing a few pieces of info but we’re getting there, folks

oh yeah that reveal

god jade and dave have it in the shits for parents huh

bro isnt the best and jade has a fucking dog

who lowkey

is doing better than bro

who knew a fucking dog is a better guardian than bro lmfao

dreambot = terminator. im telling you.

sorry im still on that idea and it will never leave unless i have the actual proof in front of me that its not going to become a thing. meaning, ive finished hs and theres still no terminator dreambot or either andrew himself gives me a canon letter with “the robot is not arnold, mackenzie, pls just let it be”

why is the entire game session highlighted

i swear to god if this is like to a second recap or smth of the whole game session i may fucking CRY

okay thank god its just a design of the skaia layout

which is honestly cool

idk why its blurry tho but i can at least see the layout now. which is honestly how i pictured it anyways.

yeah, john did make a huge impact in his friends’ life and i find that so fucking touching

yep. got that. everything loops around. cool.

especially when the trolls come in. god we havent even gotten to that recap portion yet, we havent even gotten to the INTERMISSION

pls can this be the halfway point to the recap

AT LEAST

so they were exiled after the whole jack: ascend thing, right? considering theyre way in the future. man no fucking wonder.

speaking of jack

man that whole dad and jack interaction was gold, ngl

OH THAT EXPLAINS THE RING THEN

and wow, andrew’s really giving us the best female content huh. andrew is the true god of equality and diversity.

also hey, i didnt realize that wow. so PM tricked the queen in showing the parking ticket to be able to take the present from jack. she’s a smart cookie, that one..

she and PM basically snitched on jack and it was the best thing that has happened to me so far

oh yeah okay

but why did AR panic over bec? bc thats something we havent learned yet, right?

anyways

exile town, the only town which should exist. facts. i dont make the rules.

noice

i love PM being queen. like.. thats canon now. shes an actual queen.

yeah that was a fun game and the consorts were cute

fuck yeah the dick head

hate them even more now that i know john was killed because of them

anyways, i wonder what dick move dave’s denizen did? maybe thats why its filled with lava bc the denizen was like “fuck it. make the land red. kill them all”

UH WHAT

WHAT

OH MY GOD HOW DID I JUST FORGET NANNAS LETTER LIKE THAT LMFAO

THEIR TITLES WERE THERE THE WHOLE TIME!

so i still dont know what they mean but i can gather it has something to do with the game giving them abilities. considering dave is the “knight of time” and he can go back in time. whack.

which means john can either control someones breathing or simply wind. and rose is... like that one girl in the winx club who does the sun shit. bc whenever i think of light powers, i think of stella.

and jade is space. witch of space.

nice

i have no idea what that means ngl

okay finally

we’re at the trolls

maybe this recap will end soon

i remember when i thought they were internet bullies

yesss

someone asked if i basically knew the trolls were on a different veil than the kids, so not presently with them, and i know lol. i was making a joke before btw. jsyk. dont think im incompetent to forget these things when sometimes i choose to forget it so i can add in a joke

it be like that, i annoy many

then again, pls dont assume im trying to say im not incompetent bc im also a fucking dumbass and DO forget shit and i have no excuse

imagine being so bored on the meteor, your last resort is speaking to aliens

ngl me if i was ever trapped on a meteor and could potentially do that

nah ik its bc its their only hope at helping with their session or whatever tf CG said to john. but there was BOUND to be a conference meeting between them like “okay guys. humans. that needs to be sorted out” and you just hear CG screaming in the background

i cant wait to meet them honestly bc im growing on all 4 of the ones we’ve seen already. and on top of that, i know what they look like and i know theyre not THAT bad, just a little on the crayy zee side sometimes

but theyre trying

OH MY GOD

I GET IT

FUCK

DOES THAT MEAN THE INTERMISSION IS *APART* OF THE MAIN FUCKING STORY??

AND SPADES IS WV FOR THE TROLLS

GOD D A M N

wow

i didnt expect that. but maybe the signs were there and i was just willingly choosing to ignore it or smth bc “haha couldnt be, right”

flashbacks to how i thought the trolls were humans

anyways, i guess he got his revenge on the kids version of “snowman” ie the black queen. but really

he did not have to do that. he could have cut off the finger and fled. but he decided “nah, lets implode her” so the loml is dead and all i got was a catchy song

i knew they were different types of “bullies” but now i just have to replace bullies with uhh

trolling strategies

anyways, this is cute. i love how they’ve come to be friends through mutual frustration. good part in the comic.

i wonder why it explodes

more importantly

....

terminator time?

this was my favourite sequences of dialogues in the whole entirety of homestuck. that is to say the back and forth thing that the kids went through to become a sort of wingman for the other.

absolutely gold.

all except AT’s rap.

GC was the only smart one with the linear shit

anyways fuck he still has to kill the denizen now but apparently its hard to beat for a sleeping dick head so

that will be fun for the future

john will probably need to kill A LOT of imps to get there

yeah rose is a badass bc she slayed that thing with needles of all things

OH and the white queen was the cursive

damn did AR ever do the whole guide process to a kid yet? maybe he will with dave, idk

oHHH

i fucking SEE

thats why he said DNA

to use it and replace all the life forms in the ocean

fucking neat wow

man that sounded sarcastic but im genuinely impressed bc all i got was bullshit as i read jaspersprites log

so thats the secret. it was “meow” bc that somehow translates to the genetic code she needs then. and that code apparently took fucking years to write as well. sick. whack. oh man.

derse is very pretty, ngl

and wow shit

“dave had already been awake in his tower all along without realizing it” how tf does someone just

do that, awake in both places at once

i didnt even fucking realize that fact as i read that pesterlog wow

ah yes, around the time things got confusing

okay so the capsule makes sense bc at first i didnt know it was a fucking time capsule so i got confused as to how it just apparated the game lmfao

the more you know i guess *twinkle*

i find that a neat concept tho

like the whole whatever you prototype affects the imps and shit

yeah so that whole “he had no advice” basically impacted his future

no shit dave wanted to reset things bc he probably thought he caused some sort of bad butterfly effect and killed his best friend

fuck calsprite thats all im gonna say

i read that first sentence and i think i got an aneurysm

and then everything else just made me sad again

i mean good thing he fucking did amirite?

we got pain at first but now we got cool shit like idk

fucking DAVESPRITE

damn idk how that works

will rose have like two minds now? or will this be some steven universe fusion shit?

“and understood their meaning” course well i fucking didnt so could you pls elaborate, rose?

okay but then what the fuck did he use that was inside the fucking box

bc i thought he used his knife?

im only every going to refer him as that now, thank you andrew

alright okay..

god that was a lot

i dont know what will happen once i click on those links but i am going to see that for myself bc i refuse to add ANYTHING ELSE

[grandmasterreigen]

For the prompts, how about 72, "You deserve so much better.”? And congrats again on passing the exam!!!

@creativeoutlook​​

THANK YOU SO MUCH GUYS <3 I ended up combining these two prompts because they worked super well together and ended up with a 1.5k monster drabble. I hope you enjoy it!! 

For the dialogue prompts “You deserve so much better” and “I got you a present.” 

--

When Teru wakes up early in the morning on April 13th, the apartment is silent and dark.

Like it always is.

He should be used to it. It shouldn’t bother him anymore. Most days he can pretend it doesn’t, that everything’s fine, that he’s fine, and most days he can even convince himself that it’s true.

But today’s his birthday, and the loneliness of facing another day alone weighs him down into his mattress with leaden limbs and a growing pressure behind his eyelids.

It’s mornings like this that he lets himself dwell, just for a few minutes, on what he used to have. To waking up on his birthday to smiling faces and whispered congratulations, to an extra special breakfast and the promise of yakiniku after school, to a day of happiness instead of isolation.

He almost skips school. He knows no one will even remember it’s his birthday anyway, and why should they? He’s fifteen now, way too old to care so much about something so stupid.  It shouldn’t bother him. He’s Hanazawa Teruki. He’s a straight-A student with awesome fashion sense and enough maturity to hold a part-time job on the side. How many of his peers could claim the same? Almost none of them, that’s who.

He forces himself out of bed and doesn’t bother making breakfast at all. He’ll pick up a sweet bun of some sort at a convenience store instead, maybe a coffee with extra cream. Some cake on the way home. He’d normally make it himself, but, well.

He doesn’t really have the energy to bother today.

 --

 The apartment is as cold and empty as Teru’d left it, and for once he doesn’t care enough to put away his schoolbag. He leaves it on the ground, his uniform in a heap next to it instead of carefully hung in the closet, and sets the slice of cake he’d picked up at a bakery on the table.

He checks his phone for what has to be the hundredth time so far. Nothing. Of course. He shouldn’t feel so hurt by this – what did he expect, really? It’s not like his parents had remembered the year before, either.

Sorry we forgot! Happy belated birthday!

Not even a phone call. Just a six-word text two days late.

Teru almost turns off his phone entirely. He’s just riling himself up with all this pointless anticipation. Instead he compromises, setting it on the table within easy reaching distance while he queues up an old home video on his laptop.

The cake is stunning. White cream with meticulously crafted yellow and pink flowers, perfectly baked and spongy. It tastes like ash.

When his ringtone suddenly breaks the silence, Teru knocks what’s left of the cake to the ground in his haste to grab the phone. He fumbles, almost swipes in the wrong direction and breathlessly says, “Hello?” without even checking the caller ID.

“Oh, hey, Teru! It’s Reigen,” the caller says cheerily, and for the first time in his life Teru can’t stand the sound of his voice. Why him? Why did it have to be him? He knows he’s being unreasonable, unfair. He really looks up to Reigen, and normally getting calls from him is the highlight of his day.

But Reigen’s not the one Teru was hoping would be on the other end of the line.

“…able to help me out with an exorcism job today? Shouldn’t take long, but Mob was busy and couldn’t make it… Hello? Teru? Are you there?”

“I’ll be over in fifteen minutes,” Teru says, and he hangs up before Reigen can respond. It’s a little petty, but whatever. It’s his birthday, he can be petty for once if he wants to be.

 --

 The office is dark when Teru walks up, and he regrets hanging up on Reigen now. He was probably supposed to meet Reigen at another location, and now he’s letting him down. All that pettiness Teru was holding onto washes away with a wave of regret. What if Reigen doesn’t call him again after this because he thinks Teru’s unreliable? Teru was acting like a kid. He’s fifteen, he should be able to control himself better. He’s still reprimanding himself as he tests the office door.

It’s unlocked.

Reigen never leaves the office unlocked when he’s out, but the lights were off. The world narrows down around him, and he pushes open the door, dread and apprehension lodging in his throat as he peers into the office ready to employ defensive measures at any moment –

“Surprise!” an assortment of voices yell, and power is already sparking at Teru’s fingertips by the time what he’s seeing registers.

Shigeo and Ritsu are standing behind Reigen’s desk where they’d been hiding. They’re both smiling with so much enthusiasm, Shigeo’s lack of reservation so refreshing and bright. Shou is lounging on the couch, grinning widely and holding what looks like an explosion of wrapping paper. Tome lets loose a party popper, sending a spray of rainbow confetti.

“Happy birthday!” she yells with a dramatic spin, snapping something off the couch and dumping it onto Teru’s head. He reaches up in a daze, touching the smooth plastic of a party hat.

Reigen and Serizawa are here too. They’re standing off to the side, both smiling at him with matching proud expressions.

“Happy birthday, Teru,” Reigen says. He holds up a box impeccably wrapped in bright paper. “I got you a present.” Teru can see tiny white scuff marks on the paper where the tape had been removed more than once, indicating a less-than-perfect start to the wrapping process. It’s just a little bit wrinkled where the paper has been refolded.

It must have taken ages to get right.

“We all did!” Shou chips in, launching himself over the back of the couch with a much more… creatively wrapped box. Teru just stares dumbly at it until Shou practically forces it into his hands. “Come on, dude, take it. It’s for you. You’d better like it.”

Outwardly, Teru recovers quickly, even as he reels internally. “You guys didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” he says, and he means it. The more he looks around, the more he realizes just how much work went into all of this. The entire office is done up with streamers, a lopsided banner hanging over the window that declares Happy Birthday Teru in painstakingly handwritten letters. There’s a homemade cake on the coffee table, unevenly cut strawberries set in a mostly-circular pattern in the frosting. It’s listing slightly to one side. It looks like the best cake Teru’s ever seen.

This was all for him. They spent all this time for him.

Teru’s phone is a deadweight in his pocket. He’s spent all day with his hand hovering near it, just in case one of his parents actually bothered to call. He’s been waiting for so long for any sign of love from them without anything, not even a text.

He slips a hand into his pocket and holds in the power button to shut it down.

 --

 It’s dark outside by the time everyone goes home. Shigeo and Ritsu are the first to go, followed closely by Shou and Tome when Reigen not-so-subtly reminds her of the curfew her parents set. Serizawa’d left to get a pack of trash bags, Reigen’s meager stock having been almost immediately depleted.  

“Did you have a good time?” Reigen asks as he wipes a glob of frosting off the table. Teru waves a finger and confetti flies up from the ground, spiraling neatly into the trashcan. His spare hand absently fingers the soft material of the bright green sweatshirt Reigen had gotten him. It has a big decal of a dog across the front, and if Teru’s being honest it’s not quite his style.

It’s too warm out to be wearing it, but he doesn’t really care. He doesn’t ever want to take it off.

“Yeah,” Teru says. It’s quiet now that almost everyone’s gone, and he chews the inside of his mouth nervously. “You really didn’t need to do all of this. I didn’t mean to put you all out like this.”

Reigen stares at him, almost incredulously. It melts away almost immediately into one of understanding, and he offers an only partially convincing smile. “You were alone, though, right?”

Teru freezes, and he searches Reigen’s expression for any sign of pity. He can feel the defensiveness already rising up, emotions still raw from the earlier hours of the day. “I’m used to it. It doesn’t bother me,” he says.

Reigen isn’t smiling, but he’s not pitying, either. He reaches over and pulls Teru into a loose hug, giving Teru plenty of time to back away first. Teru doesn’t resist.

“You deserve so much better,” Reigen murmurs into Teru’s hair. He tightens his hold, and after a few seconds Teru reaches up and hugs him back, fingers curling into the fabric of Reigen’s shirt.

Teru knows he’ll never stop wishing it was his parents here with him, telling him that he mattered. But he’s got Reigen, and Shigeo, and all the others, and for now that’s enough.

[venus-says]

Futari wa Precure Episodes 01-26

Am I rewatching precure? I can't believe this!

Yes, this is not a fever dream, I'm really rewatching precure, and not just Futari wa but THE WHOLE FRANCHISE. Am I crazy? Yes, because I'm already watching too much stuff at the same time and I barely have time for that as of right now, but I love screwing myself over so here we are!

I can't really remember the exact thing that sprung this desire of rewatching precure on me, but I've been thinking about it for quite some time now, at least since I wrapped up on the Aikatsu marathon before On Parade started, in fact, one of the reasons I started doing the old Kamen Rider reviews was because of this. I just didn't start it earlier because I'm the kind of crazy that picked a calendar, looked at the dates, and made the calcs, and realized I could watch pretty much everything in one year so I decided to keep this "project" for 2020 and start the new decade with a bang.

So this is how it'll go: I'll be dividing each season into quarters and pretty much covering one season per month with posts coming out weekly every Wednesday, the only exceptions for this rule are Futari wa and Yes! since these are the only seasons with sequels so instead of dividing into quarters I'll divide them in half and watch two seasons in a month rather than just one. Also, different from Kamen Rider's case, since I'm more familiar with the franchise and I know how the movies go I'll also be watching the movies and posting about them as I go along (All stars movies will come out usually in between the first and the second week, while solo movies will be in between the third and the forth). I really hope I don't go nuts and that this can go as smoothly as possible. XD In any case, it's precure time!

I promised myself I'd keep nostalgia out of these rewatches and do them like if it was my first time watching the series so that I can be less biased on certain aspects, but when it comes to the OGs is really difficult to not have my thoughts clouded by it. I may not have been around since Precure first aired, but Futari wa was effectively my first precure season too, I joined this bandwagon when Heartcatch was airing and I was so in love that I wanted to watch the past seasons and Futari was was my first choice and it holds a very special place in my heart because of that. I tried my best to keep those feelings out of this review and in some cases I was able to it effectively while on others not so much so, I apologize for that. XD

I usually try to separate these reviews on blocks of Plot, Characters, Designs, and commentary on specific episodes and I'm gonna try to apply this structure here more or less.

Talking about the plot... there's not a lot of it. XD

Like yeah, there's the whole Dark Kingdom attacking the Garden of Light thing, and the sort of scavenger hunt for the Prism Stones (not the Pretty Rhythm ones, just to be clear) and all of that, but there's not a whole lot going on beside it, is just Nagisa and Honoka goofing around while their friendship solidifies, they sometimes bump heads but that's pretty much it. And honestly, that's not bad, as while isn't a story about Nagisa and Fujipi the more slice-of-life portions are amazing.

The cure portion that is the problem, to start the action in these 26 episodes isn't the greatest, most of the time is just the cures being thrown away until they get fed up, say "I'll never forgive you!", hold hands, and they throw either a Marble Screw or, in rare occasions, a Rainbow Therapy. Of course, special fights with generals sometimes get a little more flare, but in general, they're pretty lackluster. Also, it feels like things weren't paced properly with the beginning and the end happening very fast and the middle being overly long in comparison. And of course, there's the element of defeating a villain or a set villains while there's still half a season ahead which means change of villains for people who we never knew existed before and apparently were a big deal, and if you read my Kamen Rider review you know how I feel about huge changes affecting the antagonists...

But oh well, I have lots of things to get through so I won't hammer on this for too long. MOVING ON.

Futari wa's biggest strength, at least for this first half, is CHARACTERS. The side cast has many hits or misses, but the protagonists Nagisa and Honoka more than compensate for it. One fun thing of this whole experience was kinda re-discovering them? Because I never watched the OG precure and Max Heart again after my first time watching like 10 years ago and I also don't have the best memory so I forgot a lot of minor things, like how Nagisa is such a downer in regards to their mission, and how positive and bright Honoka is and these are traits that are kinda opposites to their personalities with Nagisa being more outgoing and energetic and Honoka being more calm and polite, and this is so perfect and so much fun, I love it to that. Speaking of surprises I forgot how much of a savage Honoka was, like, the girl put a group of thieves on the line by just yelling at them. THAT'S THE DEFINITION OF POWER.

Unfortunately, they don't come alone. Their fairy partners, Mepple and Mipple, are... annoying. Mipple not so much, she has moments where I go "Really queen?" but for the most part she doesn't bother me, in fact, I'm sympathetic towards her who has to be partnered romantically with such a piece of crap of a male that Mepple is. I don't know why but I completely forgot the jerk that Mepple actually is and let me tell you, it wasn't fun seeing him being misogynist, selfish, and just plain rude, not just to Nagisa regularly but also with Mepple, it's actually very sad. I don't remember if he gets any better in the future, but for now, I'm hating him.

The side characters aren't very special, the girls in the Lacrosse Team and the Science Club are more or less just extensions and supporters or Nagisa and Honoka but I overall like them. The major highlights in terms of side characters are Akane and Fujipi. Akane is a huge positive because she has great energy, she's very fun, and he not only provides a meeting point for the girls but also has a mentor role, though its a very little one, that is great to see. Fujimura on the other hand... I admit, the dude is okay, he never really did anything relevant so there's nothing to hate on him per se, but he's a love interest and his situation with Nagisa never develops on any sort of way is just a very flat experience which makes his relevance even smaller so I can't help but think "what is he still doing here, just disappear with him already" every time he's up on the screen.

There's no other way to put this, the villains are plane as hell. Some of them have good designs but overall, they're very band. Pissard seems like it could've been a cool dude but we spent only 5 episodes with him, that's not enough time with him to make him interesting. Gekidrago is the boring and stereotypical "dumb villain", I think I don't need to write anything else after that. Irukubo is the stoic powerful villain, but much like in Pissard's case, we barely see him in action so it's not enough to make me care for him, and the Dark King is just a horrible CGI blob of darkness. The best villains of this first half are the siblings Poisony and Kiriya, Poisony is actually the best one of the generals seeing that she's a strategist and most of her plans were all pretty good so she was always able to get the cures corned in some way, she may have flunked her cover in that episode where she disguises as Honoka for not doing her research well before assuming the role, but overall she's amazing. Kiriya is the villain that never attacked the cures directly, as far as I remember he never summoned a Zakkenna, and putting it like this may sound like a bad thing, but trust me, it's not. He's the first precure villain to get a "redemption" and as rushed as it was his presence in the story and his arc as a character was also pretty well done so he deserves to share the podium with his sister as best villains.

Since we're talking about villains let's talk about the cures now. Black and White have a very simple design and that's not a bad thing, they're simple but they're still pretty different from each other and it's not a difference that screams to the eyes like id there was something wrong, they complement each other perfectly which only helps in making them this iconic duo that they are. The transformation items, as well as the Prism Hopeish and that notepad thingy, are very 2000's but they have their charm. I think the thing that didn't age very well were the effects for the transformations and the attacks, don't get me wrong I love their original transformation, there's a frame on it that is just marvelous, but watching with 2020's eyes there are parts that feel very wonky. Following the theme, the attacks have a very simple animation but in this case, it works because they can make some very interesting stuff with it, like launching a Marble Screw through Poisony's Umbra Witch hair.

Going into more detail on the episodes, these 26 ones feel like a normal seasonal anime, despite the pacing problems if these 26 episodes were a single season it would've worked well because there was no loose end lost in the mix, maybe the Fujipi stuff would be the only thing that would end with no proper closure, but then again that's not important so it would be a satisfying end. There were four major arcs inside this mini-season so I'll comment on them separately.

The first and shortest arc is the introductory arc that goes from Episodes 1 to 5. And there's not a lot to say here, they introduce the characters, the mission, and the character relations on a good way, there was nothing stellar but it's a good introduction to the series, the only let down is the fighting portion that is very lackluster, in special the final fight against Pissard that was supposed to be a big important moment but that in the end was just very not impressive at all.

The second arc goes from Episode 6 to 11. This is probably the most boring arc of all despite some interesting happening here, we have the introduction to the Prism Stones and the Prism Hopeish, they first use the Rainbow Therapy here, and we also have the famous arc where Nagisa and Honoka fight for the first time and tighten their bonds. These are all interesting points but the set-up for these things to happen weren't the best, like for example Nagisa and Honoka's fight, I always remembered this as a very important moment, AND IT IS, the lesson learned at the end is pretty good and it results on them calling each other for their first name which is a key moment, but all of that happened because of Nagisa's feelings for Fujipi and all that misunderstanding and ughhh that's such a boring reason to make them fight, it was really a letdown. I think after everything the thing that stroke me the most was Honoka's birthday episode and how badass she was for putting some sense into the head of three adult men, which was really magnificent. Also, the first proper fight happened in this arc in the final battle against Gekidrago, it was short but it was good nonetheless.

The biggest arc is the third one that goes from Episodes 12 to 21. This is my favorite arc and a big part of it is because Poisony and Kiriya start to get active here. I don't know how to explain but their addition to the cast made things more dynamic and interesting to watch. Poisony's plans always led to interesting situations like when she hypnotized their classmates that were playing dress-up as the cures, or when she trapped them inside that mirror dimension, or even her last moments in the show where she used that old trick of impersonating someone and making the protagonist having to choose who's the real and who's the fake one, you know even if the precure portions weren't the best, they were put in the most interesting situations in this arc. Together with that, we have Kiriya that goes through a very interesting arc, until now I don't really know why he infiltrated in the school since, as I mentioned, he never acted directly as a villain against the precure (not as far as I can remember) but his interactions with the crew and especially his relationship with Honoka was quite interesting to see it develop. My high points from this arc were episode 18, the one where a girl confesses her feelings for Kiriya - there's a lot of interesting stuff happening here, and episode 20, Poisony's defeat and one of the best fights of this portion of the season. My low point would be episode 19 more because Mepple is being a jerk here than anything else, but I didn't enjoy this episode as much as I did to the other in this arc.

The final arc of this portion is another small one, it covers episodes 22 to 26, and this one is very odd. We start with a filler centered around Honoka's dog of all things that are followed by two two-parters that wrap-up this first half. I'm gonna be honest I don't like this arc, one because it introduces Pollun and two because the "final" fight is very unimpressive, yeah Shining Star debuts here and is a big moment but overall isn't the best, which is understandable after all are two girls launching a beam at a giant dark blob of CGI and there's not a whole lot there, but its fun to see a preview of what will become the Extreme Luminario in the next season. I also don't like how they didn't let the episode finish on a downer note with both of the girls missing their partners and such. But oh well, at least we had Episodes 23 and 24 here there were very interesting, they had this mystery/horror film vibe to it and I loved it.

And that's pretty much all I had to say! Thank you for reading all of this mess, I really appreciate it, I'm very excited to be doing this and I hope I can count with your support through this year. What are your thoughts on Futari wa? Let me know in the comments. I'll see you, folks, on a next time, and don't forget, if you ever see a shooting star be careful with what you wish for, a cellphone thing may fall from the sky right on your head and unless if you're an anime girl you will be in risk of having a concussion. XD In any case, see you around. o/

[drbriangay]

Hey, so a little bit ago someone asked me if i would do a tutorial type thing on how to achieve realistic drawings and although this would probably fair better as a video my voice is shit and i can make sure i get everything down if i type it out.

I think the best way to do this is take you through one of my drawings? My latest Brian drawing i saved a decent amount throughout it so i can kind of comment on each process of the drawing. For the this drawing i drew it on Photoshop CS5 which is important bc i do utilise a lot of the tools there so if you use smth different then im sorry but im sure there are alternatives! I’m going to talk you through this drawing:

Because i dont use natural skin colours in my drawings i start drawings in black and white because i find that easier to control the tones? and then i can colour the drawing afterwards in whatever colour and play about with it instead of sticking with a colour from the get go. 

I start with painting the entire background a light ish grey because 1) its nice to work highlights and shade into a mid tone and 2) having pure white as a background can be a bit uninspiring? even with my sketchbooks i always make backgrounds before i do anything on them.

I then take a large brush, i use a mid-dark toned grey for this, i don’t like going in super dark super fast, and kind of mark out where everything goes super loosely, precision and proportions really don’t matter at this point, it will probably look bad but that’s fine! you’ll refine it as you go on!  the brush i use for this stage is usually just a soft non textured brush, but i don’t think the brush you use at this point really matters. My drawing will kind of look like this at this point:

I then go in with a smaller brush with a darker colour and kind of refine the face a little bit, i really take in the shapes of the face i’m drawing and try and get a good base to then really work on the shading/highlighting. Again, although this is your base to work on the proportions aren’t super important, it may still look bad but whatever is wrong with it you can just draw right over it to correct it! This is why i try and not give up on drawings even if they aren’t going the way i’d like it to because you can always correct it! my drawings never look amazing when i start them but i like to work into them as much as i can and i usually end up with something i’m proud of! anyways lmao, this is what my drawing will look like at this point: 

This is when i start the proper like working into the drawing with highlighting and shading and things. I also change my brush at this point! Honestly any brush will do but i really like the aesthetic of having a super textured brush, I do sometimes change up my brush every so often but the brush ive been using more often than not is this brush:

Also at this point i try and not use pure black or pure white, if you’re trying to go for a realistic look then i feel pure white n black really don’t factor into a face.I also think if you use more mid tone colours then there’s more of a natural gradient? which looks more realistic i feel. Of course if you like the aesthetic of having a high contrast then go for it! this is just how i personally like to do it.

I know a lot of people work by gradually working the whole face, like do loose highlights and dark tones on the whole face and then refining it but i like to do each part of the face one by one and i usually always start with the nose, this isn’t important lmao i just enjoy drawing noses so it’s what i start with. i think the use of highlight is super important to utilise when drawing the nose because its what suggests form,, this is my drawing will look like at this point:

I do end up darkening the shadow on the right side of his nose and the bottom of his nose but i usually get to this point and then move on and then once i do more ill go back and try and bring more dimension to the drawing.

Also! one of the best tools on photoshop that you can utilise and in some of my drawings it’s my saving grace is the liquify tool. Basically if you do the drawing and get to a point it would be hard to paint over then u can use liquify, as i was doing other parts of the face i realised that the nose was supposed to be a little to the left and the eyebrows had to be lower down so you if you open up liquify you can just click and drag the nose to where you want it to be so:

it’s a super helpful tool that really helps you get the facial features exactly where you need it, i used it a couple times throughout this drawing. I don’t think sai has it but you can use the lasso tool and rotate it or whatever and just draw over the little break it makes in the canvas:

so the next thing i do is the eyes and eyebrows. I’m usually not the greatest at getting the exact eye shape but again, liquify is your best friend. An important thing to note is the angle of the eyebrows in relation to the middle of the nose, Brian’s eyebrows are quite straight so i tried to keep them that way. I also started darkening up the drawing, i didn’t quite go full black, the darkest colour i used is like just off black. This is what i have so far:

Also another important thing to remember is the lighting of the image, in the image the right side of his face is more shadowed so the shadow on the left side of his nose wont be as intense as the right side and things like the bags under his eye on the right side would be slightly more prominent. Also because of the brow bone, theres more highlight on top of the brows and usually a shadow underneath because the brows are more elevated and the eyes are sunken in a lil bit. There will be a lil bit of highlight on the inner corner of the eyes though. 

In the next part of the drawing i just add a little bit to the forehead and cheeks :

I think by this time i had adjusted a couple of things like the angle his face was at was a little bit too tiled in my original draw so i just free transformed it and fixed the angle and the face i think was a little bit too wide so i just pulled it in a little bit. I think another thing to remember that places like the cheeks and forehead wont be pure highlight, especially with like men and older faces there will be more subtleties, with Brian he has highlight on the top of his cheekbones but the highlight is kind of broken up with the line that comes down under his eye and the forehead isnt a smooth bump above the eyebrows, especially with the lighting of the image the highlights get broken up a little bit. 

The next drawing is a little fast forward, i forgot to save in between but ill try and talk through everything:

When finishing up I realised the left eye/eyebrow was a little too high so i liquified that baby up to bring it down just a little bit. Another thing i sometimes struggle with is getting the exact shape of the face and angle of the jaw but you can just keep on drawing on top of it until it looks vaguely right. 

For the lips and mouth i think its kind of just a matter of trying to get a sense of the shape, look at the cupids bow and the length between the top lip and the bottom of the nose and how far the lips come out in relation to the nose as well, i think as well the shadow underneath the bottom lip is usually all you need to suggest the shape of the lip, it doesnt look all too natural if theres like a solid like to show the shape of the lip, the top lip though, because of the way the light is sitting on his face is almost completely shadowed, so the highlight on the cupids bow that goes down to the edge of the mouth is what helps give the mouth form. With teeth because they’re in his mouth so they’re not going to be super bright so i didnt add any highlight to them and just used a dark tone to outline the shape of them at the bottom and used a little bit of shading in between them to differentiate between them. 

For the eyes i usually just leave them without the pupils because it’s my brand but it wasnt looking quite right to me so i added a little outline of the pupils, i didnt want to do the full pupil because i like adding a lil smth interesting in the eyes but i like the way they turned out!  

The jaw you can usually bring out with the shadow of the neck. I didnt really feel like drawing the outfit so i kind of just did a couple of lines so show that he was wearing a shirt with a collar.

 Also for brian because he has so much hair i more often than not just use flat colour for his hair and because his hair is so dark it usually works fine but with people like Roger who has lighter hair is doesnt usually work out well? especially with a more realistically drawn face. I was originally going to keep the entire background that colour but it wasnt looking quite how i wanted to. I coloured first though, and tbh my colouring process really doesnt take me that long, the longest part is just working out what colours id like to use and what looks good with the drawing I've made.

So for colouring i use the gradient tool, you have have a gradient thats two colours that will make your drawings look like this

but recently ive started using the gradients with three colours so the highlighted sections will be a different colour to the base colour, i really like the way this comes out, without any other editing itll look smth like this:

I like to play about with the settings a little bit because i do enjoy the way this looks but it’s kind of a bit overpowering and i think sometimes the details of the drawing can get lost when you overdo it a bit? 

If you go through this itll give you many different versions of that gradient and i like to go through it and see which i feel compliments the drawing

heres a couple examples

The one i ended up going for was dissolve but it was a bit too intense so i turned the opacity down to 57%

which gave it a kind of static feel which i was in to, to finish it up i added a tiny bit to show some shoulders and then i wanted to add a tiny bit of a background so i used a flat pinky colour and put that around his hair and then on top of the background i added a little bit more into the hair.

and added so more vibrant pink into it as well just to spice her up a little bit.

[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

starhearth: episode four

Second Month of Spring, Days 3-4

The snow stops falling in the night, and the next day dawns clear, but still cold. A few people sit together by the berry bushes as they eat what’s currently passing for breakfast. Thanks to the berries and the jerky from Uhura’s trapping the crew is in no danger of starvation, but no one’s exactly real happy about the quality of food they’re getting either.

[ID: A screenshot of McCoy, Chapel and Rand sitting among the berry bushes, eating from plates of square purple berries.]

As everyone sets to their morning work, a new villager arrives. This one has 5 Mind, 5 Body and 5 Spirit, and the Courageous trait (they get a happiness boost after defending the town from enemies). That naturally makes them best suited to being a combat unit. This does raise the minor problem of what to name them; we’ve got most of the main crew here by now, and while there are any number of characters in Star Trek whose job it is to fight things, most of them don’t tend to stick around long enough to leave much of an impression. In the end, he gets named after one of the show’s more frequently recurring redshirts, Leslie. Leslie doesn’t ever have a first name mentioned onscreen, so I named him after his actor, Eddie Paskey.

[ID: A screenshot of Leslie, a villager with short light brown hair, fair skin and blue eyes. His character page is open, showing that his mood is Content, he has the Pioneering Spirit happiness buff, and he has a trait called Courageous, as shown with the icon of a little cartoon sword and the caption, “Courageous: Ed Leslie loves to save others, and puts the safety of the town as paramount.”]

In other news, Uhura has made it to Level 2, which means she’ll no doubt soon be bringing a lot of pets home.

[ID: A screenshot of a notification box titled Nyota Uhura has Leveled Up! The text in the box reads, “Nyota Uhura has achieved Trapper Level 2!” Below are three icons: a pink square with a cartoon rabbit with hearts for eyes, with a caption reading, “Charm Pet: The trapper will occasionally choose to turn a particularly fine animal into a pet!” a blue square with a red and white bullseye above a cartoon animal trap with the caption, “Job Opportunities: The trapper now qualifies for advanced jobs. Click the promote command for details,” and a red cartoon heart with the caption, “Max Health +10.”]

By the next day it’s warmed up again, but now it’s raining, which isn’t improving anyone’s mood much. McCoy sets out to go gather some more berry bushes and move them into the camp, but winds up falling asleep on the ground before he makes it all the way back.

[ID: A screenshot of McCoy sleeping on the shore of the lake with a berry plant in a pot at his feet. The info box at the bottom of the screen reads “Leonard McCoy—sleeping on the ground.”]

mood

We don’t have enough food and net worth to attract a new villager today, but never mind that right now, we’ve got another problem: water. We’ve run out of all the drinks that came with our starting rations, and with no other source of drinks, everyone’s getting pretty thirsty. (In my defense, this wasn’t even an existing gameplay mechanic the last time I played, so I completely forgot about it until the negative mood modifiers started piling up.) At the moment we don’t have the ability to brew up anything fancy, but we can at least dig a well for water.

The well is set to be placed next to the tavern, near the kitchen door. Only problem is, digging the well counts as a building project, and since the tavern was placed first, everyone’s prioritizing that. It takes pausing the construction of the tavern entirely before anyone—Leslie, specifically—will address the well.

[ID: A screenshot of Leslie digging a well outside the partially completed tavern walls. The unfinished well, a simple post with a bucket attached to a rope, hanging above a hole in the ground, is visible but transparent to show that it has been placed but is not yet built.]

Once (finally) started, the well doesn’t take long to complete. Soon, everyone’s stopping by for a nice cool drink of water.

[ID: 1. A screenshot of Chekov sitting on the ground next to the well and drinking from a simple cup. 2. A similar screenshot of Kirk sitting on the ground and drinking from a simple cup.]

But Kirk’s break is rudely interrupted by another attack. This time it’s a group of Entlings, who are much like the Stonelings except they’re little tree dudes instead of little rock dudes.

[ID: A screenshot of Kirk holding his sword ready as he fends off four Entlings, which resemble blocks of wood with arms and legs, about half Kirk’s height.]

For some reason, Chapel decides this would be a great time to strike up a conversation.

[ID: A screenshot of Kirk fighting the last Entling, with a red heart over his head that is three-quarters full, showing his depleted health. Chapel is standing behind him, while the info box at the bottom of the screen reads, “Christine Chapel—talking to James Kirk, Log-Splinter.”]

No, go on, I’m not busy or anything.

Apparently this distraction isn’t enough to deter Kirk from handily wiping out the Entlings. The achievement even earns a title for both him and his sword. Not sure who hands out these titles, but hey.

[ID: A screenshot of two message boxes overlaid together, titled James Kirk has achieved a new Title! And Practice Sword has achieved a new Title! The first box reads, “James Kirk...is now James Kirk, Log-Splinter! They killed 5 minions of the Wilds! Doesn’t that title have a nice ring to it? You can select which title one of your citizens is using by right-clicking their name in their character sheet or the selected unit window. The second box reads, “Practice Sword...is now Practice Sword of the Forester! It killed 5 minions of the Wilds! Doesn’t that title have a nice ring to it? You can select which title this item is using by right-clicking its name in the selected unit window. You might also consider giving Practice Sword a fancier name to go along with their new title by left-clicking its name in the selected unit window.”]

But the newly acquired accolades aren’t enough to make up for the rest of Kirk’s morning. He told a joke that didn’t go over well, his drink was interrupted so he’s still thirsty, and now he’s all scratched up too. What a lousy day! Now he’s glum too. So are McCoy and Chekov, but that’s probably just them being themselves.

[ID: A screenshot of Kirk’s character information window pulled up over the villager information window. Kirk’s mood is shown as Glum, with one positive mood modifier (“It’s raining...+3”) and five negative mood modifiers: “Very thirsty -8”, “Pain (Scratched) -6” “Tough crowd -5” “My meal was raw -5” and “Slept in a shared bed -2.”]

Apparently, the joke was told to Sulu.

[ID: A screenshot of Sulu’s character information page, showing that his mood is glum and he has several negative mood modifiers. One of them, “Had an unpleasant talk -3” is highlighted, showing the caption, “I can’t believe James Kirk said that!”]

The bad moods don’t last too long, though. Once everyone’s gotten a drink, they start to feel better. By evening, they’re all back up to content. Meanwhile, work on the tavern is progressing nicely; by now the walls are up and work has started on the roof.

Also, as predicted, Uhura has already brought home a pet: a rabbit, named Thumpy.

[ID: A screenshot of a small brown and white cartoon voxel rabbit sitting on the ground, with the crafting stations and stockpile behind it. The information box at the bottom of the screen reads, “Thumpy—befriended by Nyota Uhura.”]

Not really the choice of name I would’ve gone for, personally, but you do you.

[accessible-mobpsycho100]

[ID from other post: Following are five black and white comics pages of characters from Mob Psycho 100, each with an image description below it.

Page 1:

Six panels. First, Mob and Tsubomi in the park, a vending machine and a bench visible among the trees. Mob looks away, cowed, while Tsubomi leans her head over and looks at her fidgeting hand. Mob says, "Yeah. I'm... gonna go."

Closeup on Mob's eyes as he says, "Thank you for waiting for me, despite everything. You had faith in me, even through all that."

Then Tsubomi's face, neutral, looking down.

Then the same view of Mob's eyes but his hair is spikey and his irises are big and dewey. Little sparkles come off of him. He says "Thank you for everything. Just for being there, not for me, but for everyone, for yourself. We're not who we were but I'll always be greatful for you--" "Hold it."

Mob blinks away the sparkles while Tsubomi looks mildly annoyed, low eyebrows, wide, flat mouth. "I'm not leaving for like, two weeks, Mob. You're still gonna see me in the hallways and stuff. No final goodbyes. It'd get weird."

Finally they look goofily away and think, at the same time, "It already is."

Page 2:

Four panels. First, a wide view of the park that Mob and Tsubomi are in. Mob looks away and back, holding the wrist that holds the flower, while Tsubomi hunches and looks sidelong at her fidgeting hand again.

Then a closeup of Tsubomi's fidgeting hand. Off-panel Mob says, "So I guess,"

"See you later." This panel is mirrored from the first page of this whole fancomic, Mob stepping over the same tree.

Tsubomi picks up her bag from under the bench and waves back, expressionless. Again this is a mirror of when she saw him while she was sitting at the bench in the very first panel.

Page 3:

Five panels. First, a view of Tsubomi from above. She is slumped over, arms hanging and head hanging heavily so her hair obscures her face entirely.

Second, the trees around Tsubomi seem to lean forward as Tsubomi approaches a tall, wide tree. Her form is hunched and angular as she says, eyebrows low, eyes wide, mouth open, "God dammit."

Third, a caption box shows the words "TREE KICK: One of Tsubomi's special moves." Tsubomi turns into all angles, hair flying up behind her as she kicks the trunk as hard as she can, effects lines exploding off the blow. "GOD DAMMIT!"

Then Tsubomi tilts her head back and closes her eyes in defeat, slumped into curves. The trees lean away.

Finally Tsubomi reaches the exit of the park and responds "Oh what the hell now" to the rubble and destruction outside. I stole this background from the original mob psycho comic.

Page 4:

Six panels. Every character except Tsubomi is someone I made up for this scene.

First, a boy rushes nervously past a door to a classroom. On the wall a poster says, "Solving Quadratics." Someone off-panel asks "Tsubomi, did you end up talking to Mr. Yubata about openings at your cram school?"

Two girls gawk into the classroom as they walk by. The perspective is warped so the blackboard leans over Tsubomi and so the speaker Kaoru is looking up at her despite being the same height. Kaoru blabbers nervously, "Sorry, I know what you said about the waitlist, but my parents really really want me to go there. I need to get into a good high school. I know I'd be a good fit, and you're a great student, it'd be easy for you to convince him, right? Worst case I could take your spot once you leave, right?"

Three boys look into the classroom as they walk by. One of them, highlighted, looks very hostile.

The board, covered in illegible chalk markings, again menaces over Tsubomi, as does Kaoru. "I really don't know what I'm gonna do if this doesn't work out." Tsubomi pinches the bridge of her nose and says, "Yes, sorry, I forgot. It's, this whole mess, with the rejections…"

The perspective flattens so it's just a face-on view of Kaoru in front of the board. "JANUARY 27," "PROJECT 4 - CRAB," and "POSITIVITY" are visible on the board and an adjacent poster. Kaoru's expression is mild, but ambiguous as to her disbelief or scorn: "Oh. Is it… really that bad?"

Finally Tsubomi, smiling easily, tucks her hair behind her ear and says, "No, you're right, not really. I'll talk to Mr. Yubata for you. Have a good day, Kaoru!" Kaoru, off-panel, says, "O-oh! Um, thank you!" The doorframe and grid of posters on the wall behind Tsubomi, all scribbled, lean over her.

Page 5:

Six panels. First, a little panel where Kaoru exits the room. Her comment "I really really owe you" is cut off by the doorframe.

Second, Tsubomi stands in the classroom. Two students are still sitting near the door but otherwise it's empty. The black, empty board behind her is enormous, and the image turns abstract and disappears on its right side.

Then Mob starts to walk by the door, not yet noticing that Tsubomi is in the room. But Tsubomi notices him.

She turns away so the reader can't see her face. The scene around her is abstract, just a black rectangle in perspective. She thinks, "He's gonna stare at me again…" Off-panel, though, Mob says, "Hi Tsubomi."

Then the panel borders are the doorframe. Mob has a hand up and is looking at her, but he isn't stopping. He wants nothing from her. He is just saying hi. Behind him through the window is the school courtyard, where a black vine has climbed gently over the brick wall on the opposite side. The perspective makes it look like it's coming off the top of Mob's head.

Then Tsubomi leans out the door to watch Mob walking away, frank and surprised. She gets out "…hi."

End ID]

The Same People (3/5)

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

Drive folder with all pages + PDF

In which Tsubomi perfectly executes a special move, among all the other things that are happening.

Personal notes under the cut. This takes a lot of words to describe so I made a separate post with the comic and the full ID here.

i dont have nearly the artistic experience or training that some of the other mob psycho fancomickers have so this is taking me 4ever. but im proud of it!

needs be mentioned that at about the time tsubomi is kicking a tree mob is doing this:

[ID: two panels from the mob psycho comic. mob tears up, then starts crying hard, tears streaming down his face. end id]

id like to think this reaction still make sense in context of this here comic im making but u tell me

this part went from 4 to 5 pages as i was penciling it and as ive been thinking thru part 4 its gone up to 6 pages, so, i mean, its probably not gonna be out until late may if were keeping it a bean. i hope you like it anyway! and i hope you like this!!

[kristeenach]

Painting- Nippon

I sourced around and asked for a few quotes from various companies. 

I narrowed down to Nippon(direct) and another guy,J, which had a group buy ongoing with my estate. 

I spoke with J on the phone. I’ve never actually met him, however he offered a really good package for my estate.

What J offered :

I also arranged for a meeting with nippon direct and manager Shiraz came down to do a free site assessment for me. During the meeting he was really nice, offered me advises like never to give your id 100% payment. He shared with me the stories he came across in his line of work.He also offered free Anti-mould for both my toilets.

I went with nippon because he offered me Anti-mould for my toilets, they also provide free colour preview and also a mayer juicer worth $89(because i am Singaporean and i can’t resist freebies). I also requested to do the first coat of painting after my electrician ran the cables and the second coat only at the end of the renovation.

Nippon requires a $200 deposit before the first coat and the remaining amount after the painting is done. 

I have to highlight that i am actually really disappointed with Shiraz after placing the deposit as he became unresponsive to my questions of if they have any sample photos of jobs they have done before. 

I had to drop him a text message expressing my disappointment before he sent an apology stating it’s hari-raya period and he has been “busy”. I told him that it would be good if he would have just dropped me a text saying that he is busy or refer me out to someone else. The past few days i have been asking him questions and responses are low. And it have been frustrating as i am trying to plan my renovation accordingly and painting has to go up before the carpentry, to add on to it he told me that his slots are filling fast which makes it even more worrying as i am planing to move in before the chinese 7 month which falls on 1st August 2019. I wished him and his family a happy hari raya and cited that that i understood where he was coming from but at the same time i hoped he could understand my view as a customer.

Before i placed the $200 deposit, his responses were really fast. 

Tip : Always negotiate everything before you commit to placing the deposit. E.g. Anti-mould for your toilets and possibly to give you another colour. Nippon gives default 4 colours, but i had a feeling had i try to request for another colour before the deposit i might have gotten it[i wanted purple for my service yard]- (because i heard from a friend that if the manager gives it to you it’s out of goodwill) :/  They also provided me with an extra free colour preview on the purple i initially wanted for my service yard. But hey on the bright side i managed to get an extra “white” colour for my service yard from Shiraz. I didn’t choose the purple in the end due to budget constrains. Nippon charges extra $50 per colour.

On the day of the first coat, the painters came on time, started work promptly. they carefully wrapped up everything which i am pleased about. They also informed me that BSC had painted over the skirting, however they used waterbased paint so i could easily take a wet cloth and remove it. The down side is that it would take me sometime to remove it. I asked Shiraz how much would it be if i asked his guys to help remove it. He said he would get back to me on this and NOPE, he conveniently forgot about it. 

The painters also painted the common walkway wrongly, which i spotted it and told Shiraz about it with screenshots provided. He conveniently replied what’s wrong? I highly think that he can’t be bothered with me after the Hari-Raya incident. I pointed it out and he just gave a “oh i see it now” reply. The painters manage to rectify it immediately so no qualms on that.

My preview

What the painters did 

After rectification 

We booked two days of painting and they managed to rush it out within a day. They did not do my service yard, toilets and my common room which i requested two coats(but they did only one) as i am not doing any major carpentry in the room. I asked the guys if they are still coming back tomorrow, they said Shiraz would let me know. I said okay, and they just left it at that. 

The next day i had to text Shiraz if they were coming and he replied nope, which left me a little disappointed as i wanted two coatings for my common room and service yard, i had also avoided plans so that i could be there for the painting. Lesson learnt, always text my painting manager if i needed answers as he can’t really be bothered. /shrugs

Overall, with Manager Shiraz aside, I am satisfied with the first coat of painting done by Nippon direct. Will update further after the second coat is done.

First coating : 

NPR 1306 P Sweet Deal  ,  NP BGG 1571P Blue instinct 

Master Bedroom :

NP OW 1072P Clear Day

Common Room :

NP YO 1201P Daylights

[tinybuckylife]

Customising Winter Soldier Part 1 The Face

I don’t know if anyone is interested but I thought it would be nice to have a little record of my processes customising/repainting Marvel legends figures. It’s something I hope to do more of in the future as a hobby. 

I am very aware that I am only a beginner and that this particular project is a very simple one in comparison to the many custom figures I have seen but just in case this helps someone or they’d like to see my process here it is. 

Here is a picture of the somewhat finished project. The only thing Not So Tiny Winter Soldier is lacking is his belt glued together and a spray sealant.

I had to nick a picture of the figure’s original face from http://marvellegends.net/Figures/InfiniteCaptainAmerica/Bucky_0.htm as I never took a photo of him before I removed some of his eye makeup. To be honest I was really put off buying this figure simply because... it doesn’t really look anything like it should. It’s a shame that the paint on the figure is so wrong because the sculpt of the figure is actually really nice. I hated his sooty face makeup so much I only displayed him with his mask on most of the time. I was slightly mollified when I altered the black makeup to not cover half his face. 

After the Civil War figure appeared with such an improved face sculpt and paint job I reach peak dissatisfaction. I had planned on simply finding an extra head and replacing it entirely but I felt like I would be wasting by just getting rid of it so I decided to paint it. 

Looking up close on the head sculpt I realized they’d also put a lot of fine wrinkles on the face which aged the face somewhat and the face jutted out in weird places so I sanded a lot of the face smoother and also sanded the jaw down a slight amount. I used a cotton swab with some nail polish remover on it to remove the paint as I hadn’t had a chance to actually buy acetone yet. 

Acetone can melt the plastic if left for too long. You can use this to your advantage to smooth parts that are still a bit fuzzy after sanding but it’s best to be cautious. 

And here is my first attempt at painting and my first fuck up. I had been intensely studying some online customizing tutorials in particular http://www.angelfire.com/mech/jinsaotome/PaintingTips.html and I had gone out and purchased some model specific acrylic paint. I tried so hard to find Model Master Acrylic paint as the tutorial suggested but they apparently no longer sell them in Australia (which I only found out after physically visiting three art stores on a hot summer day) and I didn’t like the colour range of P3.

I ended up getting Tamiya Acrylic paint as it was what was available to me and had many pretty colours. I still couldn’t find a skin tone in bottle that I liked so I ended up mixing Flat White, Flat Yellow, Flat Flesh and Flat Deck Tan. I made up a small bottle of it so the flesh colour would be consistent. 

As a warning Tamiya paints are weird which I only discovered after buying six bottles so it was too late to go back. They hate being mixed with other acrylics because they are a weird alcohol mix. They dry very, very fast and stick to plastic very well but I learned that I would need to go an extra step to get it to work well for me. 

So after all that I just wanted to get stuck into painting. I tested it on some spare plastic containers I had and I really liked the finish so I ignored what most of the tutorials were saying when they suggested watering down the paint and applying thin layers. I didn’t and you can see that the paint not only applied very thickly but it wouldn’t dry smoothly because by the time I would move the brush around the face it had already begun drying so I would disturb bits of the paint and it would get dents in it. Disaster.  

I did more research and tried thinning the paint with water and/or alcohol. Neither result was satisfactory so I purchased the Tamiya paint thinner and the result was much improved. Not only did the paint dry flatter and allow the details of the sculpt to stand out but it also slowed drying time so I had a bit more leeway. If you make a mistake with acrylic you have a small window of time to use water and a toothpick to remove paint and the thinner gave me more of that time. 

To get the finer details of the eyes I ended up buying the finest Tamiya paintbrush I could find (yes I am now a devout Tamiya fan but it is also one of the few brands I can find locally) and following this tutorial http://www.figurerealm.com/customtutorial?action=view&id=98

I used a very small dot to mark the iris so I wouldn’t make him cross eyed which can be a very common factory mistake. 

I painted the iris shape in using Flat Black and filled it in with Flat Blue. I then decided to add a bit of Metallic Blue for sparkle as the Civil War Winter Soldier figure has a metallic paint for his irises. 

I then tried to imitate the subtle stubble the Civil War figure has. I hated how it looked so I painted over it but not very thoroughly to let some of the stubble remain. I painted in the eyebrows and repainted the hair. In future I would tape off the hair to prevent it being painted before it was incredibly annoying and fiddly to repaint the corners near the face. I also added a little bit of red, white and black to the flesh colour and painted the lips. 

I had originally wanted the face to just look like it would fit in with the current, better painted Marvel Legends figures but the face looked a bit lifeless and after all the effort I felt unsatisfied with the result. The face sculpt of the figure I was painting lacked the shape of the eyes and the mouth that made the newer sculpt a much better likeness for the actor. 

I ended up very sparingly dry brushing some grey onto the face for very subtle stubble. To give the illusion of eye bags I used thinned down Flat black around the eyes. I added a little more Flat Blue and Metallic Blue to the eye before painting in a very tiny pupil and an even tinier white highlight in the eye. I also extended the lip colour to the sides to make the mouth appear bigger. 

I did worry that I’d ended up making him a bit too pretty but I liked the way it looked so I was satisfied. 

I painted over the whole of the hair with Flat Black because I felt the flat brown colour was not true to the picture I had. 

I decided the hair was too dark so I dry brushed some brown over the hair and thought it looked much better. I did end up painting the mask to be more grey instead of brown but I forgot to take a photo. 

That’s the whole process I did for the face. For such a small thing it did take a lot of time, effort and money but I was pleased with the result. Hopefully I will have better photos of the finished figure soon and perhaps a part two on painting the body.

[gardenplow3-blog]

Reading Recap: October 2018

At the end of every month, I take a look back at my reading journal and share the books and my thoughts on them here. The comments below are excerpts from my full reviews on Goodreads; you can always keep up with my reading in real-time over there.

The books I read in October were all over the place—a lyrical, lovely historical novel; a thrilling fantasy-adventure; a collection of moody short stories of the English countryside; two dark and spooky novels, an elegant investigation with Miss Phryne Fisher—plus two thoroughly engrossing audiobooks.

I’m still thinking about the Tiger’s Wife.

In fact, I gave it 4 1/2 stars, but maybe it’s 5. Maybe it will eventually be bumped to my all-time favorites list because I keep thinking about it.

The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht | 4 1/2 stars I don’t want to give too much away about the events of this book because the way it unspools as you read is so… perfect. And it’s a difficult book to explain because it’s definitely a novel, but it’s also a collection of beautifully told, interconnected stories.

The basics are in the flap copy: Natalia is a young doctor in an unnamed Balkan country; from the descriptions, you can sort of figure out that it’s Serbia. She’s dealing with the aftermath of the civil wars when her beloved grandfather dies. As she’s trying to understand the circumstances surrounding his death, she tells stories: about herself, about her grandfather and retells stories that he’s told her… about a magical tiger and the tiger’s wife. As Natalia eventually learns, the stories her grandfather has been telling her are not fairy tales, but true stories of his life and the other villagers in Galina. Just as her grandfather’s youth was shaped by war, so was Natalia’s and her reality as a teenager during the Balkan wars echo the fable-like stories of his past.

This books takes you directly into Balkan villages—to WWI, WWII, as well as the fraught 1990s—and casts a spell while it explores the different kinds of love, secrets and dreams, the way the fallout of war spirals from the past into the present.

Favorite highlight: “Like everyone in the village, he had faith in the rituals of superstition. He gave money to beggars before traveling, put pennies in the shrines of the Virgin at crossroads, spat on his children when they were born. But, unlike his fellow villagers, he was renowned for having a deficit. He had been born in a lean year, without a ducat under his pillow. To make matters worse, an estranged aunt had once allegedly lifted him from his crib and praised heaven for what a beautiful baby, what a gorgeous, fat, blessed, rosy child he was—forever sealing his destiny to be impoverished, crippled, struck down and taken by the devil at some unexpected time, in some terrifying way.”

European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman by Theodora Goss | 4 stars This is a rollicking adventure with lots of feels thrown in along the way, which is my very favorite kind of story. It picks up where The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter left off. Our five kickass heroines, aka, The Athena Club—all the offspring of literary characters who are… SURPRISE!… real people in this alternate version of London—are off on a mission to rescue Lucinda Van Helsing from an insane asylum. The action involves, in no particular order, a daring asylum escape, sleeper cars on the Orient Express, hiding in a traveling circus, crashing a meeting of the Alchemical Society, and eating cake in the art nouveau cafes of Budapest. I love the Saturday-afternoon-serial feel of the narrative—coupled with lovely writing and characters I want to spend my time getting to know.

There are genuine emotions here among all the action, too. The girls, all technically monsters in their own way, struggle with their humanity and wrestle with what it means to do the right thing, how to find balance between toughness and tenderness, and making peace with themselves and the found-family they’ve formed together.

This would be a fantastic read-along with Dracula because there are plenty of smart, sly references to that novel. I read them back-to-back unintentionally, and it was a brilliant experience.

Favorite highlight: “If you have been up all night, escaping from a burning mental asylum or fighting men who refuse to die when you shoot them in the forehead, or both, coffee is the perfect beverage.”

Help the Witch by Tom Cox | 4 stars This is a collection of short stories from one of my favorite nonfiction writers. Tom Cox is the author of books about cats that are not books about cats—they’re about nature and living in the country and the power of walking and family and basically everything that makes life good. Now he’s written a collection of spooky and eerie, unsettling—not scary—stories that put you right there in the moody Peak District of central England. The writing on his web site is also brilliant.

Favorite highlight: “Outside, the dark is very dark. But in the day, the whiteness is very dark too, sometimes ever darker.”

Melmoth by Sarah Perry | 3 1/2 stars I’ve been thinking about this book since I turned the last page, and here’s where I’ve landed: It has a perfectly spooky gothic tone that I was super into. Throughout there’s some very moody, supernatural-ish stuff going on that was spine-tingly. I read this book in one day because I couldn’t put it down. It was an ignore-everything marathon of reading because I needed to know how it would all play out.

This novel is a series of stories told by different characters about the darkest times in their lives, and the stories they share are DARK, but not in the virginal-maiden-locked-in-a-castle way. They’re dark in a peoples’-lives-were-ruined way that was not fun at all. It was horribly sad. And I feel like that kind of serious subject matter is in direct contrast with the isn’t-it-spooky tone of the novel. Ultimately, I found the whole thing really depressing and when I closed the book, I was sorry that I’d devoted an entire day to it. But it’s so well crafted and well plotted, I feel like a jerk with my criticisms.

And there you have it. I still don’t really know how I feel about this book except that I for-sure won’t be reading it again. But also, I will never forgot some of its scenes.

Favorite highlight: “The Silence is something more than the absence of noise. If it is possible to hear silence, Helen hears it: a thick, soft sensation against the drums of her ears.”

Urn Burial by Kerry Greenwood | 4 stars I adore Phryne Fisher—in print and in the TV series ‘Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries—because she’s a super feminist and her politics—and the politics of the book—are very progressive. The juxtaposition of 1920s slang and fashion with ultra-modern opinions is irresistible, and I cannot resist a found-family. Phryne has created a lovely family for herself with her assistant Dot and her housekeepers, Mr and Mrs Butler. In this particular book, there’s a murder at a manor house, which is like catnip for me: lots of listening through doors, scampering to lovers’ bedrooms in the middle of the night, forced cocktail hour… it’s fab.

Favorite highlight: “It took determination to be really strange. That, or absinthe before breakfast every day.”

The Witch Elm by Tana French | 3 stars I think Tana French is excellent at what she does—I couldn’t put this down because I needed to know what was going to happen, and I had no idea how it was all going to resolve itself. Really, the writing craft should get 5 stars.

But man! this was really not for me. Even though I compulsively turned the pages, I didn’t enjoy the experience or the characters at all. The only character I liked died.  I thought everyone else was horrible: duplicitous, selfish, whiny, untrustworthy. I am grateful I don’t know people like this in real life, and I don’t enjoy spending time with them, even if it’s pretend and on paper.

Favorite highlight: “Hugo’s road has that effect; it gives the impression of being there only on alternate Thursday or to people with they mysterious talisman in their pockets, invisible the rest of the time and instantly forgotten when you leave.”

Dracula by Bram Stoker (audiobook) | 5 stars

I’m a sucker for epistolary novels, so before even opening the pages the first time I read this book, I was pretty much on board. Then when I got to know Mina and Jonathan, Dr. Seward and Van Helsing—I was smitten. This is a big, sweeping adventure story, and although it was published in 1897, it’s surprisingly modern. Unlike, say, the Brontës, which require a little work sometimes to get through the prose, this is very readable and the action moves at a good clip. But it’s not all desperate carriage rides and stake stabbings; there are a lot of genuine emotional moments in this book, and I love the way Mina turns out to be the heroine of the whole enterprise.

This audiobook version is fantastic. The voice work is very compelling and really brings the story to life.

Favorite highlight: “It is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles. And yet when King Laugh come, he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall, all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come, and like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again, and we bear to go on with our labor, what it may be.”

The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova (audiobook) | 5 stars I’ve read this book in print at least once, maybe twice? And I loved it for the reasons the NYTimes review didn’t… the beginning, before it gets into the heart of the story from the past, is a travelogue/love letter to Bulgaria—and that voice is part of what I loved so much about Elizabeth Kostova’s first book The Historian. This one has so many things I love: a mystery, foreign travel, a little romance, the love of a found-family, things that are not what they seem, shocking revelations over food, and regular people following mysterious clues to dangerous conclusions. At every moment I thought, “This is exactly what it would be like if *I* found myself caught up in a mystery” and since I’m always secretly hoping that will happen, I loved this story. There are plenty of surprises—I actually gasped a few times and shed a few tears. The big reveals aren’t obvious, but when they happened, I was, like, “Oh, yeah… that makes sense.”

The voice acting in this audiobook is awesome. Each character gets its own voice and is immediately recognizable. This is particularly effective when a character tells a story from the past—the accents, the aging voices, the emotion… it’s lush and moving and all-together engrossing.

Favorite highlight: “Always thinking. Thinking too much, and then sometimes not enough. You read a lot of books, yes?”

FIND ALL THESE BOOKS AND MORE IN MY AMAZON STORE!

What have you been reading recently?

Source: https://meljoulwan.com/2018/11/29/reading-recap-october-2018/

[coughscent1-blog]

Colony @ Eco City tour!

Hello everyone!

So the launch of Colony @ Eco City has come and gone (two weeks ago) and I’m finally getting around to blogging about it! T____T  I haven’t really been writing much about it so this post is gonna be it ok hold on to your seats wtf.

We’ve been working on this since last December so it’s been like 7 months in the coming!

This project was quite different from our first one, when honestly I had no idea what I was doing.  I thought this would be easier, having gone through it once before.  As usual I was wrong. Lol.

The first Colony used to be a serviced office before we took it over.  All we had to do really, was renovate and furnish it.  Sure, we added facilities and equipment, upgraded the Internet and things like that, but everything was mostly set up already.

For Eco City, we had a completely blank space.  Only concrete walls and floor and exposed piping.  So we got to work.  We first submitted our plans for approval from DBKL and Bomba (City Council and Fire Department)… but first I had to go talk to engineers too for drawing up the plans.  My first time dealing with anything like this, but the engineer was so nice he walked me through the entire process, step by step.  I understood then, but my sieve-like memory has forgotten some of it now. -_-

After that came the electrical drawings, the plumbing drawings, fire safety drawings, data points, airconditioning, flooring, furnishing….

All these came from our awesome design team ok.  I merely nodded and trusted Buddha WTF.

Then came the fun part – design.

When we first secured the space, we were ecstatic – huge floor to ceiling windows, tons of natural light, nice spacious square shape.  It even faced a hill which had a river running towards us. #goodfengshui  It’s also bigger than our KLCC location and Fatty and I imagined it would be our flagship location.

So since it’s Colony… what theme would be better than a (British) Colonial theme?  I have no idea how other designers work but for me, it really helps if I have a strong theme in mind to allude to.  Because I like a lot of things wtf and I don’t want to stray off track hahaha.  A theme helps remind me and keep me focused I guess.

I usually try to strike a balance between ‘homey’ and ‘comfortable’ and ‘luxurious’ for Colony so I felt this theme matched the purpose as well.  Colonial style decoration would be grand enough, yet toned down enough for people to relax in it.

This was our first artist’s impression.

*poker face*

It’s nice! But it looks like The Majestic.  Or Fullerton in Singapore.  When I thought colonial, I totally forgot that it’s a popular theme for hotels in this region hahaha.

I thought it needed a bit more character, or something to change it up a bit.  Working on Colony, I learned that I like contrasts in design, and this design was too straight in getting to its destination.  Does that make sense?

I asked, how about adding some unexpected colors?  Like pink?

*more poker face*

*puts saline drops in eyes*

I removed the fuchsia and replaced it with pastel pink.  And eliminated the Buncho yellow.

Results were much better!  We also added a whole bunch of elements traditionally associated with colonial style: a lot of greenery in the form of big leafed plants like banana and palm, blue and white Chinese porcelain, brass fixtures, beautiful old books, and rattan.

And here’s the final result! 🙂

Here’s the cafe area.  The cafe in Eco City is run by The Embassy, who have an outlet in Starling Mall too.

We chose a gorgeous dull mint color for the cafe which contrasts so well with the pink!  ID was skeptical about too many colors but I love itttttt.

We did marble topped tables for the old school charm and rattan backed chairs.

The lounge area where people can chill, have discussions or hot desk.

The day beds on the right are my pride and joy. T___T I kept thinking in the initial design drafts that the ‘colonialism’ wasn’t coming out strong enough.  I’m so glad I saw these canopy beds on Pinterest hahahaha. Cos they really make the space! This pic was taken before the canopies arrived so I might update this later.

Designer customized the beds for seating; I imagined full on beds but these are much better cos I don’t want people to have to put their feet up when they sit down la hahaha can’t be too comfortable wtf.

Details: we put in standing louvers, painted black.  When I was Fighter’s age, I lived in my grandparents’ Colonial terrace house in Penang which had louvered windows so this is so nostalgic for me. 🙂

Our throws are cased in mostly botanical prints or animal skin prints.  For rugs we used handwoven rattan-like rugs.

Spin behind the cafe a bit.  Lockers for our Reserved Desk guests (who don’t have locked drawers for their belongings) are on the left.  Straight in front is the kids’ playroom.

The kids’ room includes a nursing room!  The cushion is so apt ok. When your nips are bleeding and you’re putting cabbage leaves on your boobs to stop the clog, remember what the cushion says wtf.

Anyway yellow armchair for momma to sit, next to it are appropriate baby supplies – diapers, wet wipes and even nursing pads thoughtfully provided by Applecrumby and Fish.  And changing table on the left!

Here’s the playroom!  Walls are done in customized wallpaper.  Picket fence is there to corrall off screaming and running lolol.

Inside we have a slide, a dolls’ house, and a city scape set up…

And a toy kitchen on the other side.  All from Taobao LOL GOOD BUYS LEH.  Sorry I don’t know where to get it cos ID got everything.

The highlight is this wtf.  There was a little bit of space under the stairs outside so we broke it in and created this little nook.  Then Katrine created a house facade around it and filled it with beds, cushions and lots of stuffed animals.  I think it’s the critters’ favorite part of Colony actually.

Back out again.  Another view of the lounge and Reserved Desks area.

Phone booths are done up in pink!  One of my favorite details here.

What a phone booth at Colony @ Eco City looks like.

Inside we have an old fashioned writing desk and chair, with a Persian style rug on hardwood floor.  We filled it with cushions, throw blankets and furry to reduce any echoing that could come from phone calls or video conferences. ^^

This nook is our Instagram corner. Hahahah.  The pink is a print we got from Shutterstock and blew up LOL.  Cos customizing a wallpaper was too expensive wtf.  #renohacks

Our conference room.  Fits 14 people!  Our meeting rooms are always named after famous explorers or trailblazers, so for this Colony, our conference room is called Battuta, for Ibn Battuta.

People who studied sejarah should know la ok hahahaha.  One other meeting room is called Murasaki for Lady Murasaki Shikibu, who was a lady in waiting in Japan, and wrote The Tale of Genji, considered the first ever novel in the world! *nerd*  And the third is called Armstrong for Neil Armstrong, who was the first man on the moon.

This is our event space.  When there are no events, this area will be used for just hanging out or hot desking.

When there are events though, the furniture can be moved around to accommodate the style of event.  I tried to choose lighter, individual pieces for easier shifting.

Ooh one of my favorite spots too!  We ordered these steamer trunk tables from China and they got lost at sea FML.  I was going crazy cos I thought we were gonna launch with no tables but luckily they came in time!  I love them so much I got two smaller ones for our bedside tables at home.

Ordered this chair cos I thought it was really unique but now I suddenly see it everywhere. -_-

Here’s the entrance to our private office suites!

Flooring is in black and white tile for a retro feel.

The pictures I chose all also got colonial theme one!  We have a lot of old maps, tropical animal portraits and vintage photos of British colonial scenes.

This is a special room, called the Jamestown Suite.  Named after one of the first British colonies, it’s a glammed up luxe version of a normal Colony office.

We outfitted it with wallpaper, hardwood floors, a Chesterfield couch, TV screen…

A Marshall speaker, and smart home capabilities.  You can basically control the curtains, music, TV and lights with Google Home. ^^ For special clients only hehehe.

Here’s Murasaki.

I added this pug which is damn random but damn cute ok hahahaha.  Apt cos Murasaki in Japanese means purple and his shades got purple there wtf.

The pantry (and a mop).

Nap room which you can book to take a quick break.

I also made a video tour!  I shot it while some of our furniture wasn’t even in yet though but just to give you a guys a sense of the place.  Also includes Fighter and Penny’s reaction to the kids’ playroom hahaha.

Source: https://fourfeetnine.com/2018/07/31/colony-eco-city-tour/