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scourgeofmyownbrain · 1 month ago

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My siblings in Primus, holy fucking shit. I made an Optimus Height Chart. This took me.. SO LONG TO DO. Were y'all aware of how many Optimus designs there are?? Because I don't have all of them on this chart, and I still have TWENTY NINE (29, a 2 and a 9) out of the THIRTY SIX (36, a 3 and a 6) that exist. I didn't include the SEVEN (7) because either they were just a temporary upgraded form, or I already had multiple designs from that universe that were the same height and having all of them is redundant and repetitive.

40 fucking years and nearly as many distinct designs, I deserve a medal, honestly. Optimus has been in every single piece of media the Transformers franchise has ever made. Working on this in tandem with the Megatron one was a wild choice of mine, but I did it.

I included Optimus Primal on this chart. Both are named Optimus, I should not have to explain myself. Big Monkey and Big Truck are the same. No, your honour, I do not plead insanity; why do you ask?

Quick Disclaimer, if any of the images look weird, it's because I had to stitch a few separate images together to create a full body shot of the character.

Links to my Bumblebee Chart and my Megatron Chart. !!NEW!! -> Shockwave & Soundwave. For future reference, all these charts will be filed under my "Transformers Height Charts" tag and my "aka the adventures of a..." tag. Hopefully, my bumblebee post is acting up and idk if the same issue will happen here.

Explanations below the cut because I have fucking WORDS to say. This is gonna be a long one... 29 separate designs...

G1 Beast Wars V1 - ~9 Feet (Primal. Straight from TFWiki, converted to feet and rounded, the tiniest baby man gorilla)

G1 Beast Machines - ~8 Feet (Primal. The wiki failed me, but I found a old forum discussion where they made a chart comparing all the BW/M characters. Glorious stuff, I commend their effort.)

G1 Beast Wars V2 - ~10 Feet (Primal. TFWiki with the clutch, I will not always be this lucky.)

Earth Spark - ~15 Feet (Prime. No official numbers have been given, but I have already figured out how tall Bee is, and I was able to compare the two and get a good estimate. This is the shortest non-animal universe to date holy shit. Look at this, I'm showing my work

I am having a conniption they are so short)

RID 2001 - ~16 Feet (Prime. TFWiki once more, we love one source for everything)

Unicron Trilogy V2&3/ENG&CYB - ~16 Feet (Prime. For the uneducated, the Unicron Trilogy has given each of its 3 seasons separate names and 3 separate art styles. These are the designs used in Energon (S2) and Cybertron (S3). The Wiki had Cybertron's numbers but not Energon's, so for my own sanity, I decided the two were the same height. I could have done something in between Cybertron's and Armada's (S1) numbers, but there was a lot of float between the two)

G1 Beast Wars V3 - ~16 Feet (Primal/Optimal Optimus, this is the result of a fusion between Primal and Prime. The TFWiki says this design is like 40 feet tall, but if that is true, Rattrap, a character stated to be 1.8m or ~6f tall across several sources across several different languages, is actually not that tall. So I call bullshit, this guy is 2.6 Rattraps tall, making him around 16f or 4.9m tall. Checkmate, I win)

Prime Wars V1 - ~17 Feet (Primal. Slight spoilers for further into this chart but I decided that the Prime Wars Trilogy and the Netflix Cybertron Trilogy Optimuses were the same height as the Gen 1 design, because they're nearly identical. So comparing Primal to Prime, Primal comes up to about Prime's tits, bada bing bada boom)

Netflix Cybertron Trilogy - ~17 Feet (Primal. Identical explanation to above, don't want to repeat myself)

One V1 - ~17 Feet 10 inches (Prime. Okay, the Wiki says 32.534 feet, and I call Bullshit. A: These numbers are sourced from the Walmart Promotional AR Experience that came out before the movie. B: There are three decimal points, and that number does not convert into a whole number in meters (which is originally what I thought was weird about it). C: The director has said that this movie is both canon to the LA movies and its own separate canon. I already stated all of this in my Bumblebee chart post, and I will be dying on this hill. This is as short as we see OP in the movie, him at his tallest should match his KCV height, he's never taller than Megsy, so knock a couple feet off the biggest number and voila, my brain hurts)

One V2 - ~18 Feet 10 Inches (Prime. Same explanation as above, but taller than he was without his cog, because he got bigger)

Gen 1 - ~19 Feet (Prime. TFWiki has saved me the effort of figuring it out myself)

Prime Wars - ~19 Feet (Prime. As I said before, since this design is identical to Gen 1, it is the same height)

Netflix Cybertron Trilogy - ~19 Feet (Prime. I've said it twice now, identical, therefore same height)

Knight/Capel-Verse - ~19 Feet 4 inches (Primal. No Robot height given, I have his monkey form height from TFWiki, but comparing him to Optimus he's only a few inches shorter)

Prime Wars V2 - ~ 20 Feet (Primal. Compared to Prime, Prime comes up to about Primal's nose area, and we all know how tall I think this Prime is)

Animated - 20 Feet 6 Inches (Prime. This number actually comes from @phoenix-inanis and the glorious calculations they have done on the TFA Characters. Go check it out, because animated has literally no actual numbers -> https://phoenix-inanis.notion.site/TFA-Height-Chart-f6ad2960ca8c4c5b859ee4958723aaa4?pvs=4)

Knight/Capel-Verse - 20 feet 10 Inches (Prime. TFWiki has graced me with a number)

One V3 - ~20 Feet 10 Inches (Prime. If it's canon to KCV, then it's canon here. I've already told you my reasons)

Cyberverse - 21 Feet (Prime. Oh, shitty screenshot from a random Russian YouTube video; you treat me so well. I would adore a better scan of this if anyone has one)

RID 2001 V1 - 22 Feet 11 Inches (Prime. Technically, this number is for the Armada video game, which isn't exactly canon to the show. But I don't have any other numbers and my brain is tired, so CANON IT IS)

Aligned Cont. RID15 V1 - 25 Feet (Prime. I'm really proud of this one: I can already hear some of your questions. "But I thought his second form was as tall as his TFP V2 form, and this one was as tall as TFP V1," "but his V1 forms and V2 forms look like each other," You thought Wrong!! And I can Prove it!! Let's refresh ourselves on the height difference between TFP V1 Prime and Bee.

As we can see, Bee comes up to the top of Optimus's hips. Lovely. Now, let's look at RID15's height difference when Optimus first returns. Keep in mind that RID15 Bee and TFP Bee are the same height.

Look, Bee comes up to Optimus's chest in this form, not his hips. He comes up to a similar point on Bulkhead in the previous picture. Let's look at Prime's second form.

This is from the intro; yes, Bee is crouched, but look, if he stood straight he only comes up to about Prime's hips, JUST LIKE IN TFP!!! With this evidence, we can conclude that Prime's first RID15 form is similar in height to Bulkhead! I was so fucking excited to show y'all this, I was so proud of myself, I still am)

Bayverse V1 - 28 Feet (Prime. From the first 4 movies. Straight from TFWiki, because Mr. Michael Bay loves me)

Bayverse V2 - 29 Feet (Prime. Only in The Last Knight. Mr. Bay has lovingly kissed my forehead because he always gives me numbers for his movies)

Aligned Cont. WF/FOC/TFP V1/RID15 V2 - 30 Feet (Prime. TFWiki/Fandom/Me respectively. I love you, Video Game Info Screens. I am still pretty syced about figuring RID15 out, oh I feel so good. Almost makes me forget about how FREAKISHLY HUGE this universe is. And how the games concretely prove this fact)

Aligned Cont. TFP V2 - 35 Feet (Prime. Yes this number comes from Fandom, but this entire universe is monstrously huge for no reason, I believe it. Go look at my Bee chart for more in-depth and insane rant about how huge this universe is compared to other universes, it's at the end of the post)

Not Pictured: Aligned Cont. Rescue Bots and Rescue Bots Academy Optimus Prime - 30 Feet. (Yes, Optimus in the Aligned Continuity has 7 distinct designs across the whole thing. I am in physical pain. SEVEN?? ONE GUY?? SEVEN??), Bayverse Optimus Prime Power Up - 40 Feet. (It's an upgrade form that does not stick around, why should I include it), RID 2001 Super Mode - ~21 feet (Optimus can turn it on and off at will, it's just an upgrade mode), Unicron Trilogy Energon & Cybertron Optimus Prime Super Mode - ~20 Feet (Once more, upgrade mode, it's like stilts, you don't count something you don't always have on.)

29 pngs, holy shit I've done it. This took so long. If anyone has any suggestions for which transformer I should aggressively analyze next please tell me I don't know which ones to do next.

Here are the different layers separated, just so you can see all the many Optimuses (Optimusi?) clearly. I know my og chart is crowded, there's 29 pngs on there you don't think I noticed?

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mrkanman · 2 years ago

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decided id do a redraw of one of my old drawings from my old computer......from 2014.

context: i wanted to make a forum style “fan adventure” of the portal one cores but they were like. human looking androids. i was gonna redraw the background too but staring at this made me so mad already.

#kant art #nothing really to tag here since its just a redraw #i actually can draw the aperture logo and can actually add more mechanical features #but no yeah. whew. this is almost ten years old....

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cyvonix · 4 months ago

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Cyv Reads Homestuck - The Final Wrapup

This is my last post for the main comic, covering all of Act 6 Act 6 as well as Act 7.

God I feel like I have so much to say but no way to properly put it into a neat little bow so it might be a little more like me just rambling passionately. Hey that's like the perfect allegory for Homestuck.

Anyway if you just want the TL;DR for how I'm feeling overall, I feel it should almost go without saying I fucking loved this story. I can say with complete certainty that it has been a landmark in media I've consumed and will assuredly alter the way I consume things moving forward. In the several months it's taken me to finish, I've grown so attached to this story and these characters, and despite any qualms I may have with it (and trust me, there are plenty) I think it is a wonderfully creative and excellent piece of art that I'm going to continue loving for a long time. It does so many things I've never seen a work like this do before, and it takes advantage of its format in so many masterful ways that it ends up a mesmerizing kaleidoscope of so many styles and mediums that makes it truly stand on its own as something special. As I prepare to read the continuation of the official content and assuredly follow various fan adventures, fan projects, art, music and all of these amazing things that have spawned from this, I just want to make it as clear as possible: I cannot overstate the positive impact this weird little webcomic has had on me.

So that's that. I think now I probably wanna get a bit more into the nitty gritty stuff and delve into some of my more specific opinions. Here's the problem: I have a fuck ton. Seriously, if I were to properly articulate all the thoughts I have on this work, we would be here all god damn day and I would get tired of typing and you would get tired of scrolling. So I'm just gonna kind of go with the flow and go where my brain wants to go with this post. I figure I should probably get some complaints out of the way first, because I don't wanna end this on a sour note, but I do wanna mention them, because Homestuck does certainly have its problems:

Pretty obviously, the early comic was entrenched in a 2000s edgy forum culture that made it a little cringe to read sometimes. The ableist language that was liberally used as well as pretty distasteful jokes pertaining to race and sexuality make some of these early sections age a bit like milk. Fortunately, this takes a massive dip after around Act 4, but it still lingers a while after, and it obviously didn't ruin anything for me and isn't like, EGREGIOUS, but it still makes me think like man I wish this stuff wasn't here because it adds nothing and feels so out of place in the current day.

Speaking of race, and specifically racial representation, oops! There's none! I know, I know, I know. "Aracial". And that's all well and good in theory, but it's pretty obvious that Hussie wrote these characters from a decidedly white perspective and as a result that's just naturally how they read, despite any excuse he used to try making for it. And that in itself isn't some massive problem, just a note on the authorial bias at play. But then the only ones who don't read as white? The violent one who uses broken, obviously uninformed AAVE, and the japanese schoolgirl who speaks in bad japanese and wears cute little stereotypical outfits and is constantly sexualized. All I'm saying is, come on man, we can do better.

Hey look we reached the part where I rant about the dancestors. I mean what do I even have to say. Why did they even exist ??? Meenah is the only one who ended up being interesting in any meaningful way, and I guess Aranea even though I didn't feel particularly positive about her and her place in the story even after everything had happened. The rest were less interesting than the original 12, less funny than the original 12, and way more annoying and surface-level than the original 12. Seemingly on purpose. So I thought oh ok, this story hasn't let me down with this kinda stuff yet, so let's give it the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this is for some bigger reason, maybe it's essential that they're in the story for later, maybe we'll get some actual development and I'll turn around on them. I was wrong to do so. They're nothing. They are nothing characters. Even what seemed like it should've been something - Kurloz working with Gamzee - just kinda never got elaborated on and faded into the background. So then. Why. Why are they here? Why do they exist? Why did you make me spend hours meeting them? Genuinely felt like a total waste of time and you could take out that entire section from the story and lose effectively nothing. Worst part of the comic by far.

The pacing of this story can be rough. And I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this point, because reading this archivally and knowing it was updated serially in small bursts over time, it makes total sense and I honestly excuse it for the most part. Buuuut that doesn't mean it's not noticeable sometimes that the comic will go through dry spells that can sorta be slogs to get through, and then follow with most breakneck pace you could imagine immediately after, and is always undulating between these two modes. Eh.

Those are really the only big negative things I have to say. Well, sorta. I think the rest will mostly be positive, but I... hm. I think that... ok let's talk about the ending.

First of all, Act 7. Wow. just holy shit. I've jokingly been calling Homestuck a shonen anime since like Act 4 but ???? god DAMN dude that was fucking incredible. Never would I expect actual, traditional animation from a Homestuck flash, and it was so satisfying as a final animation. That being said, I feel a bit... conflicted about the context surrounding the ending? For the record, the actual ending itself, like the last moments of the comic, I think are lovely and thematically feel super appropriate. Seeing Caliborn basically transform into Lord English is that one final time loop after a series of hundreds of time loops, finally finishing itself off. And all the while, the kids break the cycle. No more loops of destruction and rebirth and destrucion again. They won, not in the sense that they beat the big bad guy and saved the day, but in a much more poignant way; they stopped this whole fucking thing from ever happening again. I genuinely do love it. It feels appropriately existential for Homestuck, but not quite cynical. It's an ending of death and rebirth. Hopeful at its core.

I think there are a few reasons I feel a little odd about it. First is that, just tbh, I think we were introducing way too many characters way too fucking late. I mean we basically just met Davepetasprite, who is a fucking joy btw, and then BAM ending. This means that most of these later additions to the cast don't get to have much impact on the ensuing events, and even if they do, it's not as emotionally resonant as these other characters we've had plenty of time to learn about and grow to love. I would never insinuate Homestuck should be EVEN LONGER, but it does feel a bit like just throwing the fandom a few last bones to be like here! Write some fics about these peeps! But I would've wanted more actual in-universe development and narrative relevance, otherwise I just don't get a whole lot from it.

The other thing that just feels a little... idk, odd? is that I just still have no fucking clue what Vriska did to LE with the weapon, or even like, what happened to LE or Vriska. I guess maybe they're both going to die anyway because of alt-Calliope basically ripping apart this entire continuity with the black hole, but I don't know that for sure. And since Act 7 was only the single flash, I don't feel like I have much to even go on in terms of theorizing about it. The credits did like, a liiiittle more in that department I guess?? (btw those were adorable and I loved them a lot) But even then it feels like even THOSE are opening new questions as much as answering old ones. Is Vriska who Terezi is looking for? Otherwise why is Terezi the one venturing out there? Can they just come and go as they please despite the black hole? There are so many things that are completely unanswered.

I guess my main point is that the ending just felt really abrupt, cutting off a lot of plotlines that I thought were actually gonna go somewhere, and inconclusive. And maybe it's meant to be. In fact I'm almost certain it's meant to be. But the problem lies in that it does not feel inconclusive in a "up to your interpretation" way, but more in a "literally not concluded" way. Like it wasn't actually finished telling its story. I'll put it this way: the ending feels like a big awesome season finale, but not a series finale. And I know that the post-canon sequel content exists, but it seems like the fans and those works themselves distance themselves so much from the original comic that it makes it seem like that feeling wasn't the intention, so it's just really strange.

So much for not having any more negative things to say lol. Sorry. But all in all I do still largely enjoy what I got from this ending, I just hate that it feels like it was cut short or something.

Let's balance all that out by talking about some cool shit!!! I'm just gonna spitball some of my favorite things about this comic, whether in this reading section or just overall:

The art is so good!! All of Act 6 Act 6, especially the last several updates, is so immaculately rendered. I can see why this basically became *the* Homestuck style moving forward, because it's just so pleasing to look at and captures the characters in a great way. Speaking outside of specifically this section and more generally, I adore how loose Homestuck is with its art. Hussie seemed to just pick and choose whatever style would properly represent the events at hand, and it ends up being so awesome in a way that's unbound by things like staying on-model or being consistent because it's just pure expression. Plus, the constant guest art is fuckin amazing, not only because most of it is genuinely incredible in its own right, but also because Homestuck is such a wildly community-driven experience that it only feels natural to let other talented artists make their own mark on the story. It started early on and continued being a thing all the way until the end and I love love love that.

The metatextual elements of this story are so fascinating to me. Unfortunately this is one of those things I thought was gonna be expanded on a bit more by the end, but what's there is still great. I like that it goes so far beyond "fourth wall" jokes and nods to the audience. The way the characters directly interact with the narrator, the story structure, and even the website itself, is so much more interesting. Beyond being simply fun, it manages to raise so many interesting questions about the very art of fiction. What authorship means, the responsibilities of it, the follies of poor authorship, the interaction between an audience and fictional characters, the way character voice can be used to convey tone, all this and so many more things are tackled as actual in-universe concepts that can be materially tinkered with to varying results. I could genuinely write other entire posts about the way this story discusses a lot of meta concepts.

The way this comic uses its medium to its advantage is unparalleled. I just always appreciate when a story is so thoroughly connected to its medium that it would become something else if adapted, and this is certainly one of those stories. The way that the style of narrative prompt itself can convey something about what you're reading, the banners and menus being shifted, changed, obscured, and otherwise altered to add an entire new element to the experience of reading the story, the colors of the website, the way characters and items aren't necessarily bound to the frame of the panel, the way the very act of clicking on a link to go to the next page is made to be a central part of the experience, ALL OF IT... I can't call it anything other than masterful. (Ok I'm sorry to throw yet another complaint in here but I was fully expected A6A6A6 to continue this trend and basically be a huge amalgam of all these website-bending tricks we'd come to know so I was a liiiiittle disappointed when it was just a youtube video).

The character writing, often times, is phenomenal. Even from the beginning, the way character voice was so strong was impressive and fun, but as I got later into Act 6, and especially A6A6, some of the long-running character traits, flaws, and storylines finally came to a cathartic close in mostly really great ways. Some obvious highlights: Dave, in too many ways to count tbh, whether it's him grappling with destiny/heroism/things of that nature, realizing he's not straight, coming to terms with his bro's treatment of him, reconnecting to his authentic interests, so many things about Dave are so insanely amazingly done. Of course Dirk is an interesting character as well, with many questions brought up concerning mortality, control, self-loathing, and other pretty heavy stuff. Hooray for alt-Vriska getting some justice lmao. Her and alt-Terezi finally finding peace in themselves and comfort in each other in the afterlife is like almost too beautiful to not make me wanna cry. Again, like with the meta stuff, I could write entire posts about various characters and the awesome ways they're written, but I'll leave it here for now.

I think... maybe that's all I have for now. Maybe. I have a multitude of thoughts, big and small, and there was absolutely 0 chance I was gonna fit them all in here or even remember all of them. But there you have it.

Hey would you look at that. Homestuck's good!

Not perfect, as I feel I've made perfectly obvious. But good. Full of passion. Full of care. An exceptional work of art and a unique phenomenon that will likely never be replicated. I'm so, so happy to have finally experienced it. So that's me signing off on my very last liveblog post for the original comic... Damn. Thanks to the people who've been so interested in seeing me take this journey and those of you who have contributed to the discussion, it definitely made it more special for me and I appreciate it.

Thanks For Playing <3

.........

For those of you wondering, no, this liveblog as a whole isn't necessarily over. I know the post-canon content (still don't understand why it's even called that) is contentious for many, and I feel like I've seen opinions ranging from people saying it's some of the best stuff released for Homestuck, all the way to saying it literally ruined the whole thing for them because of how bad it is. So clearly, this is some controversial shit I'm about to get into. But yes, I am indeed, getting into it. I'm going to keep this liveblog going, and at the very least, I'm going to get through the Epilogues, and what is currently released of Beyond Canon. If I really find it as atrocious as some people seem to, I guess no promises that I will continue reading and posting about it after that. But I gotta know. I need to see for myself and come to my own conclusions. And I'm taking you all with me.

Cyv Reads The Homestuck Epilogues coming to a theatre near you some time soon.

#cyv reads homestuck #act 6-6 #act 7 #cyv reads homestuck wrapups #homestuck #homestuck spoilers #homestuck liveblog #cyv reads the epilogues

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vrankup · 1 year ago

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theclo4ked1 · 6 months ago

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iiiIIT'S SUMMER! Well, not quite, but close (enough...) I feel so free, but you know what isn't free? My laptop's storage space, there's a gigabyte and a half left on the C drive right now, but that hinders the performance; it frees its own space so I can put more things, but that's not good since the computer needs those resources to function goodly, or so I've heard.

This is why I am (not) launching a Kickstarter to buy a Faster Stronger Better Gaben- I mean a cooler computer, preferably a desktop tower. Here's a list of perks and things YOU will RECEIVE If you support me:

...and as a bonus,

Please (do not) donate! Give to the (not so) needy XP... Alright alright, I was just playin'. I finally caught another break so now I can rest and do other things like: cleaning... AHEM so, some days ago, I made a short post hinting at something I was doing relating to Dora the Explorer, if it wasn't obvious. If you know me, you'd know that show (the first four seasons anyway) is a...pretty significant part of my life, and I look forward to what plans the creators have in store for her future.

Hm, what's that? A reboot on Paramount+? One season has been released? Oh, okay, yeah I'll give it a look- Kathleen Herles returns as a voice? Holy. Miér-coles. Okay real talk, I was gonna watch regardless of if she was gonna come back as a voice, if she would come back at all. I actually just watched the first Paramount+ episode, not the ones pre-released on YouTube, and when I finished watching it, I thought to myself...

Huh. I don't think I learned much of anything.

Maybe the point is to just entertain children, and if that's the case, fine. But in my opinion, that makes this reboot far less interesting. Y'know I wrote this big ass post to the Forum for the franchise's fandom wiki giving a critical look at the reboot, "Dora '24", and comparing it to the original show that I lovingly call "Dora2K" because the show began airing in 2000, but did you know it was being produced in the late '90s? I call them by numbers after "Dora" because the new show is just called "DORA", subtitled "Say Hola to Adventure". Anyways, I'd appreciate if you read it, and gave me your thoughts either here or there. Actually, I found out today that someone wanted to know about a Discord to talk about the show, one that I did want to lead, but wasn't sure how it would go, how to promote it, who would help moderate; the works. Okay okay okay okay, enough pr'amble, (more like mumble lol (could you even call it preamble? i got caught up in things again, im so sorry)) BEHOLD, MY FLOATING MA- *skips cutscene*

This, my guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, is my BIG FUCKING THING! I'm not just referencing the Shadow the Hedgehog Fandub unnecessarily, no, this paper is approximately 4'x6'. "seee~, moy grahn-day" teehee Yes, this is what was brewing at D(ora) ‘n D(rawing). I planned for a cubism kind of drawing, then saw it after it was finished and decided it wasn't exactly cubism, then I was told it looked like cubism, so ultimately... It'S iS CuBiSm!!! I didn't explain it before, but the drawing takes from that scene from the live-action movie where Dora's cutting a GOT damn rug at the high school dance. She dances in a style that mimics animals from the rainforest, but the thing about that scene is that it's just Dora on the floor-a. Everybody else is by the wall, not on the dance floor at all because it's an awkward event, as any school would have it. I call this piece "Disco Dorka: Inspiring Sunshine", but I shortened it to the subtitle when sharing it with peers. "Inspiring", because the whole scene with Dora just being herself, not giving a damn (though I can't remember if she knew the other students were making fun of her right there) is inspiring to me. "Sunshine" comes from the sun costume Dora wore because it was a solar system-themed school dance. You may have noticed this is an ink drawing as opposed to my pencil or a digital drawings. A month or two ago, I was introduced to ink, and of course, that changed my life. I wholeheartedly adore ink, THIS is what I needed, it's a digital exclusive thing I can achieve only on a computer screen; it flows, it can make thick black lines THATS LIKE MY FAVORITE THING IN THE WHOLE WORLD but its messy but like OMG WHO. DA HELL. CARES?

Being introduced to ink really helped me to find myself, artistically, and my, is it freeing to know what I can do; what kinda potential I had. I apologize if it sounds like I'm bragging, but I think maybe it shows that finding out exactly what you're made of requires you to go outta your zone. Not your comfort zone, just what you know. Explore. (oh my god thats dora's whole thing, wtf why does it loop back) Last thing I wanna bring up is the text. I was told by peers that adding text is something that defines my ink style, it makes it mine. Probably not unique, I shouldn't have to say "i KnOw I'm NoT tHe FiRsT", but I know. I'mnotthefirstHAHA The text references Season 3 and parts of 4 of "Dora2K", y'know, the stars that Dora and Boots caught like Pokémon? It confuses me, do the stars travel from Star Mountain and are returned there from a wormhole in the Star Pocket, or is the Star Mountain in the pocket a pocket dimension, or OUGH! MY HEAD. The movie, as far as I know, makes no reference to this. I thought of writing REACH FOR THE STARS but then I was like "nah that's Sonic, this is about Dora now change it" and so i did. Ah, that's all I wanna say about my cool thing. These last four months have certainly been a trip, but now you can expect MORE ART probably. I'd get back to playing Sonic Mania (which is apparently bad now??) but I'm too tired...zzzzzzz... zzzz- oh yeah thanks for reading... z.....zzzz......zzzzzzz.......

#dora the explorer #illustration #ink drawing #art

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miqojak · 3 years ago

Note

🔍 for something you look for on other’s blogs

@eligos-venator @braeden-ooc as well!

Really, I'm looking to find information on their character. It's an RPC, after all, and I'm looking for information on your character(s) so I know whether or not they might be a good fit for my OC to interact with - I have even given thought to revamping the LFRP layout, since it prioritizes things like relationship status and gender preference, when that should really have 0 impact on RP, unless that's someone's only reason for reaching out (I sure don't ask new RL friends their gender preference and if they're single or not when we meet). What I want to know right off the bat is: A) The player's OOC expectations. What's their schedule? Do they prefer in game or out of game? Out of game is almost a deal breaker, really, since I'm ADHD and I'll lose focus REALLY fast in a forum/tumblr style RP that isn't moving at the same pace an in-game RP would be. Are we going to get along OOC? This is important. It's a relationship like any other, and you want to be able to communicate like the mature adults we all are. B) What is the personality of the character, and what kind of interactions/plotting are they looking for? Ultimately, that's the meat of RP - I don't need to know their sexual preference, who their mother was, whether or not they smoke, and what their scars look like; personality is great, but doesn't tell me what kind of RP you're seeking! Tell me what you're looking for for your OC! Are they looking for friendship? Adventure? Crime? Dark RP? Soft RP? Slice of life? Why is that section on the bottom of the current LFRP layout? That's the most important part! The rest is icing on the cake.

C) I guess I'm looking for...aesthetic? Writing? Images? I want to get a feel for the character by scrolling through the first few pages. If a blog is purely devoted to sexual images, I probably know they're not someone I want to RP with. To each their own, but I'm looking for deep plots and long-term stuff...not Playboy. If it seems like the sole focus is sex gifs and playboy gpose spreads and posts lamenting not being in a relationship...I'm gonna nope out. A little spice is nice, but nothing BUT spice? No thanks, too much of a good thing (for me, anyways).

D) This is a spin-off of C I guess - how much OOC is there? A little is okay! I like to meme and shitpost a little, but...for example, someone posted a picture of themselves in lingerie - on their RP blog - and let me tell you, I unfollowed immediately; I'm not on tumblr to see people's RL nudes and the like. Save that for your personal blog, or your tindr or whatever - the RPC is not an RL dating community. Similarly? No drama. No call-outs. I will instantly unfollow and block, because dirty laundry shouldn't be aired out in public - that tells me that that person is deeply immature and will gladly go shout nasty things about ME into the void of tumblr at some point if I do something they decide they don't like (or make something up about me - seen that done far too many times), and you can't trust an immature RP partner. I've had shitty people abuse me, as well, and if I see a friend engage - I'll just politely warn them quietly. (Now and then, now and then - there's someone SO heinous, there needs to be something done, and said publicly. But I see callout posts done for all kinds of little personal vendetta things that don't need to be shouted about publicly. No one wants to see a shouting match in the grocery store, after all - tend to your business at home!)

tl;dr I'm looking for what the other person is looking for in RP! (And I'm looking for OOC maturity! I'm tired of non-communicative RP partners.)

#thanks for asking!#ffxiv rp #ffxiv rpc #ffxiv #crystal rp #crystal rp ffxiv #rp ffxiv #balmung rp

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zigtheeortega · 4 years ago

Text

redeemed

pairing | m!raleigh x mc

word count | 6.6k

warnings | cursing, innuendos, mentions of sex

tags | @natesewell, @choicesarehard, @empressazura, @raleighcarrera, @pixeljazzy, @pixelsandkink [tagging people who usually ask to be tagged !]

author’s note | i’ve talked about this before but i’m not a huge fan of the platinum mc’s personality, so i’ve kind of crafted my own that’s quite a bit more rebellious than canon. i’m obsessed with the idea of an mc who’s romancing raleigh and falls into the same pattern of behavior and it genuinely concerns them – so yeah i play with that idea here! i deviate from canon some but not too much ! this is my submission for day 2 of @platinumweekend as well ! also i had no idea how to end this so i apologize for the fizzle out at the end lol

•─────────────────•

As soon as he stepped off stage, he was shuffled to his tour bus, Fiona on his heels. She looked like the human embodiment of rage in a grey blazer, a look in her eye that made him thankful he wasn’t the one it was directed at – or at least he hoped he wasn’t the reason she was two seconds away from a murderous rampage.

She slammed the door behind her, locking it, running to the windows and closing the curtains, peeking out at the paparazzi that no doubt had already tried flocking at the edges of the blocked off area where the bus was parked.

“Damn, what’s the problem? Can’t I at least get my food from craft services? Jesus,” he complained, grabbing a bottle of water from the fully stocked mini fridge, downing it while Fiona frantically ran around the bus, turning off every electrical device in sight.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

She wheeled on him, a few strands of her hair sticking to her lips. “We’ve got a problem.”

“Yeah, you won’t let me go get my fuckin’ overpriced grilled cheese that I know is waiting for me,” he jabbed his thumb towards the venue. “At craft services.”

She eyed him, pupils wide, her anger nearly palpable. “It’s bigger than food.”

He ran a hand through his damp hair, some strands completely drenched in sweat. “Lay it on me.”

And the three words that fell from her lips were soul crushing, his post-show high wearing off in an instant.

“Dom’s been arrested.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He sat up, posture rigid. “What happened?”

“Not here. We’ll talk on the plane,” Fiona said, twisting the knob of the closet door, grabbing the black duffel bag on the ground. She tossed it at his feet, motioning for him to stand. “The jet leaves in an hour. I packed for you.”

“The plane? Where is she?” He was getting more and more frustrated, nearing hysterics. He should’ve felt a bit more shame about how worked up he was getting, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

Fiona took notice, her fiery gaze softening at the edges, the blue flames flickering across his face. “Not here, Raleigh.”

He slung the duffle bag on his shoulder, walking to the door.

“Wait –” Fiona said, leaning over the couch to pull the curtain to the side, peering out again. “I paid off a security guard to distract the paparazzi. And when he does, we have to run to the car that’s gonna pull up any minute now – undetected,” she shot back at him, her icy gaze warning.

Within minutes, a security guard with a similar build to Raleigh sprinted towards the venue, jacket over his head, paparazzi on his heels.

With the camera’s flashing finally pointed away, they were able to slide into the back of the cab, thankful that Hank had connections everywhere. The driver rolled up the barrier without question as soon as Fiona tossed him a wad of cash that she’d fished out of a plain leather pouch.

She shook the pouch, her lips set in a thin line. “You know what this is?”

“A purse?” He asked, brows furrowed. “Is this some kind of fuckin’ trick?”

“It’s an emergency fund. Cash. Not traceable.”

She shook her head, dropping the pouch into her lap, before pinching the bridge of her nose. “When Dom first started getting into trouble, I had to pay off a few people here and there, but when it became more frequent, I had to actually sit her down with her accountant and sort this out.”

“Sort… what out?”

“How much money she needed to allocate to her… antics,” she rolled her eyes, propping her elbow on the back of her seat, hand pressed to her forehead.

She looked drained. Fiona never looked disheveled, but he sensed this was the closest she’d be to it.

“If it’s money she needs, that’s fine. Lemme call my agent –”

“There’s only so much cash I can hand people under the table before it becomes a problem. Not just financially, put publicly,” she sighed, chewing the inside of her cheek. “I’ve been able to cover up the smaller mishaps, but this, I’m afraid, might be the start of something… much worse than disorderly conduct.”

“You gonna tell me her charges?” His jaw set in anticipation, already running through a list of the best lawyers in L.A. that got him off from potentially hefty lawsuits.

Her short locks swayed as she shook her head. “I don’t think it’s my place to tell you.”

He blew air out of his cheeks, leaning into the corner of the cab, legs splayed wide as he tried to take a nonchalant stance. “Can you at least tell me where we’re going?”

“You’ll be glad you have a bedroom, shower, and fridge on the plane,” she said with another shake of her head.

––––

Raleigh laid in bed, aimlessly scrolling through his burner account.

He never really cared for social media under the public eye. Every post of his was either related to tour or the series of brand deals for products he never used. Each page was a personified advertisement – some shit he regretted signing up for.

One drunken night, his curiosity got the best of him and he found himself making a pretty inconspicuous profile, following some funny internet personalities and political commentators. And although he had plans to delete it, once Dom came into the picture, he unabashedly lurked.

He followed her on all platforms, and when he had the chance, he watched her stories, voted in her daily polls, and occasionally scrolled through her old instagram photos.

This time in particular, though, he was looking for something specific without really knowing if there was an answer.

He scrolled to her first post, hundreds down, smiling at high school Dom. Thick eyeliner, layered hair, brace-adorned grin – she was a poster child of adolescence.

Photos of her with Shane at pep rallies, in Halloween costumes, in prom formal wear filled the screen, later transitioning to senior portraits, graduation photos, and dorm photos. A setting of picturesque normality as Dom grew into herself, growing out her choppy layers, softening her makeup, her gleaming smile lighting up each photo.

She grew more beautiful with each year, each little phase of her life coming with a new style, a new little identity or association, Dom’s willingness to try new things the reason she was able to break free from her small town.

God, was Raleigh so fucking envious of this imperfect little portion of her Instagram. If someone were to look this far back for him, there’d be photoshoots and magazine spreads and paparazzi photos all neatly planned. The shaky off-guard photos, the unedited red eyes, the off guard photos, the expressions they made in them… it was something Raleigh never had the chance to do.

Being in the business for ten years, everything was pristine, crisp – always smiling or smoldering, no in between. Sexy and rugged or smiling and happy. Like he had two modes and he wasn’t ever able to exercise those other parts of himself because being in front of the camera was restrictive – while Dom was able to be unabashedly herself.

He was breaking shit just to feel something, to have some range of emotions even if it was a stupid fucking publicity stunt where he damaged property or made out with another politician’s daughter or attempted irreparable blows to his public image.

The more recent the posts, the more calculated her photos got, the phrase “ad” showing up more and more. But even with a skincare brand deal, her step-by-step skincare routine video was on brand for Dom, her bright smile and wit always present in everything she did.

But Raleigh couldn’t help but feel like parts of her were slipping away.

Her online persona was still pretty crisp, except for her style shift – tattoos, a couple piercings, and some edgier photoshoots signified a tonal shift in Dom’s aesthetic, but nothing he hadn’t seen before.

Hell, when he used his first innuendo on his solo album, there was widespread outrage on Sunset Skatepark fan forums, ripping into him for singing about using his dick (even though he was definitely an adult and definitely not a virgin).

But other than her general style, nothing was different. Nothing to indicate this downward spiral that Fiona kept a secret.

Where’s the shift? He thought to himself as he scrolled to the top. When the hell did she start changing for the worse?

She’d come a long way from her clean songs that didn’t require a radio edit. He felt a pang of something in his chest –– regret, maybe? Was he the reason she’d changed?

The questions sent him into a near tailspin, his pulse quickening at the realization.

He was the problem.

She’d since deleted her photos with Raleigh, because their breakup was so public, but he could tell that the shift happened right around the time she started spending more time with him.

He’d been a mentor of sorts, opposite of Avery, showing her the ropes… which meant that he was teaching her how to evade the press, fuck with the paparazzi, pick out industry plants – the whole nine yards.

She was impulsive, daring, adventurous, fearless – all the qualities he liked in himself. But he never thought those traits would take a negative turn, morphing her into a rebel with an affinity for breaking laws.

He could blame himself all he wanted, but he couldn’t blame her for taking the same route he took.

He knew it better than anybody – it was hard to shift the public’s persona of you. Once you did something horrible to make them hate you, either the rebrands and ass kissing worked, or you get written off by everyone.

Raleigh Carrera was a special case, a wild card of sorts who toed the line, unpredictable, both with his craft and his behavior. The nastier his lyrics, the crazier his publicity stunts were, the more polarizing he was.

And that was no doubt the route Dom was on, heading towards an inevitable press nightmare – if people were to find out the home grown rags-to-riches Dominique Avalos dove headfirst into her rebellious phase with no smooth transition, she wouldn’t be able to Google herself for months without having a panic attack.

She’d changed drastically, but that’s what fame did to people. Some people cracked under the pressure, or they rebelled to show the public they were in control of their narrative… or that they desperately wanted it back.

He took a shaky breath, swiping out of the app.

He wasn’t sure if he could save her, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t gonna try.

––––

The moment the jet touched down, Fiona was in full manager mode, adamant on abandoning his phone, stressing the importance of going off the grid.

“If anyone finds out you’re here, they’ll be able to put two and two together. Why else would you be in the same country as Dom when you’re supposed to be heading towards New York for your next show?” She asked, hand outstretched.

“I hate it when you’re right,” he grumbled, tossing his phone into her palm. “Where are we exactly?”

“I can’t tell you,” she sighed, looking exhausted. He had a gut feeling she hadn’t slept a wink since they’d boarded the plane.

“Why not?”

“It’s a bit safer that way.”

He scoffed. “You’re serious? Look, I’m not exactly thrilled to pull the A-List celebrity card, but this is borderline kidnapping.”

“Let’s just say you might be able to pick up on some of the language,” she said, turning on her heel to exit the plane.

Within minutes, they were pulling onto a dirt backroad, the small houses they passed barely casting shadows onto the ground.

The town itself was seemingly innocuous – the tiny brick houses riddled with dust, the stone paths lining the road cracked and deserted. The tiny town had turned in for the night, their old Sedan sticking out like a sore thumb despite the old model.

Raleigh squirmed in his seat, twisting the expensive watch on his wrist. He fucking hated this.

No matter where he went, he was noticed in some capacity – so wearing a Rolex and Cartier rings in a small village in the middle of nowhere just made him look pretentious.

He slipped the rings and watches off, shoving them deep into the pocket of his jeans, ignoring Fiona’s calculating side eye (one he knew all too well).

The only light, other than the gas lamp posts and their high beams, came from the building at the end of the road.

The car pulled around the side, flicking their lights off, the driver peeking around before motioning for them to exit the car.

“Throw the hoodie on, Raleigh,” Fiona ordered while slipping on a ball cap of her own, her casual t-shirt and leggings wildly different from her normal outfit.

“Sure,” he murmured, tugging the hood on.

The walk from the car to the dusty glass front door was short, Fiona breaking into a light jog to keep up with Raleigh’s brisk pace.

The makeshift “waiting room” in the front corner of the station was empty, the scratched up folding chairs in crooked rows. The front desk was occupied by a sleeping form, head buried in the crease of his elbow, snore muffled by the counter top.

The other officer stood at the back near an old vending machine, sliding coins into the slot, the clink of each piece ringing out against the brick and linoleum.

No cameras, he thought, after a quick scan of the room, shoving the hood back in its place at the nape of his neck.

The holding cells were farther back, but he couldn’t see her.

He stepped up to the counter where the man was sleeping, giving a gentle knock to the top. The man stirred, unfurling his arms, while the other man in the back glanced up from where he was, elbows deep in the snack machine as he fished out his bag of chips.

Raleigh offered a basic greeting in Spanish, frowning just a bit when both officers’ eyes lit up – the phrase “famoso” and “celebridad” falling from their lips almost as soon as they recognized him.

Yeah, he was gonna use his notoriety to their advantage, but that didn’t mean it still didn’t sting when people immediately tried gauging what they could get from him when they realized who he was.

For a long time he’d been waiting for the day where name dropping himself didn’t get him out of deep shit.

And the day he met Dom, when he assumed she knew who he was, all she did was raise her brow as if to say “Why the fuck should I care?”

It startled him, truthfully. But it was such a breath of fresh air. He couldn’t remember a time before or after that someone showed no interest in him.

The officer in the back jogged to the front, pulling his phone out of his back pocket while asking for a picture.

He looked to Fiona, who was shaking her head furiously, stepping up next to him like her 5’5 stature was enough to shield him. “Nobody can know we’re here.”

He nodded, turning back to the men, trying to negotiate with them.

Yes, Dom’s here.

No, you can’t see her.

He racked his brain trying to figure out how he was gonna get himself – and Dom – out of the situation unscathed if he couldn’t give them a photo or autograph.

“Dom bought me the Rolex and Cartier rings, right?”

Fiona’s brows furrowed. “Yes. She gifted them to you on your birthday. You know this –”

“No, what I mean is, she has the receipts? Or you do?”

“I don’t have them, but I have access to them,” she said, still confused.

“Get rid of ‘em. I haven’t told anyone she bought them for me.”

Her face lit up in recognition, and she nodded, encouraging him to go on.

He dug in his pockets, fishing out the watch and thin bands.

After a quick exchange, the officers took two rings each, and began rapid fire arguing over the Rolex. They tossed Raleigh the keys, stepping out the front door.

“I’ll keep watch,” Fiona said, turning towards the door.

“Hey –” Raleigh said, laying a hand on her shoulder.

She quirked a brow at him. “What?”

“You’re not coming with?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Why not? I’m not even sure what the fuck I’m supposed to say –”

“She specifically asked for you.”

He took a step back, resting his palm on the countertop behind him. “What the – are you… are you serious?”

She nodded once. “She might’ve been slurring, but she was clear as day. She wanted you.”

He blew air out of his cheeks, running a hand through his short waves.

Fiona’s gaze softened, her eyes still piercing. Fiona was a lot of things – steadfast, headstrong, determined – but she wasn’t soft. She didn’t sugar coat shit.

“She’s missed you. She doesn’t confide in me much, but even I can tell she’s unhappy. Be gentle with her,” she said, gaze tearing right through him.

The walk to the holding cells felt miles long – his resolve was shrinking with every step.

He wasn’t afraid of seeing Dom, not at all. He was afraid of whatever part of himself that might’ve been reflected in her.

The cell was empty, save for the curled form on the bench, long dark hair cascading over the edges of the seat.

“Dom?” He called, hearing her sharp inhale of breath as she stirred, bending into a long stretch, her limbs unfurling until she was lying on her back on the bench, tilting her head towards his voice.

God, even when she looked like life had torn her to shreds, she still looked beautiful.

“Raleigh?” She croaked, her eyes squinting to adjust to the low lights. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

She arched her back, stretching again, her long frame covering the bench. It was almost the right level of distracting to stop the creeping annoyance at her question.

“What do you mean? I’m here to bail you out, obviously.”

“Where’s Fiona?” She asked groggily, rolling off the side of the bench awkwardly, trying to gain her footing.

“You asked for me, didn’t you?” He raised a brow, sliding his forearms through the bars, resting them there.

“She told you?” She asked, voice raising in betrayal, a scoff following his silence. “I was drunk.”

“And? You still asked for me.”

“Oh, fuck off,” she murmured, crossing her arms as soon as she was balanced.

He dangled the keys between his fingertips, gently jingling them. “I’ll let you out if you tell me what happened.”

Her lip curled in annoyance. “You’d really leave me here?”

“You don’t want to find out.”

She ran a hand through her hair, blowing air out of her cheeks. “Alright.”

He unlocked the door and slipped in, the heavy door creaking as he slid it wide enough for him to fit through.

She backed up, plopping back onto the bench, arms lowering to curl around her sides.

He followed suit, sitting a couple feet away from her on the other end of the bench, shoving his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie.

She stared at the floor, clearly waiting for him to make a move.

“So…”

“So, what?” She grumbled.

“So… how’d you end up here?” He asked, trying to remain as relaxed as he could since she was clearly on edge, ready to tear him a new one at a moment’s notice.

“I was drunk. I got in a fight. Here I am.”

He sighed. “Look, you don’t have to tell me everything, but I can’t help you if I don’t know if you’re ankles deep or neck deep.”

She chewed her lip, chin dipping lower, strands of her hair falling forward, creating an inky veil. “Fine. I’ll tell you but… can you not… look at me?”

Raleigh’s face contorted in confusion, but he listened, swivelling until he was facing the back wall, propping one leg up on the bench.

He waited for her to speak. The break in conversation was a bit too long – but before a quip could fall from his lips, she spoke.

“I did get drunk, and I did get in a fight. I’m telling the truth but I, uh, left out some details,” she started, her voice low.

“I, uh, was passing through this town after my last show because I wanted to go to a bar without being noticed. Like the old days. I know it was stupid, but I didn’t think anyone would find me here.”

That was her first mistake. Smaller towns surprisingly had the most dedicated fans – maybe because they’re bored or nothing exciting happened in their towns, but most of his die hard fans came from the middle of nowhere.

“The first hour was fine, and I was able to drink and dance with strangers. Most of them were a lot older than me and spoke zero English – and I speak a little bit of Spanish as you know, so I could make some small talk, but I was on my own just… enjoying myself and my freedom,” she said, and he could almost see the grin tug at the corner of her lips.

“I noticed someone taking photos of me with their phone, so I got a bit paranoid and sat in a booth in the back drinking for a little while longer so I could figure out my next move,” she continued, before sighing loudly. “I guess they told the local news or something, because by the time I decided to leave, I ran smack into a reporter on the sidewalk.”

Silence ensued again, this time more deafening than the last.

“I didn’t mean to give her a black eye. Or break the camera. Or elbow the camera man in the face when he tried restraining me. I just… couldn’t think straight. I was mad. Intoxicated and wrong, but still mad.”

“I know Fiona’s trying her best to get me out of this mess but… I think I went too far this time.”

Raleigh stared at the wall, racking his brain for something. He was a little dumbfounded that she spilled to him so fast. He figured it was gonna take a bit more digging to get her to open up, but she blossomed in front of him; despite the wilted petals, he was relieved to know she still trusted him enough to confide in him.

“Are you gonna say something?” She asked, a bit timidly.

“Not if I can’t look at you.”

“Okay, then don’t say anything.”

He sighed, settling into his spot on the bench, waiting again for her to speak.

“Why did you come?”

Instinctively, he shrugged. “You asked me to.”

“But you don’t owe me anything. We’re not together.”

“Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t drop everything to come help you. I mean, I’d like to think we’re at least acquaintances, if not friends,” he joked, resting his arm over the back of the bench.

“Sure,” she said, voice straining just a bit. Just enough for him to notice.

Dom was a special kind of resilient – one trait that Raleigh was sure she didn’t copy from him.

He knew that being a woman in the industry was already hard enough – everything from beauty to body standards to raging misogyny was enough to give people reasons to hate her, as stupid as they were.

Raleigh benefitted from the standards in place for men. He was young, attractive, talented – didn’t matter what he did wrong. He’d bounce back.

But he’d seen some vile shit since he’d ascended to fame. So many celebrities fading into obscurity after one mishap. One bad album. One bad interview. One rude encounter. One rumor.

For some reason, despite diving headfirst into troubled waters, Dom bounced back every time, fire in her eyes, her jaw set in determination, her face painted with the look she got when she was ready to face the world.

But whatever she was feeling in that moment, in that jail cell in the middle of nowhere – was enough to break her.

He heard her take a deep, shaky breath, and he started to turn, but he felt her warm palm on his shoulder, holding him in place.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

He listened to her labored breathing, likely struggling to hold back tears, while he stared at the cracks in the wall, trying to think of something – anything – to console her.

“Did Fiona seem… upset?” She asked, seeming a bit nervous.

“It’s kind of hard to tell, to be honest. She’s pretty intense all of the time,” he laughed, not really meaning to.

He was relieved to hear a light chuckle from behind him.

“Yeah, I figure she’s pretty mad at me. I don’t blame her,” she sighed, another break in conversation ensuing. A couple beats later, she asked, bluntly, “Are you mad at me?”

“No,” he answered with zero hesitation. “I know you’d do the same for me.”

She laughed again, a bit more genuine that time. “Not sure where you got that impression.”

“You wouldn’t leave me here to rot if I asked you to come, Dom. You’re not that heartless,” he teased gently, glad that things were taking a lighthearted turn.

“I’m just glad you’re not gonna lecture me. I already know I’m gonna get an earful from Fiona, not to mention the shit I’ll get from Shane and Avery. I couldn’t handle one from you.”

He grimaced. “Uh, well, you’d rather hear it from me than Fiona, right?”

“Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” she mumbled under her breath.

“You know I normally don’t care what you do, because it’s your life, and you should be able to do whatever the fuck you want, but Dom…” he trailed off, trying to choose his words carefully.

“I know I fucked up, Raleigh. I don’t need you making me feel more guilty than I already am,” she said defensively, voice raised.

“I’m not gonna make you feel guilty. Just offering some advice.” God, did those words feel foreign to him. Offering advice. He never did shit like this for anybody.

He took her silence as a green light. “You’ve just gotta slow down, Dom.”

Whatever impact his words made, he couldn’t see it, since he was still facing the damn wall. “Can I please turn around? I can’t talk to you like this.”

“Sure.”

He adjusted himself on the bench, trying to look attentive without staring. She was stunning, even with the smudged makeup, the dark circles, the red eyes “You don’t have to do anything and everything you’re asked to do, but you gotta find some kind of balance.”

She wrung her hands in her lap, picking at her cuticles absentmindedly. “Yeah, I know.”

“I mean balance the good and bad, Dom. There’s a line for people like us and you can’t cross it often. You can get close, but you can’t just dive over it and not expect there to be some fallout.”

“I know,” she said, bluntly, looking a bit more annoyed with each word that came from his mouth.

“You can cause some chaos, but some of it isn’t acceptable,” he said, watching her expression contort in anger. “For them. Not acceptable for them. The average person, I mean.”

“Oh, you’re one to fucking talk!” She rolled her eyes. “How are you gonna sit here and tell me that your brand of shit stirring is okay, but mine isn’t?”

“I’m not the one sitting in a jail cell right now, Dom,” he said, calmly but firmly. He wasn’t used to being the rational one, but he had to be level headed. He was trying to save her.

She ran a hand through her hair, leaning back against the back of the bench. “You’re infuriating, you know that?”

“Trust me, I know.”

“You’re hypocritical.”

“Not necessarily,” he said, propping his arm up on the back of the bench. “I was in the industry for years before I started dirtying up my image. You just got here.”

“And you’ve been here too damn long to act the way you do,” she nearly spat, lashing out.

“I’m too far gone,” he simply stated, keeping surprisingly calm through it all.

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

“I’ve been here for a long time, which means, I’ve got a lot more fuck ups under my belt. Irreparable damage, if you will.”

“People love you,” she said, matter-of-factly, like that solved it – it honestly relieved him. A bit of Dom’s naivete from when they first met was shining through.

“People also hate me, because I’m a little shit who sets fires for fun,” he grinned. “For legal reasons, my lawyers insist I clarify that I’m joking.”

She rolled her lips, trying to suppress a smile. “People who hate you don’t know you.”

He nodded. “You’re right, and you’re so close to the point I’m sure you can taste it.”

“I’m too far gone to save. No matter how hard I try for the rest of my career, I can never get away from the wild card label. Plenty of people don’t wanna work with me. I’ve damaged business relationships. Lots of artists don’t want to collab with me because of how it’ll make them look.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because I know you don’t want this. You’re too good for whatever baggage comes with being a ‘rebel’, Dom. I don’t want to see you turn out like me.”

For the first time that night, she stared at him – really stared at him. Her deep brown, nearly midnight eyes searched his for any sign of insincerity.

“You’re… serious?” She asked finally, brows furrowed in confusion.

“One hundred percent honest,” he said, nodding.

She sat back in her chair, chewing on her lip, contemplating.

“Can you turn back around again?”

He nodded, wordlessly facing the wall again.

“I left out a few details,” she said from behind him.

“I’m listening,” he affirmed.

“I, uh, was pretty hammered by the time I left, so it was even harder for me to understand what people were saying,” she said before he could speak. “I heard the reporter say ‘Raleigh’ and ‘novio’ and I saw red… so… I, uh… swung.”

His chest clenched, tightening until it was difficult to breathe. He was thankful she’d asked him to face the other direction, because he knew his reaction betrayed his cool demeanor.

“I guess I’m not over it,” she laughed humorlessly.

He ran a hand over his face, racking his brain for a response, but coming up short.

“You, um, don’t have to say anything if you don’t feel the same. I shouldn’t have gotten attached. It’s on me.”

That made him turn, swivelling around before she could finish speaking.

She flicked her head towards the bars of the cell, raising a hand to cover her face. “I said ‘don’t look at me’, Raleigh. Goddamn.”

Years and years of PR training and interviews and he had no idea how the fuck to console her. Partially because he was trying to get a grip on whatever the hell was going on in his brain as well.

Instead, he answered her with a question of his own, a tactic he’d used anytime he wanted to deflect in interviews.

“Why can’t I look?”

Dom tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, slowly rotating to meet his gaze. She sank her teeth deep into her bottom lip to keep it from trembling.

“Fuck,” she cursed, rubbing the backs of her hands under her eyes, the dried black mascara under her eyes beginning to liquidate again. “Because I’m crying, Raleigh. And I don’t cry.”

“You wanna tell me what’s wrong? I know there’s more to it than you’re telling me,” he asked, holding up two of his fingers in a solute. “No judgement.”

She sighed, crossing the room to put some distance between them. She began pacing, taking slow steps as she spoke.

“I might’ve fucked up my career and I keep letting people down and I’m destructive because this whole fame thing isn’t what I signed up for and I didn’t think I’d cave under pressure like every other mid twenties child actor who goes through a premature mid-life crisis, but here I fucking am,” she said, nearly out of breath by the end.

His legs carried him across the room before he could think twice, pacing towards her while she strode across the room in the opposite direction.

“God, I’m so fucking stupid –”

“Stop. You’re not stupid.”

“I am,” she said, wheeling on him. “And – and I’m embarrassed. I’m embarrassed that my manager and – and my ex –” She stopped in her tracks, rubbing a palm over her forehead, shutting her eyes.

He reached out to her, but let his hand fall almost immediately.

“My acquaintance had to fly out to a fucking village in the middle of nowhere to bail me out –”

“Dom, stop –”

“– because I fought a fucking reporter over not being able to handle my fucking feelings –”

“Dom –”

“– like an adult with a functioning frontal lobe all because I love someone who –”

Her eyes popped open, her expression horrified. “Oh my god, I’m – I –”

She dug the heel of her hands into her eyes, dropping into a squat. “Fuck, fuck, Goddammit –”

“Did you just –”

“Yeah, Raleigh, I did. Don’t make me feel worse, alright? I know I fucked up,” she groaned from her heap on the ground.

“You just said you love me, Dom. I think I’m allowed to react,” he said, a slight teasing to his voice.

She glanced up, glaring. “Okay, then, react.”

Her gaze was fiery, her deep brown irises challenging – something else a bit more vulnerable lying beneath.

She was terrified.

He leaned down, gripping her around the waist to pull her back up, wrapping his arms around her upper back, hugging her to his chest.

She melted into his arms, relaxing and leaning into his embrace.

“I didn’t mean to say it,” she murmured into his chest.

“So do you?” He asked, chin gently balanced on her head.

“What?”

“Do you love me?”

“I don’t know,” she said truthfully, voice small.

“You don’t have to know. I don’t know either,” he said, just as earnest, feeling her tense in his arms. “But I do know that I like you enough to want you around, and that counts for something, right?”

She laughed (as genuine as he’d heard it), leaning back to look at him. “Yeah, it does.”

Their bodies were still pressed together, Dom’s chin tilted upwards towards him, their faces nearly touching.

“If this gets out, don’t let anyone make you feel like you’re a bad person,” he said, voice low. “You’re the best person I know –”

Dom closed the gap between them, capturing his lips in an intense kiss. He cupped her face in his palms and held her in place, moaning into her parted lips.

God, there was nothing that compared to kissing her. Nobody matched up. He’d made out with a lot of people since he was flung into stardom at sixteen, and no one – absolutely no one – left him in a daze like she did.

She gripped the strings of his hoodie, pulling him closer, sighing contentedly against him.

The smell of her shampoo mixed with the sweet scent of her skin and the warmth of her hands and her chest flush against his – it was the next best thing to being inside of her.

He pulled back, trying to catch the dreamy, half-lidded look she always got when they parted.

“So… did you take your jet here?”

He smirked and rolled his eyes. “Out of context, that sounds so superficial.”

She grinned, her first genuine smile that night. “Oh, but you’re not? Hanging around a rising artist to cling to relevancy?”

He laughed, the sound reverberating off of the walls. “I really am rubbing off on you, aren’t I?”

“Yep. The good and bad,” she agreed, still smiling at him.

“The good?” He shook his head. “Nah, I’m not so sure about that.”

“You’re literally the reason I haven’t walked out on my label and moved to bum fuck nowhere and lived off the land,” she said, shrugging. “You taught me how to have fun. You were the only one keeping me sane.”

He thought he was the one encouraging her to leap over the edge, but he was the one tugging her arm back.

The whole time he was convinced he was a bad influence, but he was doing some good – for her.

But with that revelation came the guilt at her words.

“‘Were’?”

“Well, we don’t really talk anymore. I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.”

“Yeah,” she chewed her lip, stepping back, unraveling herself from his embrace. “I’m sorry.”

That was a slap to the face. Dom rarely apologized, because if she felt she was right, she wasn’t going to budge. She was stubborn as hell.

“Huh? Why?” “I don’t want to guilt you into spending time with me… or feeling things for me,” she said, rubbing her arm. “I didn’t mean to corner you.”

“You didn’t. I wanted to come.”

She glanced up, blinking at him. “No, you didn’t –”

“I did,” he emphasized, slipping her hand into his, intertwining their fingers. “I kinda missed being forced to hang out with you. Feels like old times.”

She couldn’t stop the laugh from ripping from her, this one louder than the last. “Oh, shut up.”

“No, but seriously, I’m here for you. Whatever you need. Always.”

“Thank you.” With her free hand, she punched his shoulder lightly. “You’ll regret that sooner or later.”

“Nah,” he said, lip curling into a smirk. “I don’t think I will.”

––––

#playchoices #platinum #raleigh carrera #raleigh carrera x mc #platinumweekend #my fic #jade writes choices fics #tbh i really loved writing this one - it's really special to me !!

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wowweeharrystyles · 4 years ago

Text

Part 15 | The Final Show | 5.9k words

‘Sequins & Zippers’ Summary: An internship with Harry Lambert transformed into a job of a lifetime - Aurora Del Gatto finds herself touring the world with the one & only Harry Styles as his ‘Head of Wardrobe.’ Aurora is nothing but nerves & excitement as she packs her bags & almost 100 custom designer suits that belong to an unbelievably kind rockstar. She never thought she’d fall in love on top of it all.

Sequins & Zippers Masterlist

General Masterlist

A/N: as the title suggests, this is the final show, the end of s&z. I want to thank literally anyone who has read a single word of this story. I started Aurora & Harry’s story at the end of hslot18 & was working on it off & on but set out to finish & post it all in 2020. Thank you for not only reading but for bearing with me when I posted late or not at all. I love these 2 with my whole ass heart. & a big sappy shout out to @sadaboutniall for chatting through S&Z with me for well over a year & not getting sick of me (or at least not telling me AKLNADSHADF) & for still to this day sending me links to random things & being like ‘omg this is so aurora’ 🖤

anyways, here we go, the final part to Aurora & Harry’s story, for now.

love you all, mean it.

Don’t forget to reblog :)

__________

Aurora made sure to wake up before Harry. She knew it wouldn’t be too hard considering how late they were up after the show last night, high off the 1st show in LA and celebrating Mitch’s birthday. She wrote him a note saying she’d meet him at The Forum and left it on his bedside table. Tiptoeing through Harry’s unfamiliar LA home, Aurora gets ready quickly. It’s gonna be a long day, she knows it and the early sunrise is just starting to cast through the windows. Her phone dings from her bag on the counter and it’s Jeff letting her know a car is picking her up from Harry’s in 10 minutes.

She’s still not used to all of this, the jet black private cars and the back doors to arenas even after 67 shows in 5 months. It still makes her anxiety spike when she doesn’t know where she is exactly or where she’s going. She’s learned to trust more, trust her own gut, trust people that are on her side, her team, her family. Aurora’s still not used to the fact that this is her life but just as it’s gotten more and more familiar, it’s about to change.

Large cardboard boxes are waiting for her when she gets to The Forum and meets up with Jeff.

“Have you opened them yet?” Aurora asks him, giddily.

“Nope, was waiting for you. It’s all you,” Jeff says while motioning to the boxes.

Aurora rips open the top box and a wide smile finds a home on her face.

Harry Styles

The Final Show

Of The

First Tour

Of The

Debut Album

Los Angeles

California

“Oh my god, they’re perfect,” Aurora exclaims. As she admires them Jeff is directing a group of people to start handing them out. Aurora grabs one for her and another for Harry before she gets to work helping hand out the tshirts to everyone. The crew and all the tour staff are changing into the matching white t-shirts when Aurora’s phone chimes with a text from Harry letting her know he’s left and on the way. Aurora’s smile hasn’t left her face since she got to The Forum this morning and she knows the smile will only get bigger as the day goes on. She also knows that if she stops smiling she might start crying and she’s not ready for that yet.

Aurora and Helene make their way to the tunnel they know Harry will be driving into and parking his car. They’re waiting for him in their matching t-shirts, Helene’s camera ready and giggling about something from the night before when they see the first glimpse of Harry’s bright yellow car come into view up the ramp. His windows are down, music is playing loudly and he’s wearing his pink tinted sunglasses as he pulls in. People are bustling around, some arriving for the first time today and others already running around with lists to complete before the final show. Everyone looks the same and it’s exactly how Aurora wanted it. The celebratory t-shirts remind her of the big productions they put on at school or the end of year dance recitals. She likes the feeling it creates when everyone’s decked out in their shirts and she wants to celebrate Harry and his entire team. The final show. It’s marking the end of an era. His era.

When Harry gets out of his car, tossing his duffle over his shoulder and sliding his glasses into his hair he stops before he gets to closing the driver door. Aurora hears the click of Helene’s camera. A dimpled smile forms on Harry’s face and no one is really sure if it’s because Aurora’s waiting for him or it’s the tshirts everyone seems to have gotten the memo about. He closes the door eventually and beelines straight for Aurora.

“I have a feeling you have something to do with this,” Harry says as he tugs lightly at Aurora’s t-shirt.

“Might have,” she giggles before kissing him quickly. “Happy final show day!”

“Don’t make me cry already,” he whines, wrapping his arms around Aurora’s shoulders before hiding his face in her hair.

There hasn’t been a single moment of silence all day. The excited chatter, the reminiscing of the crazy moments of the past 5 months, the inevitable tears from just about everyone as they begin their goodbyes. Aurora hasn’t strayed much from Harry all day, only once to sneak out to the entrance of The Forum to see all the displays with Helene and check out the lines of fans. Aurora had to cut her adventure short when she felt her eyes start to fill with tears. She wasn’t ready to deal with that yet.

They’re finally alone in Harry’s dressing room and the silence is welcomed. There’s still bustling and muted chatter and excitement coming from the other side of the door.

Aurora adjusts the shoulders of Harry’s velvet jacket once he’s slid his arms through the sleeves. She lets out a heavy sigh when she drops her arms to her sides. Harry gives her a look that she can only guess is in place of a million words that he can’t manage to string together right now. Aurora has a million and one that she would like to say to him but it’s not the time or place and she really doesn’t want to cry right now. In the silence, Harry pulls at Aurora’s shoulder and wraps his arms around her tight.

“Your shirt is gonna get all wrinkly,” Aurora comments after a few beats. She doesn’t make a move to pull away from Harry, instead she carefully buries her head into his shoulder and squeezes him tighter.

As if on cue, a knock on the door pulls them apart. Harry calls back letting whoever had knocked that he’ll be ready in a minute. Harry kisses Aurora quickly before he grabs his boots from the bottom of the wardrobe case and sits down on the couch to slide them on.

“Ope, love, got some lipstick on you,” Aurora notices. Her lips quirk up in a smirk as she grabs for a makeup wipe nearby. Harry’s standing from the couch when she turns back to him. “Lemme,” she offers, a soft hand reaching up to cup his jaw to hold his head in place. As she goes to wipe away the red waxy mark across his mouth, she pauses first. “One last good luck kiss,” she whispers. When her lips meet his, it's like their tiny little world unfurls right before them. As if today hadn’t been reminiscent enough, Aurora is reminded of all the moments they’ve spent here in what feels like the same dressing room that has just been picked up and moved to another city every day. As Harry runs a light touch down Aurora’s arm they’re both reminded of the small burn mark that’s left from the steamer back in Germany. And Aurora can’t help but pull him in closer because that was one of those early memories that she knew he was a good one, that he wasn’t just some rich pop star that had a revolving door of women coming through his hotel rooms. Another knock pulls them away, yet again. And when Aurora opens her eyes she can't help but squint because she has literally sunshine staring back at her. She steps away only a few inches and goes back to what she was meant to be doing. Wiping away the red stain from Harry’s mouth, she avoids his eyes and focuses on the colour disappearing from his skin.

“Should touch up your lippy,” Harry chuckles when Aurora fully pulls away to toss the dirty makeup wipe in the bin. Aurora takes a look in the mirror and laughs along with him.

“Yikes, I’ll fix this and meet you out there okay?”

“Promise me you’ll be right here when I get off stage tonight?”

“Of course,” Aurora promises, squeezing his hand. The last bit of the pre show playlist starts to near the end and Aurora wants to find her spot in the audience and she has just one last surprise for Harry before he starts his last show. “I should go find my seat,” she almost whispers, not really wanting to leave him just yet, but time is running out. She reluctantly kisses his cheek, careful not to leave any lipstick behind and pulls a piece of paper out of her pocket and hands it to him. “Thought I owed you a note,” she says before she begins to walk away. “Good luck!” She blows him one last kiss before walking through a curtain, away from Harry and into the audience.

Harry,

No words will ever properly describe how proud I am of you. You will forever be my biggest inspiration; from your music to the way kindness is embedded in everything you do. You have changed so many people's lives and I am lucky enough to say that mine is forever changed because I am loved by you. I love you so much.

You are absolute sunshine.

Have fun on stage, rockstar.

Love ya ta bits, Harry Styles.

All the love. As always,

Rory

Nobody is there to see it, but his eyes sparkle, even in the dark of the backstage. The sparkle could be a reflection from the already flashing stage lights or it could be another tear trying to make its way out of his eye, it’s hard to tell at this point. He takes a shaky breath and thanks all the rock gods before him for his life. He reads the note one more time before folding it back up and sliding into the pocket at the inside of his jacket and running up the stairs as the opening of Only Angel begins.

“Good evening, Los Angeles. Welcome to the final show!” Harry speaks for the first time since appearing on the stage. There are chills running down Aurora’s spine as the entire arena erupts in earth shattering screams in reaction to Harry using his own lyrics as an homage to the tour. Aurora keeps catching the faces of fans in the pit and around her when the lights flicker against their tear splotted faces but bright smiles still permanently shine regardless. She can’t even begin to explain the beating of her heart, the fullness of her chest, the tingle in her fingers. It’s truly remarkable that they can hear Harry’s voice at all over everyone singing along to every song.

As Stockholm Syndrome begins, Aurora smiles even brighter remembering where it all started. The pink suit she had to repair in a quick few minutes and hearing a lone Harry Styles sing a song the world is used to hearing being sung by 5 boys. It’s a moment of shock that jolts Aurora as she stands against the banister and she shakes her head because she’s missing it. Missing Harry give this song his all. Probably the last time he’ll ever perform this song. Cause the next time around he’ll have more of his own music to share and won’t be able to make a disclaimer about only having 10 songs to his own name.

Alongside Stockholm Syndrome, there’s a list of songs he’ll never perform live again but Aurora does her best not dwell on that because she gets to hear him sing for the rest of her life.

Sweet Creature and If I Could Fly leave the majority of the audience swaying slowly, still singing along and Harry barely manages to open his eyes. When he does open his eyes it's only for a moment and he’ll catch a glimpse of someone in front of him and he can’t help but stupidly smile. He’s soaking it all in. He wants to remember this feeling. He wants to remember the sound of an echoey arena when the audience sings along gently, completely in unison, filling in the parts he doesn’t sing anymore. They aren’t yelling or screaming the lyrics, but treating them with care, the same way Harry has delivered these lyrics to them every night. He tries to quiet them down and it takes longer than it has any other night.

“Shh, it’s your turn,” he says with such a calming tone that Aurora stops dead in her tracks. She knows that voice better than anyone and she instantly loses the tingling of nerves in her fingers. She welcomes the calm and closes her eyes for a second. The sound of everyone in the room finishing If I Could Fly for him makes his heart float right up to his throat and it threatens to fall out and explode as the singing continues and he keeps playing his guitar. God, he’ll miss this, he thinks. He finishes the last few lines with the audience and closes his eyes again. He’s really gonna fucking miss this.

“I’d like to invite my wonderful band up on the stage,” Harry interludes while moving his mic to a new spot and adjusting his guitar. A little surprise for the final show. And yet again, Harry shushes the audience as the excitement of something unique to the Final Show arises.

I’ve got a girl crush.

The audience erupts so loudly so quickly it's startling. It's impressive how loud the audience is when they start singing along to a song that hasn’t been on a single set list all tour. The way Harry sings this song in particular reminds Aurora of all the times she gets to hear him sing when he’s on his own, not putting on a show, singing for himself.

I hate to admit it but, I’ve got a heart rush, it ain’t slowing down.

This is how he sounds when he’s messing around, having fun, pure undeniable joy while singing. It’s different behind closed doors somehow. He doesn’t mind when his voice cracks, or belts too high and he can’t finish the lyrics or even a single word. He laughs at himself in those moments and Aurora isn’t sure if he’s aware of it when he’s singing around like that. She loves him in those moments, soft and carefree.

“This is the final night of the tour, of everything,” Harry says after the lights on the audience have turned up and he’s back on the mainstage. He points to a fan in the audience “What’s wrong with you?” He mimics the girl shaking her head, clearly not wanting to come to terms that this is the final show. “Oh you’re just sad?” he asks to confirm. Harry’s voice pitches up, “how do you think I feel?” and the audience erupts in laughter. It's the theme of the evening, being emotional over the final show, being excited to be there. Harry see’s Kacey in the middle of the pit and she’s holding a sign thanking him. Harry praises her from the stage and thanks her in return for joining the tour.

“We’re gonna sing another song for you now, but before we go any further I will be thanking people along the way. I hope you don’t mind. There are so many people in this audience tonight that quite simply I wouldn’t be on this stage without.” Harry pauses and turns his head in the direction where he knows everyone close to him is at. “All of you, you know who you are. Thank you so much for coming tonight. I love you very much. Thank you for being here with us tonight.” Somehow in a room of thousands of people Harry finds Aurora’s eyes. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he runs on before a quick pause. “And,” he gathers his thoughts again, clearly losing what he was meaning to say or do next, “I’ll see you in a little bit,” he rambles quickly.

“Promise me you’ll be right here when I get off stage tonight?”

The simple request rings in Aurora’s head and she misses what he says or does next but when she focuses back in the opening notes give her the gist of what he might have said.

It’s the song that made him. The beginning of it all, really. Yelling along to these lyrics is anyone's right of passage into the room filled with love and kindness. Aurora knows this song isn’t one that will be performed for it’s last time tonight. It's his anthem as an artist, as Harry Styles. It's the song anyone and everyone knows regardless if you were ever a One Direction or Harry Styles fan. What Makes You Beautiful echoes off the walls and the floor and the ceiling and even though Harry has fully made it his own, changed the octave, changed the backing track, changed the rhythm of the lyrics, every single person that fills The Forum is singing along like it’s the original track. As the audience sings the version they’ve known for 7 years and Harry performs his solo rendition, it’s hard to fight the utter joy that erupts in Aurora’s chest.

The anthem is completed with Harry dancing around the stage while waving 3 different flags. The image alone ecompases the whole point of this song, the whole point of this tour, the whole entire fucking point of Treat People With Kindness. And right now there’s nothing more Aurora loves than watching Harry dance along to the “na na na’s.” His hair wildly flopping around, the light reflecting off of the gold and silver details, the sight of the ENTIRE pit jumping up and down.

“Okay, let’s get emotional,” Harry says before asking for the lights up again. “Thank you, this is part of the show where I’m gonna say thank you to a couple people, then I’m gonna sing a song and then I’m gonna leave. We’re gonna all pretend like I’ve gone but 90 seconds later I’m gonna come back and do a couple more songs. Alright?” Screams, nothing but screams fill the room.

As Harry begins his thank you speech to his crew Aurora just knows. He’s hitting that point where it’s all really sinking in. He’s taking long pauses between words but masking it as needing to take a breather from being out of breath from singing and dancing. Aurora knows, though. She knows he’s pushing back the tears, swallowing down the bittersweetness of it all.

“Thank you to my friends, my family, my manager, to all who are all in the audience tonight.” And then Harry starts to stutter over his words. “I-I have to thank my Head of Wardrobe that’s been on tour with me since March.” Aurora brings her hands up to her heart because this is the thank you she wasn’t prepared for. “Thank you for making me sparkle just right on stage and for making sure this was always a family show after I ripped several trousers.” And that’s where Harry leaves it. He doesn’t finish the family show bit, but the audience knows enough to finish it for him.

Aurora’s in shock. It was unexpected and she feels like there’s cotton in her ears as the audience continues to scream and she hears waves of “aw” coming from the fans when they put it together. Jeff claps a hand on Aurora’s shoulder and it brings her back to the moment. Aurora mouths a thank you to Harry on stage while he’s still looking in her direction.

Harry shakes his head before completing his thank yous to the fans. The ones who made this all possible.

Sign of the Times hurts. It really truly hurts. The way his vocals are pretty much perfect and there’s almost a pained look on his face as he belts through it. Aurora doesn’t take her eyes off of him the entire time. He feels it too, the heavy emotion of the song. And he knows he’s not crying in a cool way, he’s crying cause this is it for now. This is the last of it. There's no reason to act cool about it. And Aurora can see the sparkle in his eye and it’s not from the rhinestones on his jacket. It’s from the tears that are welling up in his waterline

And it’s when he snaps his mic back into the stand at center stage, lets out a quick breath through pursed lips, his eyes looking up to the ceiling, that Aurora knows he’s really crying. The quick wipe across his eyes and cheek solidifies the thought.

We don’t talk enough. We should open up.

And then there are tears brimming in her eyes. And as he continues to sing Sign of the Times she lets the tears fall for the first time that day.

“I hope to be seeing you all very soon.” The gritty opening of Kiwi starts and it rattles Aurora’s chest. The last and final song of the tour. Harry blows Aurora a kiss before fully going for it. It's the end and he’s got nothing to lose.

There’s a sinking feeling when Harry goes for his water bottle once he’s finished singing the last lyric of Kiwi. It’s the end.

But it seems that it’s not. His band doesn’t stop playing and Harry swallows the last gulp of water he took and launches into Kiwi for a 2nd time.

Aurora’s jaw drops. She had no idea. He hadn’t told her about this. She wishes she could say she’s surprised that this is something he planned but she really isn’t. When she thinks about it, she should’ve known.

It’s pure adrenaline coursing through him. There are no words to describe him on stage right now. Carefree or loose doesn’t even cut it. He’s out of breath but STILL dancing around, singing into the mic and engaging with the audience and his band.

“Holland tunnel for a nose it’s always backed up!” The audience yells when he points the mic towards them unable to finish the line himself.

And then he snaps his mic into the stand and starts to jog down the stairs and through the aisle. Aurora just laughs cause at this point there’s literally no telling what he does next. A cordless mic appears in his hand halfway down the aisle.

I’m having your baby!

He appears on the b stage, a spotlight following him the entire time. As Harry dances along to the music Aurora’s hands go into her hair and her eyes widen. She can’t help but shake her head when he changes the lyrics.

She’s all over me and I'm exhausted, I’m exhausted. Sing it !

And he’s running back down the stairs, through the aisle again and up the main stage stairs. Aurora’s still in her spot unable to even dance around or sing along as she watches him. It’s entrancing to watch this all go down in front of her. He catches a sunflower mid air when he’s back on stage. Literally anything could happen at this point.

Aurora’s sure he’s gonna collapse right there on stage but he doesn’t, yet. He takes a last sip of water and makes his way to center stage for the finale.

He sticks his tongue out which indicates to the fans that he’s not finished yet, he’s not ending this night just yet. He’s not about to do the signature whale. Instead, he pumps up the crowd, mouthing “make some noise,” and then he motions to Alex, his guitar tech and the rest of his sound crew that are at the side of the stage. Aurora catches him yelling “I’m exhausted,” to them but still turns away and walks back to center stage. He makes eye contact with each of his band mates and circles a hand around above his head to indicate One More Time. He raises up his pointer finger to Mitch, “one more time” he mouths at him.

“Should we do it one more time?” Harry yells.

Earth shattering screams are the response and Aurora thinks all the times before when she thought that she’s never heard such a deafening audience she was wrong. Because now, in this moment at The Forum with Harry asking the audience if he should do Kiwi for a 3rd time she knows it’s the loudest thing she’s ever heard in her entire life. The sound will ring in her ears for days.

And so he goes for it again. A third time. Now she’s in shock.

She worked her wait through a cheap pack of cigarettes,

Hard liquor mixed with a little bit of intellect

And all the boys they were saying she was into it

Such a pretty-

He’s well and truly out of breath. The look on his face is helpless. “Sing it,” he manages to breathe out into the mic before almost doubling over. So instead of taking the mic with him and trying to muster through the vocals, he leaves the mic snapped in and walks away from it. He’s mouthing the lyrics as every single person in the audience yells them to him. He’s walking back and forth from stage left to stage right, making sure to give enough of himself to every single person in the room.

The shock has slightly worn off and there’s a hint of concern weighing on Aurora but she still sings along with everyone. He ends up singing some of the chorus but he really can’t get through much of it on his own. He doesn’t finish a single line himself the rest of the song but he doesn’t care, nobody cares. Even though he can't muster up the energy or adrenaline to sing he doesn’t stop dancing. He’s tangling himself up in his mic cord and Aurora hopes he’s got enough luck and adrenaline left in him to not fall.

And now she’s all over me, it’s like I paid for it, It’s like I paid for it, I'm gonna pay for this.

He drops to his knees center stage, head hanging low. It's a quick second of pure exhaustion before he’s bobbing his head around, hair flying and arms pumping.

Finally, as Kiwi comes to an end for the 3rd time that night, he takes a sip of water and gives the final show. He sprays water into the air, the music blares out and the lights flare.

“I’m gonna go get him,” Aurora tells Jeff before leaving their section. She moves through the pit as Harry is hugging his band once the music ends. She understands now, the last thing he said to her before getting on stage. The look on his face when he goes to hug Mitch says it all. Aurora waits backstage near the stage steps, watching Harry, Mitch, Sarah, Clare and Adam take their final bow. She hugs Harry’s bandmates as they come down the stairs one at a time. Harry is taking one more lap of the stage before he is walking off, a stark contrast from how he normally runs off the stage after all of his other shows. When he reaches the stairs he walks down slowly and lets out a big sigh, shoulders dropping and a hopeless look appears on his face as his feet hit the floor. Aurora feels like she can’t move fast enough towards him even though she’s not even 2 feet from the stairs. She wraps her arms tightly around his shoulders, his face instantly finding a home hiding in her neck. A sob racks through his chest and she reaches up to place a hand in his hair. He’s breathing heavily and she’s running her hand over the back of his head, smoothing down his curls. Harry wraps his arms around her waist, his grip getting tighter every second they stand there.

“Hey, Sunshine,” Aurora says softly, her hands making their way to Harry’s cheeks, so she can look him in the eyes. Once she makes out his face in the dark, she can see that his eyes are already swelling up from the tears that are now consistently flowing down his cheeks. “Hey,” she coos at him, using the pads of her thumbs to wipe the tears from the top of his cheeks. Aurora’s heart breaks at the sight in front of her but she knows she needs to be his rock right now. She can be sad about this tour ending later. She can be emotional about how proud she is of Harry, later. Aurora kisses him softly, fitting their lips together perfectly, just as they always do. The kiss is a bit more wet than normal, from the tears still falling down Harry’s face. When they break apart, he offers her a small smile before there’s a laugh erupting from him. He takes his hands from her waist and uses the back of his hands to wipe at his eyes roughly.

“That was the final show,” he says softly.

“Yeah,” she sighs, her hands reaching to grab for his, “you did it, Rockstar.” He drops his head onto Aurora’s shoulder again. He’s utterly exhausted, physically and emotionally. “Come on, let’s go get you some water and I’m pretty sure you’ve got some friends that wanna say congrats.” She drops his hands and wraps one arm around his waist and he throws one over her shoulder as they make their way to the double doors that lead them to the dressing rooms and lounges.

“Thanks for being there when I got off,” he says as he presses a kiss to her hair, “knew I was barely gonna make it to the end.”

“Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

It’s a weird feeling, pulling every single suit from the wardrobe cases. It’s a weird feeling to be around while the stage gets taken down. They never stayed long enough after a show night to see it get taken down, Aurora’s only ever seen it being built night after night. It’s stupidly therapeutic and symbolic Aurora thinks to herself as she checks off another item of clothing on her list.

She really doesn’t have to be organizing Harry’s suits right now. She doesn’t need to be taking inventory at this exact moment. This could easily wait till tomorrow afternoon. But Harry’s been lingering around the Forum since his last guest left. He’s completely sober even after the several drinks he tossed back with friends in the backstage lounge in celebration. Everyone’s left besides the crew. Harry can’t pull himself together enough to leave and accept that tour is over. That this era is over.

“I’m gonna go away for awhile. I’m gonna make some more music and I will see you again very soon.”

The 2 sentences echo in his head. The hitch in his throat comes back every time he thinks about it. He’s having a hard time saying goodbye to this. He’s never loved the end of tour. It’s too bittersweet. The performing bit is his favourite part of his job. This time though, it's more bitter than sweet because he doesn't have to go running back home to fit in all the time with his loved ones. The past 2 years have been on his terms. He doesn’t have to hectically plan visits or vacations. He gets to take his time. Go stay with his mum for a month if he wants, travel with Gemma and Michael, visit his god children, freaking write music whenever he wants, whenever the inspiration comes about.

Harry knows the inspiration won’t be hard to find. He takes a glance over at Rory. Her tongue is poking out between her lips in concentration as she examines another one of his suits. He can’t help the blush that rises to his cheeks as he watches her. His Rory. He knows in the back of his mind that he’ll have to say goodbye to her more than he would like in the next couple of months. More goodbyes than they’ve ever shared in the past 5. That’s what makes this more bitter than sweet.

Harry just sits on one of the crates as he chats with his crew. It’s the most genuine time he’s been able to spend with them but he knows these people, his tour family. He asks a few about how their wives are doing and when the due dates are of their babies. He jokes about hoping he didn’t work them too hard and to expect a call from him in the future to pack it all up again and get on with another tour. Harry’s laughter echoes through the emptying arena and every so often it pulls Aurora from her concentration. She catches his eyes sometimes and she can’t help but smile. And in the bright overhead lights of the almost empty arena, the brightest light is the one smiling back at her. Harry’s tear streaked face, unruly curls and dimpled cheeks are the only thing that she can focus on.

Aurora now stands near the door that leads back to the dressing rooms, her wardrobe cases ready to be packed up and dealt with later. She watches as Harry continues to shake every single person’s hand. He thanks everyone individually, even approaches the Forum’s cleaning staff that are weaving in and out of the seats. Every few thank you’s he looks back at her, his Rory. His Rory who has been his rock, his best friend, his stylist, his lover. There are too many words to describe his Rory but also not enough. He doesn’t think he could’ve made it through this tour without her and he’s so fucking thankful.

When he finally joins Aurora in the doorway he presses a sure kiss to her forehead, their hands tangling together. They don’t say anything as they walk back through the now empty halls back to Harry’s car parked on the other side of the arena. Harry’s lost in his head and so is Aurora and neither of them need to say anything to each other at this moment.

Harry can’t grasp how he’s supposed to explain to Aurora that he didn’t expect her to have this amount of an impression on him. Didn’t expect her to change his entire life. How does he explain to her that he doesn’t think he could’ve done all that he’s done since March without her? How does he show her that she means that much to him?

Harry doesn’t know, but Aurora's thoughts line up almost perfectly with his.

And as they get into his car, buckle their seatbelts and make their way home Harry doesn’t turn on the music and Aurora simply reaches for his hand to anchor herself to this moment. It’s way too late at night, or maybe by this point too early in the morning but when Aurora looks at Harry, it all comes flooding back to her.

Sunshine in its purest form is sitting next to her. When Harry catches Aurora’s gaze before driving out of the parking lot he remembers all the things they’ve done, all the things they’ve seen and he can’t help but be excited for what will happen next.

He can't’ wait to see the colours she’ll shine just for him, his own Aurora Borealis.

She doesn’t have to go a day without sunshine.

Who knew that a pink Gucci suit would have started all of this.

🖤🖤🖤

#Sequins & zippers #aurora on tour #harry styles writing #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fluff #harry styles blurb #harry styles one shot #one direction writing #one direction fanfic #1d fanfic #Harry styles #harry styles x ofc

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steve0discusses · 5 years ago

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Yugioh S4 Ep1 Part 1: Yugi Ditches Algebra, Cards Become Real

Ah, a new season a new day. It’s Season 4. And we’re going to start of with:

A deep sea sub. Sure, why not?

So Yugi’s unofficial other grandpa, Arthur Hawkins, AKA one of the member’s of this show’s only really happening OTP has decided to kinda ditch his Granddaughter Rebecca and go to the bottom of the ocean. Don’t blame him. Down here is where, I guess, he will come across this very Grecian looking structure.

Like Yugioh nonchalantly passes a lot of bad history at me but like...he’s in the Atlantic Ocean and there’s Grecian style stuff everywhere?

Why? I mean at least he’s not in the Pacific but like...Yugioh. Anyways, we’re not in Greece but the show had very little time to invent a brand new ancient architecture style although I would be super down for that.

But like...here’s the thing about columns--you can go really deep into column lore and people are really freakin picky about columns and what they mean, and this could have been a low key hilarious place to make an entirely new column order just for Yugioh. They could’ve done it and they decided not to. It’s OK, I’ll save it for the Marik’s Boat Time spinoff they’ll never ever make.

But I just want to bring up just real super fast that Noah and Gozaburo must’ve known about this place for years right? Like they super lived underwater and had robots poised to attack mankind stationed all over the sea floor so...we can pretty much guarantee they already knew about this place?

Just gonna bring up what a shame it is Noah freakin died.

Also want to bring up what a shame it was that Arthur didn’t show up at the beginning of S3 and be like “hey Yugi, I was just in the neighborhood, noticed you got picked up by an undersea gang, what’s up?”

(read more under the cut)

Anyway, there he is, our 70 yo adventurer, who has more energy than I have at under half his age. Arthur Hawkins needs to take it down a few pegs.

Or is it Hawkings?

Wtv.

Anyways, I gave Hawkins this tweed colored font that I just realized is nearly the same as Joey’s so it’ll change if he ever comes back.

Thanks for that prologue, Yugioh. Anyway, apparently no one on this side of Japan freakin cares, because despite finding what looks exactly like Godzilla’s lair on the bottom of the sea, we’re gonna instead fixate on Rex and Weevil.

Y’all I was going to make a joke about “why does this show fixate so much on Rex and Weevil at the beginning of so many arcs?” when I remembered that Bakura basically murdered all the other mean mini bosses from S1 except for Bandit Keith, who probably got deported by now.

I had to think long and hard just now about whether or not I’ve used that joke before because it is S4 and y’all I just don’t even remember.

(I have a very long story about Warby Parker that I just deleted fyi)

Rex is a Christmas plaid now because there are too many characters in this show.

Now that Rex and Weevil have been reunited, which is surprising because I just assumed these two have been Bert and Ernie-ing it up in some condo in the NYC, They say:

I almost forgot about the secret side-plot of Yugioh, that everyone is a cheese monger and very open about it.

So anyway, they’re off to have a very simple storyline of “I will try and Challenge Yugi Muto for God Cards” which...good luck with that, it only took 2 seasons for Yugi to finally accept his challenge from Seto Kaiba. Have fun following around Yugi Muto for 2 seasons.

When there’s a...really bizarre twist that happens. Just a very weird turn of events. Like recall that it’s the middle of the day, and the sun is shining, and there’s people and cars everywhere, and it’s a good neighborhood, and then, like playing Pokemon in tall grass, this guy just appears in front of them.

And guys, I’m from the Bay Area and I have slipped and fallen right on top of my phone on Fillmore which was DEVASTATING so like...their unstoppable speed walk down this 12 degree slope is...

I think they wanted to run into them, I really think they did. I think people in this town are so desperate for any excuse to fall into a horrifying disaster that they are just magnetically attracted to anyone wearing an oversized blanket.

Also this guy’s look is...kind of forgettable. It’s somehow weird and also forgettable at the same time. Hit that sweet spot for me. I don’t even remember this guy’s name, it was so forgettable. I’ll look it up later. Maybe bro will do it. I dunno. He wears a Monocle so like...that’s all I can say about this guy.

OK so I just checked in with Bro and then Bro made a weird rant about this guy being called Gurimo and how bro had some strong opinions about Season 4. Then Bro said a statement that really stuck with me, although I only remember part of the statement which was: “...this guy can just go get more monocles from Forever 21 and Hot Topic...” which made me very quickly realize my adult brother has never entered either a Forever 21 or a Hot Topic if he thinks a cultist in a monocle would purchase monocles from there.

I learned a lot and now you have to know this too.

And in case you’re wondering “did Rex and Weevil deserve this?” No. He just immediately decided to steal their soul on the sidewalk in front of Women’s Foot Locker from what I assume is just down the street from Yugi Muto’s house/game shop.

(how did this storyboarder nail the 3/4 degree angle on Weevil here? Do you know how hard that is to do with not just glasses but weird ass chunky glasses?)

Ah, a duel disk that can stab yourself in the stomach with two very poorly laid out barbs.

Very nice rival to Kaiba’s duel disk that will behead you if you don’t fling your arm out just right.

So like...did he steal a duel disk from Kaiba and then mod it? Is that what they did? The whole point of duel disks is that you’re linked up to the Dueling Facebook or whatever...so did this Cultist buy a normal duel disk from Toy’s R Us and then say “ahahah I’m going to do so much card crime!” and then start modding it with help of a cosplay forum? Like what’s the story here of how this guy spent all of last year (and definitely all of last season) modding this duel disk over a computer desk, some metallic acrylic paint, and a sauntering iron, feverishly asking his forum if anyone can 3d print some sick ass runes for his soul-sucking duel disk?

And then I guess this guy dueled both Rex and Weevil at the same time? Like this was all off screen...but why didn’t Rex and Weevil just leave? Just don’t pull out your duel disk and you’re probably good?

Just so many ways to have avoided losing your soul in the first ten minutes of Yugioh.

Anyway, on the other side of town, Tea is worrying about Yugi which is basically her normal.

Joey and Tristan decided to meet up with her, not because she was clearly in distress, but because Yugi isn’t around, and why worry about Tea when instead your friend Yugi is probably going to destroy the world the moment you turn around (and he did. Yugi absolutely effed everything up the very moment these three took their eyes off of him)

And what was weird is that it took Yugi until, I dunno...several streets over to kind of come out of the ether and be like “heeey Pharaoh...um...what’s up?” Like it took him this long to say something. Probably so that by the time they would have walked back to school math would have been over.

So...did Yugi just not notice at first? Like it’s sort of amazing what these two don’t know what the other one is up to. Including this situation that little Yugi absolutely should have picked up on.

As it turns out, the cards are speaking very audibly to Pharaoh. This should have been somewhat of a...youknow...red flag...since Yugi can’t hear them but Pharaoh can. But, Yugi’s like “well...we’re so used to everyone just giving us the answer and that being the right call, I guess this must also be the right call.”

And...although he had quite the head start, These three are more than willing to drop the hell out of class and rack up those absences. I’m gonna assume they had to make up another wild excuse about Tea’s cat to that one teacher to get out of school just like last time, but they did all that offscreen.

And then Tea just kind of snapped, and she did so with a smile the entire time.

Her wording was somewhat different, but she did basically say something along the lines of “if you don’t remember me telling you this a million times, you are an idiot” and Pharaoh didn’t have an answer and so it was like he said without saying anything “yes, I am.”

Which he will further prove like five minutes from now.

Like Y’all, bless his cursed perfect ass, but Pharaoh is the biggest idiot in this show. Sometimes he’s brilliant, but if he’s ever left to his own devices, just the biggest idiot. He got duped by some guy pretending to throw his voice so that his cards looked like they were talking to him. Pharaoh thought cards can talk.

And so that’s how Pharaoh freakin caused the Apocalypse. The first of many.

He did so just so very easily.

His cards started wigging out, the tablet started icing over--it was like “hey remember what took 2 seasons to build up to? Well screw it.”

Also this happened, apropos of absolutely nothing.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand cards are real.

I mean they’ve been real for a few seasons but now the cards are officially real and they’re not cute like Pokemon. They’re all really gross and roided out and they probably have a funky smell. All of them.

I knew we’d get here eventually I just didn’t know it would be SO fast.

When no one was paying absolutely any attention--when my entire focus was inside of this museum, that was when cards became real.

Well...

...time to shove em into little balls I guess. Anyways, that’s it for this update because this episode was a lot of stuff so I’m gonna split it so y’all have it easier and so I have it easier too.

And if you just got there this is S4, if you want to start reading these from S1, here’s a link to the collection in chrono order, it’s basically like reading a Victor Hugo length of book except its just me ranting about WTF is going on in OG Yugioh for 100+ episodes, knock yourself out.

#Yugioh #ygo #recap #photo recap #episode recap #S4 #S4 Ep1 #Yugi Muto #Joey Wheeler #Tristan Taylor #Tea Gardner #Arthur Hawkins #Rex Raptor #Weevil underwood #I can't believe I remember both of those dummies' last names #Gurimo #a single monocle

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posseideux · 6 years ago

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Why My Candy Love died, and why it matters

(half-assedly written by Gemini Charlie)

If you were a twelve year old girl in 2010, you’ll probably remember those ads for a game called “My Candy Love”. Flirt with the boy of your dreams! they said. It looked to be the perfect game, especially for the ones of us getting into anime and manga, due to its heavily anime inspired style and feel. You might still follow this game, like many of the original players do to this day.

Now let me tell you, I was an active participant in this fandom for a very long time. I still have the first 3 tomes of the manga(even if their quality is less than absimol) and I got the first artbook when it came out. I loved this game with all of my might, and I wanted to create something similar when I grew up. For a while I was also one of the annoying people who screamed betrayal at every new thing I didn’t like(we’ll get to that) and when they announced the new version of the game, Campus Life, I was thrilled. Something like MCL but more mature! It just had to be good… but why is it not?

First, let’s start with how most of us discovered My Candy Love: Imagine you, at the ripe age of eleven years old. You’re probably playing a dress up game, or just a standard game on Y8 or Coolmathgames. Then, you see this ad: It’s pink, it’s shiny, and it has three beautiful boys: A red haired hottie, and blonde smart one, and a beautiful, charming white-haired man. Flirt with them all, it tells you. And just like that, click! and you’re in.

Chances are you probably named yourself something like EmoQueen, or xX_beautykills_Xx, because that’s just how the internet was back then. You started up the game, and ever since, every day of the many years to come, you would log back in. Months upon months were spent searching for the students in Sweet Amoris High School, looking to finish the ridiculous missions of this game. Or perhaps you spent hours upon hours chatting up with other fans of the game on the forums about whatever was popular at the time. Whichever it was, you loved that darn game, and you would play it even after it was finished!

But really take the time to think about it. Was My Candy Love really that good? The writing was stiff, the characters were stereotypical or empty at best. Why did we love this game that was clearly not written with that much love or talent? Let me direct you to a critic that I believe most of you know: the Nostalgia Critic. If you have no clue of who he is, he is a movie critic(somewhat) who makes videos about old but popular movies and all the bad stuff that’s in them. Now, of course, the Critic didn’t say anything about My Candy Love, that would be kind of odd considering his main audience, but we can learn a thing or two about one of his videos, the one about Hocus Pocus, to be exact.

In it, the Critic talks about how Halloween culture loves Hocus Pocus, which wouldn’t hold up in our current culture because it’s not that good, but because they watched it as kids it has a certain charm. I think the same happened with My Candy Love. We all loved it as twelve year old girls, but now that we know better, we can clearly see that, well… it’s pretty horrible.

The “high schoolers” don’t really act like teenagers, neither do they look the part, and the story has no conflict or interesting things to say. Despite that, we all loved it. And, if you’re like me, you still kind of do.

The problem is, it is so anchored in our childhoods that all of its flaws are okay. To this day, I still like the fact that the story is kind of ridiculous and out of touch. I like the stereotypes and the almost fantasy-like vision of high school. But then, something happened: The writers delved into serious matters. Badly.

Here is a writing lesson for you: Find a tone, and stick to it. If your story is supposed to be funny, you can’t just go full serious out of nowhere. If your story is serious, you can’t just go and slap a comic relief on that bad boy and expect it to go well. My Candy Love was always an unrealistic, romance-based game with no real plot, but with the last few episodes, the tone changed completely from dumb to dull.

For example, after a few chill episodes of theater and romance, you are hit with a new episode: Nathaniel, the blonde one, has been going through physical abuse from his father, and you have to help him. Huh, that’s new. Remember, the game, up to this point, has been pretty ridiculous and not serious at all. To me, this episode felt like those PSAs from the 90s trying to get you not to take marijuana while having Bugs Bunny tell you so. It just felt weird.

And after that, they didn’t stop: Blackmail, dating apps, condoms, STDs… all written with about as much grace as a naked man covered in lube trying to walk on ice. And that, my friends, started what I would call the downfall of this game.

Episode 40 came out. The characters graduated, your main character is happy in her relationship, and the end? You get laid… and that’s it. If you’ve ever tried to write an emotional scene or a good ending to a long story, you would know that it’s really hard to do so well and get all of the side stories well closed and done. So, considering the fact that this game is written like a twelve year old girl’s fanfiction(how fitting), you can assume how horrible the ending was. Why was it so bad? Campus Life.

I’m not gonna make you sit through the whole last episode, because it’s long and boring, but here is how it ends: You’re in bed with your lover, and your MC reflects about the future and what’s to come. Then, it cuts to a “some years later” shot, with a new school, where the main character is older and having a conversation about her last year of university with her former best buddy from high school. And, just like that, you are invited to continue your adventure to University.

Great! You think to yourself. There are so many possibilities for cool stuff in Uni, it’s gonna be ridiculous and beautiful, I bet! But no, of course it’s not. Remember how the original game was good because of how bad it was? Well, this game isn’t horrible, but it’s not good either, which makes it a thousand times worse.

Tommy Wiseau created The Room, a movie infamous for being so bad it’s actually really fun to watch and try to understand. Now, imagine if he came out with The Room 2, a completely okay written, realistic movie about the main character’s work. You watch it and… it’s horrible. But not the right kind, that is. That’s what Campus Life feels like: something that could have been great but is just bad instead, because the writers didn’t stick to the right tone.

Also, this game feels like it was pushed upon the players, which just makes most people want to dislike it, and it’s very easy to do so. The final episode of the real game, which is what I call it, ends in a hurry to make place for this serious, boring game that no one in their right mind would enjoy playing. In fact, CL didn’t just affect the last episode, it affected the last 10 to 15 episodes, because the writers tried to change the mood of the game to make it more serious to fit their sequel.

So, Campus Life ruined the ending of a game that could have been so much better(even if better means more ironically enjoyable) by trying to remove what made it so good. Because of that, no one wants to play the new game because the charm of My Candy Love is gone, and our love for it is dead.

The fandom might not be dead to some of you, but to me, this game has lost all of the charm that it once had, and it makes me sad to see so little care for the situation coming from the creators(and that’s a whole other problem). I loved this game to bits, and no, if you were wondering, I’m not going to play the new version, because it sucks, but it doesn’t suck as well as its former self. And that’s what made it so good in the first place.

Thank you for listening, the exits are at the back

#my candy love #mcl #mclul #campus life #my candy love campus life #essay #long post #very long post #hate me all you like #mclul sucks

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hangonimevolving · 5 years ago

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Inside Out and Upside Downs

Hi all. Thought I’d update on various and sundry agenda items going on in my life. Never a dull moment ‘round here.

HEALTH

Firstly, let’s talk about my innards. There’s been a whole lot of activity going on with regard to my innards of late. Thanks to the excitement of my Disney flu adventure and my New Years ICU party, I am now the subject of a great deal of medical speculation and attention, from a variety of parties. I have a standing weekly blood draw and appointment on Thursdays with my hematologist (fancy word for blood doctor) to monitor my platelet levels, and other misc blood-related information that concerns immunoglobulins and weird, mysterious things like that. I have had two appointments, as well as a momma-jomma lab workup, with a rheumatologist (fancy word for doctor who specializes in autoimmune issues). I’ve had an appointment to set up care with a brand-new-to-me primary care physician. And in the middle of all of this, I decided that since I’m going to be in/around the hospital so frequently, I might as well do a short course of physical therapy for my ankle - I never got around to doing it, so now is the time. So that’s a recurring weekly appointment on Tuesdays. I’ve also got random other crap, like a random head MRI happening tomorrow, and I’m sure there will be random tests, scans, and studies that random doctors will order at random times, and I’ll have to fit it into the schedule. I am being thoroughly examined, inside out. And with all of these medical opinions, appointments, tests and what not - in the last 24 days, there has been NO concrete diagnosis or evidence about why this whole thing actually happened. There are several theories, the two most likely of which are a) I have an autoimmune disorder. Well, we already know I have one autoimmune disorder (a not-so-bad one, called Graves Disease/hyperthyroidism, which I was first diagnosed with in 2006, and which involves your own body perceiving your own thyroid gland as a foreign object, and attacking it with antibodies). But now there is some evidence that I may have a second one, possibly a more problematic one, that is causing my immune system to overreact to normal viruses and things, and go on self-destructive rampages against my own platelets. Dumbass immune system. Now, what IS this second autoimmune disorder? THAT we don’t know. Because, the rheumatologist ran that momma-jomma test I was telling you about, and all that showed up is this one value called a positive ANA test which indicated “daaamn, there’s something f%^ed going on in this lady’s immune system!” It was a very high positive result. But, the specific tests to identify antibodies for known issues like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, etc. were all negative at this time. So. To be continued with that whole theory.....

Then there is theory #2, which is b) maybe this whole thing really WAS just the flu. Maybe the strain of virus I got was really bad, and it resulted in such a pronounced war that it just took a toll. Dunno.

Anyway. We’ll obviously be following this medical mystery with my innards closely the next few weeks. Oh, and one more thing: so my platelet levels are sorta trending down. At hospital discharge, I was at like 313K, then the next week it was like 250K, then 180K, and yesterday, 146K. They’re going to keep monitoring, and the hope is that the downtrend will plateau at some point (preferably above 30K), and then it will start to climb up when my own bone marrow gets its shit together and starts producing new platelets. If that doesn’t happen - I’m looking at more IVIG infusion treatments. So let’s see how it all goes down.

WORK

A second area of activity has been my job! The spring semester at Uuuu! started on January 13, and I am teaching two courses this time around, for the first time since 2016. I am teaching my studio dance course, per usual, but I also agreed to a late plea for help from my former department to teach a lecture/discussion course that I’ve taught jillions of times before, but haven’t done in about four years. It feels good to be back in classroom teaching mode. The course meets three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. So I’m quite busy, leaving the house around 8 am to drop the kids off at school, then getting back behind the wheel and making the hour-long drive to campus, arriving by about 9:30 am and teaching my two courses back to back. I have a big huge hike between my classes too, because they’re on opposite sides of campus, so by the time I’m done teaching, it’s about 12:20 and then I have this big long hike back to my car, then the drive back home, and I arrive around 1:30 pm. I grab a bite to eat, then at 2:45 its time to get the kids. Then three days a week, they have their extracurricular activities after school, so I’m shuttling them to those things. Then Tuesdays and Thursdays, all my medical appointments, which have been taking the majority of my mornings and early afternoons. Phew! This is all a far cry from about a year ago, when I had several mornings a week to go for a long run, either in my neighborhood or at the local state park, and I was training intensely twice a week with my Spartan SGX coach. I’ve had to seriously curtail my working out - I took a spill on my first run following the hospitalization, and the entire family freaked out about my putting myself at a bleed risk if I were to fall, bump myself, or otherwise get an injury, even a minor one, while exercising. This has been a huge crimp in my style, not working out - and if I weren't so busy with teaching, I think it would seriously depress me. But I keep telling myself its only temporary, and soon we’ll have some answers to my situation, and I”ll be able to get back into it. Till then, I’m trying to get back into meal prep and eating clean, and doing some mild exercise like light jogs and walks, light weight training, etc.

ADULTING

My mention of weight training is perhaps a segue to this next update, which I’ll keep brief and annoyingly vague. I am going through some painful adulting right now, that makes some moments feel like I’m being swallowed up by a tsunami. I’m gonna survive... but, yeah. I’m wading in the flood right now.

Okay, now for some miscellaneous updates. Mainly so I can post some pictures. This has been very text-heavy for my tastes.

MISC

On the topic of clean eating..... did you know that both papaya and pomegranate are natural platelet boosters? Supposedly. I’ve been doing a lot of research on foods and other natural ways to help boost my platelet production, and these were the top two foods that were consistently mentioned on platelet disorders blogs and forums. I confess I’m not a big fan of these fruits - but I’ve tried to put my tastebuds aside, and incorporate them into every day. Happily, papayas are widely available in the Miami area year-round.

I’ve handled the pomegranate thing by buying 100% pomegranate juice, and making cocktails of pomegranate + papaya juice (which is papaya pulp mixed in pear juice).

On the topic of foods and eating well - here is my guilty indulgence of late. I ADOOOOORE ramen bowls. ADORE. And I know they are the opposite of low-carb and healthy.... but I have been making a ton of them at home lately. I try to make them as healthy as I can, by 1) only using half of the ramen spice packet that comes with the noodles - this cuts the sodium to a tolerable amount (plus I drink lots of water), 2) I sautée minced garlic + approximately one full cup of shiitake mushrooms + approximately 1.5 full cups of baby spinach leaves in a dash of olive oil, and add to every bowl I make (mushrooms are full of B-vitamins and, alongside garlic, are huge immunity boosters, and spinach is full of iron and calcium, and is a good thing for me to be eating to make my blood sort itself out) , and 3) I often either crack an egg over the entire boiling mixture right at the end, or I add in sliced hard-boiled egg for extra folate and protein. And I sometimes add in a handful of raw shredded carrots right at the end, for a little crunch, color, fiber, and beta carotene. I *think* that I’m doing my best to make this indulgence food a little healthier, and tailored to my specific medical situation.

Soup has been a huge craving of late, because we had a surprising cold spell in Miami. It got down to 39F day before yesterday! That’s probably the coldest its ever been since we moved to Florida.

Afternoon snuggle time was especially snuggly - Dey and I were huddled for warmth!

My ability to run and work out at a high intensity may be somewhat muted at the moment, and this has been sort of a hard mental adjustment for me. But I am trying to get outside and do things, because it makes me feel better, and also I imagine the vitamin D is good for me. The other day, I was feeling pretty dumpy and blah - so I did something that for some reason I’d been putting off, “saving” for a special occasion, whatever. I cut the tags off of a brand-new Spartan licensed active top that I’d purchased on Cyber Monday, put it on, and went for a light 2-mile jog in the neighborhood. I felt silly in a way of making a big thing of it in my head - but the truth is, it lifted my spirits.

What else... Oh, this was exciting! GUESS WHAT, dudes. On Monday, I saw a real live MANATEE in the lake behind our house! I could hardly believe my eyes. A neighbor had reported on our community WhatsApp group just the day before seeing a manatee from her backyard. She posted a picture of it, which I am shamelessly going to post here. The manatee I saw, about 24 hours later, was different - it was considerably smaller than this one, I think probably a juvenile (not quite a baby, but definitely not humongous like this one). But it was swimming slowly near the sea wall that abuts our backyard, munching on some sea grass just like this big manatee. I did my best to run into the house and call the kids to come out as quietly as they could to see it - I think they caught a tiny glimpse, but our footsteps must have spooked it, because it definitely swam away quickly. I hope we’ll see it again!

Photographic evidence that we are LEGIT Floridians who hang out with manatees :)

Last but not least - on the topic of water creatures, gotta give a shout-out to my Vev, who “leveled up” at his swimming lessons this week to Junior Swim Team! The swim school has about 10 levels through which kids have to work to get to this point, and in the last ~18 months, Vev has completed them all. I was somewhat nostalgic and verklempt when he got his ribbon this time - I feel like it was only yesterday that we took him to swimming school for the first time, where he screamed bloody murder and cried the entire duration of his 25 minute assessment, clinging desperately to his teacher and feeling panicky about letting go in the water. How far he’s come!

(by the way, Dey is also doing wonderfully at swimming, and is only like 1.5 levels away from his own Junior Swim Team ribbon).

So some of my life is inside out and upside down right now, it is true. But some of it is Upside-Up. I work hard EVERY day to focus on the Upside-Up, and what a treat it is to see. These kids, the sunshine I get to enjoy here, the afternoon snuggle times, delicious food that also is good for me.... net balance is that life is good, I’m still alive and kicking, and everything is gonna work out fine.

Toodles!

#fitness #platelets #Sickness #Vev #Dey #food #animals

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sonic7ischaos · 6 years ago

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The rumors about a Sonic Adventure remake are driving me fucking nuts.

I know I’m letting myself get my hopes up and will inevitably have my soul crushed (again) when something else, something either pretty good, mediocre, bad, or an unholy sin against every god of mankind, is announced. I want a new Sonic Adventure game SO bad. I don’t even care if they keep making boost games. They’re not mutually exclusive. You actually CAN do both, you just shouldn’t try to make both the focus of the same game. Do your boost games. I LIKE the boost gameplay (when it’s done well but that applies to any gameplay from any series). Make one of them a spin off. Hell, make the Adventure games the spin off, I don’t give a fuck.

If it has to be a smaller project, let it.The Sonic series got its start as a platformer and there SHOULD be a 3d equivalent to its 2d roots. The boost games, while they can be fun, do NOT fill this niche, a niche that, to some extent, HAS been filled by Sonic games in the past and, in the fan game community, has proven that not only can such a niche succeed in its design goals, it proves that there’s a ravenous demand for such a game. I mean, look at the Adventure rumors themselves. With the remake, an offhand comment by Iizuka-san and some Adventure references on social media (plus some official media like TSR and its cartoon) and people go nuts. The Adventure references have also consistently spawned NUMEROUS Sonic Adventure 3 rumors. Any time something COULD POSSIBLY refer to the Adventure series, the rumor mill EXPLODES. It’s always accompanied with some desperate, hopeful wishing on the part of the ones discussing it. I’m not the only one Desperate for more Adventure.

It’s just that talking about continuing the Adventure series or revisiting it in any capacity has become taboo among the Sonic community. Why? Because if Sonic fans are allowed to speculate about new Adventure games on forums, they never shut up. The forums become absolutely FLOODED with Adventure 3 topics and Adventure remake topics. Isn’t that telling? That given the opportunity to speculate about it, it’s the only thing fans want to talk about? I know that’s generalizing and the fanbase is more diverse than that (plus it ignores that there are spammers) but doesn’t it say something that the response to such overwhelming demand has been to shut it down because it’s annoying?

Like, imagine if they did that with Smash Bros. roster speculation. The whole Smash community going “SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT BANJO&KAZOOIE BEING IN SMASH! IT’S NEVER GONNA HAPPEN AND YOU ONLY WANT IT BECAUSE YOU’RE NOTALGIA BLIND!”. I know that sort of thing happens to some extent, people bitching about other people’s dream rosters but part of the fun of roster speculation is seeing who got in and who didn’t. Who was right? Who was wrong? The buildup to the answer creates hype that pays off when someone got it right. Sure, there’ve been disappointments (see every game since 2006, some good, some the worst in gaming history, NONE an Adventure game), but what chance is there if the community as a whole shuts down those who show interest with discussion?

Here’s the thing too, I actually really like Generations. I have a soft spot for the presentation of Unleashed (that opening cutscene man). Colors introduced the wisps which, while overused and usually used badly, are still a fun idea for Sonic games (I wouldn’t mind seeing them in an Adventure game in some capacity to be honest but that’s a different topic). Forces...exists. It is a game. Look, point is, I don’t think we need to get rid of the boost games for Adventure fans to get what they want. The boost games even introduced some ideas that should be mainstays in the series as a whole (why the hell has the music selector only been in Generations? That alone added SO much replay value). I think that, if they were clear about their intent to do both, people would be receptive to it. Say announce an Adventure style game and say something like “Now, we know there will be some fans who worry that this means an end to games like Sonic Generations and Sonic Colors, but rest assured, we have no intention to stop making these sorts of games.”

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archive-moodybmood · 6 years ago

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SO HERE’S HOW I LEARNED ABOUT JOJO

THERE ONCE WAS A SITE CALLED GAIA ONLINE

(IT STILL EXISTS BUT LIKE IT IS A HELL SITE)

IT WAS 2010 AND I WAS STILL NINETEEN, WHICH IS TOO OLD TO BE ON GAIA ONLINE BECAUSE ANY AGE IS TOO OLD TO STILL BE ON GAIA ONLINE (I SPENT MY YOUTH BEING A SEMI-POPULAR POSTER ON THE GAIA COMMUNITY DISCUSSION FORUM, WHICH IS NOT REALLY AN ACCOMPLISHMENT), BUT I WAS IN MY SECOND OR THIRD YEAR OF COLLEGE AND I NEEDED TO CLING TO THE FAMILIAR COMFORTS OF MY CHILDHOOD

AN ITEM CAME OUT

RIO STAR

OH COOL IT HAS A HAT WITH A NAME ON IT THIS MUST BE AN ANIME REFERENCE

TO THE FORUMS I WENT

THEY SAID IT WAS A REFERENCE TO SOMETHING CALLED JOJO’S BIZARRE ADVENTURES

NOW ALL I KNEW ABOUT JOJO WAS THAT YOU HAD SEVERAL GUYS NAMED JOJO THAT WENT ON ADVENTURES, THAT THERE WERE A LOT OF MANLY TEARS, AND YOU HAD THIS GUY NAMED DIO WHO WAS THE MAIN VILLAIN WHO THREW KNIVES AND SOMETHING ABOUT A ROAD ROLLER

SOMEONE SAID THE ITEM WAS A REFERENCE TO DIO AND THEY POSTED A PICTURE OF DIEGO BRANDO

NOW, THIS IS NOT PRECISELY INCORRECT BECAUSE DIEGO IS, IN FACT, CALLED DIO SOMETIMES AND IT WAS A REFERENCE TO HIS HAT

HOWEVER

I WAS LED TO BELIEVE THAT DIEGO BRANDO WAS THE MAIN VILLAIN OF THE SERIES

I THOUGHT HE’D BE IN IT MORE

I THOUGHT DIEGO BRANDO WOULD BE MORE OF A BIG FUCKIN DEAL THAN HE ENDED UP BEING IN THE SERIES OK

SO CUT TO 2016

I NEED A DISTRACTION FROM SOME SHIT, SO I DECIDED TO START READING/WATCHING JOJO BECAUSE THE ANIME’S OUT

I READ PHANTOM BLOOD

OH MAN, IT’S DIO

WHEN’S HE GONNA GET HIS HAT?

BUT HE DID NOT HAVE A HAT IN PHANTOM BLOOD

IT’S COOL I KNOW THAT OTHER PARTS ARE IN THE FUTURE SO HE PROBABLY GETS HIS COOL HAT WITH HIS NAME ON IT THEN

I READ BATTLE TENDENCY

NO DIO

I READ STARDUST CRUSADERS

WOW DIO GOT BUFF

BUT I KNEW THE ART STYLE SHIFTED BECAUSE JOJO WAS OLD AS HELL, SO HE’D PROBABLY JUST BE A PRETTY BOY IN FUTURE PARTS BECAUSE ANIME/MANGA’S JUST LIKE THAT SOMETIMES

WOW DIO FUCKIN DIED

AND HE DIED WITHOUT HIS COOL HAT

I WATCH DIAMOND IS UNBREAKABLE WONDERING IF DIO’S COMING BACK WITH HIS COOL HAT

BUT THERE WAS NO COOL HAT

I READ VENTO AUREO AND HOLY SHIT WE’VE GOT HIS SON, HE’S GONNA COME BACK AT THE END PROBABLY (WITH A COOL HAT) AND THEY’RE GONNA FIGHT OR SOMETHING, IDK

BUT NO HE’S BARELY REFERENCED

STONE OCEAN

WE GET DIO FLASHBACKS BUT HE DOESN’T HAVE A HAT

HE GOT PRETTY THOUGH SO THAT’S A PLUS IF YOU’RE INTO THAT SORT OF THING

THEN THE END OF STONE OCEAN HAPPENS BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT DOESN’T??? HIS HAT.

I TAKE A BREAK FOR A MINUTE TO RECUPERATE OK AND THEN WHEN I’M EMOTIONALLY PREPARED, I START STEEL BALL RUN

AND WE GOT DIEGO BRANDO AND HIS CUTE LIL HAT

I AM OVERJOYED

IT IS HIM

SOME GOOD FUCKIN CONTENT

A GOOD BOY WITH A GOOD HAT THAT CAN TURN SHIT INTO OTHER GOOD BOYS

THE ONE TRUE DIO

DIEGO BRANDO

AND THEN SBR HAPPENS AND I AM DEVASTATED

I SPENT ALL THIS TIME ASSUMING THAT DIEGO BRANDO WOULD BE THE MAJOR VILLAIN OF THE SERIES BASED OFF A GAIA ONLINE ITEM REFERENCE FROM LIKE 2010

I SPENT ALL THE TIME READING JOJO WAITING FOR DIO TO GET HIS COOL HAT AND IT TURNS OUT THAT IT’S NOT EVEN HIM WITH THE COOL HAT, IT’S DIEGO

BUT YOU KNOW WHAT????

IN MY HEART, DIO BRANDO IS NOT THE ONE TRUE DIO

DIEGO BRANDO WILL ALWAYS AND FOREVER MORE WILL BE THE SUPERIOR, ULTIMATE BRANDO, THE DIO OF THE MY HEART, BECAUSE UNLIKE DIO, HE HAS A COOL HAT

anyway, the moral of the story is that there are a surprising amount of JJBA items on Gaia Online, so you can make a pretty accurate Giorno Giovanna avatar if you want

#long post

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daemon-knight · 6 years ago

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Well folks, it’s time for me to once again shake off all the conflicting feelings and nagging thoughts I’ve had about Tumblr RPing and the general community. Yup, another semi-off-the-cuff Rambling. And I’m using the tiny text this time, so you know it’s big.

I… honestly don’t feel comfortable calling it off-the-cuff given how many times I’ve edited and organized this, but it breaks my usual rules of a Rambling due to how blunt it is, so… here we are. I want to say this will be the last time I make an off-the-cuff post like this, but I also know I’m going to be doing posts like this for as long as I continue to RP, especially on Tumblr. My gripes will never cease, and I always have something to whine about.

But with that all said…

Nitpicks that Bug Allen

I’m going to just knock out the smaller issues I have with the RPC now before I really start rant and rave about the issues I want to get to. For those who have been following me long enough to know about my ramblings and gripes these are probably issues you’ve heard me talk about once or twice… or thrice. In any case here are the short ones, or at least the ones I can summarize in a sentence or two:

People still have very long bios and rules pages and it needs to stop. I’ve talked about these five times and I the fact I’m bring it up again just makes me mad.

Speaking of continuing issues, passwords are still a thing too. Get rid of them. You wouldn’t need them if your rules page was short to begin with.

Also gonna’ say this again, but musing and aesthetic posts do nothing to show your character’s personality, traits, or themes, you’re writing does.

I’m starting to see blogs with half-finished or non-existent about pages promoting themselves. No. Stop that. Finish the blog or drop it, don’t do it halfway and expect to be rewarded.

Probably gonna’ be its own section in this giant Rambling but stop trying to world-build outside of your character. That’s annoying and it makes more work for your partners that’ll be a wasted effort if you yourself only adhere to it when it works for you.

Dash Commentary. It’s either funny or it’s metagaming. If you aren’t making a comment about something happening to be funny, then don’t post it, that gets very annoying in more plotted storylines.

Pretty sure judolette/Lita covered this at some point, but canon blogs depending on wiki links for bios… no.

Power Levels are still a thing that piss me off, but I’ll go into this later, for now just watch this, this, and this to get an idea of what power levels mean in terms of writing. The short version is that you don’t have the luxury of a universal power scale on Tumblr, so you have to actually show strength instead of imply it.

…

Well, I just said the P-word, so I guess I’ll just get to meat of it now…

Power Levels and Fight RPs

Apparently, I can’t talk about this without going on a rant, so here we are. Okay, quick question for anyone that’s been following and reading Claudia’s stuff for a while.

How strong do you think Claudia is?

Take a moment to think about that. On a scale of one to ten, where do you think Claudia stands? Feel free to message me the answer if you want. If you want some context she’s canonically fought a dragon, a ninja, an alien mercenary, a monster hunter, a vampire-hunting vampire, and so on.

Okay, have your answer? Good.

You’re wrong. Claudia is as strong or weak as she needs to be for the plot to have stakes. Her strength in terms of value is irrelevant so long as its believable.

Claudia is strong enough to match her super alien girlfriend, but weak enough to be hard countered by the four-foot inquisitor. Strong enough that she can face off against the six-foot dragon gatekeeper barehanded, but weak enough for the creepy space witch from space to scare her despite her brave face. Strong enough to 1v1 an actual dragon, but weak enough to get overpowered by her little sisters.

You get the point?

Is it clicking?

I’m not even talk about things that happened off screen, Claudia has fought against all these threats and people in canon. When it comes to fight RPs my logic on if an attack hits or misses is simply what reaction creates the best reply. This is why Claudia consistently gets wrecked by Nero but is having an epic kung fu battle with Meiling, it’s interesting and cool. It’s why Temma and Claudia’s sparring matches are low-key and simple while Syn’s fights are bombastic and having them throw each other through buildings like a DBZ fight.

Again, is it clicking? This is basically how a lot of pro-wrestling works.

Granted, I’ll admit I don’t plot a lot of the RP fights on this site because I see Tumblr RPing as a lot more free-formed than in the forums where nearly everything is a plot line to an extent. This place tends to have a lot of on-and-off RPs that can go quiet and dead for weeks and months before getting started again. That… makes me hesitant to plot anything that isn’t silly or nonsensical because the chances of it truly playing a role in a plotline can get wrecked the moment someone goes dark for a month.

But speaking of Tumblr RPing...

How Allen Views RPing

I think this is the main thing that gets my goat for a lot of the things that go on with the RPC here on Tumblr. To me, role-playing is just that, playing a role. The main idea behind it being to make a character and write them in whatever wacky adventures you and your partners can think up while keeping some thread of continuity and stakes. To that end the biggest thing I like to see as a writer in this type of medium is convincing and interesting characters that would mesh well with the characters I’ve written, be it their personality, background, mannerisms, writing style of the writer, etc..

Or you’re a shipping/smut blog that just wants to kiss and bang. No judgement either way that’s just not what I’m into, at least not on Tumblr.

But back to my point, this type of writing is very character driven. It depends a lot on making an interesting character in background, premise, personality, and actions, as well as showing those things through the writing.

I know I make it sound complex, but for me, if I find a character that can punch Claudia in the face and will, in fact, do so if challenged then that’s enough to at least get me interested in a plot of some kind. Granted, there are some nuances for that, but I’m a pretty simple guy at the end of the day.

You see my point, right? A lot of RPing revolves around the character and making them feel real, or at least probable. This is a part of story writing too, but it’s not the only thing to worry about when writing a story, and it doesn’t have to be the focus unlike RPing.

This also plays into why I don’t partake in nor appreciate things like musings or aesthetic posts. Those don’t sell people on the character, what you write sells people on the character. Pictures, quotes, and other aesthetics do little to show how your character behaves and acts, they’re a shortcut to skip out on writing a character, and I refuse to partake in it.

Essentially, it’s a lot telling and not much showing, and that pisses me off.

I know I sound like a bit of a hypocrite since I occasionally post my drawings of Clauds and her musings, but in my defense most of my posts involve actual writing and her musings are writing in character to her specifically.

And on that note...

Allen’s Views on Canon Blogs

A lot of what I said about writing your character and show their personality and traits through said righting mostly applied to OC blogs and OCs. I won’t go into the nitty-gritty of character writing, but the basics are to just write a character, a premise/goal for that character, and keep the personality and behavior consistent with what you’ve previously established.

Canon characters are a different story.

Well, not completely. I see canon blogs in a similar way, but under much more scrutiny. With an OC you just need to make sure your character is within the grounds of what you’ve written in their profile. So long as it’s probable it’s not OOC or cheating.

Canon characters don’t get that much leeway.

The same principle of selling your character applies, but now with a character that already has an established background, personality, and expectations by fans of the series. This is the reason I think a lot of canon blogs in the RPC get into drama. The fact that these characters already have established backgrounds and expectations can cause a lot of people to get in a fit when those expectations aren’t met. When someone veers off too much from established canon without good reason it breaks the emersion and people get annoyed by that. This is also why when I use to be involved in Canon blogs I usually went with side characters or main characters from very small/unnoticed properties.

Like I said, the idea of selling the character still applies, but that also means the musing and aesthetic postings I mentioned before annoy me even more for canon blogs. The fact that there’s already a lot that we know about these characters to begin with means there’s no real reason to try and cheat by using musings or aesthetic post to get an idea of the character, we already know them or there’s a wiki page that explains them. Or your profile did what it was supposed to and gave us a basic idea of what the character is about. The only case I would see for a reason to cheat would be if your character was diverting from canon in an extreme way.

Which is a nice segue to…

Canon Divergent Blogs

I see two main types of Divergent blogs.

The first type are the blogs that pop up because a character was killed off in canon or put in some state of incapacity like a coma or warped to another dimension, or… just written out of the media for some reason. In this case I think a divergent blog is fine. There might be some narrative issues that would lead to certain characters not evolving or developing because of the sacrifices made or the attempts at realism within the story might ring hallow, but that’s overall harmless in the grander scheme of things and there are some writing tricks to make a fake-out death just as meaningful as a real one.

However... the second type has me worried.

The second type is usually some variation of “this character was written poorly by my standards and I’m rewriting them to what they should properly be.” As someone writing their own story and has attempted to write several stories in the past, I’ll tell you straight up that story writing is hard as hell and RPing is a cakewalk by comparison. Making a story from scratch with consist and entertaining characters that have unique character designs and personalities is probably one of the hardest things to do. And that’s just writing, I can’t even imagine the trials animators and professional comic/manga artists go through in order to do the same for all the work it takes to have a series, let alone a successful one.

This stuff isn’t easy, though I do understand the mindset. If character X got shafted and you want to give them a better shake, fine. But… be wary when you assume the version of the character you’re writing is the better one or what was supposed to be, especially for children’s media/anime. Just… remember that you’re writing for a character that was probably made for kids and not an older adolescence crowd, no matter how dark or deep the writing got. When a canon character deviates so far from the original Canon can you really say they’re the same person?

That said, as an OC blog that doesn’t follow a particular canon universe, I myself have no real stake if Sasuke Uchiha from Naruto starts acting like a happy-go-lucky ditz, or if Jin Kisaragi from Blazblue actually starts to visibly care about people other than Ragna and Tsubaki. Claudia has nothing to do with character, so what they do and her reactions to their interactions is... eh, negligent at best in the grand scheme of things.

…

I… don’t have a good segue to this next topic, so…

Shipping

A bit random, but I wanna’ get my opinions on shipping out the way while I’m here. This is something I’ve never really understood, neither in RPing nor in fandom.

From a writer’s perspective, a romantic subplot is tricky because it an easily become the focus and create a huge genre shift that will annoy your main demographic. As such, when two characters get together it’s usually at the end of a story and end it there, because writing a continuous relationship with ups and downs can be difficult when you’re an action series about explosions and punching people. However, the general rules of writing a relationship is usually to keep the character... well, in character. I’ve talked about this before as well, but Claudia dating Syn doesn’t change a lot about their personalities, or at least Claudia’s. She’s still a tomboyish girl that likes fighting, she still picks fights with essentially everyone, she still... acts like Claudia. The only addition is that she’ll occasionally mention she has a girlfriend, and even then she’ll admit that their relationship isn’t the greatest. Syn is always on missions or jobs off planet that just leave Claudia to hang out with her robot maids. Syn is noticeably stronger than Claudia and that ruffles her pride a bit. Syn does a lot of dirty jobs that could harm Claudia’s reputation further if political enemies learned about Claudia’s relationship with her. Hell, Syn is substantially older than Claudia by hundreds of years and that age gap itself creates issues of perspective. This is just a series of things to touch and write about.

Ah, but I was talking about how this played into RPing.

Again, from a writer’s perspective my main question is does the ship make some form of sense and will the ship create a genre shift that turns what I was originally watching/reading into some romantic series. If the pairing can make sense and the tone/genre remain steady, then I see no issue with it. In terms of RPing, so long as the ship doesn’t lead to you never replying to other RPs and keeping your character consistent with your original premise then I see no issue with it.

So I’ll never understand why people get so riled up about this. Folks need to realize that these are fictional characters that aren’t real. Who they date won’t affect you, and unless it cripples the writing, I don’t think it needs complaint. But then again, romance is my weakest point as a writer next to smut, so… who knows, maybe I’m off base with this one.

…

I… also don’t have a good segue for this one either, so let’s talk about…

Multi Muse Blogs

To every multi-muse blog following me right now. I want you to do me a favor and pick out your top five characters, the top five that you always like writing for and playing as. You got them figured out?

Okay, delete everyone else from your blog.

Take it from a guy that ran a Multi-Muse blog for three years, don’t just add every random muse that pops into your head. Figure your top five and if you need to have more then make them side muses and specify on your blog somewhere, they’re side muses. Remember all that talk I gave about keeping things in your profile short and simple? Well now you have +5 characters, so that because a requirement if you want to keep your blog running smoothly. Everything I said before about running a blog, aesthetic posts, and so on just become five times more important now because you making five times the work for anyone coming to your blog.

Here’s a quick rundown of how I managed my multi-muse blog:

It’d be best to keep every character within the same world/universe or following a similar theme, my OC mutli-muse was focused on mercenaries and my canon multi-muse had all the characters from the same organization for an example.

Make your profiles short and simple. This is very important because you have 5+ characters and we need to get an idea about them very quickly.

Again, try and keep the limit around five. If another OC pops into your head do me a favor and write a short story about it if you really need to write them, keep them away from your blog unless they’re absolutely needed.

Wouldn’t hurt to get a page code from theme-hunters and have a small blurb about each character either. I know that’s a lot of work, but it really helps when it comes to summarizing a character at a glance.

That’s all I can really say on the matter.

…

And yet another bad segue…

World Building and Verses

Pretty sure I talked about this several times before, but let me put it in basic terms:

If it’s not relevant to your character, it’s not relevant to us. Your world’s 5 deities mean jack if your character isn’t religious and not actively worshiping one of them while warring with the other four. That long 5-page essay about your world’s magic means jack if your character doesn’t use magic, and even if they do just describe it in a way that’s relevant to your character. Your character’s ancient sword passed down from the great hero king means jack if that king isn’t King Arthur or someone of actual world renown. Hell, this is why a canned the lore of Claudia’s spear in her profile, it wasn’t that relevant to Claudia as a character nor did a play a part in any RP, so it was pointless text and I removed it.

Again, I’ve said this before, but Tumblr RPing doesn’t work like a group/forum RP. Your character’s world is automatically fuses with everyone else’s unless there’s a specific verse for it like RWBY. That world has a lot of specific rules and systems relevant to it, but nearly every other universe is just a spin on modern fantasy, which I be glossed off with a bit of creativity. This is how Claudia’s Soul Eater verse works. Soul Eater is within a modern world, but has supernatural elements like people that can fly and shoot lasers and the like. Claudia’s canon world has those things too, but not cars and other modern devices. At the same time, the Soul Eater verse can keep Claudia as a normal human with some decent fighting skills and keep her skills relevant.

Let’s be real, being able to wield a spear or other melee weapons is pointless in our modern world, but if said weapons were the only way to kill demons and other monstrosities, then people that can master those weapons have worth and can beat up said monsters and other threats with melee weapons without people batting an eye at it. The Soul Eater verse isn’t there just for the sake of Soul Eater, but for the sake of Claudia interacting with characters in a Modern setting that won’t destroy her premise of low-born noble joining military to no suck dick.

Actually, I’ve been talking a lot about writing, and I think that’s the last of things that truly annoy me about RPing on this site, so I think I’ll concluded this with…

Something of a Disclaimer

Now that I got all that out of my system let me say this while I have your attention, because I know I probably ruffled some feathers with this post.

Don’t take what I said to mean I think Claudia is being written with the idea of exploring deep themes, complicated relationships, or anything like that. Claudia is a Black, lesbian knight from Medieval-RPG-Fantasy -France that wields a black spear that can transform into other phallic weapons and is dating a cannibal alien mercenary from outer space while sparring with her robo-maids. She is currently training/mentoring an android that was made/adopted by a hyper-sexual dimensional space witch from space. Her circle of friends consists of a ninja, two catgirls, a vampire, ghost skeleton, and her samurai uncle. And need I remind you of all the times I’ve even taken my potshots at her. Trust me, I’m not saying my character is a stream of good writing.

For example, I’m trying to write my own original story. It was originally going to be about forest ninjas solving a civil war/political schism, but that got canned when I started to work on the world-building and realized writing out a solid civil war plotline was too difficult for someone of my skill. So, I changed it over to kung fu girls and that’s slowly turning into a series of vignettes with an over-arcing plot about a turf war in the background, something in the vein of K-On in terms of structure (a little ironic given the main character is named Kyo-Annie).

This isn’t even my first time trying to write about the kung fu girls or the ninja girls, this is my third attempt at both over a year’s time. Writing, especially for a story, is hard. You need a well-made plot, decent world-building, entertaining characters, good sentence structure, unique writing style, and so on. Not to mention understand enough about the very language you’re writing in to make sure all the words flow properly. I honestly have no idea how you multi-lingual folks do it, I’m truly impressed by you guys.

But the point is, writing a story and writing a character are very different things, and I’m someone that’s been leaning more towards story-writing as time goes on than character writing. Writing Claudia’s character involves me making sure her dialogue and actions match up with what I’m presenting as a tomboyish, competitive jock that likes fighting and wants to maybe be a princess. Writing Claudia’s story involves me delving into things like upward social mobility, researching medieval politics and warfare, talking about themes of conservative tradition vs. progressive advancement at the cost of identity, whether losing oneself for the sake of their goals is worth it, and the list just goes on.

It's like I said in my views of RPings, I see this as a very different form of writing and when doing a story, especially on Tumblr. You don’t have the luxury of icons to show expressions, or a profile to get a basic idea of a character. A lot of world-building needs to be done properly and carefully integrated into the story. You can’t just randomly add character upon character without it getting called out as impulsively hopping POVs. There’s just… a lot to keep in mind, and as I start writing these stories and get more involved in writing off Tumblr, the more… Tumblr annoys me.

Ugh, this got depressing. I think I’ll talk about something positive next time. Anyway folks, this 3000+ word Rambling is done. Hopefully I’ll talk about something more fun later.

Like fight RPs and fight narratives, those are always fun.

#.ooc #.ramblings

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