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ackermansundercut · 8 months

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Swing Dancin'

Summary: She was lucky enough to have a regular gig as a singer at a club in Brooklyn, and he was simply the beautiful soldier she had stolen a drink from.

Word Count: 3K

Warnings: 1940’s James Buchanan Barnes is a warning, fluff, no angst, implications of smut but not explicit, my first fic in like 5 years please be gentle with me (If you remember this fic from my bucky account I had in 2018 ily and this is the much better, edited version)

Amber lighting illuminated swirling dresses and sparkling crystal glass, the smell of cigar smoke floating through breezes of laughter spilling from the dance floor and the bar. This was her environment, the comfort she thrived in. Women in dresses and skirts that tickled their legs as they were twirled by men in uniform, enjoying normalcy for as long as possible before loading up and shipping off to fight in the war. Y/N got to observe this environment every Friday night. Sometimes, if she let out a saccharine giggle and held back her vomit when the club manager Louis touched her ass and made sleazy remarks, Saturdays too.

Minutes before her set, Y/N was reapplying her cherry red lipstick to her lips, half listening to the soldier holding her compact for her as he chattered on about something or the other. Maybe complimenting the deep blue of her dress, or the way it plunged just a little more than all of the other girls’ in the room, or her beautiful hair done up in curls. Nothing significant enough for Y/N to pay attention to, and certainly nothing that she hadn’t heard before. The man was less than charming and bordering on leery, and it looked as if he didn’t brush his teeth. Y/N got to her feet gracefully, the click of her heels muted in the noise. She shot the soldier a small smirk of a smile, lightly plucking her compact from his fingers and snapping it shut, slipping it into her clutch.

“Thanks darlin’,” y/n hummed ever so sweetly. She left the soldier slack jawed with an absentminded pat on his cheek and turned her gaze towards the stage, shooting a smile at the band who were finishing up with a fun bit of a jazz jive.

Sammy, the bassist, got the attention of the rest of the band and nodded at them, giving them the cue to wrap up the last few riffs so he could announce the woman just as he had every week for the past two months, since she had moved back to Brooklyn and secured this gig. With a final crescendo of the brass, the band was done, and Sammy was at the mic with a charismatic smile.

“Now, now, now, listen up y’all. I’m glad we’re all havin’ a good time, and it’s about to get a whole lot better! ‘Cause we got one of the best singin’ dames in Brooklyn back tonight!” Sammy shouted the last few words enthusiastically, and there was a chorus of drunken and sober shouts of approval alike accompanied by raucous applause. Y/N rolled her eyes, her smile still adorning her lips and a light flush visible high on her cheekbones. She absentmindedly patted her hair, smoothing her dress once more. In the split second before she was meant to take the stage, movement beside her shoulder caught her attention. With a quick glance to her right, Y/N snatched a glass of amber alcohol out of the oblivious soldier's hand and downed it in one go, the burn welcome in her throat. The man, once he had worked through a moment of shock at what exactly just happened, protested, but when she turned her gaze to him and his greyish blue eyes met her beautiful, enthralling ones, his voice caught in his throat. She dropped her mascara coated eyelashes into a demure wink at the admittedly handsome man, a smile on her cherry lips.

“Thanks for the drink, soldier,” she said sweetly, sparing him one last glance before swanning up the steps to the stage. Her lips curled back in place as she flashed a brilliant smile to Sammy, who handed her the microphone and tipped his hat before moving back to stand beside his bass. She glanced out at the audience, smatterings of applause meeting her in any direction she shifted her gaze.

She recognized a few faces, regulars of this particular club. Others were new. She noticed the soldier she had used as a mirror holder, and the soldier she had stolen the drink from. She had seen him a few times before, and who could forget those eyes? She also recognized a few other faces, a man with whom she had slept with once or twice because he said he drove fast, and she liked feeling alive. A girl who she had saved from a creep, and a few simply damn good swing dancers who made their impression on the singer. The new ones were always the most interesting, though, because she tried to guess who she would see next week, and who, on the off chance, would tip her for her singing.

“Well, aren’t you all just a sweet crowd,” she hummed into the microphone, shooting a dazzling smile at the audience as she adjusted it to her height, garnering her some whistles and shouts of the positive sort, making her smile internally to match the one playing on her lips. Good crowd tonight. “I believe our lovely Sammy over there did a mighty fine job of introducing me, so I might as well go ahead and start singing,” she let out a peal of laughter that was as enthralling as the notes that slid past her cherry lips as she sang. She had one hand on the mic stand, the other delicately placed on the mic itself as she started her first song of the night, a fast jazzy crowd-pleaser about a little bit of love on a hot summer night in Hollywood. She moved her hips as she sang, a smirk or a grin adorning her lips throughout the entirety of her set. She loved watching the crowd dance as she sang, though she couldn’t help the way her eyes strayed to where a specific soldier was dancing with a beautiful girl, though his eyes weren’t on his date. Every single time Y/N unwittingly allowed her gaze to drift to that section of the floor, his eyes were on hers as she moved her hips and sang her pretty little heart out in that sultry, swing voice of hers. Through every song, the slow and the fast, she met his eyes at least once. At one point, during her third or fourth song, he went to the bar and perched himself next to a skinny blonde boy, but never took his eyes off of the woman commanding the attention of the room from the small stage.

Y/N finished her set after her second extra song, pushing the time limit that Louis had set for her, laughter bubbling past her lips as she caught a rose thrown from somewhere in the crowd. She quirked an eyebrow and grinned, facetiously placing it between her teeth and turning to Sammy with an exaggerated curtsy, who without hesitation swung the woman around in just enough dance to give the audience a good laugh.

“I thank you all kindly, you’ve been more than darling. Now, back to the band!” Y/N called out into the microphone before winking at the crowd and descending the few steps to the floor level. As per usual, there were a few people at the base of the stairs telling her she did well, and a few bold men doing their best to take her home with them tonight. She graciously accepted the praise, kissing a few cheeks and reminding everyone she’d be here next week as well. And as soon as she could, she slipped back to the bar, weaving between dancing couples until she was leaning against the hardwood.

“Hey baby, give me something strong,” she called to the bartender, who flashed her a smile and nodded, reaching for the bourbon as he responded.

“Amazing as always, y/n!”

He was just handing her the glass, the cool surface barely skimming her fingertips before it was stolen out of her hand and downed by none other than the soldier she had stolen a drink from at the beginning of the night. She couldn’t help the abrupt laugh that escaped her throat, an eyebrow raised as she raised a hand at the bartender for another drink .

“I suppose we’re even now, aren’t we soldier?”

“I suppose we are, doll,” he said sweetly and leaned against the bar beside her, a crooked smile on his lips. She took a moment to study his face. He was handsome, sure, but it was the easy nature of his smile and the light of life in his stormy ocean eyes that drew her in. He had his hat sitting cocked on his head, and the way his uniform fit perfectly across his broad shoulders made something flutter in her lower stomach. She grabbed her drink from the bartender with a grin of thanks and took a small sip as she examined the man in front of her.

“What did you think of the show…?” She trailed off, opening the door for him to offer his name.

“Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, ma’am,” he shot her another smirk, tipping his hat, “at your service. I think I truly did see one of the most beautiful, best singin’ dames in this country,” James said. There was a light blush threatening to creep up Y/N’s cheeks, but she tilted her chin down for a moment to attempt to keep it at bay. She fluttered her eyelashes a bit, pulling her painted lower lip between her teeth. She hummed thoughtfully for only a few moments before her fingertips were seizing the rim of her glass, and she was downing her entire drink, setting the glass back on the table. James was looking at her with an open expression of amusement and curiosity, and she felt the corners of her lips curling into a genuine smile subconsciously.

“I think you want to ask me to dance, Sergeant,” Y/N stated, her eyebrow raised and mirth dancing in her eyes. James Buchanan Barnes mirrored her expression, nodding after a millisecond of thought with a chuckle and offering his hand.

“Well then, doll, it would be my pleasure if you accompanied me in a dance,” James said. Y/N didn’t respond with words, only settling her hand in the larger, rougher one of James Barnes, allowing him to pull her into the center of the dance floor. He swung her around for more than just one dance, spinning her from left to right and lifting her off the floor into his arms, and then back to the ground to twirl some more. He left her breathless, both from the dancing and his charm. It was as if the expression of joy was glued to y/n’s face, laughter spilling past her lips with each dip and turn. James Buchanan Barnes knew how to dance. Y/N was no stranger to dancing with, well, strangers, but she had never felt so at ease with anyone else. James had an aura to him, a warmth that radiated and filled her chest with more than a few butterflies.

Soon enough, the boys on stage slowed the pace to a smoother, crooning song, and Y/N found herself pressed close to James’ chest. His cologne clouded any sort of thought in her mind, and she couldn’t help but reach up with a delicate hand to rest on his clean shaven jaw. His hand that wasn’t preoccupied on her waist mirrored her touch, sliding up her shoulder to cup the back of her neck. Y/N felt her breath catch between her parted lips as James’ smirk melted into something sweeter, and an irresistible magnetic pull drew their lips together. The moment their lips met, what began as a sweet, soft, first kiss dissolved into one with more heat, more want, more everything and it felt as if every nerve that ran through Y/N’s body had gained a static charge. The noise of the band and the din of the people surrounding the pair dimmed in comparison to the blood rushing through Y/N’s ears, and she went as long as her singer lungs would allow before the burning need for oxygen forced her to pull away from the sergeant's lips. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, and he had a boyish grin on his lips when he caught her gaze.

“You wanna get out of here, sweetheart?” James murmured, his voice only audible to her. She nodded, a clever smirk back on her red lips as she looked up at the soldier through her eyelashes.

“C’mon, let’s go to my place,” she said. And they went, James waving to his friend that Y/N had seen him sitting with earlier, and Y/N stopping for a moment to collect her tips from the night. Once outside of the club, James had Y/N pressed against the wall outside of the club for another kiss, his lips cascading down the column of her throat and causing a whine or two to escape Y/N. She interrupted him when a cab finally paid attention to her halfhearted hailing, and she lightly shoved at James’ chest to get his attention and get him into the car before the impatient driver left without them. Y/N managed to give the cabbie her address, a small apartment above a family owned grocery store, before James’ insatiable lips were back on hers.

The pair shared countless kisses in the back of the car, their hands becoming more daring with each minute of the short ride. It wasn’t long before the car stopped and the annoyed cabbie grumbled something or another at the couple, so she tossed a bit of cash over the seat to the driver and grabbed James’ hand, pulling him up the stairs and fumbling with the lock, giggling when James kissed her neck impatiently from behind her. When she finally got the old door open and had taken only a step inside her apartment, James closed the door with his foot and had his hands on her waist as if they belonged nowhere else. He had her spun around and pressed to the door before she even got a chance to catch her breath, and he took a moment to appreciate the dazed look in her eyes. Y/N was less than patient, however, and reached up to tug his face down to hers. She swallowed his chuckles with open mouthed kisses, and his hands roamed the expanse of her back and waist. Her hands fingertips tugged at the ends of the short hair at the nape of his next, and he let out a low, deep groan and moved his lips to the beautiful woman’s neck, then her collarbone, and she responded eagerly, a needy whimper sounding as pretty as her singing graced James’ ears. The soldier groaned lowly at the beautiful noise, and before she knew it, his hands moved again. They were beneath the plush of her thighs, lifting her up. She quickly wrapped her legs around his waist with a quiet giggle, a sweet little noise that had James grinning. He turned and with only a few strides, her apartment was quite small, she was on the bed as he hovered over top of her, running his fingers through her beautiful hair. His dog tags slipped from where they were tucked into his collar, and Y/N had to fight the urge to grab them with her teeth and tug his face right back down to hers. Everything about her was beautiful, and he hungrily took in every detail of her features with ravenous eyes. Her lips were swollen and her lipstick was a bit smeared, her hair slightly tousled. He had left a couple hickies on her neck, and he failed to suppress a grin at the sight. She didn’t fail to notice his beauty, either, and she sent him an alluring smile fit for a vixen.

“I suggest,” Y/N began, one of her hands ghosting up the sergeant's front, “you start taking my clothes off now, Sarge,” she murmured in her breathy, nothing short of sexy voice that had James’s blood flow change direction. He groaned and seized forward to steal another kiss from her before pulling back and tugging lightly at the strap of her dress.

“Yes, ma’am,” his deep voice rattled her to her core, and she grinned. There was a flurry of clothing hitting the floor in a haphazard pile, and Y/N had a fleeting thought that she had never been happier that she didn’t have neighbors.

Y/N woke to golden sunlight dancing across her eyelids and warming the bare skin of her back, a heavy arm draped across her waist tickled her side as fingertips traced invisible shapes onto her skin. She forced her eyelids apart despite the lull of peace in the quiet morning drawing her back to sleep, the corners of her lips tilting into a blissful, surprised smile when she met the gaze of the man sharing her bed.

“Well, Sergeant, didn’t quite expect you to stay the night,” she murmured sleepily, leaning up slightly to press a kiss to James’s lips. It wasn’t something she did often, allowing men to stay the night, let alone greeting them in the morning. He was just different. He sent the dame a grin, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, the gentle motion sending a shiver up her spine. This wasn’t very common for him either, staying the night and into the morning. She was just different.

“What, and leave the most beautiful dame in Brooklyn to wake up alone?” James hummed, shaking his head with a soft smile.

“What a gentleman,” Y/N teased with a laugh, propping her head up with her hand, meeting James’s captivating gaze. She tugged the sheet up slightly, allowing her a bit more modesty under his thoughtful eyes. He was staring at her as if he was a man with a million questions, and she held the secrets to the universe. It was a good few beats of silence before he spoke, his fingers never ceasing their sweeping motions on her waist as he contemplated his words.

“You know, doll, I’ve still got a week before I ship out, and I want to get to know you better, if that’s alright with you,” he stated, and Y/N could’ve sworn she saw the tips of his ears turn a Typically, on the off chance she allowed a man to stay overnight in her bed, the second they began to imply that they wanted to see her again, she cut them off with a sweet kiss and a push out the door. Instead, she silenced the little voice in her head, and she found herself pulling her lower lip between her teeth, barely concealing an elated smile.

“It’s more than alright with me. If we only have a week, I do believe we better make the most of our time together, then. Why don’t we start by going for breakfast, Sergeant Barnes?” She suggested, cursing the girlish butterflies in her stomach. He let out a laugh, almost sounding relieved, and James Buchanan Barnes found himself nodding his head and cupping her cheek with one of his hands, tracing the outline of her lips with his thumb.

“I think that’s a fine idea, sweetheart. And you can call me Bucky.”

A/N I'm so happy to be writing again, even this is just an updated, edited version of one of my favorite fics from my old blog!!

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes fic #40s!bucky #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes oneshot #avengers fic #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes imagine #james buchanan barnes #soldier!bucky #bucky barnes x reader

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rottenpumpkin13 · 5 months

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what would it be like if the firsts lived together?

They did live together. Once. Right after Angeal and Genesis made First Class, SOLDIER grew in numbers, and the living quarters were still under planning and construction. They shared a spacious three bed, three bathroom apartment later reserved for Thirds to share. Angeal still dubs it "the worst 14 months of his life"

• Genesis had his own cereal, but thought theft tasted better, so he used to steal Sephiroth's cereal and the two would have a physical altercation over rainbow loops.

• Angeal thought Genesis was a neat freak until he met Sephiroth, who made a color-coded spreadsheet to track the frequency of dusting different areas of the house. Sephiroth liked to passive-aggresively wipe down counters after someone had been in the kitchen, and took pictures of Angeal and Genesis as they were actively making messes to hold them accountable later. Apparently Sephiroth still has a scrapbook of photos to this day, which he labeled "Why I live alone."

• Angeal was the type to leave out a dirty mug Genesis used and never washed for days on end, refusing to let Sephiroth wash it, all to prove a point. Sephiroth would cave and wash the dirty mug when she wasn't looking. Genesis knew this, which is why he would continue to use the mug and leave it out. The same mug remained in the sink for all 14 months they lived together.

• Sephiroth is an insomniac and liked to fix himself meals at 3AM, which would give Genesis a green light to practice the fucking flute, also at 3AM. Angeal had never experienced true rage until he heard a half-assed flute version of O Fortuna while Sephiroth was actively beating a stake with a meat hammer.

• Angeal would refuse to cook for them as a protest if he found half-eaten food in the garbage.

• Angeal was also no saint, and his alarm used to be a loud guitar riff meant to get him motivated and out of bed in the morning. The first time Sephiroth was startled awake by loud rock music at 5AM, he thought it was Genesis. So he threw open Genesis' door and attacked him.

• Sephiroth had the tendency to leave all the lights on, even in rooms he wasn't in. This drove Genesis and Angeal insane, and they berated him so much for it that Sephiroth started to walk around the apartment with a jumbo flashlight. He would flash it directly in their faces when talking to them because he's petty.

• Angeal had a tendency to bring over any strange item or piece of furniture he found at yard sales or on the side of the road. Angeal couldn't understand how Sephiroth thought the giant, stained beanbag chair shaped like an eye he got at a yard sale for 3 gil was junk. He also couldn't comprehend why Genesis didn't want the antique vanity Angeal got for free at the flea market because the owner thought it was haunted.

• Everyone had different scent preferences and refused to compromise. This is why the apartment smelled like Banora White Apple candles, Ocean Mist, and Tropical Berry simultaneously. It smelled like ass.

• Sephiroth enjoys his peace, but couldn't meditate when Angeal was screaming at the baseball game on TV while Genesis was using a karaoke machine to recite Loveless. His Root Chakra is still damaged to this day.

• Sephiroth had to find out the hard way what a tie on a closed door meant, and that not all screams mean someone is in danger.

• Genesis had a phase where he would bring over random people from his nights out. The amount of breakfasts Sephiroth had with half-dressed women and men singlehandedly developed his conversational skills.

• Angeal used to have this mentality of "I'm the responsible one, which means I can take things without asking." He took Sephiroth's hair brush without asking once and forgot to put it back. Sephiroth retaliated by bending Angeal's favorite stainless steel pan. Genesis had to separate them, an exhilarating experience he never wants to go through again because the pan and the hairbrush were used as weapons.

• Genesis couldn't understand why Sephiroth and Angeal didn't want his "artistic french films" playing while they were in the room. Angeal's argument was "If I wanted to see balls while I'm cooking dinner, I would make this lasagna in the locker room at SOLDIER."

#ff7 #ffvii #final fantasy 7 #sephiroth #final fantasy vii #ffvii crisis core #genesis rhapsodos #ff7 crisis core #angeal hewley #headcanons

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whirligig-girl · 3 months

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The S282 from the train sim game Derail Valley, interpreted as a prop built in the first two or three seasons of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends.

I tried to imagine how a prop builder would actually put something like this together on a children's TV series budget. Like the other original props, this one uses kitbashed parts from Marklin model trains as well as plastic card bodies and sculpted faces. The chassis is taken from a Marklin BR55 0-8-0 and the pilot and trailing wheels, and cylinders, modified from a Marklin BR78.

There are some design changes to make it just look more Thomas, like the thomas style headlamp, the flat prominent buffer beam, and the blocky red-sided footplate. The geometry has been simplified as it needed to be made out of folded, bent, and cut plastic card.

More details and alternate versions under the cut:

The actual locomotive as it appears in Derail Valley: Simulator. Note the much larger cylinders. They could have built more proportional cylinders--they did so when they built Murdoch in season 7, but I wanted it to fit in better with Henry and Gordon.

The valve gear shown is accurate to the BR55, not to the BR78 Gordon and Henry use nor the game model (which has much thicker rods)

Other details, like the air pump (not needed on sodor, which seems to use vacuum brakes), bell, and dynamo (again, not used on sodor) have been removed. The ladder detail on the running board has been simplified. A cowcatcher is not needed, but i kept it as more or less the only obviously foreign feature of the engine. The electric headlamp on the top of the S282's smokebox has been replaced with a white

The S282's tender is a four wheel tender on a pair of freight car trucks. The thomas version is a six wheel tender based on Gordon and Henry's.

The livery was changed to make it feel more Sodor. The sides of the running board were painted red, and red lining was added to the boiler bands, cab, and tender. And 282 was given as a number on the tender, in red-lined yellow text. The wheels retain the red paint of the model that contributed their wheels, but dulled a bit by weathering. The game model has black wheels with white walls and red counterweights, but that didn't look right with the small counterweights on most of the wheels and the one single large counterweight on the number three axle.

With so many red accents, the loco bears more than a passing resemblance to Hiro from the cgi series, though this is only a coincidence.

Here's a variant with a game-accurate livery. No striping, and the wheel spokes are black with white walls and red counterweights.

Here are squeaky clean versions of both liveries.

and here are NWR green, blue, and red variants. I actually made a texture pack for the previous major version of Derail Valley, before they updated the model and the UV maps changed. (obviously my texture pack did not go so far as to add faces)

Final variant, the ES&DT version. [sniff sniff] can you hear a guitar riff slowly building tempo?

#Derail Valley #S282 #SH282 #Steam Engine #Steam Locomotive #Smells like Kenosha #Train #Steam Train #TTTE #Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends #Mikado #2-8-2 #2 8 2 #thomas and friends #Thomas

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ohnoitstbskyen · 2 years

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Building a Better Ashe

About a year ago I took a pass at redesigning Ashe the Frost Archer from League of Legends with the help of Ainsworth "Apple_Cork" Lin (https://www.instagram.com/apple_cork/ || https://linktr.ee/apple_cork) who I commissioned for the artwork.

We took Ashe through a number of ideations and various approaches to her character design, which you'll find below the Read More cutoff.

If you want to watch the video version of our design process (it's pretty good!) you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fi5fuv1nLs

Goals:

The goal was to create a version of Ashe that puts less priority of simply making her "appealing" or look pretty, and more on doing storytelling for the kind of role she plays in the story of the Freljord.

Ashe as she exists now is basically a riff on the Drow Ranger from Dota, complete with WarCraft 3 style Hot Elven Ranger getup. She's a queen of the frozen north, but she runs around in a miniskirt, thigh-highs and a paper-thin cloak because

this design was originally put together to be running around sunny Elven forests on Azeroth, and got interpolated through Dota into League of Legends without ever really reconsidering the concept

it was designed for League of Legends at a time when worldbuilding and character storytelling simply were not priorities in their character design - characters were broad recognizable fantasy archetypes being thrown together Smash Bros style for a fighting tournament

Late 2000s high fantasy character design in gaming had a default preference for Sexy Cleavage Babes for female character design that permeated the entire design space, especially at Blizzard, whose influence formed the basis for League of Legends

Over a decade later, Ashe has been fleshed out as much more of a real character, with a place and role in the world and cosmology of the Freljord far beyond her original archetype. Now she is specifically constructed as a counterpart to Lissandra's imperious, manipulative, sovereign mysticism and to Sejuani's martial brutality. The Avarosa are the only faction in the Freljord (and one of the very few in Runeterra) who argue explicitly for a softer life with less violence and struggle as the ideal. Ashe wants to reform and abolish the blood-soaked warrior culture of the Freljord and replace it with communal mutual aid and sharing, with tribes pooling their collective resources rather than relying on constant raiding and warfare. She's also a notable champion of the Hearthbound, the "normal" people of the Freljord who are not blessed with Iceborn blood or noble lineages.

The Avarosa have successfully recruited a huge swath of tribes to their cause, and through collaboration and a focus on agriculture and mutual protection have become the breadbasket of the Freljord, able to extend their political reach simply by offering new tribes access to reliable sources of food.

The power and rhetoric of the Avarosa thus rests on

A rejection of martial warrior culture in favor of a culture of nurturing and mutual care

Embrace of vulnerability and "weakness"

The promise of plenty, of full food stores and protection from failed harvests and the bitter winter cold

So, the design goals are:

Contrast Ashe visually with both Lissandra and especially with Sejuani, who is her most direct opposite.

Tell the story not only of Ashe herself, but of the faction she represents, and represent its values in her design.

Make her unique and recognizable against the lineup of other League of Legends characters in a way that currently she simply isn't.

Early ideation:

Here we start by identifying silhouettes and the basic ideas of costuming that we want to run with. Since League of Legends women also generally have a bad case of Chronic Sameface Syndrome, we also explore a bunch of different face shapes and ideas for distinguishing Ashe physically outside of costuming and body shape.

Refinement:

We pick out a smaller number of variations to play with, and Apple_Cork explores various options for the costuming.

At this point we've settled on two main ideas: a "Warrior" Ashe, who is characterized by the hard life she's had to lead. Her struggles and suffering, especially the loss of her mother and the betrayal of Sejuani, are the emotional impetus that leads to her reaching the ideals of the Avarosans as an antidote to and rebellion against the Freljord's bloody history. We decide to use the A2 and A3 variation as a base for this, with addition of details like scarring and a somewhat bulkier musculature. This runs the risk of making her physically quite similar to Sejuani, which is a trade-off that might be worth it since the two of them are repeatedly positioned as sisters (even if not by blood) in their stories, and are very alike in their experiences and traumas, even if they've reached opposite conclusions from it.

The other idea is "Warmother Ashe." The Freljord is organized around matrilineal tribal leadership, with a significant emphasis on the social role of motherhood, with the leader of the tribe conceptualized as its primary mother figure. Most Warmothers we've known are hard-bitten, violent and domineering matriarchs, emphasizing the war bit of the name, and since Ashe represents a decisive break with that tradition, we want to create a design that puts emphasis on the mother part of the idea.

So an Ashe who is visually soft, associated with typical traits of nurturing motherhood and who visibly rejects struggle, deprivation and violence as part of her identity. The C1 and C2 variations form the basis for this character.

Both designs are intended to provide a strong visual contrast to the stark black-and-blue statuesque angularity of Lissandra, as well as the armored, hard-shelled, segmented look of Sejuani

A note on body politics and character design

It is generally Problematic™ to equate any one body type with any one set of personality traits, whether positively or negatively. A lot of common character design associations and shorthand is based on body stereotypes, and on a systemic scale, they can reinforce existing social bigotries.

The most common example: character design often employ the idea that good people tend to be beautiful and evil people tend to be ugly, and that a person's inner moral character can be read in their physical traits.

This is a trope with an extremely bad history, especially when it intersects with the politics of beauty, with eugenics and with racial caricature. Whiteness and the constructed features of whiteness are often used as the basis of beauty ideals, while traits and features associated with non-whiteness are considered ugly or undesirable, and thus in visual storytelling these traits can become markers of moral degeneracy or evil. Disney villains do this all the time, to various degrees of Problematicness.

I bring this up here because we decided to use a fat body-type on one of our Ashe designs specifically to code the design to be associated with softness, kindness, motherly nurturing and so on. These are positive traits, and it is meant to establish her as a contrast with Sejuani who is hard-edged, muscled and brutal. But also, yeah, fat bodies being associated with those traits is a reductive stereotype, just the same as associating highly trained, skinny and fit bodies with emotional coldness, lack of kindness and violence is reductive.

Character design is a tightrope walk between using available associations and stereotypes to create coding and shorthand so the audience can easily read the design on the one hand, and trying to redefine and re-associate traits in creative ways to create better storytelling on the other hand. League of Legends is a game that relies very, very heavily on existing and known archetypes, and we redesigned Ashe on those terms as well. It is fair to criticize our redesign for those trade-offs, within reason, and within the context of the problems of the design it is intended to improve upon. League of Legends as a franchise is generally unwilling to allow fat bodies to exist in ANY positive context, and especially not in women, whose visual priority 9 times out of 10 is to be conventionally beautiful and skinny above all else.

Final designs:

Warrior Ashe This design hews closer to her original design, employing the skirt, waist-wrap and thigh-high boots, albeit updated to look more appropriate for the fashion culture and environment of the Freljord.

The emphasis here is on Ashe as a war-leader and fighter, and we've added facial scars and her design generally features more hard and sharp lines and metallic accents to give her a more hard-bitten and warlike look. This is an Ashe who has led a heard and difficult life, marked by fighting and struggle.

Warmother Ashe This design pulls away hard from the original design, with only really the hood and cloak and white hair as identifying feature of the old version. She wears a lot of fabrics and furs, and is generally designed around stoutness and visual softness, and does not share the hardness or angular facial features of Warrior Ashe. Her clothes are finely embroidered with her tribe's iconography and she has pendants and trinkets associated with the various tribes that have been integrated into the Avarosa, or perhaps gifted to her by allies or friends.

She still has leather chest armor, albeit covered up by her cloak, and a shoulder pauldron, but it's ringed by fine feathers making it more of a showpiece. Same with the archery bracer, which is ostentatious and the bright brass makes it contrast with the rest of the design, which is meant to give the vibe of "this is a thing she puts on when necessary" but not a natural, integrated part of her fashion. Compare and contrast with the bracers on Warrior Ashe above.

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#tb essay #league of legends #riot games #freljord #ashe league of legends #warmother #sejuani #lissandra #ashe lol #character design #tbskyen

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dduane · 1 year

Note

OK so listen: I am the same age-ish as both the illustrious Mr. Gaiman and, I believe, you. So when you wrote the first Wizard book I was closer to having a kid, not reading like one. Still, I will read nearly anything, my mother used to tease me b/c if all there was to read at breakfast was the cereal box, I'd be reading it. I've read a LOT of books.

Just read SYWTBAW. Not to state the ridiculously obvious but it was well worth the 6-week wait (at the NYPL no less, who has plenty of copies). The rest of the series, of course, are now on my waitlist.

2 questions for you:

1: Should I read them in order? Will it make a difference to story arc/character development?

2: Did you pick Schenectady off a map/resource or have you actually been there and were speaking from personal knowledge? Double funny b/c aforementioned kid has lived there.

I'm so glad I found you and your work. Thanks for being such a nice person and fantastic writer (and cook, huh?)

...Yeah, I'm not a bad cook. (Though my most effective education in the art came from the gents on whom Tom Swale and Carl Romeo are based.) :) ...And I've got a shade less than a decade on @neil-gaiman. But once you're past 50, these differences don't matter so much, as you'll no doubt have been noticing. Especially among fellow cereal-box readers.

Meanwhile, I'm glad you liked So You Want To Be A Wizard! (And NYPL kept you waiting six weeks for a copy?? WTF. ...But I guess that means their available copies are in demand, so I shouldn't complain.)

Re: reading in order: In this series's case, I do recommend sticking with the publishing order, as there's a definite events arc... and as part of that, both plots and character development become more complex as time goes on. (Possibly a symptom of the author coming to a better understanding of the world she was building. Who knows.)

And re: Schenectady: I've been in and out a few times during trips upstate, but the main reference is to an old joke of Harlan Ellison's. He used to get a lot of questions from people at conventions who wanted to know where he got his ideas. Harlan eventually took to answering "Schenectady," claiming there was some kind of useful-idea warehouse up there... so that when he felt he was running low, he'd get on the phone to them and do a bulk order. (snicker) It was a favored riff. He kept adding unlikely stuff to it as time went by. Eventually I asked to borrow the locale-bit of the shtick, and he said "okay".

Anyway: glad you're planning to follow up on the series. When you run out of the in-traditional-print material, you may want to have a look at Ebooks Direct. There's more YW material over there, including at least one non-main-sequence novel, the offshoot Feline Wizards series, and a batch of novella-length works. (Not to mention the revised, updated-timeline New Millennium Edition ebook versions of the main sequence.)

Meanwhile: hope you enjoy what lies before you! :) And thanks for letting me know you liked the first one.

#So You Want To Be A Wizard #Young Wizards series

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bajistadiamond · 9 months

Text

Yuu and the Magical Power of Songs

Yuu Singer, 🎶💎Ramshackle💎🎶 (We wish you a Merry Christmas - Phineas and Ferb Version)

I couldn't think of a better idea for this Christmas than to use "We wish you a Merry Christmas" that they used in Phineas and Ferb… Well. I will do the same for this New Year... This story takes place after the OverBlots; After the near destruction of NRC, Malleus and Yuu combined their magic into a time spell that returned them all to the entrance ceremony to start things off without disaster.

The holidays are the funniest and happiest time of the year for many.

When Yuu first arrived at Twisted Wonderland he didn't imagine the seriousness with which they prepared for each celebration… what he discovered in spring and fall.

And that's not to mention the events that occurred randomly.

Anyway, at this moment the 8 dorm leaders were in a meeting.

"So we agree to decorate everything?" Yuu asked those present, who nodded at his words.

Since for some reason the entire student population wanted to celebrate the holidays at NRC, they needed to vote on whether they would decorate just their dormitories or the entire school.

Azul already had many ideas for the most fruitful season for Mostro Lounge.

"I have many selected items to order." Kalim said excitedly as he showed his cell phone to Riddle.

"Send me the links, I have my contacts so shipping will be cheaper hehehe~". Idia said with a giggle, who was present forced by Ortho.

Leona looked at the largest of the Shroud inquisitively, but he did not want to know.

"And who will pay for everything?" Vil asked, adjusting his Santa hat.

Yuu smiled and the others could swear that demon horns appeared on his head. "The director of course."

The others looked at Yuu strangely; Crowley was a cheapskate no matter how much he said otherwise, they highly doubted that he would pay for Christmas decorations.

"The director is so kind that he gave me his credit card." Yuu said taking said card out of his pocket. "Besides, when he realizes it, it will be too late."

Everything was silent for a moment before everyone laughed like "villains."

These holidays would be expensive for Dire Crowley…

The light music club was preparing to practice; they would have a lot of work performing at Mostro Lounge and the Christmas and New Year party.

"So what should we play today?" Cater asked looking at her cell phone for ideas.

"How about it, all I want for Christmas is you~." Lilia suggested doing a riff.

"It's already widely seen." Kalim commented, much to Carter's surprise.

Kalim had been using a lot of internet tutorials to be more independent, so he also updated himself on trends on the web… Jamil still couldn't decide if Kalim being addicted to MagiCam was good or bad.

"And a classic?" Ortho suggested with a smile. The young man with the shrouds had become a member of the club shortly before the Malleus OverBlot.

At that moment, Yuu entered. "Sorry guys, the decorations arrived and I wasn't going to risk leaving Grim alone with the glass things." He explained, leaving his coat on the coat rack.

"Don't worry Yuu-kun, we're still thinking about what to play." Cater said to the white haired one.

Yuu thought for a moment; He had managed to listen to Ortho's suggestion and thought it was a very good idea.

"And if we sing, we wish you a Merry Christmas?" The others looked at Yuu, it wasn't a bad idea.

"We can use a classic, with a little tweak." Yuu explained to them grabbing a microphone.

"Alright, you're in charge Yuu." Carter said to the aforementioned before turning on a LIVE for everyone to see. Yuu smiled mischievously as Kalim started playing the drums...

We wish you a Merry Christmas ~

The "voice of the gods" was instantly present. Everyone's clothes changed to a unique Santa Claus outfit for each one. For Kalim it was with two shades of red and round gold glasses, for Ortho it was blue with white and a tulle cape with snowflake embroidery, for Carter it was bright green with black and pearls in her hair, for Yuu it was the typical red and white and cool ski goggles.

We wish you a Merry Christmas ~

And a Happy New Year ~

The song was heard throughout the campus; filled everyone with joy. They organized themselves in the patio to decorate. Many were singing or humming with their hands full of golden tinsel.

We wish you the best day ever ~

And hope all your Christmas endeavors ~

At Heartslabyul, Trey watched in barely concealed horror as Riddle pulled out the fruitcake the aforementioned had made. Riddle cut a piece of the cake from him and then looked nervously at the green-haired man. The one with glasses forced a smile before trying the cake… It was because of the magic of friendship and the miracle of Christmas that Trey didn't have stomach pains.

Are super-fun, amazing and clever ~

And that your New Year's rocks too! ~

Many were using their brooms to fly around NRC and decorate it. The white already contrasted the black and gray of the building beautifully, but with the gold and green tinsel it looked much more impressive. Inside the building there were white LED lights as far as the eye could see and pine trees were added in the largest rooms. Meanwhile, in the teachers' lounge, they were enjoying a good eggnog… The principal was just crying in a corner because of the receipt of everything.

Oh, come, tell me what'cha doin' ~

All my relatives just flew in ~

In Pomefiore, Vil was reflecting on his life choices. The salon was in chaos with many enjoying to "let their hair down" and enjoy themselves. Epel led the party wearing an ugly sweater with lights while he sang about his family's traditions.

From Harveston and Shaftlands ~

For the holidays! ~

Neige had been included in the party. It had been a shock to have discovered that he was distantly related to Epel and now the two got along very well. Vil had no problems with this, after meditating and having Yuu with a therapist, he was able to come to terms with himself and accept that he and Neige were unique.

Both Christmas trees and menorahs ~

It can be confusing for us ~

Strangely enough, Epel managed to bring out the most sarcastic and stubborn side of Neige. The two always ended up arguing whether it was about musical tastes, food or clothes. And now they were fighting over which decorations were better. Luckily for Vil, Rook managed to calm things down by saying that both decorations were beautiful together; and he also brought cocoa, which Vil was happy about.

When we break into a chorus ~

Of olé, Olé ~

And oy vey, Oy vey ~

In the NRC cafeteria, many were preparing a magnificent Christmas dinner; Many were grateful that Lilia was busy and not in the kitchen.

Delicious meals I will try~

Groceries A through Z ~

Leona sang before taking a big bite out of a turkey leg. The lion was in a dream when the taster of the dinner was selected, to the jealousy of many. And Leona enjoyed teasing the others with moans of satisfaction at how delicious the food they brought him to try was.

Ruggie, get away from that punch bowl ~

Ruggie pouted as he was caught drinking the fruit punch while pocketing a couple of cookies.

I'm saving that for me ~

Hyena Boy, offended that his lazy friend wouldn't share punch, threw some figgy pudding into the punch bowl.

Sorry, sir ~

Ruggie sang mockingly because he knew that of all the fruits, Leona hated the fig the most. In the yard, Silver was sleeping peacefully among a small mound of snow. No one wanted to bother the boy during his nap, but they couldn't help but decorate him; They put a headband on him with reindeer antlers and shiny spheres in his ears.

We wish you a Silver Christmas ~

Yuu had changed it from "Perry" to Silver as a joke, but when he sang it he realized that the phrase was not so bad, a silver Christmas.

We wish you a Silver Christmas ~

And a (ZZZ~ Silver´s snoring ZZZ~) New year ~

Azul seriously needed a calculator; His had broken strangely shortly after Jade told him she needed to rest. Now, the lens guy was in her office doing the math by hand and with an abacus.

I want a calculator ~

Slash-Earnings-English Translator ~

"At this rate I finish in the new year." Blue thought tiredly as the music from the music club's LIVE was what kept him sane. The boy was also grateful that Yuu's magic decorated his office; he hadn't had much time to do it.

To find a common denominator ~

In all my tongues! ~

Mostro Lounge was enjoying free time with good music. Some were dancing dressed as elves and others were enjoying a good coffee or hot chocolate.

I will give you good hugs ~

To all you shrimps ~

Floyd with a big smile was trying to hug whoever he could, but everyone was avoiding him because of the mistletoe that the boy had hung on his head. Everyone knew how strong the hug and joking kiss they would receive from Floyd would be.

That's how I say "Merry Christmas" ~

I ain't good with words! ~

Floyd was finally able to grab someone to hug him and kiss him on the cheek, poor thing was Jamil. The one from Scarabia walked out calmly, still in shock, to go to the bathroom and wash his face with bleach.

I wish you would let me rule you ~

I'm going to teach you about anime ~

In Idia and Ortho's room, the oldest was dancing around the room while programming the lights, preparing the gifts he had for his brother, and turning on all of his monitors for the special Christmas events in all of his RPG games.

I won't sugarcoat or fool you ~

Your New Year's looks grim! ~

The oldest of the Shroud danced in the comfort of his chair, for him it was very noob to start singing at Christmas. Although he will deny to death that he sang Christmas songs from his favorite anime in the shower.

We wish your every endeavor ~

Makes this the best Christmas ever ~

The music club put the best of their voices into the final part of the song. Carter, Kalim and Ortho could tell that this was the best version of "we wish you a merry Christmas" they had ever heard. LIVE had ranked #1 in trends and throughout Twisted Wonderland they were dancing no matter what.

And we're all so glad that we will never ~

Mention figgy pudding ~

"Pudding?". Many people asked themselves when they heard the lyrics. Although they didn't give it importance; It was the best one of the best Christmas songs. And needless to say, they enjoyed the chorus at the end.

"Merry Xmas!". Yuu, Carter, Kalim and Ortho exclaimed into the cell phone before the LIVE ended...

Night Raven College had a good day that day and the decorations could be seen from the town on the island. And they were better than the other academy, to the envy of some in the RSA.

...

... As for Crowley, he stayed in his nest for the rest of the holidays…

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smeddiemunson · 2 years

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I know this has been done to death now but Eddie, Steve, Chrissy and Robin all in a band together.

Eddie plays lead guitar obviously. Chrissy is the singer and plays a little rhythm guitar. Robin plays the bass and Steve is the drummer. They all write songs but it’s mainly Eddie and Robin on the music and Steve and Chrissy on the lyrics. They share all the royalties equally.

Chrissy is the perfect front woman for the band, she’s cute and charming and not quite as abrasive as Eddie or Robin tend to be when asked the more rude questions. She has patch work tattoos that stand out from her pale skin. While her guitar is featured on every song on the recorded version, when she’s playing live she’d much rather just have a microphone and the ability to dance around and have fun with her friends.

Steve never talks in interviews. He’s happy to sit back and let his friends talk about what they’re passionate about. Eddie and Robin know so much about the technical side of music and will go on and on about it for hours, and Chrissy just loves performing. When Steve does speak it’s to wax poetic about his love for everyone else in the band. He develops a little bit of a cult following and doesn’t really know how to handle the outpouring of love from the fans; he doesn’t want to let it go to his head like popularity did in high school. But he knows Robin would never let that happen.

Eddie was made to perform. He was going to anyway, with corroded coffin or otherwise. But Robin and Chrissy came to him with the idea and he can’t say no to his favourite girls. He’s a little more what people expect from their band’s sound. He looks like he would be the creator behind heavy guitar riffs and aggressive drums. No one really expects him to be as fun as he is, always joking around on stage and always hanging out by the stage door just a bit longer than his band mates to talk to the fans that stayed.

Robin looks effortlessly cool. She’s still neurotic as hell and worries a lot but as soon as her bass is in her hand she goes to a different place. They all like to joke about who has the most fans, but it’s Robin by a mile. She oozes sex appeal and mystery while she’s on stage, and she’s such a dork off it that people can’t help but be endeared. There’s even a Twitter account dedicated to finding the clothes she wears because she has the best style in the band and is definitely responsible for making sure they’re cohesive. She’s the glue that keeps everyone together.

When they win their first Grammy for Best New Artist, Robin gives an impassioned speech about finding your people, always being yourself and doing what you love. She shares the message for anyone that’s struggling that it does get better and she’s proof of that, all four of them are proof of that. They preform at pride every year and regularly do stuff for queer charities. Each piece of their merch has a different charity that a percentage of the proceeds go to. The badge set donates to helping homeless teens and the key ring donates to an eating disorder charity.

Their shows are Gay™️. Someone from the crowd will throw a pride flag on stage every show without fail and Chrissy will dance around the stage with it, wrap it around her shoulders and make sure everyone hears her when she sings about wanting to fuck hot girls.

She dances with Robin while she sings and Robin gets on her knees while she’s playing and looks like she absolutely worships Chrissy (which she does) and the only thing stopping her from getting her head under Chrissy’s tiny skirt right then and there is the looming threat of indecent exposure charge. But she doesn’t wait long to satiate her need when they get back onto the tour bus after the show and meet and greats are done.

Eddie is so active on stage. He really gets into the music, so it’s no surprise that he has to take his shirt off after the first song. He always drapes it around Steve’s shoulders and pinches his cheeks in between his fingers so Steve’s lips pucker and he can kiss him. Steve blushes bright red but goes straight into the opening of the next song.

Steve and Eddie like to tease one another. Everything they do on stage is to entice each other. Steve being on the drums means he’s at the back of the stage but the band knows the fans are obsessed with him and make sure to have a camera on him at all times that feeds into a livestream that hangs over the stage. Sometimes Eddie will get distracted between songs when he’s supposed to be bantering with Chrissy because Steve’s getting too hot and just poured a whole bottle of water over his head to cool him down, and all he can think about is licking up every droplet of water dripping from his hair onto the slope of his neck.

They like to change up the set list a lot so the fans are always surprised by what they get to hear. It’s the best part of touring when they hear the screams when a favourite is played.

There’s one song that Eddie and Steve wrote together that’s only played once a tour. Those shows get an adult content warning. Because they can’t help themselves. They wrote it in bed after spending all day wrapped up in one another, taking turns to write notes or lyrics on each others skin. When they finish, Eddie gently places his guitar on a stand and climbs up the dais the drums are on so he can straddle Steve’s legs, wait for him to open his mouth so he can spit in it then lick it up from his tongue, and filthily make out with him to the sounds of their fans screaming. It’s all caught on Steve Cam.

At all times, Steve and Eddie, and Robin and Chrissy are seconds away from fucking on stage. All the endorphins and energy just get to them.

They’ve had multiple articles published about them being vulgar, degenerate etc etc by religious groups. There was even a short time where a petition for them to be banned from performing went around. But that only seemed to get more people to check them out.

They put out a Rumours style record and the fans get so worried that their favourite band is breaking up, but actually no they were all arguing about stupid stuff and channeling their feelings into music. They’ll never break up, they’ve been through too much together.

They take a break after their fourth album in as many years. They’re still making music, always making music, but they need some time just for them. Robin and Chrissy road trip around Europe so Robin can flex her language skills and Chrissy can take Robin to every cool historical monument she’s ever wanted to see. They try new foods and every local beer they can get their hands on, document it all on their instagrams. Chrissy’s pictures are super artful and captioned with really deep thoughts, how grateful she is to be alive and thriving. (Their good friend and journalist Nancy Wheeler wrote an interview where Chrissy was able to speak candidly about her mental health troubles, eating disorder and how finding music and love helped her, continues to help her get through it). Robin’s pictures are always of Chrissy, complete candid, laughing or pointing at something with a caption in the local language saying how in love she is or how beautiful Chrissy is.

Eddie and Steve spend all their time in the fishing cabin Eddie got for Wayne with their first big paycheque. They don’t need to see anywhere else, they just want the quiet. They spend their mornings cooking together and their afternoons writing songs or reading books. In the evening they’ll dress up fancy and have candlelit dates inside the house, speak softly and tell each other how much they love each other.

Fans speculate what Eddie and Steve are doing. They haven’t been seen since the last show, haven’t posted anything on Instagram, and there are rumours that Eddie’s been checked into rehab (his drug use is wildly over reported. He smokes a joint after a show and nothing else. He’d seen what meth did to his parents and he wants no part of it, no matter how “rock ‘n’ roll” it may be.)

It’s not until Chrissy and Robin get back to the states that Eddie and Steve come out of hiding. Robin posts a video of them doing karaoke together, clearly a well practice routine where they do ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ by Elton John and Kiki Dee. And after the freak out by the fans over Eddie knowing a song like that, how in love they are, and how glad everyone is to know that Steve and Eddie are alive and apparently thriving, the fans notice something.

Steve’s wearing a ring, which is strange because Steve never wears rings. The only piece of jewellery Steve has ever worn is a gold chain with a guitar pick hanging off it that matches a silver chain around Eddie’s neck.

Steve waits three weeks after that video to post on Instagram (which he never does) to tell everyone that he and Eddie got married the day Robin took that video. It was a small ceremony, just their friends and family in attendance. Claudia Henderson (a surrogate mother to both of them) officiated. He posts a picture of his and Eddie’s hands entwined, Eddie still has rings on every finger but the single band on his left ring finger matches the one on Steve’s exactly. Steve has an extra ring under his wedding band, something simple and almost cheap looking. It’s not until years later that it’s revealed that Eddie bought the ring three months after he and Steve started dating; way before they had internationally famous band money to spend.

The other pictures that come out were all taken by Jonathan, another close family friend who is usually seen doing pictures for art houses in New York, or occasionally photo reporting for his wife because no one else is able to capture her vision the way he does.

Steve and Robin are pictured crying as they slow dance, captioned ‘father-son dance’. Eddie is captured crying at what looks like a speech from Chrissy. Robin stands up for Steve and Chrissy stands up for Eddie, but Eddie also has his old band mates with him (who still fly the corroded coffin flag and let him record the guitar on their albums) and Steve has a group of 20-somethings stand up for him that someone points out are all people who are making waves in various scientific endeavours, and how the hell does Steve know them?

They come back for their fifth album bigger and better than ever, and their fans don’t even know why they worried. There’s clearly nothing in this world that the four of them would rather do.

#steddie #buckingham #steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #chrissy cunningham #band au #one day I will write this and it will be good #it’ll be tender and smutty with no angst!#please come and talk to me about it I have so much more to say!!#my fic #kinda

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melodiousmonsters · 1 year

Note

heyhey !! love your stuff !! i was just wondering if you have any info on the non-fire natural quads ?! (like entbrat, deedge, riff, shellbeat and quarrister) i'd really like to hear what they are like in your au............

Yeah uh sorry about kinda lying about answering my asks um I got bit by the programing bug but for games this time, but yeah. I only have drawings of some of them because lazy.

I'll be talking about all of them though, and a bit about monster maturing. The natural quads are only found in their elemental lands/islands as the elemental energies in those areas allow for eggs of their species to be formed in the first place. They can only have an elemental dominance of their respective element due to their connection with it.

Entbrats like woods, which plant island has an abundance of, and the woods they grow up in is the one they stay in whenever they have the choice of where to go, making it so the castle of plant island doesn't actually have a room for a boss monster due to how unlikely it is for the current boss entbrat to live in the woods near the castle. The castle of course was originally built to have a room for the quad, but it's been converted into another storage room. Castles serve mainly as storehouses in this universe.

Deedges are very strong and protective monsters. Their semi-serrated tusks and extra wide-opening jaws are perfect for defensive offense against the predatory critters of the cold lands/cold island. They are surprisingly mobile for not having any legs, their strong arms allow them to move, often they will fully support their body with them being the only things touching the ground allowing them to run as fast as most other monsters and also fling themselves to jump. They can get around well.

You may notice the extra speaker on the deedge skull in the drawing I made. Older monsters commonly develop enhanced versions of their younger form's body parts, making it so unlike humans, monsters actually get better at surviving the older they get. To a point of course, about a month before they die they start physically degrading similar to earthly creatures as they age.

Riffs like most air land dwelling flighted monsters are scavengers that soar the lands looking for anything edible. They are just a bit more so scavengers than most, they can eat anything primarily organic, like dead wood, limestone, etc. It's weird. Of course they prefer the more palatable normal food stuff, but if they needed to they could eat most of a house. As for ockulo trees, the small short lived ones grow from large piles of riff feathers left around during molting season. The larger longer lived ones come from dead riffs. When a riff is about to die it has a natural instinct to fly over to this one location in the air lands and bury themselves, the extra nutrients form the body allow for the tree to grow stronger. The place is simply called The Ockulo Grove and it's usually avoided due to how morbid it is.

Shellbeats are the most elementally in-tune of the quads and have very small amounts of control over their element. They can shift water around to move things, usually their drum sets. Speaking of their drum sets, they are primarily made of the shells of shellfish they eat. Water monsters love their shellfish, standard fish are for the cold monsters. Also they have the ability to spit "ink". People like to say it's just ink, but similarly to a lama's or alpaca's spit, it's much worse than it sounds. As babies they need the defense, so to make the ink as repulsive as possible it's mixed with half digested food from their second stomach and then spit out at a very high velocity at whatever is offending them. they can also just spit the ink by itself, shellbeat ink is commonly used for writing.

Quarristers hatch with all those heads, I know it ruins the unity concept the monster has but the quads are very rare monsters in this universe so like eight of them existing at once in the modern era is impossible. Each head has it's own consciousness and identity, but it's common for at least adult quarristers to all go by the same name. The heads can pop off and become their own organism whenever they please, and occasionally they do. But most often they realize that they need the other heads and come back after a bit.

Nowadays the previous quad trains up a younger one to fill their role after they retire, but in the early days of the modern monster world the natural island's societies were a mess with very little order. Monsters that aren't like three feet tall have a natural instinct to listen to anyone taller then them. This makes it so larger monsters often get unintentionally pushed up the social ladder as the one guy everyone goes to for advice. These so called boss monsters are often the quads as they are some of the largest standard monsters. After a while they generally learn to fill their roll, monsters naturally never have the urge, let alone the skills to lead.

#my singing monsters #art #beezleart #melodious monster chronicles #ask #entbrat #deedge #msm riff #shellbeat #quarrister

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coneyislandbabey · 1 year

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high by the beach. -> k. sirko

WARNINGS: profanities, getting high

SYNOPSIS: The feelings that grow between you and Karen Sirko seem to be the easiest thing in the world. word count: 2,039

NOTES: This fic is based on this request! I had such a good time writing it, I hope you guys love it.

You couldn’t believe you were here. Sure, the Laurel Canyon house was rundown, and maybe haunted, as Warren fervently believed. But it was a house in Laurel fucking Canyon. You had all worked your asses off for years, and now you were here, in California, as a band. You finally had something real to show for all of it.

The house, for all of its positive attributes, was still short a bedroom in comparison to the amount of people trying to live in it. You drew the short straw, meaning you got the haunted bedroom, a room that you would be sharing with Karen Sirko if you were all able to convince the woman to come out to Los Angeles and join your band. You didn’t mind; the room was the biggest one in the house, and you would gladly take some ghostly experiences in exchange for the space, and you and Karen had hit it off when you met her back in Baltimore, playing for the Winters.

The night you moved in, you all went to this diner downtown, crammed into one booth with your burgers and making plans like anything in the world was possible. And maybe it was– sure as hell felt like it.

You were thrilled– and mildly shocked– when Karen accepted the invitation to move into the Laurel Canyon house and join the band. You loved your boys dearly and had become very close with Camila, but being the lone woman in the band totally blew sometimes. They didn’t mean it, you knew, but it was clear that the rest of them waved off your opinion often, particularly Billy. You had a feeling it was because they’d known you since you were a little girl, and you were positive that Billy still saw you that way even all those years later. When Karen arrived with all her bluntness and her inability to take shit from any of them, you could’ve cried with gratitude. Her just being there got you more professional respect from the rest of them than you had ever been afforded before.

You said as much to her, one of those first nights after she moved in. It was after one of her first rehearsals with the band, during which you had tried to suggest a change in one of your bass riffs, and Billy completely waved you off. Karen had stepped in, asserting that she thought the change actually suited the song better, and that you all should at least try playing the song that way. Graham, with his sweet little crush on the blonde, immediately agreed, so Billy begrudgingly did too. Obviously, it turned out that your version was better, and it became the official riff on the song.

“Thanks for what you did today,” you said. You were sitting on your bed in your pajamas smoking a cigarette. Karen was standing in front of the mirror, brushing out her hair before bed. It had been a little awkward at first, not just sharing a room with the woman, but a bed as well, but you really didn’t have any other choice, considering you all couldn’t afford to get a pair of twin beds; luckily, Karen took to you like a match to flame and now every night had you giddy as sleepovers used to have you as a kid.

“What did I do?” she asked, looking at you through the mirror.

“Standing up for my riff,” you clarified. “They never would’ve listened to me about that if you weren’t here.”

“Well, that’s bullshit,” she said, setting the hairbrush down and climbing onto the bed. “It’s a great fucking riff and it made the song better. If they wouldn’t have listened to you alone, they’re a bunch of idiots.”

“I’m not arguing that one,” you laughed. Karen reached over and flipped the lightswitch, settling down on her back. It was a hot night, and the air conditioner in the window was doing its best to cool the room off, but you were both laying on top of the sheets, sticky with sweat.

You closed your eyes, willing sleep to come to you, but it never did. It was just too fucking hot in that room. After what felt like an eternity, Karen turned to look at you and asked, “you wanna go smoke a joint on the deck?”

You both made your way out to the deck, Karen leading the way through the dark house and you following behind, a pair of joints and your lighter clutched in one hand. Once outside, you settled into the chairs, handing Karen one of the joints and lighting it for her before lighting your own. You inhaled deeply and then exhaled, your head dropping back to take in the wide, navy sky, pockmarked with stars.

“God, never saw stars like this in Pittsburgh,” you said, taking them all in. You looked over at Karen in her silence, only to find that she was already looking at you. “What are you looking at?”

Karen took another hit of her joint, blew out the smoke. “You,” she said simply.

She was looking at you so sure, like you were something unshakable. That’s how Karen was, you had come to realize; she just believed that things were supposed to be a certain way, unfold a certain way, and they did. Nobody had ever looked at you that way before.

***

Yours and Karen’s nocturnal escapes onto the deck or down to the beach to get high or drop acid or anything else quickly became routine. The afternoons and the evenings were for work, for throwing yourselves into the album you were creating, throwing yourselves into making it the best possible thing it could be. The mornings and early afternoons were for sleeping, first of all, but for hanging out with the rest of the band, getting drunk and going to the movies together, eating at the diner. But the nights were just for the two of you. There was a certain comfortable quiet that Karen’s mere presence encouraged in you; you had never been so content and unworried as you were with her. In the midst of the pressure of putting together the album and trying to make it in Los Angeles, you came to depend on those serene nights, more than you ever depended on any drugs or booze alone.

And just like that, the recording for your first album was done. All the blood, sweat, and tears that had gone into making it were coming to a stop. You’d all have some time to actually relax for once while it was being mixed, and you had no idea what you were going to do with yourself. The whole band had gone out celebrating, and were just getting in during the early hours of the morning.

You stood in front of the house, still drunk but well on your way to sobering up, watching the boys stagger up the stairs. Karen came to stand next to you, looping her arm through the crook of your elbow. You turned and smiled at her, and she leaned her head on your shoulder.

“Let’s go to the beach,” she said, beginning to walk in the familiar direction before you’d responded, because of course the answer would have been yes anyway. The pair of you made your way there in comfortable silence. You felt filled to the brim by the sounds of the crickets and the crashing waves, the moonlight, her very presence, right there next to you.

Karen dropped down into the dry sand right before the edge of the waves, pulling you down with her. You collapsed into her, slightly dizzy with the receding end of your drunkenness, and she righted you into a sitting position. It was a full moon, and the whole ocean was lit up silver in front of you. Maybe it was your inebriated state, but you thought that the sky had to be full of more stars than you had ever seen in your entire life.

“Beautiful,” Karen murmured beside you, and you nodded.

“Yeah,” you said, “I’ve never seen so many stars in my life. Looks like this science project I had to do back in grade school, where we pricked a bunch of holes in a piece of black cardboard and shone a flashlight through to simulate the night sky. I had poked so many holes in mine I think it was more holes than cardboard at that point.”

Karen laughed. “The stars are a wonder, yes. But I was talking about you.”

At this, you turned to look at her for the first time since you had reached the beach. You had almost gotten used to the way Karen looked at you in the time you’d known her, this way of looking like she was really seeing without ever having to try, like she could figure you out with one glance. It had made you feel so vulnerable, so bared naked, until all it did was make you feel comfortable and warm. You didn’t mind, you realized, if Karen could see inside of you like that. You wanted her to, even, you thought. She was the only person in the world that you would want to see you like that.

The pale ivory of her skin and wheat blonde of her hair glowed blue in the night, illuminated like your own personal moon. You wanted to reach out and hold that glowing face in the palm of your hands. She was peering at you with those lovely dark eyes, every inch of her face serene, but a question still posed in the subtle scrunch of her brow, the pout of her full lips.

You had tried so hard to parse through your feelings for Karen in the time that you’d known her without touching upon a certain conclusion, a conclusion that could easily end your friendship, could easily upend the band in the worst case scenario. You ignored the way you felt every time she would choose you to stick with in a room full of people, every time she looked at you in that specific way of hers. You tried so hard, and in one sentence she unraveled it all.

“Karen,” you whispered, trying to convey the warning, the longing, the complexities of your feelings to her all in just her name.

“I know,” she said, imperceptibly nodding. That was all you needed– in an instant, your hand was on her cheek, your mouth slanting against hers. She pulled herself closer to you, energetically returning the kiss, until any distance at all became too much and she simply moved to situate herself on your lap. Your hand slid past her cheek, up her neck and to tangle in her already wild hair. By the time she pulled away, her cheeks were flushed and her lips were swollen, and you both were panting hard. The moon was bright in the sky behind her, lighting her up like a halo.

“This life we all have here, this beautiful thing we’ve all built here,” Karen said. Her hands were still on your shoulders, warm and solid. “The magic of it all comes from the fact that I’m doing it with you, getting to spend all of my time with you.”

Your breath caught at her words. “I never thought… I didn’t think there was a chance that you–”

“I didn’t either,” she said with a breathless laugh, before you had to find the words to finish your thought. “But watching you watch the stars tonight, I had to say it. I couldn’t go any longer without you knowing.”

You leaned forward, pressing your forehead against hers. “Well, I’m really fucking glad you decided to say it, because I don’t think I ever would have had the guts to.”

Karen laughed, the sound reverberating through her body and into your own, and you pulled her closer by the belt loops of her jean shorts, pressing your lips to hers once again. There was a lot you had to be grateful for in this life you’d made, especially now, but the mere existence of Karen Sirko in your arms very easily topped the list.

#daisy jones and the six #djats #karen sirko #karen sirko x reader #karen karen #warren rhodes #warren rojas #graham dunne #billy dunne #eddie roundtree #camila dunne #daisy jones #julia dunne

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clay-cuttlefish · 5 months

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Vic Costume Tier List, featuring all the ones I remember plus a few I noticed while finding images. Under the cut because there are so many outfits.

S Tier

Cowan Trenchcoat - THE look. What can I say.

A Tier

Cowan Winter - Variations on this are the most common outfit in the O'Neil run for a reason. It works with every hair and hat style, and evokes the classic look without being too costume-y.

Cry for Blood - It's the simplest version of the costume, just hat, gloves, and coat all in the same colour, and it WORKS. Huge fan of the collar.

Trinity of Sin - It works as an update of the Ditko design, paring it down to the simplest elements while not quite losing the flair and muting the colors without getting into the sad gray-blue. It's just on the right side of simple vs boring and I'm very into it. Unfortunately.

B Tier

Ditko Original - Not that interesting out of context, but I actually really like that it seems more like a disguise than a hero costume, and the subdued blue works when he's in scenes with Ted. Loses points for ugly gloves.

Cowan Original - Excellent, but the trenchcoat is a direct upgrade.

Cowan Sleeveless - Banger. I'm so glad it came back in 52.

Batman Chronicles - Is it a little too edgy-anime-boy? Yes. I don't care, it's striking.

C Tier

Ditko V2 - I love the turtleneck, and it's the only design that makes the dark hair work over the blonde/red/light brown.

52 Miscellaneous - Vic doesn't generally repeat outfits in 52. He just wears his mask with normal clothes. It's the right choice for the series, but they aren't costumes. I'm only rating them at all because I love his and Renee's matching t-shirts for breaking and entering.

BatB - If you have to go for a darker, less saturated design, this one's really clean.

Worlds Collide - The stupid MMO design that got me making this, and the most mixed-bag of any design. The teal is great. I hate that he's shaped like that. The black gloves are a neat touch. His coat sucks. I'd love to see purple as an accent in more designs. The yellow's a bit much but it's also an interesting choice.

D Tier

L.A.W. - The least interesting version of this general look.

52 Trenchcoat - It works to establish him, and the short hair + no hat lets the blank face stand out, but it's forgettable.

Convergence - Eh. I get that it's meant to be a riff on his earliest colour scheme but it's just too washed out.

Urban Legends - It's just not quite right. Maybe because the trenchcoat seems stiff but it's also the same colour and texture as the waistcoat? Or something about the hat?

JLU - I swear I'm not just being a JLU Question hater here. I don't vibe with the dishevelledness or the colour scheme, and the BatB design executes the same concept in a way I like way more.

F Tier

2005 - This is nothing. It's just an outfit with incredibly ugly gloves. He looks so much better when the art gets weird.

Event Leviathan/Checkmate - Where are his ears.

DC Showcase - Started out way higher but the more I look at it while working on this the more I hate the colours.

#clayposts #the question #vic sage #i hate how high i put some of these but. i can't help it. i like them.

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mouldymp3rotations · 1 month

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0824-011

Part IV of my 20th anniversary series !

Part I Part II Part III

This post was brought to you by Node of Scherzo before Versailles even was a thing :D I was really, really excited when Versailles happened, and even more when they teamed up with Kaya and Juka to make Node of Scherzo. Here's why lol (ok there are no Juka songs here but eeeeeh)

As usual : Song titles link to individual mp3 file download

All 5 songs can also be downloaded together, in a zip file, from the link at the bottom

藍華柳~aikaryu - すすめ!パイレーツ (susume! pirates)

Aikaryu being Teru's band before Versailles :)

Another iconic piece from Aikaryu, probably their best, imo, that still makes me wish their van never crashed (but then again, if that didn't happen, maybe Teru and Hizaki wouldn't have started working together, and they do riff well together aaah...)

Susume! Pirates was on the mini-album 海賊盤~Aye.藍.sir~ (kaizokuban~aye. ai. sir~ more puns from our buddy aikaryu uhuhuh), released in 2004.

youtube

aaah, indie goodness ♥

HIZAKI - Ritual (featuring fu-ki from BLOOD)

... Well Hizaki was also Hizaki before versailles, I suppose. His solo career is pretty solid, though ! I was already vaguely aware of BLOOD at the time, and this song convinced me to look further into it :)

This version of Ritual was on Maiden†Ritual, released in 2004 (it was somewhat self-covered under HIZAKI grace project and sung by Juka a few years later, but Juka's falsetto is so bad you might as well stick to the fuki version ahahhaah)

youtube

LAREINE - Scarlet Majesty

Lareine being one of Kamijo's bands before versailles, if I even needed to introduce him...

Now this was one of the first Lareine song I heard, I don't remember what was the very first, but this one was the one that made me love Lareine :3 And it's another one of these songs I didn't realized was so new, at the time... (but also, in my head, somehow, lareine disbanded in 2001 LOL)

Scarlet Majesty was a single released in 2003.

youtube

Malice Mizer - au revoir

The thing is, I thought that malice would suit the mood better than m10m (but then again here's Schwarz Stein at the end lmao), especially right after Lareine, AND once you've heard one m10m song, you've pretty much heard it all (there's one in the 1st post of the series ;) ), BUT that statement isn't true about Malice. I've done Klaha era, now here's Gackt lolz. (also Juka wouldn't be Juka without a good Gackt base, so eh...) (also, also : i'm pretty sure that at least Közi showed up to a node of scherzo event, back then, iirc)

Also, ngl, I chose between this, Le Ciel, and Bel Air, and I'm not sure how I elected au revoir... It might just be that Mana's flower costume is my fave of all time ♥

Au revoir was a single released in 1997.

youtube

(enjoy this non-crunchy clip omfgoth im always emotional when I actually see it and I dont have to guess what the pixels mean T^T)

Schwarz Stein - Rise to Heaven

Schwarz Stein being Kaya's band bef... WELL. They were active from 2001 to 2004, and have been semi active since 2011. Kaya started his solo career in the meantime, partaking in several side projects, including Node of Scherzo. (And Hora spent his time buying shoes and living (?) in Hawaii, I guess...)

IT'S THE FIRST SCHWARZ STEIN SONG I EVER HEARD !!! At the time, this, queen of decadence and fester love was all I could find on lime wire lol. And it stayed like that until a parental unit gifted me a legit copy of New Vogue Children (there were a lot of "miya records" copies circling on ebay, back then). So anyway, I heard that and I fell in love and it's been 20 years and counting :D

Rise to Heaven was on the album New Vogue Children, released in 2003

youtube

Bonus because it was already uploaded in mega :

Node of Scherzo, featuring Teru, Hizaki, Juka, Kamijo, and Kaya here, and among others

Node of Scherzo was a series of concert put up together by versailles, Kaya, and Juka, in 2007. They basically created a musical based on beauty (lol) involving a love triangle and songs from Versailles, Hizaki grace project, and Kaya's solo career. After the released of Carmilla, it became a vampire story as well.

NoS also paved the way for the monstrosity that is JVM Roses Blood Symphony lol

youtube

.zip file downloadable HERE~

#node of scherzo #kaya rose #juka #kamijo #hizaki #jasmine you #lareine #hizaki grace project #aikaryu #schwarz stein #kaya #malice mizer #visual kei #vkei #vk

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