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mayordea · 2 months ago

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TIME FOR THE LONG ASS 2024 REVIEW

i am once again gonna review each highlighted piece i have made in 2024 so far like last year even though it's sort of unnecessary i have a bit to commit to

yappery under the cut

JANUARY

jan's piece is my smash poster celebrating the 25TH anniversary! this after i got rlly into making giant multi-character ensemble pieces, and i've wanted to do a poster like this to celebrate smash, so i'm glad i was able to step up to plate. usually i think my art from january ages pretty bad in these reviews, but i actually still like it from the composition, colors, and the drawings of the characters. i still have the print of it hanging in my room! ^o^ other highlights from the month is the complimentary poster i did with smash ultimate's dlc cast... well i kinda mention that out of obligation because i actually do think this one aged like ass, mainly the shading on the characters looking pretty bad (especially as a print). i think i shoulda saved this idea for later in the year to time it with smash ultimate's release day of december 7 (i am extremely deadline-pilled) but i probably wouldn't have cared by then so i just did it like, immediately after the 64 poster. so it probably smacks of burnout + i can't shade with blue that well

FEBRUARY

this one sorta represents seven whole drawings i did for one series. it's my seven piece set of artworks based on mothy's evillious chronicles, and i chose rilliane's because i think at the time i was putting this together i thought she came out the best (i began assembling this starting april 2024 lol), but idk! i still think she's pretty solid but i think she's tied up with kayo and banica. one thing's for sure, i know sateriasis is my least favorite of the bunch by a wide ass margin, i really wish i executed it better! not much other interesting highlights for this month besides my other vocaloid art series, the alice of human sacrifice ace cards. i think they aged alright but again this is another idea that i wanna execute better in the future.

MARCH

oh boy another series!!! this was part of my four part series redrawing the crossed paths artwork from octopath traveler ii. i chose the one featuring partitio and osvald because it was my favorite at the time. i still think it aged pretty nicely but it has some rendering hiccups that rlly bother me but in terms of colors/the background i still like it. if i had to pick a new favorite, it might go to throné and tenemos or cassti and ochette. another notable highlight of this year was a piece of oc art i made. i need to do something unabashedly overdramatic and angsty with my ocs again cuz i still like this one too. i think i opted out of selecting this one to highlight since cropping a face was kinda awkward lol.

APRIL

an overdramatic oc art has been highlighted! another one i like (it's almost like i picked my best for this chart). it was sorta the origin of me using my favorite watercolor brush in procreate to have an extremely rough idea of the colors that naturally blend together, creating a pretty cohesive palette when i render it (which is the current basis for how i render in my current style). april otherwise is kinda boring idk i don't like a lot of the other drawings here lol. this utsu-p album redraw ft robin is still pretty cool tho imo.

MAY

i feel like i had some nice variety to pick from, but i chose my improvisational and edgy grima drawing since i think stylistically it stands out the most. i found my new favorite sketching/doodling pencil brush in procreate and made a whole drawing using it, and the texture is so niiiice. other highlights: COOL OC ART (ft kandy). part of me feels like it's kinda corny but i was born on da cob so whatever, this one was fun and i still like it!!! there was also my art based on bad end night. i'm a tiny bit mixed on the rendering/colors, idk i was experimenting with a different brush for lining and shading and the slight difference in texture makes it a little weird but that is shit that only matters to me. i think it's a hell of a lot better than the bad end night drawing i made back in 2022, so in terms of "redemption" i think it was successful.

JUNE

kind of a boring month tbh, i got miitopia-pilled again so i was probably busy playing that this month + i was home for the summer and i am extremely lazy when i am at home lol. but to compliment the dive back in my miitopia era i made a sorta sketchy drawing with kandy as my great sage. check it, it's another with my new pencil brush, and i definitely remember having fun with this one (though her robe physics kinda make no sense based on how i drew her ref, i never look at my refs for my ocs/i usually break their designs to fit certain poses silhouettes 💀💀💀). uh i guess the one other interesting piece (imo) from this month was my giant miitopia poster that i was too chicken shit to share proper until recently (if you missed the edit where you can fully see it, there ya go). it's kinda oversaturated vomit and i'm not crazy proud of the execution but it was ambitious and kandy's section still looks really good imo so it has value in that regard to me.

JULY

i participated in my first artfight this july! i drew many cool ocs. by about the halfway mark i got hella burnt out tho and started doing my own stuff to freshen things up (it was also around here when galasynth entered production and i met MANY AMAZING VOCALOID ARTISTS!!! SHOUTOUT TO THOSE MUTUALS :)))))). for this month i chose my poster based on touhou eosd since i think this might be the most gracefully aged piece the whole year (it's probably my favorite!!). the colors just came out real nice.... idk!! a notable piece from this month that couldn't be posted in july cuz of zine nda's was my actual galasynth piece. this was a pretty significant piece since it permanently altered my current rendering/coloring workflow (sorta established in the highlighted piece in april but now with lineart and with a differently textured brush). the touhou poster was created shortly after as a response to this new workflow! other one of note was my perfect cherry blossom poster

AUGUST

brave frobin's design for feh was revealed and i drew it 😼😼😼 (AND I CALLED IT earlier this month. not that i needed to use a lotta braincells but). this was a further step in practicing my new rendering style and see how detailed and meticulous i could get with the colors when i had ONE character to focus on with NO background and i think it was pretty successful. though im glad i posted the wip cuz the colors were probably better there than the rendered... what overthinking does to a mf. another banger from this month was a piece of oc art, it's nothing special but it was a rendered panel redraw of an unpublished comic i made of them and i liked it so yeah. (i also posted my decora una drawing this month which was my scrapped concept for galasynth, but according to my notes it was actually finished in july... but shoutouts to it regardless)

SEPTEMBER

aaaagh this month didn't have much goin on, probably cuz i went back to school around here and the work was getting crazy 💀💀 but i still found time to make something i'm proud of! i drew my oc based on a twitter prompt a mutual of mine shared and i reeeaaally still like it!! especially the details on the corals waow... (i don't really have much else from this month that i consider noteworthy enough to mention here so :P)

OCTOBER

spooky art!!!!! i didn't have much interesting going on this month because again i got very academically demanded of and didn't have much time to draw, BUT i vowed to make a tribute piece to "trick&treat" by oster project for halloween, so i hauled ass to get something ready for that and to have ONE traditional drawing this year (yeah i didn't draw a lot on paper this year unfortunately ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️). other highlights: a traditional drawing of gekiyaku pills for vsynthtober which i did a whole two prompts of (you just saw all of them) + a digital drawing of geki (i really started to like gekiyaku around this time). as much as i still like the latter's colors and texture it sorta started a bad trend where i sorta just drew characters from the shoulders up with not much pose to speak of + no interesting background just for the sake of coloring it. not that it's completely devoid of value but it was a pattern i was starting to get a little to comfortable with. i'll touch more on this in the closing thoughts section, but this new rendering style did sorta hinder my want to experiment with my digital rendering styles compared to previous years where i prided myself on having a bunch.

NOVEMBER

BOTH of my favorite pieces from this month fall in the same trap as the thing i mentioned above. i picked my drawing of hibiki koto for the chart since the pastels added a nice value shakeup. i STILL LIKE IT, it's nice, but did perpetuate this bad habit/shortcut. the other one was my drawing of great sage kandy (current pfp!). the colors here are pretty fuckin nice still imo, so as a coloring tech demo like this flavor of drawing i was doing i think it succeeded.

DECEMBER

AND FINALLY, the end of the year. i finished my december piece early in the year kinda just to check the box off and get this chart off my back (a totally normal thing people do when drawing art throughout the year). i have wanted to do a legacy of lunatic kingdom poster like my eosd one for a while after falling in love with its ost, but it just felt scary. the characters were very detailed and also there were moreeee 😭😭😭 but i got myself to do it cuz i found myself tempted to fall in the same trap as described in october/november (i was gonna draw koishi with the same crop/thought for the bg/emphasis on rendering. you might see her done by the end of the year), but i was like "NO, i must earn this laziness" and finally did something ambitious again. and yeah, i think i did pretty good with this one, even if the crowding of characters and details is sorta unruly.

ok so maybe i'm a little artistically constipated rn

doing this thorough review has sorta gotten me worried. i talked about this in my review last year, but i wondered if my progress has plateaued since i liked a lot of my art throughout the year and didn't see much significant improvement. but looking back no i definitely improved from 2023, and i'd say i broke some new ground with experiments i did throughout the year (the piece from december is still my banner!!). i also had a few different digital rendering styles i played around with for some variety.

this year, after the completion of my galasynth piece, i got really stuck in a specific rendering style and didn't rlly experiment that much with shaking it up. i also didn't feel compelled to try doing solid lineart or rough paintings, and i got stuck in a "halfbody with basic poses and backgrounds" pit when i know i can do better and more cool if i just TRIED.

i am writing this pretty early in december so hopefully i can bring something new to the table..... idk, maybe the differences in my digital coloring styles are only visible to me, but i certainly notice this repetition and wanna break out of my current bubble! i am working on a collab piece that should go live by spring next year that will hopefully do this :) (and i certainly won't be abandoning my current style, at least not overnight/without trying to evolve it, cuz i really like it and have received many kind compliments from people about it! so thank you thank you!!!!)

i look back at some of my pieces from last year and earlier this year and see some variety in how i go about rendering or textures or colors and wanna go back to that. so that'll be my goal for the rest of december + 2025!!!!! ^_^

anyway that's that, it was a good year despite my current crisis, i think i made some good art. also don't be like me and feel obligated to make nice art every month for an aesthetic chart, i do it cuz i draw fast and i am easily satisfied by them. take breaks touch grass drink water, play and draw. yay!

#not art #year in review #year in review 2024 #art review #sorry if this is kinda self-deprecative and only relevant to me #i all of a sudden feel like my harshest critic because i feel like i can do better.... i can actually improve if i put in the work #i'm just kinda scared to do that work cuz i'm complicit with where i'm at rn 🙁

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hannahssimblr · 9 months ago

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can you put on your creative director / marketing hat and talk about the cover art for lucky boy (and/or both) 🎤

!!! I've actually never been asked about visuals before this is so fun!!

Okay! So here's the cover in question

Honestly I love this and I was really proud of how it turned out.

The raw & more detail is below the cut

Alright! so the idea for this was that it's simply an image of Jude: finally free!

Here he is backpacking in Thailand which he hasn't done yet as of the date of this post, but Lucky Girl readers will know that he eventually Does Do That.

You can tell by his hair here too that he's older. He has this haircut when he reunites with Evie briefly in 2012, so I imagine this trip took place sometime around summer-autumn 2011.

To be honest the whole purpose of Lucky Boy was as sort of an extension of the original story for Lucky Girl readers who wanted more in-depth detail about Jude's life, more than what he ever had the time to tell Evie during her portion of the story, so for that reason the story is filled with little hints of what we know will happen, as well as nods to specific things about him that some have already learned - Like, how the story opens with him getting both ears pierced. The fact that he was a boy with two (and eventually 3) piercings was something that Evie found particularly cute and unique about him, and it's something he references in jest from time to time. ("haven't you seen my cute little earrings?")

Anyway, Thailand is where he gets that rather meaningless forearm tattoo, but it's also a place where he spends a lot of time alone. He does travel with a friend, but said friend is holed up with food poisoning for a significant chunk of the trip, which makes me quite certain that Jude spent a lot of time doing a lot of thinking. I'll explore this more in the actual story when I get there, but it's worth pointing out that when Evie meets him after this trip she notices a certain calmness in him, and like he's lost a lot of the boyish energy ("I realise I am looking at a man"). I feel like this trip is somewhat responsible for that.

He's also, clearly, facing away from the camera, which is probably self explanatory. In the chapter with Jen's birthday, as they take the train to the aquarium in Bray he waxes lyrical (as usual, yawn!) about his preference to sit facing the engine, never looking back. It's the same in this image. He is always moving forward.

YET - that is his school bag. (It is the wrong colour, yes, i didn't have the recoloured version when i made this poster lmao) so there's a sense that he's still in some way tied to childhood, to the things that are unresolved. Lucky Girl readers already know what (and who) those things are but I'll develop all that further from my controllers seat here inside Jude's brain.

"It seems like we wanted the same thing (...) Not to grow up too quickly, like, to be allowed to just be a kid.”

Also - the toy attached to it represents Ivy. It's never explicitly stated in the story, but I think it's probably not in his character to have something like that on his bag unless it was gifted from someone important. So, he's carrying her with him too on his travels.

Now, for the artistic stuff (eek!)

I chose this pinky purple as the base colour by messing around with some hard light blending and the colour balance adj. because it creates that kinda fantasy feeling, like wonder and/or enlightenment is ahead, which hopefully for our dumb boy, it is. Purple is also often used in graphic design to indicate creativity, which is apt, seeing as he's an artist and all that.

I slapped in some sun in the corner ala 3 year old child's drawing, and added the text in yellow for no reason other than it's a complementary colour, and it picks up some of the yellows in the image.

Then added a text gradient to blend it in better and a little drop shadow effect

And finally some grain, paper texture and rounded corners because I wanted it to feel tangible, that sweet, nostalgic 35mm camera effect, or like a postcard.

and that's it!!

This was so fun, you know I love 2 yap and you gave me a platform to do so.

Thanks so much for your question!

#lucky boy extras #lucky boy cover #cover art

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dreambigdreamz · 5 months ago

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The Shire Papers a beloved work-in-progress

Sharing another fic idea that I’ll most likely never write but will lie to myself that I will because I am delulu like that

“The literary journey of a simple hobbit maid, and her [failed] attempts to spark a rebellion in the Shire to overthrow Sharkey and his ruffians.”

Firstly we see the Shire getting roused up and bustling and lively for Bilbo’s 111th birthday party

But during that time a poster/news article pops up on the Party Tree, a hand written paper

And it starts off as a gossip column (haha yes Bridgerton crossover) for the people to read while getting the preparations ready for the party.

It features all sorts of secrets and embarrassing things that people do and say during that time of readying, and it becomes a sort of weekly/monthly thing in Hobbiton

We see Daisy Bolger reading it again one day alone and Bilbo joins her and she tells him the author, Lady Nosybody, must be a very nasty person to write such things about others

He jokes, “Well, the things she writes about are not untruths, are they?” but tells her seriously that “there are a lot of wrongdoings in the world, but calling out others harshly is not a big crime necessarily, though, yes, the author could’ve used less strong words.”

Then finally it’s the birthday party and we see Daisy being unhappy because the other hobbit-children are making fun of her quiet ways and slow understanding. We learn they never want to play with her because she doesn’t understand what she’s supposed to be doing and they all consider her no-fun-biddy (she’s my darling autistic baby)

Then of course the infamous vanishing of Bilbo

A few years down the line and we also learn Lady Nosybody has become quite established in Hobbiton and even has spread over to Bree.

Then the conspiracy theory happens, Frodo leaves Bag End, and the Black Riders come.

When the four hobbits arrive at the Prancing Pony, they miraculously manage to meet Daisy there, which is a big surprise because she’s known to be very quiet and meek, and plus the fact that no hobbit has journeyed out of the Shire without it being a thing talked of.

They learn from the talkative innkeeper that Daisy was often there on errands out of Hobbiton, errands of newsletters from her ‘mistress’ that she carried to Bree to be published, and gives good coins for news from Bree and the travellers. The hobbits are surprised to no end at this seeming interest of outside affairs in someone like Daisy. It comes out to light that she is the one and only Lady Nosybody who has been writing mean stuff about everybody in the Shire for these past years.

She admits and apologises Mr Frodo for calling him “Mad Baggins” but that it was inevitable to join in the majority’s nickname or else it’d be suspicious. Sam is mad that she once wrote about Rosie as “a pretty maid, very good chef, but smiles too much that makes her look there’s nothing up in her head” but Daisy explains that there was beginning to be talk of Rosie’s being the writer behind Nosybody, since she works at the tavern(? inn?) and hears all pieces of news and everyone’s starting to get suspicious of her. In truth, she was collecting information that Daisy was using for her writing, unwisely because it led to people suspecting Rosie. That’s why she had to write in about Rosie, who had been her kindest friend since childhood (some backstory of Daisy’s original name was Meredith except it was shortened to Red, just like her hair, and her mother Rosamunda loved roses and would put red roses in her daughters’ hair except it looks awful on Daisy’s red hair and Mrs Cotton suggested having the younger girl wear white flowers like lilies and daisies and has been like a godmother to her ever since, and Rosie Cotton her best friend.)

She’s even written mean things about herself, which was to throw off suspicion and it rendered Merry and Pippin shocked to no end that she would call herself such names. She tells them she is perfectly aware of her social status in the Shire and writes accordingly to not have anyone suspecting. She wrote once, “There are, as of this year, three hobbits named Daisy, which must account for it being such a common, overused named. It is to be hoped that whichever hobbit-child gets to be named Daisy next, would have better temper than Daisy Boffin (who used to be the most amiable until she married Griffo and became gruffy—appreciate the pun), have better brains than Daisy Bolger because she has none, and better hair than Daisy Gamgee, whose hair looks like an inviting nest for the pigeons.” Also this alludes to Sam’s daughter being named Daisy later on hehe

So to wrap up, she accompanies them to Rivendell because elves and she wishes to see Mr Bilbo again.

But then when the fellowship sets out, she’s sent back to the Shire as a warning and guard against the Black Riders and of the evil ahead, but of course that only earned her a new title of Crazy Daisy. She keeps writing her Nosybody articles, trying to play it as best as possible to stop the other contemporary gossip of why the four hobbits were absent. Then, these ruffian men began to come into the Shire, at the inns and taking up Lotho Sackville-Baggins’ house at Bag End (the one Frodo sold before he went away) and Lotho becomes “Chief” and the Shiriffs are employed to beat and teach anyone who doesn’t obey the numerous rules set out.

So yeah, they begin to feel their home turned and changed for the worse. They have to give up beer and crops as ‘rations’ and ‘gatherers’ but it’s only kept by these ill-looking men. They aren’t able to go out after dark anymore, and basically this coup situation of mine, which inspired me to write Daisy to be honest.

With her siblings Estella and Fatty, she goes over to Farmer Cotton and his family to enlist their help (bc her own parents will get such high blood pressures if they know this truth), revealing to them her true identity and the power it’d have to rouse mass groups of people. She starts writing against this new chief and the Big Boss, but of course, that was a foolish thing since the men simply took her columns away and beat anyone who were caught reading it at the trees the papers were stuck at.

She manages to secretly go over to Bree to ask help from the innkeeper Butterbur but he warns her “that her mistress might do well to stop writing altogether in these dangerous times.” She replies optimistically that her mistress would never back down from doing the right thing against all odds and fears. But trying to get the residents of Bree to know and care about the abuse and terrors in the Shire is now meaningless as Bree was also in the same state.

So starts over half a year of writing a worthy, rousing speech to rally up the Shire, and then copying that same paper for two hundred times just to make copies of it, which she cannot hire anyone else for fear of being discovered. Then, on the day she finished the two-hundredth paper, she climbs up the highest place at Bucklebury, the Buck Hill (where the Brandybucks are in charge so at least the ruffians don’t dare mess around with people just simply walking) and tosses it over into the wind, saying “Fly!! Fly into their hands! Sink into their heads!” and it’s about a rallying appointment to go up to Bag End together to demand to meet their Chief Lotho to complain about the bad treatments in the Shire.

But of course, once again, the men discovers this and starts rounding up anyone caught with the papers in possession. They show up at every door, demanding to search the houses, and leaving with more than a few ‘trinkets’ they meant to keep without permission. Daisy lapses into a sad state of hopelessness as she feels her actions only brought worse circumstances for them as this being invaded of the privacy of their houses was a bitter, brutal insult to the hobbits’ comfort of one’s home.

But the day of the rallying arrived and more than a few showed up, it was more than a success. They marched up the hill to Bag End but were stopped before reaching the door, and a fight seemed about to ensue as the men threatened them to go away and Daisy, quiet and scared till then, stood up and said loudly, “This is our home. You take our food, you cross our thresholds, and you order us where to not go and what not to do. This is our home, and we go where we wish. We won’t hesitate to kick out anyone who bullies us in our own home!” But the men leaned down and took out their daggers saying, “Do you know what this is?” and everybody got scared and dispersed in the face of danger.

So it kind of became secret club meetings at night at Odovacar Bolger’s house and believe me the hobbit loves the importance of it and showing around his home; these club meetings are aimed to pass on the word, to have every household armed with rakes, shovels and kitchen-knifes at the call and ready while they figure out how to organise a breakout. Some of the Shiriffs, like Robin Smallburrow, knew of these proceedings but turned a blind eye and even went as far as to cover up these doings from the ears of more unfriendly Shiriffs. But of course, the general public don’t trust the Shiriffs at all.

Then one night it was said Daisy was whisked away, the men came up to her door and arrested her, locked her up in a cell under Bag End, next to Mrs Lobelia Sackville-Baggins whom she used to insult most vilely on account of Mr Bilbo.

The old lady and the young girl bond over this time in darkness and bondage (“I’m sorry I ever called you a greedy, old hag, Mrs Lobelia.”) Daisy kept fretting and repeating to herself miserably, “We need arms. We need height and size!! We need big, strong elven-warriors like Mr Glorfindel and Erestor.” Whereas Lobelia was mourning her son’s well-being under captive of this Sharkey and his assistant Wormtongue. Then Frodo and the hobbits returned and Buckland rose up in rebellion as well as the Cottons and then Daisy is released and the canon ending ☺️

Daisy ends up taking care of Lobelia for the rest of her life until she died. And the epilogue is she has new kittens and gifts Frodo one of the black and white one whom everybody says is ugly and she’s like “I don’t get why nobody sees he’s such a sweetheart.” And Sam, who is included in the ones who don’t like the grouchy cat, nicknames him Gollum and now Mr Baggins’ grouchy old black cat won’t answer to any other name but Gollum.

Daisy makes up with everyone finally, especially Eppie Fairchild who she used to envy a lot, puts in a teasing word about how mad Sam was about her insulting Rosie, and then completes her matchmaking career by writing about Master Merry kissing her sister Estella near the Party Tree one night.

I have an idea Pippin will keep going to her for advice when he meets Diamond, the girl who nearly ran him over with her cart one day.

But as for her own love-life, Robin Smallburrow chases her for a while but she gently tells him she destines herself for a long life of being a scholarly spinster, which she later fulfils by following Aragorn and Arwen back to Gondor after their visit where they announced no Big People shall enter the Shire ever again.

Oh, and when Mr Frodo is leaving for the Grey Havens, she hurriedly follows them to meet Mr Bilbo one last time and says, “Foolish me, I’ve brought along my portfolio to ask him of what he thinks of these papers I’ve been writing over the years. It’s selfish to ask him to read and tire himself out on the journey, isn’t it?” But Bilbo told her to keep writing nonetheless because he always believed she had that in her specially shining bright.

So it’s been kept alongside the Red Book as “The Shire Papers” which date from Bilbo’s 111th Birthday Party all through Aragorn’s passing the law of the Shire being a safe haven removed from the Big People. The Shire Papers. About all the tumultuous ups and turns and the scouring of the shire and the salvation of it. Oh, the bountiful year of 1420 when the weddings were plenty and the children born that year were golden haired and food was so abundant for everybody and the mallorn tree grew which Master Samwise planted, the seed that was rumoured to be given by the Lady Galadriel.

The Shire Papers

I’m in love goodbye

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secretsofdbz · 3 years ago

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So, a little preface info...

Recently-ish, I've been curious about updates to the fandom, because of Dragon Ball Super, and due to my students reading/watching, and me remembering how much I liked it back in the day, I just.. let the algorithm decide lol. So, after way too much DBZA, way too many manga chapters and spinoffs, and some sort of adult eyes, well. So I'm back into the fandom and discovering what the English speaking world has had to offer since 2004 lol. Things -have changed-, to say the least.

I've been a longtime Dragon Ball fan, ever since the mid 90s or so (Latin Americans and French speakers got widespread access to it far earlier than Anglosaxons), and like any girl into anime, I've been extremely original: Future Trunks has always been my fave.

Avatar comes from the Doujinshi Gracias, by Shin Minazuki (author in the circle PALS). If you ever find a way to contact them please let me know because their website and domain has been down for a decade :/

My hot takes, analysis and co will be tagged as "von rambles" :)

My recommendations would be under “Von recommends”

AO3 what if Future Trunks was a girl (and fixed a whole lot of minor plot holes) (also on FFNET) <- my fic, "a different baby". It's 12+ rated, has weird ass ships that may or may not sail, and has a time travel chart.

My Trunks, the tag I use for art or stuff involving my version of Trunks, for the fic :)

Don't hesitate to reach out for whatever!

Here are the rest of my links, including my "other blog" @dbfandom where I'm trying to explain how differrnt the fandoms are between English speakers and the West in general, and Japanese and Korean fandom (especially in terms of how people communicate)

Also when I mean it’s been a hot minute hiatus, you guys need to understand that I was in the thriving fandom from 98 to 2004. ICQ era. 56k to early ADSL era. Napster era. Geocities, forums and visitor books. You have no idea…

Here's a list of my hot takes and analysis and whatever (if the tags don't work, and I know they don't sometimes :/):

Self Pronouns in Z

Honorifics and "yous" in Z

Timelines in Z and DBS and why there's actually 7 of them in Z because of one cursed panel.

Trunks' SSJ transformation against Freeza is great.

Pink is a royal saiyan color (+ updates and more proof)

Vegeta's uses of pronouns and honorifics part 1

GT and nostalgia

Trunks isn't a good martial artist and that makes sense

Fixing the Goku Black arc (bullet points)

Trunks' hair color differences

Why Goku is the problem for DBS to work well

Some linguistics and localisation things

My Trunks, the tag I use for art or stuff involving my version of Trunks, for the fic :)

Did Goku meet baby Trunks before dying in the future Timeline? When did he die of the heart virus?

Dr Brief's cat, Tama (or Scratch) is immortal.

Gohan's confusing age.

Akira Toriyama's death and some reactions that I gathered over the following days of the announcement for posterity.

#intro #dragon ball #von rambles #von recommends #self promo i guess

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weaverreaver42 · 3 years ago

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Railjack make no sense in-universe

(This was inspired by Derelect Horror's notes post, I didn't want to pollute the tags or anything so I just made my own post shotgunning my errant thoughts because warframe lore is so weird and I'm obsessed)

First of all: This isn't me complaining, I know the title can give that impression but I wanted to get that mindset out of the way. What I mean by the title is Literally no one knows exactly how it works. Sure you have mechanics and Cy who work on the thing, but you get a sense that they only know part of why the ship works. This can best be seen with the Suda Companions on the ship. The suda companions are shocked by the parts on the ship, being made of 'orgone' which is orokin tech. The further we go into orokin stuff the more pseudoscience you get, such as eternalism and a bunch of other wacky stuff- a prime example is orgone that is used in some fashion on railjacks (Orgone is based in actual historical pseudoscience but I'll have to check on that). One thing to note about orokin tech is this: It tends to seem half-complete. There is always a portion of orokin technology that just seems to fit barely outside the understanding of what is normal reality-we could never explain the stuff the orokin are capable of in a normal manner because of how divorce it is from normal reality, and railjack is no exception. The thing I like to imagine is all these resources and pieces are apart of the 'logical' part of the ship. They are designed to serve as a base to the rational before the void can come along and mess it up. It's designed to take advantage of the inherently chaotic nature of the void it uses to travel, but all of this stuff is secondary to surviving and breaking the rules of reality to be the best at what it does, It's essentially what the tenno are in ground combat- but for space travel. It only barely makes sense because most of what is actually going on is left to the void, or more specifically the man in the wall. Hence why he will occasionally speak to you inside it, this explanation also gives a reason why we needed that weird space pod thing that whipsers in the back of the ship- It's letting good 'Ol Wally channel the void to your ship in a safeish way.

Also The original poster was talking about Negentropy and while I am the furthest thing from an expert, I have an interpretation of what it COULD be based on the idea of reverse entropy: Negentropy might be just be an extreme buildup of energy, as entropy is essentially the universe settling down and spreading out- that's why entropy leads to heat death- so the opposite would be matter and energy coming together and getting more destructive but also falling into a complex system (It's worth noting that chaos isn't necessarily energy intensive or even hard to understand- it can just be a small amoun of random stuff in random places), but order also doesn't have to be slow and simple- one example of negentropy is a star and those literally are just giant nuclear reactors that turn energy into matter and then turn that matter into planets or they just die and let gravity do it for them. It could be the energy and matter cycle in an 'orderly' fashion, but build up in a way that leads to disastrous problems such as implosion, black holes, void storms, or even just the ship blowing up in the case of railjack as the 'system' tries to even out by becoming entropic like normal reality (sort of a rubberband effect where it goes from no entropy to total entropy in a certain area). speaking of chaotic, I'm sorry for this post- I'll probably clean it up later

#warframe #railjack #headcanon #speculation

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trobed303 · 3 years ago

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I Wanna Hold Your Hand

For Trobed week, organised by @trobedzone. I started writing this on my break at work (on a wake-night) and finished it in a exhaustion-fueled delirium on the way home from said wake-night so please excuse how bad it is or any typos but I really wanted to participate. Thanks so much for tagging me!

I would put this under a read more so it wasn't clogging up people's dash but idk how to do that on mobile so I've tagged it #long post. Feel free to block the tag if you don't want to see this.

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"... So it's a prequel, but it's actually set ten years after the first Kickpuncher."

"So how is it a prequel if its after the first one? Won't it just be a sequel?"

"Well, my theory is that Kickpuncher's love interest is actually from the future and travelled back in time in the original movie in order to make sure the events of the first Kickpuncher happen, and the prequel is why."

"Sounds stupid. I'm in."

Abed's lips quirked up in a small smile, and he turned to his right where Troy had been walking beside him, holding one hand out and one to his chest in preparation for their special high five. But Troy wasn't there anymore. Abed's smile turned to a frown as he looked around, but he couldn't see any sign of the yellow sweater Troy was wearing today, despite how easy it should have been for him to pick the colour out amongst the other students around him.

He saw a flash of yellow, but before he could take a step towards it he realised it was just a girl in a yellow t-shirt.

He tried to listen for Troy's voice, but there were a lot of students around. It was between lesson times after all and the crowd was moving in all different directions as students weaved between each other to get to their next classes. And they were all having their own conversation about all sorts of different thing.

"She said she was going to Ralph's tomorrow but Ralph said--"

"I have no idea, I swear I haven't learned a thing all semest--"

"My dad is going to kill me if he sees how much I spent on--"

"Why are you being so snappy toda--"

"Did you see the new episode? It was awesome!"

"Are we going to Starbucks after cla--"

Abed winced as all the sounds of conversations and squeaky shoes on hard floors seemed to get louder and louder, the students around him seemed to be closing in more, leaving him with no space around him and leading to a few bumping into him now that he was no longer moving with them. He tried to take a few deep breaths, but he already knew that logically he was too overwhelmed for that to work.

Abed focused his attention on the notice board on the wall opposite him, then quickly made his way over to it, hoping to just pretend to look at the board until either Troy found him or the hallway empties enough for him to catch his breath.

It had a flyer for a new dance the Dean was putting on, but he couldn't quite make out what excuse the Dean had come up with this time. There were also flyers for extracurricular activities like lessons for several different musical instruments. There were also posters for dance lessons, acting classes, a sign-up sheet for the school play and another one for Glee Club. Abed couldn't make out the other papers taped and stapled to the board. They were all too brightly coloured and loud.

This isn't helping.

Instead, Abed turned so his back was against the wall and sunk down until he was sat on the floor with his head on his knees and his arms wrapped around them. It was easy like this to block his ears with his biceps, keep his eyes closed, and make himself as small as possible in the hopes that people stopped banging into him.

He wondered where Troy was again. It was always easier walking through the crowds with Troy because they had the best conversation, about topics that actually interested Abed. It was easy to just focus on that - focus on Troy - and not the hundreds of other people at this school who all seemed to have classes in 50 different directions with every route starting from this one hallway.

Just another three minutes, then everyone will be in class. Abed thought to himself as he rocked slightly in an attempt to soothe himself. He thought about trying to stand and power through the overstimulation, to at least get outside, but he would have to see everyone and his dad said it was too weird to walk around with his hands over his ears so he'd have to hear them all too, and it was all just too much.

Abed rarely cried, but when he was overwhelmed his eyes would sometimes well up, even if Abed didn't understand what good it would do. It happened now, and Abed buried his head deeper against his knees in the hopes that no one would notice. He could still hear the mean kids from his high school teasing him about it.

"Look! The alien's leaking!" Brent would laugh, pointing at the tear tracks down Abed's face.

"Its trying to mimick a sad human to make us feel sorry for it so we'll let our guard down!" One of Brent's lackeys would pipe up. Abed didn't care enough to remember his name. It didn't matter anyway, none or the others had personalities of their own, they were all just extentions of Brent.

He wondered if Troy was like Brent in high school. He knew Troy was a jock, and he wasn't as thoughtful and sweet as he is now, but was he bad enough that he would have called Abed an alien because he didn't understand social cues? Would he make fun of him for crying just because daily life was sometimes too much?

"Abed?" He heard a voice above him say; Troy's voice.

Looks like he was going to find out. This was the first time Troy had seen him this overwhelmed, and Abed found his breath halting as he realised the significance. If he looked up and Troy saw him crying, and the other laughed, Abed wasn't sure they could still be friends. At least not as close as they were. There would always be a small part of Abed that would be worried Troy will judge him or laugh at him for his neurodivergency.

So he kept his head down and tried to discreetly wipe his eyes on the sleeve of his hoodie. Troy was his first real friend, and he wasn't ready to have that shattered yet.

Before he could deem his face dry enough to face looking up at his first and only best friend, he heard Troy's sneaker squeak slightly against the lino as he pivoted. For a moment he thought Troy had gotten sick of waiting for him to answer and was going to walk off, but instead Abed heard his backpack hit the floor - it wasn't a harsh sound, Abed knew Troy only kept a cushion in there for when he wanted to take a nap somewhere - then felt Troy drop too, to sit on the ground beside Abed. Not close enough to touch him, but close enough that he could feel Troy's body heat gently warm his right side.

"Abed? Are you okay?" Troy asked quietly, and though Abed will always be the first to admit he's not great at picking up tone, he was pretty sure he heard concern in Troy's words.

"Where'd you go?" He asked quietly.

"Just to the vending machine... What's wrong?"

"Too much..." Abed mumbled, hoping Troy would understand but not really expecting him to. In fact, he was already trying to come up with a way to explain what he meant in a way Troy would understand, but his mind felt fuzzy, like TV static, and he wasn't sure how to phrase it right.

He didn't have to though. Troy didn't ask about it.

"You think you can get to class?" He asked instead. "You know what Senior Chang is like when someone's late."

Abed picked his head up. The hallways were a little less crowded, but it was still loud and too much. He dropped his head again and shook it against his knees to indicate that, no, he didn't think he could get to class.

"Is it because there's too much going on?" Troy asked quietly, like he didn't want anyone to overhear, and Abed was grateful for that. He nodded against his knees.

Troy was quiet for a moment, and the only thing that stopped him from having to look up and make sure he was still there was the warmth he could still feel radiating from Troy's arm where it was barely an inch from Abed's. Troy fidgeted a little beside him, and Abed was about to tell him to just get himself to class so Chang wouldn't be mad at him, that Abed could handle the consequences alone, but Troy spoke again before he could.

"You were okay a minute ago... What happened? Did someone say something to you?" He asked quietly, but there was a bite in his voice.

"Are you mad?" He mumbled.

"At you? No." Troy assured him. "But if someone said something to make you sad I'm mad at them. Who was it?"

Abed shook his head a little and curled into himself tighter. "No one said anything."

"Then what happened?"

"You were gone." Abed answered before the voice in his head that sounded a little too much like his father could tell him to stop, that he was being too clingy and Troy was going to get creeped out and stop spending time with him.

He had already started now, so he figured he may as well explain himself.

"Its easier... with you. Because we talk and I can just focus on our conversation and follow what you do. I don't have to look around because people always move out of your way anyway and if I'm next to you they move for me too. But then you were gone and I noticed how many people there were and I could hear all of them talking at once and..." He was over explaining, he knew that, so he made himself stop before he could embarrass himself in front of Troy any worse.

"So... Walking with me helps?" Troy asked, and Abed nodded again.

He felt Troy shift again and winced when he heard Troy stand up and pick up his backpack again, assuming he was going to just leave him there.

"Come on, buddy." Troy prompted gently from in front of him, and Abed picked his head up. The first thing he saw was Troy's hand, palm up, held out for him to take. His eyes trailed from his hand up his arm covered by that baggy thin sweater, then finally up to his face. He was smiling a little, but his brow was also pinched, like it was a sad smile.

Abed took his hand and allowed Troy to gently pull him up from the floor. As soon as he was upright Abed looked around again and let out a sound he could only accurately describe as a small whimper. The hallway wasn't clear enough yet.

"Its going to be okay, I'm right here." Troy promised, not yet letting go of Abed's hand. "Don't look around, I'll lead you."

Abed dragged his attention away from the people around them and instead focused on Troy's face. His smile looked more happy now, the crease between his eyebrows gone and his bright white teeth showing.

"So why do you think she needs to go to the past to make sure Kickpuncher 1 happens?"

It took a moment for Abed to remember what Troy was referring to, but when he did, he went into a complicated explanation about the antagonist's great grandson and how he would be able to change the past using the technology his grandfather had started working on before Kickpuncher killed him in the first movie.

By the time he'd finished explaining it and gotten on "Ohhh.... That actually sounds kinda cool." from Troy, he was being nudged into his seat in Spanish class.

Troy kept hold of his hand for another moment while Abed looked around and processed where they were, waiting for Abed to let go first. Once he did, Troy gave him another smile and walked to his own seat, managing to sit down just a second before Chang entered the room.

It became a habit after that. Troy would hold Abed's hand in busy hallways and talk to him about whatever Abed wanted.

It helped.

But repeating Troy's words in his head helped more.

"It's going to be okay, I'm right here."

#Trobed week #Trobedzone #Trobed #Community #Long post #Fic #My fic

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luminescentauthor · 4 years ago

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random fun RatLD hcs

you came here for RatLD shitposts and that’s what you’re gonna get!

SPOILERS AND LOTS OF THEM BELOW THE CUT, IF U HAVEN’T SEEN IT YET PROCEED AT UR OWN RISK.

I refuse to post about this movie without acknowledging the cultural significance of the first SEA disney princess and I will continue to do so until people on this website start remembering that this movie is about amazing cultures and trust and overall a WHOLE lot more than just the sapphics (as great as they are.)

anyway, so, headcanon time, my dudes!

The Next Adventure

Talon is a total mess after everyone gets un-stoned. (Ok so just for posterity, my marvel fan brain just went “un-snapped” on instinct and I hate it here.) The two chiefs are fighting for control, and Noi, being a baby, is not really in a position to help (unlike Raya, Naamari, and Tong.)

As such, the crew has to go undercover in Talon to try and, you know, stop the chiefs from destroying their people with their infighting. Tong insists on coming. Naamari happened to be in Heart and gets dragged along by Sisu and Raya, complaining the whole time, but everyone knows she doesn’t mean it. Boun also shows up and exactly no one is surprised.

During this misadventure, Noi’s mother names Tong as Noi’s godfather/honorary uncle/whatever, undercover Naamari and Raya go “noooooo, we’re not the princesses of Fang and Heart, what on earth are you talking about???” on at least five separate occasions, and the crew discovers that Noi inherited her sticky fingers from her very clever mother. She’s basically a grade-A spy and thief but she’s also just like, genuinely a very nice woman.

Rayaari!

Raya and Naamari take a long time literally just figuring things out and reconstructing their friendship, because really, as much as I love sapphics, there’s also a whole lot of messy there, and because these are my headcanons, they work out their problems and have a healthy friendship for a couple years before any romance happens, because that’s how Real Life works and I don’t believe in ignoring those Pretty Important Things in fiction.

They do eventually start a relationship, but they take their time. A bit into it, Benja accidentally mentions that Raya told him she liked Naamari when they met. Naamari’s like “ha you did?” and Raya goes “BA NO.” Then Virana immediately says “oh yes, Naamari also liked her, she didn’t stop crying because she thought Raya turned to stone for like three days” and Raya goes “you did, hmm???” while Naamari turns bright red.

Before they start dating, as their feelings grow, they start calling each other “dep la” more and more and everyone is just kinda of like “oh my GOD just date already???”

Eventually Raya and Naamari get married and become the leaders of Kumandra. No I Won’t Change My Mind.

Unification of Kumandra

The unification of Kumandra felt a bit shoehorned, and I suspect the nations aren't united under one leader(s): it's more that they're now becoming close-knit again. Perhaps they have a meeting council of all their leaders that makes decisions that affect the whole land, otherwise that probably becomes a thing at some point.

When Kumandra eventually becomes totally unified, the capital of Heart (which I believe is on the island we see on the map of Kumandra) eventually becomes the capital. It still has five provinces/states, though.

Fang and Heart

Heart and Fang help each other out a lot with recovering from the “most of our people got turned into the statues” stuff. Heart has more resources, but most of its people have been stone for 6 years. So the two states/countries are both capable of different things.

Of all the kingdoms, Heart and Fang have the most to rebuild: Fang’s only standing city was destroyed in the finale of the movie, while Heart has been growing over for six years. Sure, Spine’s been stone for a while, and some of Talon’s docks and water ships and whatnot collapsed when the water vanished, but it’s still significantly easier to repair than “six years of overgrowth and rot and rust” or “literally the ground collapsed underneath us and wow um I don’t think that’s reparable.” So they really team up to fix it, and the others help them a lot.

The actual leaders stay in their capitals to lead until things have calmed down a WHOLE lot, so Raya and Naamari travel around Kumandra on their parents’ behalf a lot, and wind up going between Fang and Heart a lot to establish diplomatic relations and also to help with rebuilding.

Over this period, and while doing diplomatic meetings later on, Virana and Benja come to realize that the other person is actual quite decent. There’s some mess and distrust because of Virana’s thing with the Dragon Gem, but it eventually gets worked out. (Virana’s reaction is “yes that’s fair. In my defense, I was trying to do what I thought was right for my people, who were starving, but Yes, That’s Fair.” Benja’s reaction is “honestly if your people were starving from famine and you thought the Gem would help, that makes more sense.”) After a while, they become pretty good friends.

And suddenly Raya and Naamari regret everything. See, Naamari mentioned that both parents make terrible jokes. The girls are Suffering. Help them.

Sisu loves the bad jokes. Sisu also makes bad jokes. Raya and Naamari are silently dying.

It’s silly, but I like the idea that 3-4 years down the line, Virana and Benja consider getting married just for political reasons (alliance and all that) (they’re not actually interested in each other, it’s just practicality) and Naamari and Raya, who are not dating but are definitely in deep for each other at this point, are immediately like “NO. NO. DO NOT MAKE MY CRUSH MY STEPSISTER. DO NOT.”

Virana and Benja (mostly Benja) tease them by “considering” it for a bit longer, but they don’t, since they talked about it and both kids are uncomfortable with it. (”They like each other, don’t they?” Virana asks dryly. “Ohhh yeah,” Benja replies.)

Music? Music!

I was listening to a youtube mix this morning and “Too Far Gone” by Hidden Citizens popped up and it just reminded me of Raya’s attitude towards Kumandra at the start of the movie. Also it’s just a beautiful song.

“Knife in my Back” by Alec Benjamin is Raya @ Naamari before they figured things out, change my mind.

Other Stuff!

We can guess based off how long it took the crew to get from Tail to Fang even with side adventures (I think it was 3-4 days max, I wasn't totally paying attention) that one can navigate from one end of the river to the other within a couple days even in a boat like Boun's, and the royal families probably have even faster modes of transportation. (I.e. Naamari got from Tail to Fang in a couple days, then to Spine, then beat the crew back to Fang. On land.) Therefore, unlike I was originally thinking, it's actually totally realistic for the crew to be visiting each other once or twice a month.

It's even more realistic for Naamari to crash Raya's place on a weekly basis, since that's probably like six hours on cat at max.

I don't know what the cats are, so I will be calling them saber-cats until someone corrects me.

TUMBLR JUST MYSTERIOUSLY STOPPED ACCPTING MY "E" KY HLP I HAV TO US COPY PAST

Wait I think I fixed it. Crisis averted! Sorry about that.

Because Naamari is in Heart half the time, Virana visits quite frequently too. It’s not a long trip, anyway.

Virana is not straight (haircut) but I can’t decide if she’s a lesbian or what. She doesn’t have a spouse and never did. Only those Virana closely trusts know who Naamari’s dad is. Naamari does know and she’s met him, because Virana figured she had a right to. He and Virana never had a relationship, Virana just sort of needed an heir and a trusted personal friend offered to father the kid.

Tong’s wife is a total badass and instantly fits in with the crew. She and Noi’s mother quickly become very close friends.

Noi and Tong’s kid also immediately get along. As in, they constantly throw things at each other while giggling madly and both love the Ongis, and -- are they whispering to each other in that corner?? They might be conspiring to take over the world. Who knows.

Noi learns how to talk and becomes about 5 times more chaotic. Everyone is Regret (except Tong.)

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tiredassmage · 2 years ago

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wip ask meme

Kindly tagged by @sullustangin, thanks so much!

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have wips. (You can make your own post or reblog this one!) This isn’t just for writing either. Sketch titles? Comics? DnD campaigns? If you have an unfinished project, it counts!!

Oh boy. Can I actually remember them all? Bold of anyone to assume I have a folder. I’m a trash gremlin who lives off of Google Docs, okay? So let’s goooo!!!!

I’m not sure how many lovelies I have to tag vs how many WIPs I will uncover on this trek, so I’m just gonna throw out some names for friends with absolutely no pressure and also if you see this and you wanna do it, feel free to declare yourself tagged by me xD Also if you’d like me to tag you in stuff like this, feel free to shoot me a message or an ask because I know there’s plenty of you in my notes, but I’m usually shy about starting conversation so I don’t want to bother anyone with tags that don’t like it, so I tend to err on the side of caution and leave these general.

@firelightmuse @fatewalker-phoenix @traveler-of-light @ffxivbabey @captainderyn

And, without further ado, let’s see what I can cook up here!

(I did, in fact, find more than I thought I would. As seems inevitable, lol).

SWTOR

I’m actually... better than I have been about WIPs and stuff in the past thanks to getting into SWTOR and writing for it because one (1) night it was midnight and I decided that my Tyr x Theron brainrot had to go SOMEWHERE so it might as well be AO3. So, in my attempts to continue embracing that philosophy of just sharing to share, a lot of what I write for SWTOR tends to be posted the day I finish it or a bit later if I need to let it marinate for elaboration or editing purposes. But I do have some. Of course I do.

“through passion”

“check the mirror”

“lessons”

“chase the light” sort of swtor, sort of just... inspired by swtor. but very heavily influenced by my swtor experience, so we’ll put this one here.

“arena grand poster” (aka ‘girl help i have an idea that’s probably above my current skill ceiling; this is a backburner project that one day, i might get to, one day i might not. we’ll see. but i still think about it a lot, lol)

does wanting to get back to charcoal portraits count? practicing on my swtor ocs? the sheer idea of it??? another girl help above my current skill level thing, but, hey, the way to get there is practice so i need to start on something, might as well be blorbos from my video games

FFXIV

“don’t say goodbye”

“what follows”

“like shattered glass”

“eden’s verse reminiscence” (omg hi i forgot you existed??? what is this???)

“proceedings interrupted” (this is. borderline original but heavily inspired by xiv content, so once again, oddball but i’ll put it here)

okay god now we’re getting into the stuff i haven’t looked at in moons, oh boy

“cherish”

“desire”

“our answer”

“where we belong”

DRAGON AGE

They technically exist. Nothing I have written for DA has ever seen light of day outside of Discord DMs. But since you asked nicely, lol

“guide”

“and if you close your eyes...”

“ma melava halani” (don’t ask me to translate that, i thought i knew what i was doing then but i don’t know if i trust me now, lmao)

Okay, if I dig any deeper into Google Docs, I have no idea what we’ll find, but man I found some finished stuff I haven’t seen in ages, too, so this was a fun trip either way, lol!

#fanfiction #wip ask meme #tag games #dot talk

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recurring-polynya · 3 years ago

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In tHiaM, Renji mentioned a fictional fateful encounter in which he and Rukia met in the circus. I can picture this deeply. The Rukon has circuses. It has gritty knife throwers, it has scrappy beast tamers, it has a lovely doe-eyed tightrope walker who does stunts so dangerous your hair'd turn white just watching her. It is for Renji's birthday so he should get Rukia being extremely badass and saving his life from a rampaging circus bear. Ideally, Kenpachi is there.

A lot of times, I’ll have some idea for a story, and I’ll do a bit of research and find out that the thing I wanted to do absolutely does not exist in Japanese culture, and I was completely sure that when I dug into it, Japanese circuses would not be a thing, or they would be extremely different from Western circuses, but as it turns out, circuses were absolutely a thing in the Edo era, and they had acrobats and strongmen and horseriding and more. I had so many tabs open about circuses, and almost none of it actually made it into this fanfic.

Anyway, THANK YOU ALOPEX, you know what I like to write, and what I like to write is Renji telling rambling stories of questionable veracity. I put in some lifting for good measure. This might be the most perfect Renji birthday story.

If it isn’t immediately evident, this takes place in the middle of the Advance Team Arc, or more specifically, in the middle of my Advance Team Arc story, See You on the Other Side, where Renji tells Chad a different RenRuki origin story that’s basically the desert bandit subplot from Crouching Tiger, and also a story about bees.

Read on ao3 | ff.net

🏋️‍♂️ 💪 🤡 🎪 🐻

Renji hefted the last bumper plate onto the end of the barbell and tightened the collar. Chad watched him with narrowed eyes.

“You sure you want to try this?” Renji asked. “One thousand pounds. It’s the weight limit for this bar. Once you beat this, we gotta go back to Urahara’s place and pick up big rocks.”

Apparently, Chad worked part time at his gym, which meant he had a key, which meant that he and Renji could go in at two a.m. so that Renji could teach him how to lift absurd amounts of weight with his reiatsu. It was pretty convenient, as long as you didn’t mind lifting weights at two a.m. Renji loved lifting weights at two a.m.

“You just don’t want to tell me another story,” Chad replied, flexing his shoulders in anticipation.

“Whatever, I got a million of them.” Renji took a few steps backward.

Chad flared his nostrils and stepped up to the barbell. He squatted down and curled his fingers around the grip. He took three deep breaths as he stared straight again. Leading with his hips, he straightened up in a smooth, textbook perfect movement, the sinews in his neck popping out, the air around him boiling with power.

Renji wished he could drag Chad over to Squad Six, so those spoiled weenies could see what hard work actually looked like.

Chad dropped the weight and a huge breath burst out of him, his eyes widening in relief. “I did it,” he gasped.

“You did it, buddy!” Renji shouted, pointing at the barbell. “You’re a machine! You didn’t even make it look hard!”

“It was hard,” Chad managed.

“I don’t believe it!” Renji continued. “One thousand pounds! You’re incredible, dude!”

“What do you mean, you don’t believe it? You told me to do it.”

“I mean, when I told you we were gonna work for the big one-kay, it was, you know, a stretch goal. I didn’t expect you to get there so fast!”

“You said you would tell me another story when I hit it! I assumed it was a reasonable goal.”

“I keep making unreasonable goals and you keep hitting them, so I’m just sort of winging it, now, t’be honest! I’m actually really bothered how much you are motivated by my dumb stories. If I had any human money, I would just offer to buy you tacos or something.”

“I can make my own tacos. I like the stories.”

Renji sighed. They didn’t have tacos in Soul Society and he was determined to eat as many tacos as he possibly could while he was stationed in the Living World. “Go get cleaned up, and I’ll put the weights away and try to decide which story to tell you this time. I did bring us some protein shakes. I can’t vouch for them, because they’re made out of stuff I found in the Shouten, but it’s important to get some calories in you after lifting. ”

“I’m sure they’re fine. I like your protein shakes. Oh, and I know which story I want to hear--how you met Rukia.”

Of course he did.

Renji was a man of many stories. He had so many good stories. He had Inuzuri stories that were full of mischief and dirtbaggery. He had Squad 11 stories that were full of headbutting and idiocy. He had interesting stories about his clever friends Izuru and Momo and funny stories about his goofy friend Shuuhei and horrible stories about his horrible friends Iba and Madarame. But Chad had asked him once how he met their mutual friend Kuchiki Rukia, a very reasonable and natural thing to ask, and Renji had responded with a ridiculous story that was very obviously not true. Now, all Chad wanted to hear was ostentatious lies about how he, Abarai Renji, had met the incomparable Kuchiki Rukia.

Renji racked his brain as he racked Chad’s weights. This would probably make the eighth or ninth Renji-Rukia origin story, he’d honestly lost count. He was running out of material. There was a bulletin board next to the weight storage rack, covered with flyers for a weightlifting tournament in Naruki City, the Karakura High kendo team, tumbling lessons. Renji stared at the picture of the girl in the sparkly leotard on the last one. He thought about how he and the gang used to make up stories of how they were gonna make it out of Inuzuri some day. He thought about Rukia’s absolute favorite, the one she told over and over, the way it got bigger and sparklier every time she told it.

Chad returned, a tracksuit zipped overtop his workout clothes. “Need help?” he asked.

“This is the last one,” Renji replied, hefting it up onto the shelf. “You can put the bar away, though.”

Chad did.

It was kinda nice, Renji thought, being in a gym in the middle of the night with Chad. It reminded him of hunching over his dorm room desk across from Izuru, cramming for written exams. It reminded him of achy muscles in a dim Fifth Company dojo, trying to figure out the mechanics of Zabimaru’s shikai deep into the wee hours. It reminded him of long runs with Ikkaku as the sun was just peaking over the city walls. The hours between dusk and dawn were a pretty good time for doing things, in Renji’s opinion.

“So, did you remember? How you met her?”

“Of course I remember!” Renji protested. “You think I would forget something like that?”

“You do get hit on the head a lot,” Chad rumbled gently and it took Renji a moment to realize he just got dragged. Chad was actually a really funny guy, you just had to pay attention.

Renji plopped down on a pile of mats and started rummaging around in his backpack for the two bottles of questionable nutritional substance he had mixed up earlier. “Well, I certainly remember the time I ran away from home and joined the circus, I’ll tell you that.” It was a good opening line, and he paused a few seconds to get the full effect.

“The circus?” Chad echoed skeptically, sitting down next to Renji and accepting his smoothie.

“The circus,” Renji replied after taking a long swig. It was very, very strawberry flavored. “So. I think I mentioned once that when I died I got sent to the shit-end of Rukongai. District 78 of the Southern Quadrant, where your best hope is to die soon and catch an express trip back to the Living World. I was too dumb and stubborn for that, though, so I was always on the lookout for a way out. Now, it’s pretty hard to move between districts in Rukongai-- it’s illegal without a special permit, see, and special permits get harder to get the further out you go. But there are a few kinds of permits that allow you to travel all up and down Soul Society, and one of those is for entertainers.”

This was more-or-less true. It was true in theory, but travelling shows never made it out to the deep Rukon-- there was no profit in it. Rukia used to swear up and down that a circus had made it to Inuzuri once, basically just passing through on their way to capture wild animals from the magical wilderness past the end of District 80, but she had seen it. Rukia was older than the rest of them, and she used to talk about it in such nauseating detail that they had no choice but to believe her.

“When I saw the posters plastered up all over town, my first thought was that it was an opportunity to pick up some quick kan as temporary labor. My primary job skill at the time was picking up heavy objects, you see, perhaps moving them from place to place. Circuses always need help with set up and tear down. I mean, do I look like a theater kid?”

Chad stared at him pointedly.

“I don’t know why I asked that,” Renji quickly corrected, “but also, keep in mind that I am Like This because I was in the circus, not the other way around. Anyway, my instincts were correct, and I found myself gainfully employed, carting crates and also tying and untying knots, another of my many talents. But then two things, or rather two someones made me decide that I needed to hitch my star to this ridiculous pageant. The first, I will admit, was a complete castle in the sky, but what is being an adolescent boy about if not chasing after hopeless dreams?”

Chad frowned. “Well. There’s school.”

“There is no school in Inuzuri, actually, and perhaps that would have kept me out of trouble, but instead, I became absolutely entranced by the glittering star of the show-- a tightrope walker of exceptional agility, grace, and beauty. Her most defining characteristic, though, was her audacity. There was no trick too dangerous for her. She somersaulted through hoops of fire. She juggled daggers. She’d stop halfway across the tightrope, pull out a tokkari, and pour herself a saucer of sake and drink it, while the audience gasped.”

“It was Kuchiki,” Chad guessed, the corner of his mouth tipping up into his shy grin.

“It was Rukia,” Renji agreed, “but imagine Rukia in head-to-toe spangles, with bells in her hair and glitter painted around her eyes, 20 feet in the air. She was unreal. She was an apparition, a spirit. I was desperate to meet her.”

“Did you?” asked Chad.

“Chad,” said Renji.

“What?”

“Did you just… did you just ask me if I ever managed to meet Rukia? Your friend and mine, Kuchiki Rukia? In the middle of this story about how I met Rukia?”

Chad thought for a moment. “It’s two a.m. and I just deadlifted a thousand pounds.”

“That’s fair, and the answer is yes, eventually, I did meet Rukia and she saved me from being eaten by a bear, but we’ll get to that. Are you drinking that protein shake?”

“Oh, sorry! It’s really good, I just keep forgetting because this story is a good one.” Chad took a long sip. “Hey, Abarai?”

“Yeah?”

“Sorry to interrupt again, but I have a question about the bear.”

“The bear is later.”

“Yeah, I realize that, but does the bear die?”

“Huh?”

“I’m just asking up front, because I don’t like stories where animals die, and if the bear gets hurt or dies, maybe could you skip over that part?”

“Oh! No, the bear is fine. Well, he’s probably reincarnated back into a living bear by now, he was pretty old even then. I exaggerated a little to make it sound dramatic, he probably wouldn’t have eaten me in any case.”

“Okay, you can go back to the story now, I just wanted to make sure. Thank you.”

“No, no, it’s cool. I’m glad you checked in.” Renji took a deep breath through his nose and mentally rearranged his story so that Rukia no longer defeated the beast in a dramatic knife fight. “Right. So, as I said, there was a second person at the circus who influenced me greatly and that was the most famous strongman in the entire Rukon, Zaraki Kenpachi--”

“Wait, Captain Zaraki? Big guy? With the bells in his hair?”

Oh, shit. “Uh, yeah. That’s a circus thing, you know. Hair bells. You, uh, know Captain Zaraki?”

“Yeah, Orihime made friends with him, and he broke us out of prison, but then we split up because there was someone he wanted to fight.”

“That sounds like him. Anyway, yeah, he’s in this story, too. I used to be in his squad, you know?”

“I gathered that from the way Madarame and Ayasegawa talk to you.”

“He helped me get in the Gotei, you see. Because of our time together in the circus. That’s a different story, though, we’re focusing on circus times, here. He wasn’t even the Kenpachi, yet, actually. One of the reasons he’s so strong is because before he was a fighter, he lifted things, heavy things. He did all the typical strongman stuff-- bending iron bars, biting through teacups, tearing packs of cards in half, but his most famous trick was balancing bamboo poles on his shoulders and then various acrobats and other performers would scramble up on them and do tricks from on top of him. He was wildly popular, pictured on all the posters. People would come to the circus just to see him. I did not have a lot going for me at this point of my life, but I was strong, and when I saw this guy, it occurred to me that if I could get him to take me on as some sort of apprentice, I might finally be able to use my strength to get out of that shitty town.”

“Seems like a good plan.”

“It did. It seemed like a good plan, except that Zaraki had a very busy schedule of getting drunk and napping when he wasn’t lifting things, and he was absolutely not interested in Inuzuri punks who had been hired to move crates around.”

“So, what did you do?”

“Well, speaking of Inuzuri punks, I may have been a fairly honest and hardworking fellow, but one day, a couple of my reprobate neighbors decided to sneak in and try to get a glimpse of some of the wild animals. The fellow who looked after the menagerie was a little guy by the name of Mameji. Very kind and loved the animals deeply, but not very good at standing up for himself. I barely knew him, but I don’t like bullies, and I owed most of those guys a punch in the nose anyway. Mameji was pretty grateful for the solid I did him and asked if there was any favor he could do me in return. Naturally, I asked if he knew Zaraki, but unfortunately, he was terrified of the guy, so I told him I was just happy to do a good deed and make a friend.”

“You should have asked him if he knew Rukia. Rukia likes animals.”

“You’re very smart, Sado, but remember that this story is about me, not you. It didn’t matter anyway, because the next day, he comes to find me and says there’s someone who wants to talk to me. I can’t imagine who he means, aside from holding out hope that maybe he did know Zaraki after all and was just slow-rolling me.”

“But it was Rukia.”

“It was. Mameji leads me over to the area where the animals are kept, and there, in a blue kimono embroidered with silver stars and crystals in her hair, was The Fearless Rukia.” Rukia’s circus stories were usually at least seventy-five percent descriptions of her outfits, and Renji felt obligated to keep up that detail. “‘You helped my friend out,’ she says to me. ‘I appreciate that.’ And I replied something very smooth and suave, like, ‘I like the way you do cartwheels’ or possibly just “Guuuuuuh.’ And then she says, ‘I hear you’re interested in Zaraki, what’s up with that?’ and as you know, I’m much better at talking about muscle stuff, so I explain about picking up heavy things and Inuzuri and my ambition to join the circus and she just listens carefully, nodding from time to time. She makes me pick up a few barrels and then Mameji, for good measure, and finally, she nods and says, ‘You’re pretty strong and I like your hair. Come back here tomorrow. I’m going to help you impress Zaraki.’”

Chad’s eyes sparkled with anticipation.

“So, the next day, I came back, like she said, and Mameji was there, too and they’ve got this big sack of yams. I’ve told you before about eatin’ in Soul Society, right?”

Chad nodded and belatedly took another gulp of his shake.

“My initial thought was that they were gonna try to bulk me up. Raw yams may not sound very exciting to you, but after years of living on near-moldy rice and the occasional sad vegetable or bony fish, I was watering at the mouth. ‘You’re gonna feed these yams to Sunny,’ says Rukia. ‘Who?’ says I. ‘His stage name is Brawler,’ says Rukia, ‘But he’s a good boy so Mameji and I call him Sunny. It’s a joke. Because he’s a moon bear.’ Brawler, you see, was the second scariest thing in the circus, right after Zaraki-- the biggest, ugliest moon bear you can possibly imagine, probably 200 kilograms. A lot of circus bears do tricks-- balance on balls or some shit, but Brawler’s only trick was looking mean as Hell. Sometimes they’d throw him a deer haunch and he’d eat it in a real gross way, I guess people like seeing stuff like that. I, like most people growing up on the southern border of the Rukon, had a healthy fear of large carnivores, but I had a much larger fear of looking like a weenie in front of Rukia, and I was determined I was gonna do whatever she told me to. The first time wasn’t so bad-- I just tossed the yams in and he snuffled over and gave me the hairy eyeball before snorfling them up. We did that the next day, too, but the day after that, Mameji took me into his enclosure to give him his yams. I was a little surprised, you see, because I would have expected a bear like that to eat meat or something like that, but he sure did like those yams.”

“Moon bears are omnivores,” Chad supplied. “They like sweet things.”

“You’re right, and I later found out that Sunny did get meat and other stuff at other times of day, but yams were his absolute favorite thing. Again, Rukia did not tell me this, because Rukia often neglects to tell me important things. I found all of this to be absolutely terrifying, and I probably would have given up and stuck to my crate moving, except that Rukia and Mameji were just about the nicest and amazing people I had ever met. They let me hang out with them for a bit and they told me stories about traveling with the circus and I told them about Inuzuri. They introduced me to their other friends, Fujimaru, who could do all sorts of knife throwing tricks, and Kosaburou, who had the most beautiful singing voice you could possibly imagine. By the time Rukia asked me to give Sunny the yams right out of my hand, I was doin’ it, not because I was desperate to get out of Inuzuri, but because I was desperate to do anything to stay with my new friends.”

Renji paused and pretended to be interested in his protein shake. Usually, he tried to fill these stories with a lot of daring-do and badassery, but he’d gotten a little off-track when had to junk his big exciting Rukia versus Bear fight scene. All he could think of was lying around the squat on miserable rainy days, one-upping each other with stories about their ridiculous circus acts. He hadn’t thought about those days-- hadn’t let himself think about those days-- in years. What a sap he was turning into. Maybe it was because Rukia was back in his life. Maybe it was because there was a war coming, a war he might not make it through. Maybe it was because it was two a.m.

“I know how that feels,” Chad said very quietly, so quietly that Renji almost didn’t catch it, and it occurred to Renji that maybe sometimes it helped to hear a sappy story at 2 a.m.

Renji snorted softly. “So, the day before the circus was set to pack up, Rukia explains her big plan to me. Up until now, I’ve sort of been assuming that this is all an exercise in building courage or some gonzo shit like that, but it turns out it’s very straightforward. Zaraki’s dream the whole time he’s been in the circus is to pick up Sunny as part of his act, except that Sunny has zero interest in being picked up and ends up chewing on Zaraki’s head every time he tries. If Zaraki had ever bothered asking Mameji for help, maybe he could have tried the old yam trick himself, but then this wouldn’t be much of a story.

“I wait ‘til the big guy is done with his nap and is prepping for the night’s performance, inventorying his lead pipes and such, and I go up to him and I say, ��Zaraki the Great, I am very strong, you should take me on as your apprentice!’ Now, Rukia had seen people do this to him before, and she knew that he always came back with ‘Oh, yeah? Do something to impress me, then.’ Of course, I was prepared, and I said, ‘I am going to pick up Brawler, would that do it?’ and Zaraki laughs in my face and says ‘If you can do that, I will definitely take you on, kid.’”

Chad’s face had split into a huge grin and he leaned forward in anticipation.

“We go over to Sunny’s pen, and of course, Mameji’s already given him his dinner and he’s feelin’ real fat and happy when he sees his old yam buddy Renji coming. I slip him a yam that I had tucked in my sleeve and I start rubbin’ his side, which is a thing we’d been practicin’. He leans into it, ‘cause he was a big, itchy boy, and I just… flipped him and picked him up like a baby.” Renji made a scooping motion to demonstrate. Chad’s face absolutely lit up. “He was incredibly heavy and also he did not really like that,” Renji continued, “but I put him down right away and gave him another yam and he forgave me. Zaraki was laughin’ his ass off, but he kept his word and got me signed on as a Strongman-in-Training. We went on to have many more adventures, both me an’ Zaraki and me an’ Rukia an’ Mameji an’ Kosaburou and Mameji.”

“And Sunny.”

“Sunny continued to be a hideous, angry bear for the crowds, but I kept giving him yams and never picked him up again and we were great friends for the time we spent together in the circus.”

Chad sat back, smiling his usual inscrutable smile. “Thank you, Abarai. That was a really good one.”

Renji cocked an eyebrow at him. “Was it?”

“Yes. It had friendships and a nice bear and I felt like Rukia would really appreciate the effort you put into describing all her outfits. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t true, but it was a good story.”

Renji heaved a big sigh, as though he’d honestly thought Chad was gonna buy it this time. He stretched his arms and legs out in front of him. “Let’s go home. I could go for a few hours of sleep before the Shouten Shouting starts. You’re taking a rest day tomorrow, but don’t forget to stretch.”

“The last time I had a rest day, you came over and you taught me some stuff about reiryouku.”

“Did I?” Renji frowned.

“Can we do that again? You said you would try to explain how flash step works.”

Shit, he did remember promising that. He’d just gotten overenthusiastic because it was nice to be the guy who knew things for a change. On the other hand, he also remembered the enthusiasm of going to school for the first time and wanting to know everything, and could hardly fault Chad for the same. “Sure,” he agreed. “After noon.”

“Let’s make it noon,” Chad amended. “I’ll make you tacos.”

“That,” replied Renji, “is a deal.”

#renji's birthday 2k21 #my writing #chad-renji brotp #i honestly hope that over in soul society rukia shot awake #she gets a +2 to badassery every time renji tells a story about her

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accio-victuuri · 4 years ago

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Hello Anon! Sorry I had to cut some parts cause this got too long. For everyone else, Anon is actually very critical with their words and just really wants some explanation. So. I will just answer this whole thing once and I doubt my view on this will change anytime soon. As more modified-bl dramas comes out, I know I’ll get this. We don’t even have Immortality out yet. lol.

It’s okay to have this feeling. If you tried to watch it and it’s not making you happy, it’s okay. I am very bad w/ watching dramas and series in general so I will 99.9% not watch anything else that does not have Web or GG in it. My stance on this will always be: There is no need to pit them against each other. I also cannot prove you wrong. No one can prove that but the people who are actually behind the scenes with this project.

So now to the other parts of this ask.

• similar scenes - I did see a lot of this comparison shots on Wb, like they really did put these scenes side by side. So I know what you’re talking about. Even that cliff scene. What I think here is it’s a matter of tropes used in Danmei stories. This can be one explanation on why there are similar storylines. Like if we’re talking about epic fantasies, there is always a wise old wizard, the chosen one and the loyal best friend. even in shounen animes, there are similar themes. a formula, if you wanna call it that.

Some common tropes in Danmei: Rebirth, Space-time travel, Master/apprentice, Evil leaders, Dragons, shifters, Immortals, power struggles and ghosts.

I bet someone who has read a lot from this genre will be able to point out more common themes that we are sure to see w/ these stories/dramas.

• promo poster - there is also another drama with the same look. Again, we cannot verify for sure. that’s the problem w/ things like this. No one owns that “pose” anyway. Yes it can be very 👀 but it’s unfair to judge the entire show because of that.

• same phrases in interviews - lol anon. I will not search. I barely have time to do things that are not on my schedule plus i’m not really interested. tho i think i saw this in passing. something to do with atop the snowy mountain/ side by side which is really bjyx’s thing. Again. We can’t tell. As with how the promos are going, I can’t really fault the producers or whoever is in charge for taking some inspiration from cql promos. I mean, it was wildly successful. So if you’re someone who wants to go the same route, wouldn’t you look at something like CQL for reference? I don’t wanna take it as blatant copying. These observations that you see are almost all from people who are already critical w/ the show. So they already have that bias and just waiting for WoH to slip.

There is no such thing as an ORIGINAL IDEA in media. being inspired by something is also usually not a bad thing. At this point, I honestly don’t know what these other upcoming dramas can do to be considered original. I don’t think there is anything they can do to please other people. I feel bad for every other drama of the same genre that comes after CQL. which is something i’ve thought of even before any other projects got announced.

I also just wanna add that this xx pair copying how bjyx interacts in promos is just so weird to me. Of course it’s a show where they play lovers so what do you guys expect? they have to sell the CP. or maybe they are really good friends. I don’t see this nitpicking with het pairs. No one is saying xx pair is copying xx pair. Everyone knows that what these actors do in promos have some sort of direction from production. This is why during CQL promos up until 2019 tencent star awards, most of us had that “but is it really szd?” question in our head. 🙃 There is no point in comparing, of course it will be different because bjyxszd.

Okay, hope this helped Anon. It’s okay to stop watching things you don’t like but I hope you don’t end up hating them. Just ignore it and spend more of your time on things you actually like.

#ask response

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ruakichan · 3 years ago

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(This was originally posted to my defunct PF in 2018, but reposting it here in heavily edited form for posterity so I can have my mobage reviews in a singular place.)

The Room is one in a line of premium (aka you need to buy the game to play it) "tactile puzzle games," which are games that utilize the touchscreen and has you manipulating objects in a 3D environment to solve puzzles. These are among my favorite style of mobage, yet they are hard to do well so you don’t see them around too often. But they are an absolutely brilliant way of utilizing the touchscreen medium to immerse the player.

What caught my attention about the Room was the aesthetics, and, later, the lore that runs through all four (five if you count the VR game) of the currently released games: a mix of Lovecraftian horror meeting Old World steampunk. The mysterious "Null element" and its eldritch origins, the tragedy that befalls those who want to learn about it, the mysterious organizations all after its power: this type of atmosphere is so up my alley that it felt like the game was tailored specifically to my tastes.

The graphical design of the game match these themes: the steampunk and Old World influence in both the setting and the puzzles are incredibly gorgeous (if you're into that sort of thing), matched by the ambiance and lighting. The music is low-key, if existent at all, adding up to the very lonely, trapped experience the protagonist is found in.

Each game offers something different in terms of puzzle design: the first game's puzzles all originate from a single box: and each time you solve a major puzzle, the box opens up to reveal more and more. There's something incredibly satisfying about watching the box grow bigger and bigger as you solve each layer of puzzle. The idea of going from small to large just adds to feel of the otherworldly power you're manipulating.

The second game has you time travelling: following after the erstwhile scholar that discovered the box in the first game, going through doors you open up as you solve each room, landing in different time periods as you relive the history of the box. This game explores more about the series' deepest lore, solidifying the story established by the first game.

The third game has you entrapped by someone who has villainous intent about this mysterious Null element, and now you work your way through a house's mystery, trying to escape with your life. (This game is the one I started with, incidentally, as it had a lot of very strong reviews, and it was definitely worth it.) The puzzles in this one were probably the most difficult, since there were several endings and some of the endings required you to break from the linear path of the story to address mysteries unsolved in previously cleared areas.

The fourth returns more to the first game's roots: now you play as someone from one of the organizations looking to research and harness the Null element, uncovering the tragedy that befell another intellectual through the mystery of unraveling a dollhouse. Solving each part of the dollhouse opens up more rooms, and tinkering with such tiny miniatures is just absolutely appealing to me.

Overall, the series itself isn't terribly difficult; any time a roadblock is encountered, it typically is because you're missing an item in your inventory. There is a hint system, and it's not overbearing, for those that need a little direction on what to do. Like any adventure game, some of the items that have to be manipulated or found can be really tiny or cleverly hidden, but the game itself doesn't follow "adventure game logic" so each puzzle progression makes general logical sense in how it should be solved.

Some of the games are also available on PC or the Switch; I'm not sure how the controls handle on these systems, but the games themselves got huge graphical upgrades in terms of more design and lighting:

At the time of this writing, the games themselves range from 0.99 to 3.99 (most recent release), and can last anywhere from several hours to a near day, depending on how hard you binge and how quickly you can solve the puzzles. It's definitely worth your time and money if you're looking for a good puzzle game with atmosphere and lore; the series itself has won quite a few accolades which can be seen on the site linked above. The games are available on Android and iOS, and some are on PC (steam) or the Switch.

#roo gaming #posting this cause i want to post a review to a series that gets compared to it really soon

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nofive · 4 years ago

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Five’s Bedroom

I have done a headcanon about brief observations I have made on Five’s bedroom before. I have also talked about things in his bedroom in a few other headcanons. But this will be delving into the canon state of Five’s childhood room, and his area in the Apocalypse to get a sense for how Five is as a person and a bit more of what he was like as a child.

Also fair warning, this post is long, and their are lots of big images. If you want, I am tagging this post with a special tag “Five’s Bedroom Meta” so that you can block it if you do not wish to scroll through it on your dash. All images that have adjusted brightness was purely to enhance the background of the image.

Like with everything I may add on to this as time goes by.

The bare bones, no deep diving yet ( Five’s Childhood Room )

Based off multiple images from the Making of TUA book, the show itself, and Aidan’s behind the scenes pictures I’ve put together a very basic floor plan of Five’s room ( please don’t make fun of my handwriting ). I don’t know about y’all but I feel like Five’s door needs to be at a til like Allison and Luther’s. But its not. So this floor plan basically gives a layout of his room in general. Its not to scale obviously, but it gives us a good starting off point. One thing I would like to note, that I think is only applicable to Five’s room as that there are two doors much like Reginald’s office, which I will touch on a bit later. Not drawn are the at least four lamps, one on his desk, one on the small bookshelf by his bed, and one on his nightstand, he has at least two sconces one on the wall near the closet, and one on the wall near the blue chair, he also has a main light fixture with at least three bulbs. But it is simply his closet, a very small closet at that.

Five’s bedroom has two windows, one that leads to a fire escape, which is next to his bed on the wall with the slanted roof. Both windows have radiators beneath them that Five utilizes as shelving. On the slanted wall side of his room Five’s bed is pushed not quite into the corner as he has a small bookshelf there that has more toys on it than books, and has a chest at the foot of his bed, and then he has his bookshelf which due to the slanted wall has the appearance of a built in.

Five’s desk and desk chair are on the same wall as his closet, though his desk chair being on wheels can move about. Above the desk are a set of shelves, Luther’s room has something very similar, with a set of towels and his toiletries. Five’s towels are blue, Luther’s appear to be tan or brown. If I had to guess all the siblings have different colors of towels. Next to his desk in between it and the bookshelf is a basket that appears to have a white board, and a fireman’s hat. There is also a possible laundry basket on the other side of his desk closer to the closet.

On the wall that has the main door to his room you have his wardrobe or armoire. we know thanks to Klaus that this houses jackets, possibly that snazzy coat and scarf from the bank as well as various toys namely baseballs. I know there is a baseball bat in his room but I cannot find a picture of it. Also I should note, I have no idea what is rapped in that white sheet looking thing.

On the other side of the door we have his dresser. The door funnily enough has a window up top sort of akin to an office door implying that Five’s room did in fact used to be an office. In fact the way it’s styled makes it seem like it could be a 1920s styled Private Investigator office. The dresser has a dart board above it that he takes down to write his equations and then puts it back up despite not putting anything else back on the walls. In front of the dress and the second window is a blue chair that we see Delores occupy while Grace patches up his Shrapnel wound she is sitting on his blue desk chair. Next to the radiator under the window we have Five’s nightstand.

The walls of Five’s bedroom are all painted a minty green color. So is all the triming including the the window seal ledges. The only non-painted areas are the bricks under the slanted roof/wall of his room and the boarder wallpaper.

The Deep Dive

So that takes us around his room, now lets actually delve into those pictures and what we see in them. So lets start at the beginning with the closet. To my knowledge Five is the only one with a closet in his room, and a second door. I only bring this up because the parallels and similarities between Five and Reginald is very obvious. And we know Reginald’s office has two doors. I just think that is interesting, not to mention Five’s bedroom was very likely an old office based on how The Academy is multiple buildings together. I should also note that based on the scene when Five is escaping onto the fire escape the window that is not on the slanted wall portion of his room shouldn’t have light coming into it because another building butts up to it.

Five’s bedroom is actually quite large accented with blue of varying shades from the carpet to his main comforter, to his desk chair, pillows, curtains, and his secondary chair. All the wood in his room is a light walnut color. And his doors are painted this minty green color. His second comforter looks to be navy, white, and red plaid. The fact that he has a second comforter that is used means not only has Grace changed his sheets, but he likely has slept in them, which means he likely did sleep. I only say its second comforter and not a blanket because we know Five has a chest at the foot of his bed with a blanket on it that could have been used. The chest likely has his extra bedding in it though. On Five’s bedside table he has a stack of what appears to be text books, but they seem more like workbooks of some sort. So think like SAT prep books. He also has a set of what appears to be five novels on his nightstand, and some sort of CD player or maybe a dehumidifier.

The blanket as you can see has planets, a moon, and a spaceship on it, which is pretty on par for things that Five likes. All over his room, and in these images you can see images of robots on his walls. Particularly you can see comic drawings of robots. He has a rock-em sock-em robot poster on his wall. He even has a robot on his bookshelf by his desk. Five has a fascination with robots. Which could foreshadow his relationship with Delores, and perhaps something of his relationship with Grace, liking wanting to know how she works. Also foreshadowing of Five and Delores is quite literally in the wallpaper boarder above the chair rail which has a kid pulling a red wagon with a mannequin in them.

Additionally we see lots of building blocks particularly on the bookshelf next to Five’s bed. Five is very hands on when it comes to his hobbies. He has means of transportation all over his room which could make sense given his power, but it could also give him a connection to Luther seeing as Luther also has airplanes and cars in his room. Five has boats, and cars all over his room. Further he also has lots of construction toys including an excavator and a cement truck. On top of his wardrobe he has a sail boat and a covered wagon. He also has a poster of a motorcyle or moped on his wall. If Five had stayed behind he would have been the first to learn how to drive for sure.

From first glance Five’s room seems super organized. But when you actually look at it, its not. Books in particular are stacked where he can stack them. The binders on his desk are initially upside down, and someone put them right side up, I would guess Luther as he is messing around Five’s desk to look for things. Five works in an organized chaos we see this from his equations as he writes over the boarder and such We later see this echoed in his Apocalypse home.

When it comes to other things Five has a few knick knacks all of them are travel based, saved for one. I’ve mentioned the toys. The one I’m referring to can be seen on his desk and I believe it is a nautical instrument used to help measure distance and time or speed. I could be wrong. But it is on Five’s desk along with what appears to be homework of some sort in the trays. He’s also got a stapler on his desk which I simply find ironic.

The one knick knack he has that isn’t related specifically to travel is a wooden basket that has busted up watches. Pocket watches, wrist watches, etc. They are old, and are not digital. My theory on this is that at one point he attempted to use the watch to magnify his power, particularly that of Time Travel. But they kept breaking, but it only fueled his theory that he could do it. This is also a call back to the comic where Five as a kid is always shown to have a pocket watch.

Briefly on his closet, which is best pictured above. It is small. Also it appears to only hold his uniforms, which by the way he is going through them makes him seem like he should have more clothes and he can’t find them. This implies Five does have civvies or street clothes but they have been lost over time which would make Five’s “Shit” make much more sense. Its not that he only has uniforms as his option, its that he can’t find his civilian clothes.

Last but not least the dart board. I do have a headcanon about it. But the fact that you can see the equations go behind the dart board on the wall means he put it back up. Five in the original pilot script had a love of knives quite like Diego. My guess is the dart board is a call to that. But we also know Five is super competitive and I think he tries to get accurate with throwing knives to beat Diego. Also we know that Five has Diego’s knife holster in the apocalypse so Five liking knives is not just a original pilot script thing.

The Comparison ( his Apocalypse Home Base )

Five’s apocalypse home base ironically takes on many similar characteristics of Five’s bedroom. Meaning the core of who Five is has not changed. He has a love for learning, partially cause he is literally creating new math, but he has a desk still, and he still stacks books haphazardly. He also has his chalkboard which seems to be Five’s favorite way of doing math. I theorize its because he’s working on things that are so large he needs more room than paper can provide. Also paper is hard to come by in the apocalypse, at least blank paper is because he uses Vanya’s book. Five has a habit of placing important things on places he can easily see and find. Such as the probability map ending above his bed, and the equation on his chalk board likely ending up in his copy of Vanya’s book.

Final Thoughts

So what are my final thoughts? I think the making of TUA book has got Five pinned all wrong. Five’s room is sparse because he left early, but not because he didn’t have hobbies or time to decorate it. He clearly did. Five like athletics at least baseball, and he had an interest in robots, comics, and transportation. He also likes building as he has blocks and potentially even legos. The transportation could be an extension of him getting to know his power, maybe. But we know Luther is very similar with transportation just of the aerospace kind and we know that’s likely not related to his power ( unless you include my headcanon that his main power is actual gravity manipulation ). Five had interests and was even starting to personalize his room before he left, he also had an imagination seeing as the fireman’s helmet is still readily out and available to play which plays into Delores being part of his active imagination and becoming the imaginary friend he needs to stay somewhat sane in the apocalypse.

Five’s room tells us of a boy who was active, and had interests, and he still has a liking for those interests as we see him unable to help himself and play with one of the trucks during the show. It gives us a brief look into the boy that we truly know very little about. Because while we have so much of his story displayed for us, we have so little of what he was like before. He has toys and things all over his room with no real rhyme or reason as to why things are placed in certain areas. It makes sense to him obviously, but it is not the key organized thing you would expect. If it was all his trucks would be in one place for example.

We also can see Five is a bit more chaotic than his room implies on first glance. From both the Apocalypse and his kid bedroom Five has a habit of stacking books a bit haphazardly and storing things also a bit haphazardly as seen by the crate on top of his wardrobe, and the fact that he has stuff just piled into said wardrobe that comes tumbling out when Klaus does.

When it comes to his room location I believe it is on the third floor above Allison and Luther’s, on the second, and Klaus, Vanya, and Diego’s on the lower floor. Since we don’t know where Ben’s room is and the door across from Five’s is always shut, I do think that that is likely where Ben’s room was. But according to Five there are 42 Bedrooms in the place so it could be anywhere really.

Five’s room, like Five himself hides behind a layer of sparsity. You have to give him more than a cursory glance to know what is really going to get him deep down.

#headcanon: a single drop of coffee #five's bedroom meta

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officialinuyasha · 4 years ago

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Yashahime News - The Seven Colored Rainbow Pearls! - Theories and Analysis

https://youtu.be/4yxJ_sm_qck

On September 11th we saw the Sunrise Music Festival Livestream. They said that Souta will play a bigger role in Yashahime and that they wanted to create something that the Fans that grew up with InuYasha and that have became adults - Can enjoy. I did make the post about it, so you may have already seen what I said about it when the Sunrise Music Festival happened on September 11th. I will just say that my wife was not very happy about me staring at a screen for four hours. But hey we also got to see Towa's voice actor, all she really said was the synopsis. But still, fun. I think I completely dissosicated from that because of how long we were watching it alongside my group chat friends. Alot of them passed out directly after because we were exhausted from staying up just to watch this whole thing for more possible information. So we're crazy dedicated to this. The voices for Adult Kohaku, Hisui and Takechiyo have been announced - Ryohei Kimura will be the role of Kohaku Takehiro Urao will be Hisui Ai Fairouz will be Takechiyo [I apologize if I said those names wrong in the video] Here is the translation for Yashahime Keyword number 13 #13 Shikabane [Dead Body Shop] It is a bounty shop that trades heads and the remains of youkai. The owner of the shop, Jyubei, hires Moroha and Takechiyo. Moroha works with Takechiyo, like it had said in Moroha's early translations that she does work for the Shop. It even mentions Jyubei in that translation! So this would be the second time we hear about Jyubei. There's definitely going to be some Bounty Hunter and Demon Slayer conflict. Which is probably why we see Moroha and Setsuna fighting in the trailer. It would make sense for them to have competition because of their jobs. An idea of what could go down for that fight - Setsuna: This is my job to exterminate this demon. We need the parts for our armor and weapons. Moroha: It's MY prey! We sell the parts! The demon slayers could buy the parts from the Corpse Shop for their armor, maybe at some point they can agree and collaborate. But I think it would be nice to see them being competitive with one another at first, and then come to some sort of an agreement. The Corpse Parts shop can supply the Demon Slayers with the material they need for their weapons and armor! They could have some nice sort of trade going on for parts, armor and weapons. So, Jyubei. Who is this guy?- Well, I think it's possible that Jyubei is the new character we see in the poster. I say that because their clothes are tattered like Moroha's. Which gives me the feeling that it's gotta be a signature Bounty Hunter look for the Corpse Shop. That's saying if it's not Shippou or another character that we can think of. What do you guys think? I think it's possible that character is Jyubei. I mean, it also could just be some other character that is a traveler based on the attire. I previously stated that I theorized that there could multiple colored pearls because of the name being rainbow, and because of what was shown to us on the Yashahime Website We have confirmation that there is multiple colored pearls for the rainbow pearls. It was stated in the Yashahime keyword #14 Rainbow Colored Pearls A jewel that enhances the magical power of youkai. It is said that there are seven-colored pearls, as the rainbow-colored name suggests. I know what you're thinking - It's like Dragon Ball or Sonic the Hedgehog. Well Dragon Ball was also actually inspired by Hakken-Den which was a famous Edo-Era Japanese novel, Akira Toriyama said that was his inspiration in Dragon Ball Bouken Special. In Hakken-Den there was eight and he didn't want them to be the same exact number - So he had changed it to seven. If you look at the image, they all sparkle the same as Setsuna's eye does from the trailer. The Shikon jewel sparkles in the same way, as these clearly look a lot like the Shikon Jewel as well. Let's hope that we didn't have seven priests or priestess have to make these...I'm Kidding! I previously talked about how Moroha also has a red pearl on/or in her shell and that it could hold memories or someone is trapped there such as InuYasha, Kagome any of the others. As we know that pearls have to do with memories and portals. However, it's unknown if certain abilities are only exclusive to certain colored pearls and it's something that I'm looking forward to finding out about. So we can also take that possibility into consideration that the different colored pearls may do different things as well. Now we can speculate more on all of the colors that could be related to the characters. We know that there are seven colored pearls based on the Yashahime Keyword but on the site there also is an 8th one that is a Black Pearl. If we want to see about linking these pearls with the characters - We can base the pearls on color palette and also speculate by using the InuYasha Cafe Pictures though some of them are different colored we can still use this as our map. InuYasha Cafe was created to celebrate and promote Yashahime so we can use this as a possible idea for speculation on what the colors could represent. I'll put Miroku inbetween Sango and Shippou, as his colors are in the middle. However, it's more likely that Miroku would be tied with Sango. As we can also speculate if two characters can relate to one pearl as well. We can swap some of these around based on the various artworks, or even the characters color palettes. Such as InuYasha as red - Kagome wore green for a lot of the times, Sango wears pink in her demon slayer armor, Kirara for yellow, Shippou as blue, and Miroku as purple. Maybe Sesshoumaru in the middle. I think it's also a good idea to use The Final Act's Opening as reference as well. - InuYasha would be green - Kagome would be red - Miroku would be yellow - Sango would be blue - and Shippou would be Pink Any of these could be right or wrong. [InuYasha-Red,Kagome-Pink,Sango-Blue,Kirara-Orange,Sesshoumaru-Yellow,Rin-White/Grey] Now, what's interesting is that the Official Yashahime website still has an unclickable pearl. It also reminds me like how Setsuna is missing her memories. Gotta wait on that update for us. We can even speculate using the first Yashahime poster - since Moroha has a red pearl, she is represented by red, that Setsuna is represented by Purple and that Towa would be Blue. The thing is, the pearl that is currently still unclickable on the website may be the purple or pink pearl. If it's supposed to be purple - which would be like Setsuna's color palette suggests on the first Yashahime poster. Though, it could just be a pink pearl. We still don't know if Moroha's pearl is a special pearl, or just for decoration. It's up for speculation as of now. Of course these character colors may have nothing to do with the pearls, but I will say that it's ironic that Moroha does have a red pearl, InuYasha's color palette being red does match the InuYasha Cafe art, and well he is most known for wearing the red robe of the fire rat. While Moroha's color palette on the poster is also red. We also can speculate that each pearl may simply be a fraction of memories that are missing. These memories may be related to the characters or unrelated to the characters. There's a chance that these Pearls could be the other characters memories besides Setsuna. Could these pearls even hold their souls? More hidden places in these pearls? We do know that Setsuna needs a Rainbow Pearl to recover her memories, it could be that she just needs one or multiple as each could represent a fraction of her memory. We're getting closer to the air date. LET THE ANXIETY CONTNUE. Or, you could be excited. Or BOTH! Hosenki's son said it would take him 100 years to create a Black pearl, it could be that Hosenki himself made these. Unless these are newly made experimental pearls that his son made. I wonder how old these could actually be. Hosenki's son did say that his father used all of the pearls before he passed away. But, you never know if there was some secrets none of them knew about. It's possible Jaken's staff could help them find these pearls, besides just the black one. The Black Pearl being the 8th hidden pearl could lead us to InuYasha or of course the Inu no Taishou's grave. It could be that these pearls were not made by either Hosenki or his son, there's always the possiblity of these being made by another Oyster Demon. As there could be others that we don't know about. Their origins are such a mystery, and I can't wait to find out what their history is. I'm guessing the pearl in the middle will be called the white or grey pearl. I'm just saying this based on the website because it shows the darkest color pearl at the bottom, which we can assume is the Black Pearl. Unless they decide to call this middle pearl, a black pearl as well. But as we know from the information given to us, they will recover Setsuna's memories for sure. These pearls make demons stronger and I like that they took the idea for the Black Pearl and made them multicolored. As obtainable items that increase power, similiar to what we had seen with the Shikon Jewel. I've previously talked about that - There's a possibility when all of the colored pearls are collected that they can combine and create one whole rainbow pearl. If the characters are sent to different dimensions in each pearl, I wonder if time passes differently inside of them. It could be that the others would be sealed and perhaps not even age. Someone wanted to know how long I think Yashahime will be? Well as a season I guess would be 24-26 episodes. There's a lot of times that we have anime that run on 12 episodes, but since I think Yashahime will do well - Around 24-26 atleast. I also don't think that they will reveal who the mother is of Towa and Setsuna right away. I think it will be revealed later on, as they want to keep our attention on watching the series. I think it would be very quick for them to finish Yashahime in one season, especially with the idea of collecting seven pearls - so I think that they should do more than one season. Here's to hoping that it will be more than one season, but I still will be content with one season that wraps up well - Because this is an InuYasha Sequel we are talking about. It is a big deal to me. I know it's a big deal to a lot of people. What do you guys think? Are you guys excited or what? October 3rd is coming up fast!

#inuyasha #yashahime #anime #manga #hanyou no yashahime #yashahime princess half demon #rumiko takahashi

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