#I really wanted each aesthetic to keep a colour of one of the others

[manynarrators]

And all my life, I've never known where you've been There were holes in you, the kind that I could not mend And I heard you say, right when you left that day "Does everything go away?" Yeah, everything goes away But I am gonna be here 'til forever, so just call when you're around.

"Always Gold" by Radical Face

[arc-misadventures]

Jaune being his normal kind, helpful lovable self causes women like Illia, Terra, and others to fall for him

LAJA

Coco: And, welcome everyone to the first meeting of the, LAJA. Lesbians Against Jaune Arc. My name is, Coco Adel, club chairwoman, and founder.

Coco: Now, since this is out first meeting we will each introduce ourselves, and tell everyone why you decided to become a member of the, LAJA. I'll go first...

Coco: I am a loud, and proud lesbian, I saw some guys, and I thought they were attractive, from as aesthetic perspective not anything romantic, or sexual. But, one day, I was trying on an outfit with my BunBun...

Ilia: Hold up! Your 'BunBun?'

Coco: Oh yeah, that's a nickname for my teammate, Velvet. She's a rabbit faunas.

Ilia: Ohh!

Terra: I like that.

Coco: Velvet isn't that good at fashion, but Jaune was there, he saw my outfit, and said no. Gave me some other clothes, and told me top try it on... and son of a bitch that was the greatest outfit I've ever worn!

Coco: After that, the two of us would go out, and do some fashion shows with each other, and some other people who needed a new wardrobe. It is fun, really fun hanging out with him. So, one day when we're having fun this random woman came up, and ask if, Jaune was single. And, Jaune was single... but, I said he wasn't... that I was his girlfriend...

Coco: I'm a hardcore lesbian! I never thought of dating a guy in my entire life! But, to keep some random floozie from, Jaune I said I was his girlfriend... I don't want to lose my fashion friend, my best male friend. And, I'm sad that I'm not... And, I really... I really want to be his girlfriend... So... yeah...

Terra: You fell because of his fashion sense? Makes sense, Jaune has superb taste in woman's fashion.

Coco: He did, I was looking at a wedding dress one day, and who is at the alter, Jaune freaking Arc...

Yang: Oh you got it bad!

Coco: Okay... You're turn.

Ilia: Okay... Hello everyone, my name is Ilia Amitola, I am a chameleon faunas, I can changed the colour of my skin. So, I was a former member of the, White Fang, I was a lesbian since I was in the, White Fang, and I hated humans on top of that. Then this stupid blond human just shows up, he flashes me that pearly smile of his. And, my body just changed to pink!

Coco: Like it did just now?

Ilia: Yes?! I just looked at him, and I thought how much I wanted to sleep with this guy! A guy, a human guy at that! It's just a crush, there's nothing more about it! So, I decided to learn things about him, I'd learn that one thing to make him the worst person I could possibly imagine!

Ilia: And, what I learned is that he is one of the nicest, sweetest guys I've ever met! He doesn't hate the faunas! He supports the, White Fang! To a point! He doesn't like the more radical side...

Yang: No one does.

Ilia: But, all I learned how a sweet caring a person he is! Then I saw him watch over some faunas kid one day, and the next thing I know, I'm thinking about having kids with him! This it total bullshit!

Coco: She's still blushing.

Emerald: It is a nice shade of pink.

Terra: Well... speaking of babies... My name is, Terra Cotta Arc...

Coco: Arc? Are you related to, Jaune?

Terra: In a way, I am married to a woman called, Saphron Cotta Arc. She is, Jaune's older sister, making, Jaune my brother-in-law. And, for a while I thought I was asexual, I was never interested in anyone. But, then I met my wife, and well eventually I married her. And, I'm happily married! But, then I met, Jaune, and if I met him before I met my wife, we probably would be married with three kids by now. Right now we only have the one though.

Coco: T-The one...?

Terra: I wanted a kid, so I asked, Jaune to... donate so I could have one. And, this is my son, Adrian~!

Yang: Oh gods he is so adorable~!

Ilia: Noooo... Don't do this to me, I've been trying to get rid of the baby craze!

Terra: And, well... I want another... maybe two... N-Next...!

Yang: Okay... glad I'm not the only one... Ahem! Hi! My name is, Yang Xiao Long, and I'm not really a lesbian, I always thought I was more of a bisexual. I always thought, woman, and men were attractive. And, when I came here to, Beacon the lesbian drive kicked into overdrive! I mean come on! There are so many hot woman here!

Coco: It's a buffet here!

Yang: And, my teammate is, Blake Belladonna! How many people didn't get a aroused , and want to smash that phat ass!

Ilia: Preach sister!

Yang: But then, Jaune Arc came around, and started acting like a big brother figure to my little sister! He looked after her, he comforted her when she was sad, he made her cookies! That was my job! But, all of a sudden big bro came in and stole my job! And, that's were all hell let loose!

Yang: So, I confronted him one day to leave her alone, to stop being her 'big brother,' that it was my job to do those things, because I am her big sister. But, he told me not to worry, since I was her big sister, and i would always be her big sister. So, he told me not to worry 'little sister.' He calmed me, 'little sister' rubbed the top of my head, and left. And, I swear to gods... I came when he patted my head!

Coco: Seriously?!

Terra: I'd buy that.

Yang: I don't like people touching my hair, but he just patted once, and he sent me so over the edge that, that's what happened?! I want, no need him to do it again!

Yang: I want my big brother to hold me in his arms, to comfort me when I'm sad, to run his fingers through my hair to calm me. And, above all I want him to spank my ass as he calls me his bitch, while I scream big bro as he takes me from behind! I used to imagine doing that to, Blake, and her phat ass! Now, I want, Jaune to be doing that to me!

Coco: (Whistles~!) You got it bad girl.

Terra: Really bad... Now tell us how you want him to do this, I need to know.

Yang: You're turn, Emerald.

Emerald: Okay... My name is Emerald Sustari. I am a lesbian, least I was... honestly I think I'm not that much of a lesbian, I was interested in my team leader. Her name is, Cinder Fall. She took me in, when no one else would, so I kinda fell for her from an emotional stand point. But, Cinder never saw me from that angle... she's more focused on how she can use me for her own gains. This often made me cry, that she didn't care about me... Then one day, Jaune found me when I was crying, and we just started talking. He became a shoulder I could cry on, someone I could go to for support, or just someone I could be around when I needed something.

Emerald: Then... then his mother came by, and he introduced me to her... And, I understood why, Jaune was such a nice, and caring person. And, I asked, Jaune's mom. Juniper if she would adopt me, so I could finally have the mother figure I always wanted.

Yang: What did she say?

Emerald: She said no.

Terra: What?! But, Juniper is such a lovely woman, why did she say no?

Emerald: Because she knows how much I love, Jaune, and that if I married him she would still become my mom. So, I get the best of both worlds. A mom, and the man I love...

Terra: Oh...

Yang: Now that's a good deal right there...

Coco: Alright... now that everyone has been introduced, we shall now begin the first meeting with the, LAJA. Does anyone have an items they wish to bring to the table.

Ilia: Yeah, I have one... We're calling ourselves the, Lesbians Against, Jaune Arc. But, how are we against, Jaune? I mean... we all want to sleep with the guy... that doesn't sound so 'against' now does it?

Coco: Uhh... cause I thought everyone would be upset, Jaune turned us straight. So, we would be against him, because of that.

Ilia: That makes sense, but in reality... we want to fuck him...

Yang: Yeah, we all want to sleep with the guy to one degree, or the other.

Terra: So how are we against the guy?

Coco: It sounded nice...?

Emerald: I vote we rename ourselves to the, Lesbians Attracted to, Jaune Arc! Where are new mandate is to help each other sleep with, Jaune to some degree. All those in favour say aye.

Ilia: Aye!

Yang: Hell to the aye!

Terra: Aye~!

Coco: Aye!

Coco: Okay, in that case I welcome you to the first meeting of the, LAJA. Lesbians Attracted to, Jaune Arc. First order of business: Who gets to fuck, Jaune first.

Yang: I move, Terra goes last, she's already slept with him, and had his child.

Terra: What?!

Ilia: I agree.

Emerald: Agree.

Coco: The ayes have it; Terra only gets to sleep with, Jaune after the rest of us do.

Terra: ...

Terra: Okay, that's fair...

[razzberriezz]

Fashion Dreamer Tips & Tricks

Some stuff only I found that isn't mentioned or in-game at all or is easily missed as far as I'm aware? I hope it helps some of you guys out :) It is quite image-heavy under the cut, fair warning!!

Colour Matching (Item Creator) Pressing down on the left stick changes the display from mannequin to the item itself, but pressing it again will show whatever item you're creating along with whatever your muse is currently wearing.

So if you've gotten a custom coloured item from someone else, this is great for making items and accessories to match with it! And you don't have to waste 120k points trying to match colours by guesstimation instead like me :'))) Or maybe I'm just dumb because I knew how to zoom in and out, just not the display switching OTL

2. Showroom Configuration (is stupid) This is for the Happy Home Paradise players... Make sure that any mannequins or clothing you display in your showroom is actually accessible, because you cannot walk under ceiling decorations, even if they are lighting. I have no idea why. You also can't change the camera angle, so it'd be best not to put the door/panel decorations all in a row at the front, because then players can't see what you're even displaying (unless it's just like a mannequin in the middle surrounded by lockers... Idk)

Taking the time to plug my showroom again before I swap out the outfits for the fancier stuff I have >o< Find me at a8xv4JW3Am!

3. Muse Advisors There are at least 2 or 3 advisors who are present at the Muse Mirror in each Cocoon in rotation. (e.g. Noz and Iris in HOPE) They can not only suggest colours and unique makeup that you haven't obtained yet* (I've seen a look where your character gets like a Batman/Robin mask lol), but also give you their own! If the one whose look you want isn't there, you just have to quick-travel (press down on the right stick) to another Cocoon and back. Otherwise, you can just keep talking to them and backing out until their option shows up.

Before & After (Iris ver.)!

(*Unfortunately, they won't give you unique eye shines/reflections.)

4. NPCs I've just learnt that the NPCs you start with are most likely random. I've seen others start with NPCs I haven't even seen or heard of! You need to raise their friendship level until you get a special event that says 'Friend Introduction' - and even then, I think the NPC who appears next might be random (unconfirmed). This may make it quite a pain for those who want the unnatural skin colours, since I believe they are only unlockable via NPC friendship rank... So just go into solo mode and spam some outfits :')

5. Camera Angles and Idle Poses This one is a bit useless, but I didn't know about it until now so it's going in. Most of the time, I use the drone camera to take photos, but could never really fit fullbody photos - turns out, you need to angle the camera slightly downwards (have your character looking up) to be able to zoom out enough to fit your Muse's whole body in. If the camera angle is level with your Muse, you will never be able to get a fullbody picture. Who thought this would be a good idea???

Level angle and tilted angle - the level angle is already at the lowest it could go.

Additionally, waiting for a while will let your character have the time to perform some idle animations, some of which (I think) are not present in the poses option, even via NPC friendship rank. The downside is that you'll have to crop out some parts of the UI and the quality will be a little lower - however, that can be fixed using waifu2x (which I tend to use anyways for aesthetic posts lol).

Before & After using waifu2x!

Since the game is so new I thought this might be helpful to some who are also just starting out. If anything here is wrong, please let me know and I'll fix it as soon as possible!

[codgod]

y’know generally i try to limit colour palettes to as few colours as possible to make things more cohesive but despite my best efforts only jay ended up being able to stick to that </3

ANYWAYS here’s the as-of-right-now fully updated designs for these dickheads. these will no doubt undergo even more tweaking as i draw them more but this is a start i guess. also pls open the pictures to look at them properly i worked so hard LOL

some random notes under the cut yaaaay

chip —

he jingles when he walks. somehow he’s still stealthy. i do not know how

kept the platinum ring that bonded him to gillion in the block! because hey he doesn’t really have a reason to take it off (and it’s a nice reminder of how much gill cares about him, and how far their friendship has come since that ice arena)

his tattoos shift and flicker like actual flames, and sometimes (harmless, purely aesthetic) sparks fly off them when he’s excited

i just think smoke coming out of his mouth when he’s angry would be cool :]

chipped teeth from biting rocks and coins all the time :/

he has scars from the red lightning, they’re just mostly contained to his back and shoulders. they’re a similar red to his coat even once they’ve healed

gillion —

the tail sleeve thing is so he can rest it on the ground without damaging his scales, he doesn’t usually wear it when he’s just on the ship because the wood is soft enough that it’s usually fine + it can hinder swimming a bit. it’s mostly meant for places where there’s cobblestone or gravel streets and such. i think his armour would probably have a version that looks similar but covers the whole tail minus the fins, maybe with some armour plating of its own. i didn’t draw it because there wasn’t any room lol

his scars from the lightning are pink mostly because red stood out too much tbh. they softly glow in the dark the same as his coral and the pink parts of his fins

also kept his ring! his hands aren’t really made for jewellery, though, because the webbing means it won’t sit very secure on his finger. so he keeps it on the same chain as the necklace he got from aslana to keep it safe

tried to make him look a bit bulkier and more his age than in my original design? i feel like i was leaning too much into the naivety and. shortness. originally lol. he also has thicker eyebrows now and i’m still trying to decide how i feel about them but i think? i like it? i don’t tend to give many character thin eyebrows so it could’ve been a unique thing for him but alas

i think i made the sword too small but like ignore that

also forgor to include pretzel </3 that’s okay though she can get her own design sheet later. she’s special like that

jay —

i believe in tall jay supremacy

blue magic! i was considering gold but that’d look a bit more like a canary than i wanted for her wings so. blue jay :]

her hair is supposed to look kinda like fire to mimic her dad ! kinda showing that even if she runs from her family and the navy they’ll always be a part of her. and also i just like drawing messy hair

i gave her sturdier gloves just because i feel like it fits her better. also changed up the shirt to more of a button up solely because i don’t like tank tops very much LOL

i did WANT to make her outfit a bit flashier to match the boys better but i couldn’t quite figure out where to Put the flash. maybe that’ll come later, the way the story’s going i might get to design some cool prosthetics for her or something

overall —

because there’s just so many fucking colours i triiied to add at least one or two colours from each of them into the others designs. jay has her necklace with each of their main colours on it, her wings are the same blue as gillions eyes, her jacket and right eye are the same dark blue as destiny’s blade, her hair is the same orange as the lighter part of chips tattoos. chip has a dark green sash under all the belts, the same as the hilt of destiny’s blade. they all use the same shades of black, gold, and brown

the only real exception is gillion doesn’t have anything from the other two because he has Such a specific colour palette and he already had so much going on as-is orz jay was obviously the easiest to do this with because she has both warm and cool colours in her palette by default lol (and i did her design last, so that helps)

[plor-bindery]

Bound: Take the Moon & Two Houses, by @tackytigerfic

The final installment in my rundown of fic I bound for Tacky! And this is currently my top contender of all the books I've bound. I just fucking love it? Idk.

First things first. I wanted to try a tete-beche for a while, and when I was deciding what of Tacky's to bind, I found these two fics that both center on a forced marriage or marriage of convenience, which is just an excellent trope all around. The two fics are quite different otherwise, so I'll rave about them separately.

Take the Moon features werewolf Harry (though, as Tacky says, that's not what the fic is about) and a forced marriage (and, as Tacky also says, that's not what the fic is about either.) What is the fic about, then, you ask? For me, it's finding love and family and steadfastness in each other. The fic also features one of my favorite depictions of Scorpius, who Tacky here writes as a preschool aged boy with autism. Tacky doesn't make Scorpius a problem or a source of conflict -- of course, because of course he isn't! -- but instead makes it super clear that the world around him is the issue that needs addressing. Harry is so fiercely in Scorpius and Draco's corner through this fic. I love it so much.

Two Houses also features parent Drarry, but in this one, they are parents of grown children. I love middle-aged Drarry, and Tacky does such a fantastic job with these two wondrous idiots, their bluster and irritability and how they are absolutely just meant for each other anyway.

For this bind, I used a bit of cotton in my fabric stash from my doll clothes making stage, over ten years ago. (The children who received said dolls and doll clothes are nearly grown themselves now, so it's time to repurpose the fabric.)

I drew (actually! drew! digitally but I drew!) the artwork for both the covers, keeping the colour and design very simple because the cloth is so busy. Using little bits of gold HTV to accent the plain white is just my favorite thing. (Weeding out all the tiny holes in the title of Take the Moon was not my fave. But worth it.)

Endpapers are just scrapbook papers from Michaels. (The map is of New England, lol. But the aesthetic worked? For Two Houses?)

Shopping cart is off rawpixel.org and is from a theme in Take the Moon.

I neglected to take photos of the endbands but they were my first attempt at using the bookcloth for making my own endbands, and that went fairly well?

The book itself is another legal quarto size bind.

Long ramble short: I really, really love this bind, and I'm super proud of it. I had a little moment of feeling verklempt when I packed it up, but of course it belongs with Tacky! (I don't have any more of this fabric so this is truly one of a kind -- but I might someday make myself a copy with different cloth?)

[soundlesswind]

Mononoke: Karakasa Review

Mononoke - Phantom in the Rain

Now that it's officially out globally, I can finally offer some thoughts and reflections on the long-awaited continuation of the cult-beloved Ayakashi/Mononoke series. My main tagline for this review can be summarized thusly:

I liked it...but it could have been better.

(~ not spoiler free, read at your own discretion ~)

Karakasa: Visually, it's a bang---structurally, it's a bomb. That about sums up how I feel about the movie overall. It's vibrant, beautiful, and full of intricate patterning and details, and is in a way: both a step up and a step down from the original.

...But what do I mean by that really? Well, I think we need to first highlight what makes Karakasa and Mononoke rather different.

Ayakashi/Mononoke has a much slower pacing, with slightly more muted, and washed-aesthetic tone despite its colourful designs. It shifts from being more colourful or more sombre depending on the type of scene it wants to depict. But even at its most saturated, it never gets quite as vibrant in contrast compared to Karakasa. ...However, you could say that may be in part due to the sheer difference in animation techniques developed over the course of nearly a decade between the two (2006/2007 vs 2024).

That isn't to say Karakasa doesn't have moments of dark imagery, but that even at its darkest, it remains distinctly vibrant and high-in-contrast. You could argue for it as a conscientious choice...but personally, at its root: Mononoke is a horror-ghost story; and the gritter, muddled palettes rather add to that charm.

(2007 Mononoke - Noppera-bou, and Nue)

(2024 Karakasa)

To match its mood, Mononoke also has a much slower cadence and story tempo, despite any singular arc being overall shorter than Karakasa. That cadence adds to another difference: which is spookiness. I find Mononoke to be far spookier and more effortlessly imposing than Karakasa. There's a bit of tension and suspense in the way it's presented: both visually and vocally* (a point I'll bring up later). Mononoke is sometimes boldly laid out in seemingly disjointed flashes, but still somehow ends up cohesive and immersive with its themes and motifs; feeding you just enough information to wet your appetite as to where and just how far it wants to take you. And this is of course, done in parts over the span of 2-3 episodes.

Karakasa on the other hand, has a pacing that feels like a marathon. It seems almost lightning fast, despite the first half of the movie being entirely sociopolitical intrigue without much in the way of anything overtly youkai-esque. In fact, our Medicine Seller doesn't even step foot into the Ooku (women's court) until around 40 minutes in...which is nearly half the movie! ...But naturally, since it's a movie, it will be movie-formatted. Everything is going to run as if it were one singular episode long. --- Still, what does that mean for the pacing?

If you don't know what "tea house tales" "is.....it's basically a format of short stories told over several sessions. It's one of the ways people in the historic East used to tell stories. They'd gather around somewhere, drink tea, eat snacks and share a bit of light entertainment. In the same way the episodic nature of Mononoke is somewhat reminiscent of that. Each part feeds you a bit of information, a bit of mystery, a bit of suspense, and a bit of action. It keeps you sufficiently entertained one way or another without stringing you on far too long before any sort of climactic reveal. In this way, Mononoke feels more balanced and evened out than Karakasa. But even the format aside, I found Karakasa a lot less clear and concise with what it's trying to portray. There were parts of the movie I had to re-watch a few times or sit down and think about afterwards just to fully understand what I think it was alluding to, which wasn't an issue with Mononoke whatsoever. The plot, both visually and thematically was always clear as day for the original series, where as Karakasa sort of muddles on and off between mystery and court drama over the course of an hour and a half.

Personally...I think one of the detriments to Karakasa is the sheer size of its cast. There were simply way too many characters (27+), and some of them even have overlapping roles. There were also quite a few without clear rhyme or reason. For example, we get introduced to Tenshi, Mizoragi and the moon twins, and an assortment of other characters who don't really have much of a presence in the movie (other than to to be positional seat warmers) and are shown for a collective total of a few minutes. Karakasa IS a trilogy however, so it's possible that their roles may be elaborated in future movies, but in regards to the current film, they feel like a distraction. I guess they're going grand and all out, but the benefits of a smaller cast is that you get more intimate with each character and their already very limited screentime. It just wasn't possible for me to feel any intimacy or investment into the large cast of Karakasa---Asa and Kame included.

Comparatively; I always felt truly, fully immersed in all the story arcs of the original Ayakashi/Mononoke. I cared about the characters, or was so invested in their sorrowful tale. But I didn't particularly feel that way about Karakasa because whatever message it was trying to convey kind of got lost in-between all the court drama...which, I'm not sure some viewers may even understand or empathize with unless they already have some knowledge of what women in the imperial harem go through or how it functions. (Speaking of which, Asa practically speed ran the exposition towards the end regarding Kitagawa and her own motives.) Just to name a few: there's the rank struggles of Asa and Kame versus the leaders of the Ooku; the political positions of Fuki, Botan and the other consorts, the political household ties of Saburomaru, the grip of Mizoragi's strange cult, and the (lack of) political power that Tenshi (the emperor) holds versus the Shogunate in the Capital (---I'm not entirely sure what timeline we're in right now, but the fact that there IS a Shogunate implies a lot.)

...Anyway, you can see why there are too many distractions in this movie for me to fully feel immersed in whatever it's trying to tell. It's supposed to be a movie of women's suffering (under the weight of men and the social sphere I suppose), but most of the time it felt more like I was just simply suffering watching women cat fight each other until they quickly got picked off by the Karakasa mononoke.

Speaking of the titular "Karakasa", though... it certainly was an interesting choice of youkai. I wonder if it was because traditionally, karakasa aren't violent youkai, they're merely scary tricksters; and it wasn't as if Kitagawa was really out for revenge (though she did pick off a few people).....actually, now that I've written it out that way, Kitagawa's motives are a little unclear. Or maybe it didn't matter anymore as karakasa grew to the point it became uncontrollable. Either way, I think if they had refocused the movie on Kitagawa and actually visually show the parallels between her, her "friend" and Asa/Kame...instead of giving us a verbal speedrun exposition dump towards the end...I might have felt a little more sympathy (...or just simply anything worth feeling towards the story). But alas.

It certainly didn't help that I was a little unsatisfied with some of the voice cast. For the most part, I was okay with the side cast (particularly the males, since the females hardly had lines); but felt it was a waste that Tsuda Kenjiro (Mizoragi) also hardly had any lines (...though I have a feeling he'll play a bigger role in the next movie). He was actually even one of my 3 ideal choices for Kusuriuri's recast (next to Ishida Akira and Toriumi Kousuke). I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love Kamiya Hiroshi, he is one of my favourites...but I think his role as Kusuriuri was a bit lackluster since his vocal range is medium-high and therefore does not go deep or husky enough to carry the same spook factor that Sakurai Takahiro's voice has. Karakasa also lacks the unique staccato often used in the original Mononoke which gave it an overall interesting sound and pace. I loved the odd vocal nuances and pauses in the previous work and was very sad that it's more or less nonexistent in Karakasa.

My second complaint would be with Asa and Kame's cast, which I felt might've benefited more from actresses with more interesting inflections. Kurosawa Tomoyo is an okay actress. She gets the job done but generally does better on long-running series since she takes a long time to fully have a grip on her role. Honestly, she was on auto-pilot and was quite boring throughout Karakasa. Aoi Yuuki on the other hand has a lot of vocal range, but generally suffers from inconsistency and just sounding like nails on a chalkboard. (I won't even mince it; my housemate walked in on me watching Karakasa on the telly and literally flinched at her voice because it severely hurt her eardrums---my condolences).

Generally speaking, I do prefer older seiyuus, they just have qualities I enjoy more, but I do also think the movie would've benefitted more from either a liveaction casting or a Showa casting. Most of the characters (in both Mononoke and Karakasa) kind of...oddly use modern speech instead of feudal Japanese (minus Utayama), and given that the Ooku IS a court drama, doesn't use court language or any regional dialects whatsoever (granted I'm not even sure if this is Kyoto, Edo, or wherever). Awashima and Mugitani do use formal language, but only Utayama uses slightly older diction. With the exception of a few notable names, most of the cast for Karakasa are from a generation of newer/younger voice actors, whereas Mononoke consists of an older one. You probably won't care unless you're a seiyuu buff, but there is actually a clear vocal distinction between those of different acting generations. For example: Sakurai, Kamiya, Ishida, Tsuda, Ogata, Hayashibara, etc...all have particular qualities to their voice that give it a layer of interest (ie. whispiness, huskiness, nasalness, etc). I don't know if it's caused by the difference in learned language or some other factor, but newer generations of voice actors tend to have more clear-toned voices with more modern inflections. Kurosawa and Aoi both have notably modern inflections when they act. You could say it's a battle of old versus new if we're going by story theme...but in which case, the rest of the cast could've been of an older generation to portray that. (But well, I'm glad they chose an older actress for Utayama, at least). The few exceptions to this are a small handful of modern actresses that are so astoundingly skilled they break that barrier. I kind of wished they had casted Hanazawa for Kame instead but she's already Kitagawa...but in which case, toss Sawashiro Miyuki in that role, I think she would've been a bit spookier. Hanazawa as Kame might've made her more endearing to me, but maybe they were going for the double-double: irritable voice and character combo, since Kame wasn't particularly written to be likeable. --- Kame does somewhat feel like a second generation Kayo (MAO), but I think MAO was still more serviceable to my ears. Anyway. I don't think I should hold up this review post any longer with my derailed rant on voice acting. It is what it is, and at the very least: we found out some lore bombshell that there are possibly at most 64 medicine sellers, and that Sakurai (Ri) Kusuriuri and Kamiya (Kon) Kusuriuri are different characters altogether (---a lot of fans rejoiced about that), making the possibility of two or more existing at one time. Wouldn't that be exciting to see?

Moving on to the music. In contrast to the trailers, the soundtrack in the movie sometimes feel like background white noise. It almost seems like a trend with newer anime, but nowadays, I hardly hear the tracks compared to older shows. Well, in Karakasa in particular, the movie is moving at such a jilted pace: most of the sounds you will hear is either dialogue or the occasional clinks and clangs. They don't really blast OSTs like they used to (...unlike Hollywood movies where I hear too much BGM). --- But following the odd quirks of Ayakashi: some of the vocal themes for Karakasa still are that weird mash of modern and traditional sounds with the occasional rapping. Particularly during the fight scene, there were some hardcore bass rap on cue. I'm not sure if I like or dislike it, but it is different. My favourite track is the Okami-esque flute theme used during the Birth Celebration Ceremony towards the end. But whether it's Mononoke or Karakasa, what stands out in both is not the score, but the sound effects which have always been the distinctive noise of the series.

The teased title for the next installment is "Ashes of Rage". I wonder what that could mean? We're left on a bunch of cliffhangers, such as why did Kusuriuri smile while looking at the clouds, what's the deal with the seal in the well, and what was Mizoragi doing in the cellar pouring water over what looked like an enclosed basin? Moreover, why on earth did they lore drop so much on the background of the medicine sellers...not in the movie but during the side interviews! The fact that they have a home base, or that the Shingi (alters) are different people... So do you mean to tell me, I still can dream of an Ishida Akira Kusuriuri!? There are at most 8 trigram Taima swords, and 2 of which are Sakurai and Kamiya's. Does that mean there's still room for another 6 Kusuriuris? That's so fruity!

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. I also I hope you watched the movie before perusing this given that it's so spoiler heavy. While it does seem like I had a lot of complaints, make no mistake: the movie was gorgeous. It was made with painstaking visual efforts and intricate architecture. Every stroke and splash is a work of art, making it one of the most visually interesting movie in a long time.

While it doesn't replace the old Mononoke in my heart, the Karakasa trilogy is a nice addition; something different and its own thing. A lot more action and a lot more abstract if you dig that sort of presentation.

Given that the trilogy isn't over, I have no doubt the rest of it will continue on with Kamiya's (Kon) Kusuriuri...but I do hope the series continues to keep receiving love so I can eventually have a whole Sentai Kamen rider group of Kusuriuris.

Until next time...~!

[lafayette-paw-arts]

Do you maybe have any spicy polycule Vee headcannons? Or maybe more wholesome domestic ones?

By spicy are you meaning nsfw?

Wholesome I've got in spades!

Vox's sharks were gifts from Velvette and Valentino, that's why there's 2 of them, neither of them were willing to let the other have the credit for it knowing how much Vox loves sharks so they compromised and each gave him one

Vox always gives the others the best model of whatever tech they have (phones, tablets, laptops, etc) even if there's nothing wrong with the one they currently have

Valentino will always use his wings as blankets for his smaller partners, and he lives under cat rules, if one of his partners has decided to sit with him or lay on him he is now unable to move until they do first. (he's canceled entire filming sessions because Velvette fell asleep on him)

Velvette has a secret stash of candid pictures of the other vees, them acting stupid, mid-bite of their food, making goofy faces at each other, etc, but these pictures would never make it to social media, it doesn't fit their perfect brand, so she keeps them to herself, feels more special that way.

Vox always has to be in the middle when it's communal snuggle time, he's mostly unaware of the competitions that Val and Vel do to get the "better side" but he does have his suspicions. He does love being between them tho. It's comfortable and he feels very loved which is sometimes needed to get his insecurities to shut up for a few hours.

Vox has a weighted dinosaur stuffed animal Valentino gave him he laughed at it when it was given to him, but it sits on his desk now. Most of those who get to see his office are smart enough not to comment on it. Those who were stupid enough to mock it never left the office, not in one piece anyway.

Velvette loves cottagecore not that the rest of hell knows it, but her floor has a whole room dedicated to it. The boys will gift her little mushroom or flower shaped things to add to the room. (She has rooms for multiple aesthetics but only her boys know about the cottagecore one)

Valentino's antenna are very sensitive, he ONLY lets Vel and Vox play with them, and only when they're alone and done with work for the day, it's not an inappropriate type of sensitive (he kinda wishes it was sometimes) more of a very flustered and blushy kind of sensitive.

Vox's favourite thing are things that glow (as a result he really likes the avatar movies because of all the glowy shit), Val and Velvette will bring him almost anything glowy they find as a gift, he mockingly calls them penguins for giving him shiny rocks to which they will always shoot back that he's the penguin who accepts said shiny rocks.

Velvette wears a bracelet that each of her boys made for her, Valentino's is a simple braided friendship bracelet style in her favourite colours, while Vox's is an elegant silver bangle with her birthstone hanging from it.

I think that's enough for this round, if anyone wants any more headcanons let me know what you want to hear!

[kekaki-cupcakes]

hello, are you still doing requests?

if so, could i have some sibling headcanons of nico with a hades kiddo that's really peppy and into colorful things and people find it hard to believe they're siblings at first because their personalities are polar opposites of each other?

thankyou!

Heya, I'm still doing requests but I have so many so it might take a while to get an answer, feel free to request something else though! This kind of went off track but oh well <3

Don't take it to heart---Nico/opposite aesthetics sibling!reader

»»————-　★　————-««

-The minute you skipped up to the porch of the Hades Cabin with your stripey rainbow leg warmers and a tote bag with a stupid pun about a show with something called ‘carebears’, Nico winced.

-He’d need sunglasses if he had to keep looking at you, but he didn’t really want to borrow the big yellow star ones on the end of your nose, so maybe that was a bad idea. Your first interaction went a bit like this:

You: “Heya, you're the emo kid, right? I’m new! So, where’s our cabin?” 

Nico: “Uh… you're supposed to go that way.”

You: “No, that’s the Iris cabin, at least that’s what Chiron said. I’m your new sibling, by the way. Chiron said we have one in Rome too! 

Nico: I- well, yes, I- we do.

You: Are they as grumpy looking as you?

-Needless to say you got off to a great start. Nico proceeded to dump your bags on one of the beds, which has a zebra print doona matching one of your headbands, and then left immediately. You shrugged it off, obviously, and started stacking your things on the coffin shaped bookshelves. You ignored the candle that was supposed to smell like ‘the souls of the damned’, and put your own flowery one next to it. 

-You found out you loved arts and crafts, where you made friendship bracelets with Lacy, as well as pegasi riding. You saw Nico once, and he waved awkwardly, but went back to the small child he was glaring at quickly. You quickly became attached to a creamy coloured mare called macaroni as well, but Butch wouldn’t let her sleep in your cabin. He did take a friendship bracelet, though. And he let you weave daisy chains into macaroni’s mane and tail, so you liked him. 

-You had brought a musty old record player with you after finding out that there was no wifi, but you had to pause ‘Washing Machine Heart’ [by Mitski, of course] when Nico came trudging into the now bright cabin. You’d opened all the curtains and taken the spiders that fell from them outside, dumping them in the bushes behind the Athena cabin. 

-Nico stared at the squishmellows on your bed and then the dreamcatcher by one of the windows, and the row of brightly coloured converse with striped laces lined up by his three different pairs of black Doc Martens. 

-He shrugged his jacket off and went straight into the bathroom, leaving a little trail of muddy footsteps along the heart shaped rug you’d put down.

-He was just adjusting to a roommate, you told yourself. It wasn’t anything to do with you personally. You hadn’t done anything wrong, maybe you should just give him a bit of space. That was a good idea. Leave him alone for a bit until he was used to you, and don’t take it to heart. 

»»————-　★　————-««

-You took it to heart.

»»————-　★　————-««

-Months had passed, and you were thankful for the Ipad Piper [she was so nice, and she let you borrow her Olivia Rodrigo records] lent you so you could facetime the family and friends you had left behind occasionally. They had seemed to adjust to you not being there anymore, now that you knew you were a child of Hades, the outside world was too dangerous to risk. You tried not to take that to heart either.

-Macaroni was getting used to the beaded bridle you’d made her, but you were still training her to get used to flying around while you used your new weapons.

-Nyssa had helped you make them, able to actually craft a design after glancing at you scribbled drawing with glitter gel pens that you really had worked hard on. Now you had a sparkly belt with three attachments, that you could click in your spray cans too. The cans were filled with different coloured paint, only the base liquid was melted down celestial bronze flakes, so when you fought a monster, which you were still learning to do, it would seep into their eyes and turn them blind, or crack through their skin and dissolve them. You loved the spray cans.

-Drew had warmed up to you as well, and you were even invited to Barbie premier night in Cabin ten. You got to wear your sparkly leg warmers and the cropped leather jacket in a light shade of pink.

-You were making your way to the arts and crafts center with a box of clay and little paint brushes in your arms to run the pottery class [you’d been elected as head of arts and crafts pretty quickly, shared with Elsa, one of the Athena kids who specialize in weaving and sewed the cutest pajama pants] when you bumped into Nico.

-Literally. 

-The box may have been a few heads taller than you, so it wasn’t really your fault, but Nico still snapped at you. 

-You gathered up the little tubs of paint from the grass and apologized quickly, your chest tight with anxiety. You hurried away after that, ignoring your brother as he tried to explain he hadn’t realized it was you when he hissed curse words Drew had started teaching Harley and Lacy. 

-The class went well, the scrunchies Elsa was making her girlfriend for her birthday went along well, and a few more kids than usual showed up, taking lumps of clay from the tray and working it into figures on their tables. You were making beads that you’d string onto a bracelet for Nyssa, because she always broke the plastic ones with hammers and drills accidentally.

-You thought back to your interaction with Nico and regretted it dearly. Maybe if you’d just heard him out or even apologized and blamed yourself, he might’ve come to your class to see your works, or sat with you at dinner, or even just waved from across the infirmary when you went to get panadol for your headaches. 

-You knew you got them from straining your eyes to read and draw in the dim cabin, but whenever you opened the curtains or switched on your blue lamp with a cloudy pattern that you hadn’t got to use yet, Nico cleared out completely. 

-It wasn’t your fault, you reminded yourself, you were just… too different.

-People started filing out after putting their creations to the side, you complimented each of their idea’s even though you felt like getting some Ben and Jerry’s from the camp shop and curling up in bed to watch ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ again. 

-The beads for Nyssa were nearly done, so you went to find a container to pop them in.

-When you got back, they had been ground into the bench until the delicate tracing of different things Nyssa likes were just shapeless brown blobs. An Ares kid, Grey, was standing with their arms crossed and a smirk on their face, which was mostly obscured by a nose that had been broken too many times.

-You stared down at the squashed clay and felt your eyes prickle with tears.

-Grey jeered at you, calling you things you’d rather not hear again, because they only made the tears fall. You rubbed your nose and smoothed the front of your tye-dyed camp shirt flat. Grey called after you, something about being a ‘rainbow prissy’. You stumbled out of the center.

-Nico wasn’t in your cabin when you slammed the door behind you, thankfully, and you hopped into bed, kicking your yellow converse off and pulling the doona over your head so you didn’t have to look at the skull filled walls around you.

-It was so dark, it was so dark and shadowy and there were bones you were too scared to ask about their origins lining the mirror in the bathroom you kept seeing things behind you in. Your crocheted blanket that used to sit across the black doona cover had been folded up a while ago and placed back in your suitcase, along with a few of the more multicolored posters and the fruity scented candles that seemed to annoy your half brother. 

-You rubbed your eyes with your sleeves and held your hand over your mouth so Nico wouldn’t hear crying when he would eventually come back a few hours later, late enough that you could pretend to be asleep. 

»»————-　★　————-««

-The infirmary was busy with bleeding and laughing demigods when you wandered in looking for some panadol. Your headache was making it hard to think straight, but whenever you cried too much you got one, so you knew what to do by now. 

-Will waved from over from where he was pulling a ruler, a stapler, and a glue stick out of the stomach of an Iris kid who was giggling the entire time, coughing up glitter. He grimaced when a chunk of glue hit his face. You waved back and turned the corner, heading to the rooms at the back where Austin would be. He usually had the panadol. 

-Someone groaned in the corner, and you spotted Grey. 

-They looked like a soggy bag of a human, their mauled nose the only definable shape. You couldn’t pull your eyes away from the grotesque demigod blob.

-Austin shuffled up behind you with a grimace, passing over a few pills and a glass of water without looking away. You gulped them down quickly as Grey let out another moan and rolled a bit on their hospital bed. Austin told you that he’d been spotted on the floor of the Arts and crafts center. 

-Apparently, every few minutes one of his bones would disappear.

-It was only a few fingers at the start, then most of his ribs couldn’t be found and there was something wrong with his mouth, which Austin found out meant his jaw had decided to not be there. 

-A screechy sound came from the front of the infirmary, and you both looked to the door, which Clarrise was dragging Nico through, holding him up by the back of his jacket. He pummeled at the chunky daughter of Ares, but couldn’t get out of her grip. Clarrise glared around at the staring demigods and snarled, “why is this little shit de-boning Grey?”

-You didn’t know who yelled ‘that’s what she said’ from across the room.

-”Because they deserve it.” Nico hissed a bit like a cat, glaring up at Clarisse with narrowed brown eyes underneath his floppy hair.  

-Will ran up to the pair, brushing glitter off his gloved hands onto his scrubs instead. He folded his arms and stared Clarrise down until she finally let go of Nico, who dropped to the ground and then sprung back up, wrinkling his nose at the daughter of Ares, who just stuck her tongue back out at him. 

-Will pinched his nose, “Clarisse, more people come in here because of you then Nico, so you don’t get to talk. Nico, just fix them, they’re too annoying to be kept in here.”

-”But people deserved to be punched by me,” Clarrise argued with a scoff.

-”And Grey deserves to lose their bones!” Nico shot back, glaring up at Clarisse and balling his fists, “they stepped on my siblings clay stuff!”

»»————-　★　————-««

-You yawned and stretched your arms out above your head, then blinked up at the roof with bleary eyes. The skulls were gone, now it was just black concrete. You rolled over a moment later and stuffed your head back into your pillow, pulling your crocheted blanket back over your head.

-There was a ‘shing’ sound as curtains were yanked open, and you just sunk further into your comfy bed, ignoring the bright beams of early morning sunshine that streamed in and lit up the dark cabin. It made the rainbow rug in the center of the cabin even brighter, and you groaned loudly in protest. “Whaddaya even doing up so early? Go back to bed you vampire!”

-”It’s only six am?”

-”You’re more of a psychopath then I thought before,” you muttered, but made sure you were loud enough that your brother could hear you as he padded round the cabin getting changed and ready for his much too early start to the day. 

-Nico huffed and the bathroom door shut as he completely ignored the hairbrush you’d given him to passive aggressively deal with his scruffy black hair. “Leo forgot the code to the safe in the big house that he changed when he was hiding those icey poles from Piper.”

-”And how are you supposed to help him remember?”

-Nico’s boots were loud on the floorboards as he trotted over. He kissed you on the forehead gently, “oh I’m not, I’m gonna go watch him suffer the consequences with Jason.”

»»————-　★　————-««

[ryanyflags]

min- | fin- | nbin- lin- | glin- | agin- nin- | mvin- | xin-

min- / minsexual / minromantic / etc. : attraction to people who consider themselves masculine.

fin- / finsexual / finromantic / etc. : attraction to people who consider themselves feminine.

nbin- / enbin- / nonbin- / nbinsexual / enbinsexual / nonbinsexual / nbinromantic / enbinromantic / nonbinromantic / etc. : attraction to people who consider themselves nbine/enbine/nonbine/nonbinarine (nonbinary gender quality).

lin- / linsexual / linromantic / etc. : attraction to people who consider themselves androgynous.

glin- / glinsexual / glinromantic / etc. : attraction to people who consider themselves genderless.

agin- / aginsexual / aginromantic / etc. : attraction to people who consider themselves agenrine (agender gender quality).

nin- / ninsexual / ninromantic / etc. : attraction to people who consider themselves neutral. (the original definition also includes nonbinary and null, though people mainly just use nin- to mean neutral now.)

mvin- / mvinsexual / mvinromantic / etc. : attraction to people who consider themselves maverine (maverique gender quality).

xin- / xinsexual / xinromantic / etc. : attraction to people who consider themselves xenine (xenogender gender quality).

-★-

The terms are prefixes basically, so they can be attached to any attraction ending (such as -rose/-romanticsexual, -tertiary, -platonic, -alterous, -sensual, -aesthetic, -physical, -emotional, and more). I only listed the -sexual and -romantic variations to keep it readable.

For the definition of these terms, I reworded them a bit from common wiki definitions, but it follows the general idea I've seen in other posts discussing these terms.

Basically, when it comes to gender qualities, what counts as what can vary greatly between people. What one person considers masculine, feminine, androgynous, etc. can be really different from what another person considers it to be. Especially when you factor in things like different cultures, people with complex identities, or really queer people in general (as they can challenge such definitions).

Who's to determine what counts as what? Or say one definition matters more than another? I think it should be determined by the person in question. I can imagine a few issues otherwise. Wouldn't it be weird to put other people in boxes they don't identify with?

Also, these orientations aren't just being attracted to men, women, enben, etc., they're attractions to gender qualities (in either presentation or gender identity). So, for some examples, someone could consider themselves masculine while not being a man, and so be included under min-. It's the same for the others, someone could consider themselves maverine without being maverique. Or present femininely while being nonbinary. The combinations/examples are practically endless.

So the point of these labels is to be broad, and include those who want to be included, and exclude those who wouldn't want to consider themselves under that label.

Now that that wall of text is out of the way haha,

-in orientation flags :D [part 1 of 2] second post

It started with me wanting to make a couple of flags that I felt should exist, finding the 7 stripe -in orientation flag format and really liking it, wanting colourful matching versions, and so, an entire set (along with really thinking about the definitions). (like usual hah) There's so many flags I split it into 2 posts, and the second one will have 9 flags too.

For the flags, I based them off of the 7 stripe -in orientation format, where it gradients to darker stripes on the outside, with a dark stripe in the center (minsexual, finsexual, ninsexual examples). I chose them because I thought the format looked really nice, and also because I don't know how to make symbols for these flags (if anyone wants to make symbol versions, feel free to do so). Unlike the original format though, the stripes on both sides don't mirror each other. I did this just because I wanted (more) colourful versions.

As for the colours, they're inspired (not exactly colour picked) by the corresponding gender quality flags. So masculine for min-, feminine for fin-, nonbine for nonbin-, androgynous for lin-, genderless for glin-, agenrine for agin-, neutral for nin-, maverine for mvin-, and xenine for xin-.

[poetryandfluffycats]

A Peaceful Night... Or Not?

A/N: I'm overusing the 'character overworking themselves and reader forcing them to sleep/cuddle instead' trope a bit much but I can't help it pls its so fun🙏

Pairing: Shu Itsuki x gn!reader

Content: Nights with Shu are peaceful, calming, a luxury among the chaos of the world. That's what you would tell others, and it was true for the most part! The only time it wasn't was when Shu worked too much and threw one of his "temper tantrums" as you called them. Tonight, it seems he's reached that point once again

Warnings: none🤍 all fluff

Words: 1.1k

Oneshot under cut!

The bedroom was quiet, save for the gentle humming of the sewing machine and the turning of pages in the magazine you were reading-some fashion blog that Shu got for free when he ordered fabrics from overseas. You were sat atop of a mountain of pillows on the bed with a blanket pulled up to your neck whilst Shu sat at his desk, fussing over the small piece of purple thread in his hands.

This silence was one you were used to, one that both you and Shu thrived in. You found that with Shu you never needed all that constant chatter and banter that others needed. You could just be still, comfortable and content in your own worlds but also eachother.

You were happy.

"Ugh! This is the most irritating thing I've ever seen! The stitches are all wrong and the colour is just audacious!" Shu huffed, chucking the piece of fabric across the room and onto the bed, "How can they send me such a monstrosity of a thing, it feels like I'm using a rock as a needle! (name), can you believe this? Awful it is"

That happiness often faded when Shu threw this weekly tantrum.

You hummed, placing the magazine down beside you to pick up the piece of cloth that had been discarded. What Shu was trying to create was a mystery to you. He liked to keep most of his projects to himself, only ever really trusting Mika to help him on the odd occasion. The piece in your hand was simple, a few squares of lilac fabric sewn together into a rectangle with pencil lines detailing the design he was going to follow. It was quite pretty looking, for a mere piece of fabric, and you couldn't personally see anything wrong with it.

"What's it going to be?" You softly spoke, changing the subject so to try and uplift Shus mood, "I like the colours"

Shu huffed, hopping off his chair and stomping his foot on the ground like a toddler then crossing his arms over his chest, "well yes, I choose purple because I know its your favourite, but that is completely besides the point! It is meant to be a skirt, a flowy one for you to wear on our dates, but take a look at it! Can't you see? Its far too stiff, it'll look horrendous on your body like that! Not how I envisioned at all!"

You swore you felt your heart double in size at the words spewing from Shus mouth, a bright pink blush appearing on your face and reaching up to the tips of your ears. The angry and stubborn demeanour that Shu put on was something that you could see right through. Behind the fiery fumes in his eyes, you could see the man that only wanted to impress you, the man who wouldn't allow himself to gift you something subpar.

"Its not that bad, we can just order new fabrics. Pass me the phone and I'll ring them up for you-"

"No no no! I will not allow some idiot with no sense of aesthetic ruin my chances at creating the prefect outfit for you!" He ripped the piece of fabric back out from your hold, running his fingers over each line of stitching and nodding away to himself quietly. "I can fix this, its fixable. Yes, I see now. All I need to do is change out my thread, wash the cloth again and redo my stitching-"

You frowned as Shu continued his rant. He overworked himself quite a lot, and of course you hated to see him doing such a thing, especially right in front of your eyes.

With a small glint of determination in your eyes, you dragged yourself out from underneath the blankets and crawled lazily towards Shus hunched over figure, wrapping your arms around his middle when you did reach him and pressing your nose into his belly. His body tensed at the sudden touch, but he didn't pull away. A good sign.

-"But of course, if I do that, I'll possibly be working late tonight, but I have practice with Kagahira tomorrow morning. I cannot do my best work if I am tired. Perhaps if I call him he'll understand my situation-(name)? What on earth are you doing? Unhand me this instant!"

Despite his cruel words, he subconsciously reached a hand down to lace in your hair, threading through the silky strands and massaging your scalp. You hummed into his shirt and pressed a feather-light kiss on his lower belly before gazing up at him with doe eyes.

"Shu~" You cooed, your voice resembling that of a child who was asking their parents for more pudding after dinner. "Let's just take a break, yeah? Worry about it later?"

"Ha! How foolish of you to think that I, the greatest artist in the world, would stop for anything! Art does not require breaks, it only requires my hardwork and dedication! Now, I ask again. unhand me-ECK!-"

Before Shu could finish his sentence, you had used all of your body strength that you had to pull him onto the bed. In your head it was a show of your immense power, and that Shu would be starstruck at the display and would give up his continuous overexertion. However, Shu was a large man and you were no where near as strong as him, so when you pulled on his waist and the two of you fell backwards, you ended up being squished under his entire body weight and nearly got knocked out from the lack of oxygen.

"What is the meaning of this?! Have you gone crazy!?" The pink haired man hissed above you, attempting to pull himself up but falling due to your arms wrapped tight around him.

You wheezed as you still struggled for air, but you wouldn't give up. You'd get him to lay down if it was the end of you. "I'm sorry... please Shu? I don't wanna fight.."

"Then why did you push me?"

"It was an accident"

"Then why are you holding me hostage!"

"Because I love you, and I miss you. You're always working, I just wanna cuddle for a few minutes" You sighed, nuzzling your forehead against his and making the biggest puppy dog eyes you could muster, "Please? With a cherry on top?"

"Such childish behaviour... I ought to punish you for your actions tonight" He grumbled in that usual manner that anyone else would have froze up and quivered at, but not you. You could spot the twitching of his lips turning into a cheesy grin. A good sign. "But... there's no harm done... alright, my dearest doll. Do what you please with me"

"Yippe!"

Your smile was brighter than the sun itself as you pressed a kiss to Shus lips. And then another... and another... and another. Until the sun came up the next morning.

[luciddaydreamsstuff]

Desert Duo Doodles! I am in way too many fandoms to count, including content creators and whatnot. It wasn’t until a doodle of some CCs that I realised how many were MCYTs. But I wanted to draw these two cause I liked how I drew Scar in the other original doodle and have drawn Grian a bunch but constantly changed the design. Now I have one that I like.

Under the cut are the individual drawings plus stickers that I forgot to add to the original but decided fuck it it’s done, plus some explanation about design choices and headcanons. (Does anyone even care about that?) Idk and idc, I’ll ramble anyways.

(you don’t have to read the stuff, I don’t really care, but you can if you want)

First off, this one was annoying since it was supposed to be a hug. I was too lazy to draw the Third/Sercet Life outfits, so they are in their default outfits with crowns representing the fact that they won at least one of the Life games.

Ramble: For Grian’s design, I wanted to keep the bird/avian hybrid but also reference other series or past friend. The Life series has the poppy has memorabilia, the blue and red bracelet represents YHS/TS, and the eye necklace is for Evo. The tail is more so a mix of Watcher magic and Avian DNA, bird feet cause why not. The wing ears are hidden to look similar enough to his regular hair, I like to imagine that wing ears are a rarer trait and to not draw too much attention, he would use Watcher magic to change the colour of the wing ears to match his hair. The freckles are based off of the idea that Angel Dust’s freckles are actually just eyes (which were shown in the show), and I liked that idea. He didn’t have freckles before Evo but after in Hermitcraft he did, they are just eyes that are always closed though he can see out of them. It’ll be clearer in the next piece, but his eyes are based off of some bird eyes so a black sclera with coloured pupils. Grian just hides his eyes under his hair since they are more sensitive than normal. Also I didn’t wanna draw his eyes cause it was one of the things I kept changing before.

I’ll go into Scar later since it’s just a half body but he goes by the same rule of his outfit showing where he’s been. So the poppy and lavender for Third Life and the heart necklace for Secret Life. The earrings are based off of the crystals from Season 7.

Alter Egos! Or at least Hot Guy and Arianna Griande. Not much here, but you can see what I meant with the eyes beforehand.

Also, I can’t be the only one to notice or at least point out that Ari and Cute Guy have like the same or a least a very similar colour palette of pink and white.

Final one, and the two are taking a much needed nap. This could take place anywhere though I like to imagine somewhere in Double Life or somewhere between Season 7 - 10

(also I find it very funny how close these two’s bases were for Season 6 - 10. both were near each other in the futuristic district of season six, then next door neighbours at the start of season seven, I don’t need to mention much besides boatem in season eight, again near the start and most of season nine with Scarland and Grian’s timejump build, then finally again in season ten with Magic Mountain. just funny to me for some reason)

Ramble: Scar is like a hybrid between an elf/fae creature and a cat centaur (that I cannot remember the proper name for). The cat half is based off of Jellie, RIP, and his body is scarred because well I mean the dude is accident-prone it’s bound to happen. I imagine that Scar would wear slightly baggy outfits, like they hang off just a bit to not hug his figure. His hair is more based off of Season 9 with him leaning into the whole elf aesthetic, and I both hate and like the hair but whatever. Idk, I kinda just wanted to make him centaur based cause that visual isn’t something I see often. I imagine that hind legs are weaker than the front so he would switch between a cane and a wheelchair that you would see for animals. I might draw that later idk, but yea

If you actually took the time to read this incoherent mess, idk comment a content creator you like, no matter how niche they may be

[fishnapple]

Hello love 💕

Your blog literally introduced me to lithomancy and I've been interested in trying since. I practice divination myself and I really resonated with the type of reading you do,

I was wondering how you learned/practiced it and what resources you used to study

Thank you in advance and have a blessed day 💕 💕

Hi, I'm so happy that you're interested in this art, it's not very well-known like the other types of divination. I will highlight some of the essential points of Lithomancy here, hope that it can help you in some way 🌼

HOW DID I START?

Thanks to the power of friendships and dreams lol.

I've had an on and off relationship with Lithomancy for the past 10 years. I was first introduced to this art by a friend. I would read Tarot for her and she would read crystal for me. At that time, I tried to dabble in it a little but didn't connect well with it. Likely due to my lack of knowledge and the right timing.

Then, last year, the year of my Saturn return, I had a dream about going to a shop selling handmade crafts and crystals with my nephew (you could say that he was the embodiment of my inner child in the dream). Not long after that, another friend of mine brought me to an actual crystal shop where I bought my first set of crystals and began to seriously study and practice Lithomancy.

The content is rather long so I put in a "keep reading" to shorten to post. Please click "keep reading" to continue below.

TOOL & MATERIALS:

1. The book:

The only learning resource I had was from the book Lithomancy: the psychic art of reading stones by Gary L. Wimmer and from watching my friend do the readings. The book was a good starter, the author explains several key concepts that are essential for reading stones.

2. The stones:

In the past, I used sea shells, pebbles and even clay to substitute for the crystals. The things I used were beautiful, but it didn't feel right, some were too heavy while others too light. Seeing them together raised no emotion or insight in me.

Only until last year, when I went into a crystal shop for the first time and bought a set of crystals, did I feel a connection to the stones. I chose the crystals purely by hunches with near zero knowledge about the meaning of each crystal. It was like a blind casting, you only saw the candidates but you didn't know anything about them and you didn't see their performance beforehand. You just picked based on their looks lol.

Not to say that you have to use crystals to read, it might depend on each person's aesthetic, way of pattern recognising and interpreting. For me, colourful crystals help me see the connection, the interaction better, you just need to find whatever work for you. Heck, I even made a random chart generator on Excel to read at some point.

There's no fixed number for the stones nor rules for choosing which stone for what. But in general, you would want to choose something with the size that can fit a dozen nicely in one palm of your hand, and with distinct shapes. Avoid rough crystal because they can fragmented easily after numerous tossing.

3. The surface:

Any surface smooth and even enough to allow the stones to fall on without excessive tumbling, the background colour should allow you to see the stones clearly and doesn't give your eyes fatigue after staring at for too long.

In the book, the circle was form by a strip of leather, lace or some similar material with a knot tying the two ends together. I was lazy so I just drew the circle on the fabric lol.

THE READING:

Unlike some other divination methods, which have certain rules of interpretation and meaning that you should follow. Lithomancy is quite free-form. There's lots of rooms for improvisation and creativity.

The method I use for reading is based loosely on the guide in the book with lots of personal modifications. I read the stones like how I read an astrological chart with each stone represents a planet plus other meanings (10 stones for Sun ~ Pluto, 2 for South and North node, 1 for Inner child, 1 for Fear, 1 for Life). The circle is divided into 12 sections, representing 12 houses.

Another time, I use a different set and assign a completely different set of meanings to read for specific topics. You can tailor the stones, the layout to your need freely, as long as you can connect with them on an intuitive level.

In short, it's all about how you assign the meaning to each stone and read the interaction, the relationship between them. Very much like watching a play, a movie where characters interact with each other in different scenes and you get the messages through them.

Well, that's the general idea of crystal reading, if you have more questions or any other insights, feel free to share, I'd love to chat. 💓🐋

[journey-to-the-attic]

3rd anni req 24: luke / outing

ao3 link

note: okay, so the original request did refer to a restaurant, but i was having trouble figuring out what to write for that setting, so i ended up swapping it - but the scenario still works as a silly little date as specified, so hopefully that's okay!

∎ ∎ ∎ ∎ ∎

“I still don’t get what we’re doing here.”

“You’ll understand as soon as you get in.”

“Are you sure you can’t come with me?”

“So many questions. Yes, I’m sure.” Lucifer sighs. “You’ll have company once you get inside. Call me once you’re finished.”

“...fine.” I huff, allowing him to push me through the door.

A bell rings, and Lucifer nods at me one final time before disappearing back out onto the street. I don’t even know where this is, but this looks like a reception, so I shuffle hesitantly to the demon at the front desk.

She looks up from a notepad as I approach, and offers a friendly smile. “Can I help you?”

My mind blanks. I think Lucifer told me what to say, but—

“IK!”

“Luke?”

“You took ages! I was getting worried.” He turns to the receptionist with a polite cough. “Oh, um, this is the friend I was talking about.”

“I see,” She says with the same smile as before, then indicates a door to her left. “Well, go ahead. Enjoy yourselves.”

“Thank you! IK, come on.”

“What’s going on?” I ask, bewildered, as we step into a finely carpeted hallway. “Is there a party or something?”

“It’s afternoon tea,” He says patiently - as if he’s reminding me of something I already know. “Did you forget?”

“I didn’t know there was anything to forget.”

“Lucifer didn’t tell you?”

“No?”

He stops walking. I do the same. We stare at each other for a moment.

Clearly something’s been lost in communication here. Was Lucifer meant to tell me? He certainly wasn’t acting like he intended to. He’s got to have set this up, right? It’s definitely not a coincidence that Asmo had a new tie for me this morning, either. Maybe everyone’s in on it…

“...well, never mind,” I say after a moment - Luke is beginning to look panicked. “Did you say afternoon tea?”

“Barbatos recommended it. I thought…” He trails off for a moment. “...well, I wanted to try the sweets. And I felt bad about the thing in Enchantments.”

I’d forgotten about that as soon as we left the classroom, to be honest. (I’m not one hundred percent sure I didn’t break something, but Simeon was so quick on the ball with his healing that I couldn’t tell.)

“I did tell you it was fine,” I say, indicating for him to start moving again. “But this is nice. You didn’t invite Simeon?”

“Oh, um… no.” He looks a little embarrassed. “He said he was busy.”

He indicates a door and ushers me into a dainty little parlour room. It’s opulent in a subtle sort of way; the decor is quaint, but it’s clear that whoever owns the place isn’t skimping on costs to keep the charm of the aesthetic up. I recognise those special ambient candles - Asmo uses them for photoshoots, and they definitely don’t come cheap.

One of the chairs is already pulled out, but despite the vast spread of sweets across the table, Luke clearly hasn’t touched anything yet. He shows me the catalogue of teas on offer - the names are so flowery that they all kind of melt together into an indistinguishable haze. Eventually I spot one that I recognise from Barbatos’s own collection, and quickly latch onto it.

“You’re really good at this,” Luke says happily as I pour him a cup. “Oh, wait!”

He leaps up, rounds the table, and quickly pulls out my chair for me with a little bow. “There. Like a gentleman does it.”

“Thanks,” I say with a laugh. “Did Barbatos teach you that?”

Luke returns to his seat, a little pink-cheeked. “Raphael, actually. Okay! Let’s try some of these cakes!”

The menu is extensive: a vast array of confections, iced in a colour wheel of hues, topped with everything from spun sugar to dried fruit to little edible figurines. There are some I recognise - Battenberg, castella, chiffon, babka - and even more that I don’t.

Most of them are rendered in miniature form, so that as many can be sampled as possible, with the exception of the house special. This one is a pure Devildom creation, though it looks to me a lot like a Swiss roll with an especially large, almost dizzying swirl. It feels like I’ll fall into it if I stare too long…

“Look at the rise on that,” Luke says in awe, holding up one of the ones I don’t recognise. “They’re so teeny, but they look absolutely perfect. Mm! It’s not sour at all, either! Mine always come out too tart.”

“Hey, I know this one.” I pick out a little rectangular one with layers of puff pastry. “This guy’s French. I think it’s called mille-feuille.”

“Mille-feuille,” Luke repeats, then giggles. “That’s fun, isn’t it? Mille-feuille.”

“A lot of these are French, actually,” I ponder, pointing at several in quick succession. “Eclairs, macarons, and… well, we call those French fancies, but I don’t think they actually are. You call all these petits fours.”

“Petits fours,” He copies, then draws out the vowels a bit more. “Petits fours.”

“Petits fours,” I agree.

“Petits fours...”

We pass the words back and forth, making it a little more French each time, until the consonants completely disappear and we’re practically just cawing at each other, and finally reduce ourselves to laughter.

“You’re good!” I manage once we’ve calmed down enough. “Your French is really good!”

“Is it?” He takes a few deep breaths and grins helplessly across the table. “I was just copying you.”

“You do it better than I do, I reckon. Whew…” I compose myself with a sip of tea. “And you don’t even have France in the Celestial Realm. Actually, the Devildom doesn’t, either, so what’re all these French sweets doing here?”

“Maybe they’re just that good! Actually, even in the Celestial Realm, human-world sweets are even more popular than our traditional ones.”

“The French do really know how to bake. It might the second best thing they do. After revolution.”

“Revolution?”

“And chopping people’s heads off.”

“What?”

“Did I never tell you about the guillotines?”

I wouldn’t have blamed him for asking me to stop (we’re eating, after all), but Luke listens to the whole history lesson with starry-eyed fascination, and it doesn’t stop him from sampling a mini madeleine and two financiers while he’s listening. Morbid history is much more Belphie’s thing, but Luke asks questions even he hadn’t thought of - like how long the heads stayed ‘awake’ for after they were cut off, which is possibly the most unsettling way he could have phrased it.

A year or so ago, I don’t think he could’ve gotten past de Launay’s head being on a pike. I don’t think I could’ve identified nearly as many of the cakes laid out in front of us, either. (Now that I think about it, it’s a shame there isn’t any angel cake.) Clearly we’ve had very different effects on each other.

Once I’ve exhausted about as much of the history lesson as I can recall, it’s Luke’s turn to tell me about the time a seraph, pursued by some heavenly equivalent of a polar bear, crossed the entire Celestial Realm thrice over in a trial of justice and courage. Though the point seems to be more about the spectacle - and it sounds more like the seraph Uriel just did it for fun. A trial of courage probably doesn’t involve pole-vaulting over a perfectly level field.

Somehow, no matter how long we talk, the sweets never get sickly, for all there are so many of them. I really must have learnt something from Barbatos; something about the occasional sip of tea stops the cakes from getting too cloyingly sweet. Still, eventually we’ve both had enough for the day.

I can’t say I’m not worried about all the sugar - but somehow I don’t feel the buzz as we keep talking, either. Maybe it’s cancelling out, somehow. It’s easy to keep up the energy with such good company.

Luke excuses himself to go ask for something, and it’s only once the room is silent that I realise how much time we’ve whiled away. I decide to shoot Lucifer a message - because he likes to fret about timings, even if he denies it - just to let him know that we’re still doing fine.

As soon as I press send, there’s a muffled musical note from somewhere suspiciously close by. I pause, then turn around. There’s a large potted plant blocking the window from the direct view of the table.

I narrow my eyes. Then I get up, round the table, side-step aside the potted plant, look out through the window - and make direct eye contact with Simeon.

He, at least, has the grace to look embarrassed. Lucifer, standing plainly beside him, does not; he just raises an eyebrow at me and jerks his head, as if to say ‘continue’.

I don’t know whether or not to be annoyed at him. Actually, I still don’t know why he made such a performance of getting me here in the first place. ‘Do you want to go to a sweets parlour with Luke?’ would have been a perfectly fine way to set it up. Did he think the fancy hotel would intimidate me too much?

Luke isn’t back yet. I unfasten the latch and open the window, half-expecting them both to disappear, then hiss, “I thought you were busy.”

Simeon smiles sheepishly. “I wanted to make sure things were going well.”

“Have you been here the whole time?”

“Oh, no, just for a few minutes. There’s a little cafe just out front. We were having coffee…”

“And spying on us.”

He winces a little. “That’s a strong word.”

I turn to Lucifer, who still doesn’t look as if he thinks he’s done anything wrong. “Why wouldn’t you tell me what was going on?”

“I thought it might spoil the surprise,” He says lightly. “Well? Are you having fun? Is Luke behaving himself?”

Simeon shoots him a look. “Of course he is."

“I’m afraid I wasn’t asking you.”

“We’re having fun,” I interject, exasperated. “Lucifer, behave.”

He quirks a brow and folds his arms. “That’s an odd way to speak to the demon who’s paying for this.”

“Don’t listen to him, IK,” Simeon says. “We agreed to split the bill.”

“If you’re so quick to make corrections, perhaps you should pay for the whole—”

“Okay, that’s enough,” I announce. “Go do something fun, alright? I’ll save you some cake.”

I shut the window (Simeon waves a little meekly), then draw both the blinds and the thick velvety curtains for good measure. To be honest, without magic, there’s very little I could do about them eavesdropping if they really wanted to, but it’s better for all of us if they just listen.

I’d better light some more of these candles, too. It’s kind of dark in here now.

Luke returns just as I’m done doing that. He shuts the door behind him, then pauses. “...what’s this?”

“There, uh… there were a lot of people walking by the window.” He might start panicking if I told him the truth. Or, worse, get mad, and storm off to chew Simeon out. “It was kind of dark, so…”

“Oh! Right.” He coughs and comes further into the room. He seems a little flushed. “Ahem, anyway, I asked, and all the cakes come with the package, so we can take the ones we don’t finish home. I got some bags from the front desk - they’re really cute.

“Alright… are we leaving?”

“Well, we don’t have to. The lady at the desk said the room wasn’t booked for the rest of the afternoon. I was just thinking…”

“I could put on a bit more tea,” I suggest. “Barbatos says the neptune-blue is good for talking after sweets. If you’re not sick of me, I mean.”

He beams. “Come on, I could never get sick of you. Yeah, let’s stay a little longer!”

[lambilegs]

You’ve made me wanna write again but I’ve never really published any of my writings anywhere and especially not tumblr so I was just wondering if you have any tips? Or borders you recommend and all that kinda stuff (p.s I love your writing)

AWEEEE you're such a sweetheart, thank you so much!! and thank you for trusting me to give this advice <33 I wasn't totally sure if you meant advice on writing or posting on tumblr, but I went with the second option. if you wanted advice on writing, though, lmk!! <33

definitely tag your works. I've run a few different tumblr accounts by this point, and on all of them, my earliest published works only circulated because I tagged the shit out of those babies LMAOOO

definitely don't put pressure on yourself about, like, the "aesthetic" of your posts. if you enjoy that aspect of it, then totally go ahead, but if it's something that just feels like a drag and makes you not want to post, then it's totally valid to choose not to. you know, writing and posting here should be fun, so if adding stuff to your posts like colours and photos takes away from that fun, it's totally valid to just drop it. plus, I've seen all different kinds of formatting on tumblr, and really, it doesn't affect how many people will read or interact with your work, you know?

if you come across other writers/creators who you admire, it never hurts to pop them an ask!! one of the best parts of posting your writing online is that you get to foster community with other people and writers in that fandom. it helps pump inspiration for you and them to to write, since you all get to gush about certain characters with each other, and become a sort of support system for one another. and that's very comforting and motivating to have when you post your writing online. so, never hesitate to try to forge those bonds with people, because from my experience, most creators in the same fandom as you will be happy to interact.

to add onto this, if you like someone's writing, tell them!! again, this is not only a kind thing to do for other writers, but it's another way to interact with other people in the fandom and feel a sense of community. you get to boost their confidence in their writing, you two get to bond over something you both have a connection to (aka the piece of writing in question), and it's just a lovely moment to share with other creators.

if you ever get overwhelmed with asks/requests, remember: you are under no obligation to respond to them. this is your account, and it's your space to cultivate. so, if there is a high amount of asks and/or requests, and you just can't get to all of them, or don't feel like getting to them, there's nothing wrong with simply deleting them and starting fresh in your inbox. wanting requests, wanting asks, does not mean you have to respond to every single one if you feel overwhelmed. because it very much can be overwhelming if you have an intense influx of messages in your inbox and you don't have the social energy to respond to them all. so, either take your time getting through them, or if you ever want to, deleting them is totally valid too. you're human, and this is your blog -- you can do whatever you want.

don't be afraid to rb your own writing if you wanna bring it back on people's dashes when they're more active! nothing wrong with that, plus the people deserve to know that you posted <33

making a masterlist helps a TONNN when it comes to keeping track of your posts and writings, as well as tagging everything. but, also, I'm very intense on organization so take this with a grain of salt HAHA

it helps to have a pinned post that states basic info about you, as well as what your boundaries are in terms of writing, interactions, requests, etc. therefore, people will know what you're okay with, which will help in ensuring you don't wind up dealing with a request or interaction that makes you uncomfortable. in my opinion, I think it also helps if your pinned post does also have your 3-5 most recent fics, just so anyone who hasn't been on your account for a few days can get to them easily through that.

never hesitate to ask for your followers or moots' help!! whether it be about advice for something technical like when to post, or wanting their opinions on certain ideas or concepts you have, it never hurts to just post that you're down to hear people's ideas, or post a poll where your followers can help with a decision. so long as you make it clear from the get-go the context of any ideas your followers may share with you (whether it be just to explore that idea together, or for you to eventually use them in a fic), you're good.

and always be open if someone politely tells you something they'd prefer to see on your blog, whether it be more sensitivity towards a certain topic, or a text style. ultimately, it's your decision how to interpret and take in these asks, but so long as they're civil, it's always fair to give them that back.

but, if someone comes into your inbox clearly hating or trying to stir drama, I think either ignore it, or respond after taking a few moments to cool off. just so you can respond to it while still managing to rise above them and whatever they spew towards you.

mwah!! lmk if any of this is confusing or you want some expanding from me on it, because I'm currently kinda brain-hazy from doing work so idk how well I spoke on all of this HAHA also I cannot wait to see you post your writing, I'm sure you'll do amazing!! <33

[mydadsthecaptain-uh-uh]

I have not stopped thinking about Joey since she was created, I think it's about time I made a post about her so

All about Joey Curly!!

Childhood

Her parents were teens, her mother decided to have her and give her up for adoption. Curly adopted her when she was 4 years old

She was extremely clingy. Absolutely hated school just because she was away from her dad.

Was really quiet around everyone (except Curly) could not make friends on her own, teachers always had to pair her with someone.

She was scared of literally everything. She struggled to sleep on her own because she was scared of something happening to Curly during the night. She also had a lot of nightmares and believed too much in the monsters in her wardrobe.

Had a strange obsession with hand puppets. She loved hand puppets.

she was CONSTANTLY getting hurt. Always had a grazed knee or something.

Teens

developed PMDD

Anxious wreck. People her age are scary

She straightened her hair and wore really poorly applied eyeshadow and mascara

Her and Curly would go fishing in the evenings. She'd talk to him about school and whatever

Slept a lot

Listened to Lana Del Rey religiously

General/Pre-Tulpar

She's aroace

Really big into marine biology and space, she has this tattooed on the lower part of her left leg

She only shaves her underarms and below the knee

Clumsy, gullible, really not the brightest :')

Keeps photos of her loved ones on her. She was sitting looking through them all before she died (After Grey died she drank a fuck ton of mouthwash and it killed her)

Loves long journeys

NEEDS to be out and about, can't stand staying in

Prefers sour things over sweet things

Loves citrus fruits

Enjoys colouring books

She gets hangry. Feed her or be eaten alive.

Extremely shy when you first meet her, very bubbly once she's comfy around you

She can play the acoustic guitar.

Fav animal: goats

Fav flower: daffodils

She wears a lot of her dad's old clothes

She wears flip-flops as house slippers. Is also a croc wearer

Never wears actual pyjamas, she sleeps in a tank top and tracksuit bottoms or an oversized t-shirt

She moves in her sleep, always wakes up in the strangest positions

Bedhead. Her hair is a fucking bird's nest when she wakes up.

"Jeepers Creepers!" "Jeez Louise.." "Get d France!"

Her and Grey♡

They've known each other for pretty much their whole lives

Grey's her only friend

(@deadandwalking came up with these)

When they were little, Jimmy and Curly took them out in matching outfits :)

Joey makes friendship bracelets for them. Grey refuses to take hers off ever.

Her and Curly♡

Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns N' Roses is their song

Naps on the sofa>>>

They're defs fans of western movies and like, the whole cowboy aesthetic.

They're both fans of country music

Pre-crash

gets along really well with Daisuke. She spends most of her time with him, Grey and Curly

I'm a failure, I just wanna make my mom proud🤝 I'm a mess, how could dad want me? little rays of sunshine

Low-key intimidated by Swansea

Was really shy and awkward around Anya because omg she's so nice and kind and pretty whatdoidoAAAAAA regretted not talking to her more. they would've been great friends

Post-crash

She is scared and confused she doesn't know what to think

She really doesn't believe her dad crashed the ship, but doesn't want to believe it could've been Jimmy

She never found out what Jimmy did

She's either clinging to Grey or by Curly's bedside

She never planned on touching alcohol or anything like that, so she was really reluctant to start drinking the mouthwash

[adobe-outdesign]

Really enjoying the neopet reviews and holding myself back from asking for half a dozen species. What are your thoughts on the Ruki?

As an insect lover, I've always really liked Ruki. There are actually two bug Neopets, Ruki and Buzz, though ironically they're kind of opposites to each other—Ruki have insect-like bodies with normal eyes, while Buzz have normal bodies with compound eyes. Between the two I prefer the Ruki, as the body shape captures more of that bug aesthetic while the eyes help it be more expressive.

Visually, the Ruki is probably closest to a mantis (more obvious in the pre-customization art), though it mixes in a few non-mantis traits such as a beetle-like shell. It's actually a very complex design for Neopets, which tends to keep things simple—it's more or less got the anatomy of an actual mantis with all six limbs, just with the body bent 90 degrees to be slightly more anthro. There's lots of detailed line work in areas like the chest, joints, feet, and abdomen, for example. Still, it does follow the Neopets rule of using color to divide out the body for easy readability, with areas like the joints, feet, and elytra being a darker shade of the base.

Ruki went mostly unchanged in customization, and still look pretty darn good. The only drawbacks are that the forelimbs used to be sleeker and pointer, similar to that of a mantis (stylistically speaking), while the post-customization's forelimbs feel too thick and clunky in comparison—it seems like they mostly got changed so they could hold items, which no one wanted them to do in the first place. Also, the bottom four legs all got inexplicably changed so the knees bend in the opposite direction. The way they are now is more bug-accurate, but I felt like the backwards knees were more interesting.

Favorite Colours:

Desert: Ruki canonically hail from the Lost Desert, so thankfully the desert Ruki looks really good. I like the use of warm tones—brown for the base with gold and red accents. The way the armor is integrated directly into the body's natural plating also looks great, and makes it feel like a very natural color.

My only complaint is that the converted version inexplicably lost the veil that was supposed to be coming off its head piece, along with the eyeliner at the top and the darker spots. It's weird because the rest of the body is pretty accurate. Hopefully they'll do a UC style for this one some day, but in the meanwhile, the customized is still pretty good.

Faerie: Admittedly, the converted faerie Ruki is a bit of a downgrade from the UC style version—mostly because the wings actually used to be coming from the abdomen, like real bug wings, which was really unique and looked great. There are also some more inexplicable changes, like the legs having the serrated look but not the arms or the antennae like the original. Still, the peach and purple palette combined with the detailed markings looks beautiful on both versions.

Transparent: Transparent gets a spot here because it's actually fairly automatically accurate! Relatively speaking. Insects obviously have exoskeletons and not internal skeletons, but this is a giant fantasy bug so I don't mind. The rather long organs are insect accurate as far as I'm aware, and the bones seem to be modeled after an insect's respiratory system. A+ for research instead of just sticking a normal skeleton in there. My only nitpick is that the head could've used some bones, as it feels weirdly empty.

BONUS: I'm tossing in two bonuses this time because I picked the transparent more for anatomy than aesthetics. The camoflauge Ruki has a very pretty tan and brown palette with some high contrast and lovely darker legs, while the polka dot is a ladybug and just plain cute.