#her color palette is gonna be totally different lol

[imorphemi]

The stained glass window was the only illumination in the temple during this time. The gentle visage of a goddess softly casting warm light upon the stone floor and the lone cleaner lady finishing up her work.

The cleaner lady wiped her brow and stepped back to inspect her finished work. She couldn't help but feel a twinge of familiarity as she gazed upon the goddess's serene face.

Pearl tightened her grip on her cleaning supplies.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Pearl brushed her hands against the petals of one of the sunflowers. Curious things, suddenly springing up in the land. She didn't notice how they followed her instead of the sun.

A rocket rested in her hand, many more in her pockets. Her elytra newly fixed and ready for a long journey to a new world.

--------------------------------------------------------------

A postwoman stood in the sun, admiring her finished home. Ideas sprung into her head, possibilities for mechanical workings and architectural wonders. But what to power them with?

The bright sun reflected onto the glass dome of a building yet to be lovingly housed. The river cheerfully babbled behind her, sweeping along her little waterwheel.

Pearl smiled.

"Solarpunk sounds good."

Do you feel anything…familiar?

[oh-my-may]

HELLOOOOOOO

Very quickly I wanted to share some thoughts on Wuthering Waves so far.

I have completed the main quest up to act IV and I think it goes up to 6 in total? So I am more than halfway done with what the main story has to offer so far. I must say, although it does follow the typical anime rpg plot of recent games, I have been enjoying it!

It took me the first two chapters of the story to get behind all the game specific terms like Resonator, Tacet Fields and Discords etc. but I think as of right now I'm pretty secure in my knowledge of it.

I don't wanna get too much into the lore yet but there's so many things about the world (Solaris 3, right?) that I do not understand (yet) but given how I still have main story to play through I reckon some of my questions will be answered later. But the first thing is HOW BIG THE MAP IS? I think it might be like that for me bc I'm not used to playing open world games on mobile and maybe if I played it on PC I'd have a different impression but like... on mobile it seems huge. The Resonance Beacons are kinda oddly placed I think... like there should be a few more but maybe I'm spoiled from hyv games. From what I can tell on mobile it looks good, too. Can't wait for WuWa to come out for PS5 so I can fully enjoy how beautiful it looks. (no, I don't have a PC to play it on atm)

Scar is really cool, overall I really like the "villain" organisation so far (I know their name but wouldn't trust myself to properly spell it on here lol). Maybe bc they're some lf the only characters in this game that know what colour is lol. Scar's eng VA is *chefs kiss* and I think so far he's the most interesting character overall. Chamellya (? Is that how you spell her name) also seems really cool. Haven't met her yet in the story but I've seen several posts and I really look forward to getting to know more about the Fractuids (????or whatever their name is). Call them the Overseers, that's easier to remember and spell HAHA. Wonder what their motive is for abducting Jue and reviving the other big thing (it starts with Th I know, but can't remember it rn... Threnoid or something? Guys I told you I'm still learning)

When directly asked, Scar said that it brings the Lament and all that but like... why would they want that to happen??? Are humans bad? Is something bad gonna happen to them and they know? And what about putting TD parts into human bodies?? Why?? AND WHERE DO TDS COME FROM ANYWAY?

Okay so far for that. Also I quite like Jihnsi, which is suprising to me... I do find it weird that most characters in this game share almost the same color palette, I think it's cool that she's devoid of any color and she's just... pale. Everything about her is so pale and I think that's really cool, somehow. Just like the Overseers it makes her stand out to me.

I haven't met Jiyan yet :( Apparently I will in the next chapter but I have to level up quite a bunch until then... so lemme give you some other thoughts.

First of all I like the open world! I wanted to save exploration for until I have finished the main quests completely but since you have to level up in between the game leaves you no other choice. I haven't even unlocked the entire map yet (as I said I think it's HUGE on mobile lol) but so far it's been very cool! I like the twist they put in the puzzles, somehow they came up with new mechanisms that aren't just repetition of other games open world puzzles. I like that most challanges aren't time gated (like the sniper ones, I'd be dead if they were on mobile HAHA). Besides the challenges where you fly around as that bird and have to fly through rhose rings.. it goes so fast I can NOT control that at all on mobile. Will save those for a later opportunity ig.

The battles have been fun so far. Again I have to say how dynamic the system feels it's really fun with Intro Attacks and all that, the dodge attacks are really cool and yeah... on mobile I just press buttons and can't be as smart with my moves because I barely know wtf is going on and I can't control my fingers as diligently on the tiny buttons lol. Does the mobile version have controller support yet? I think I read somewhere that it doesn't, but I'll probably be the first to jump to it lol.

(Rn I wanna mention that I saved this post until this point and finished writing it afterwards until suddenly the wifi at work disconnected and then I lost hald the post :((( so I have to kinda rewrite half of it, yaay...)

SO. AGAIN.

The echo system is really cool and innovative. Its pretty new to me personally as a system to exchange for the artifact/relic stuff. Its cool you can use the echos ability. I just figure its gonna be a pain to farm later, given how you're not always guaranteed to get an Echo from every enemy snd the stats are random too... I haven't gotten too much into the system yet and what set or whatever is best for each character... but I'm glad that auto euqip is a thing already haha. I'll probably have plenty of time to figure this all out later.

I have arrived at a point in the game where the game wants me to level characters... the game recommended team level 40 for the Scar fight when I had my team at 25... Currently I use Rover, Verina and Chixia and habe been quote enjoying them. I'll try and use Rover as long as possible, so far I really like her playstyle! I also like that the game basically adds two new elements to the roster: light and darkness, basically. Seems pretty cool. Do the elements interact? Haven't gotten too much into the meta yet, so are there like reactions like on genshin or just status effects? To conclude my thoughts I'd like to add that I'm not sure yet how worth it is leveling up my characters rn? I know that Verina is very good and as I said I'll try and level Rover for now, but as for the third slot... although I like Chixia I ultimately wanna get Jiyan or some other 5star lile Calcharo? I also have no idea (yet) how to effectively farm level up material. There must be something like a ley line or calyx surely, I just haven't found it yet. Overall I'd like to spend the 240 energy the game gives me but besides bosses I haven't really found something on the map... oh yeah there was spme forgery challenge ig that's like for weapon stuff? We'll see...

Since I have lots of leveling to do (6 levels to continue the main quest...) I figured doing normal quests is the most effective way to do that, although I have noticed that not all quests give Union Exp? I find that a bit odd. Also are there any of these smaller quests worth paying proper attention to? Like that tell important lore? So far I've only done a few and they didn't really seem significant ... some photo taking and infiltrating an enemy camp, which was pretty cool because Rover dressed up as one of them snd snuck arpund the camp, but it didn't seem that important in the grand scheme of things? Do let me know if there are certain quests that are really cool.

I have done Lingyangs character quest and it was pretty sweet. I liked the camera switch in the cavern a lot. He's also just generally a very cite character, he falls out of the character colour scheme and he's just adorable :( I did get him as my first 5star on the 50 pull banner... sadly I don't like his playstyle :( I think I dislike the way gauntlet characters feel on mobile? Idk. I also dislike that lightning 4star gauntlet man (forgot his name. He was one of my first 4stars and his trial felt weird playing him idk...) in terms of gameplay. I do think this is just a mobile thing for me, at least with the controls. As I said, when the game gets controller support this might change.

I'd like to mention a few things that bother me, too. No game is perfect and I do think that kuro games is definitely able to fix these things. First of all I've noticed that in the open world when expllring it's often very silent? As in... there's no background music? Idk if it's just programmed to set in very late? I know that there is music, since it does play when I log in... but when I walk through the world and change areas it's so oddly silent for so long... it's kinda scary sometimes haha. Also I often hsve the problem that spoken dialogue randomly cuts off mid sentence without any trigger? Like it just doesn't play the entirety of the sentence? And this happens quite frequently, especially in the first few chapters of the story. Also when the text appears on screen... it seems that sometimes it is so long that it doesn't fully appear on screen? It doesn't scroll down or anything the longer texts are just not displayed? Idk.

Another thing I noticed is that the Rover's voice over often seems very monotonous and almost... empty? Like there's no emotion or anything... at least for female Rover. I do like that she gets quite a bunch of spoken lines, but sometimes they seem oddly off against the other characters... one example that really botheres me wss in act 4, when Scar gets arrested (and Scars voice over is phenomenal btw!). There's this moment where he wants to flee and in the lsst second Rover jumps in and says something like "not so fast" or something like that and its just... the character is in action and there's high tension and the line just falls so incredibly flat? I think it may be a directing problem, maybe they just didn't tell her what the context was but like... it really bothered me. I generally like the Eng voice over, although I do find some of Yangyangs pronounciations weird? It irritates me how she says Huanglong a lot of times? Like I get it that its closer to the Chinese pronounciation but other characters say it with an english accent too? Or her breathy "Rover" all the time? I think this is just me but it was quite annoying.

Other than that (and I already mentioned it) it will tske me some time to get used to the colour palette of the characters... i do like the character design, but almost every character has the same colours to them? It's all mainly black with white/grey details and occasinally some shade of blue/red or green in between. Very few characters fall out of that scheme, like Encore, Verina or LingYang. Or the Overseers, but they're not playable (yet?)

Other than thode pretty minor problems I'm excited to explore the world a bunch now. Very excited to see how the story ends as of rn. The devs are very attentive to player feedback so I'm vurious to see where the game is headed. I do think it has lots of potential. As I said, I can't wait for playable Scar and just generally to explore more of the world. Are there gonna be more countries added to the world? I'd say yes as of right now but are there mentions of it in the story? Very excited for it!

Also I'm looking forward to meeting Geshulin in the story. Ive seen short clips of him and to say I'm obsessed would be an understatement. This game nails it's morally grey male characters.

I'm not used to taking screenshots during mobile games, so I have only this one of Scar for now, maybe I'll mamage to make it a habit. Bye for now! (Wish me luck on Jiyans banner)

[colorful-horses]

youre working on a video? do you have youtube or something thats awesome :D what is it if youre comfy sharjng?

its a storyboard! im making a humanized version of a scene from the new G5 movie (though i wont say which scene)

i can show you the wip human designs ive made for the mane 5, though! (+info on some design choices under the cut, but remember that these are just wips)

i originally designed sunny with an orange sweatshirt and sneakers, but i decided to basically overhaul her outfit to look more breezy/summer friendly. its admittedly pretty plain (and i might change the colors on her shirt so that her sleeves dont blend in so much to her hair), but i wanted it to look like something someone would actually wear in hot weather. so. flipflops

izzys outfit is goth and glitter. the unicorns in the movie all have an emo thing going on, so i wanted izzys outfit to kind of look like she’d bought an outfit at the store and then modified it herself to have more glitter and bright colors. i know she says “im a bit too sparkly for bridlewood” in the movie, and that i wouldve been justified in just giving her an extremely girly-girl outfit with pinks and purples, but i just wanted to give her an outfit with an overall darker palette to contrast the other characters. i imagine she keeps sewing supplies, glitter, etc. in the little bags on her hip :) little girls like goth characters and they love excitable characters, so i think combining the two would make for a really cute fashion doll. sort of like a purple draculaura?

zipps outfit is probably going to be the one to change the most the more i draw her. the only notes i can give are that 1. i wanted it to be flowy and somewhat regal, and 2. i totally hit a wall designing it and it is just kinda ugly imo. sorry i did you dirty zipp, ill figure out what to do with your outfit later on lol

pipps outfit is my faaavorite. her dress is meant to mimic her hoof (pink fading to white, and then a layer of gold fabric to represent the gold of her hooves), and her shoe design is a reference to the leg accessories on her crystal adventure toy. i gave her a fluffy shawl instead of a feathery boa because iiiii like it

finally, hitchs outfit is just pretty basic. he is sheriff, he gets sheriff outfit. i wanted to give him something flashier, but these are designs for how the characters would look in their very first appearances, so this is all he gets. ideally, throughout the movie id want them to get different outfits (they all dress in more “gothic” fashion to help blend in with the unicorns, for example)

i dont have a real channel, since i only have two videos and theyre both just compilations. i would like to start making art related videos (probably just storyboards and things like that), but i have a bad habit of starting projects and then never finishing them, so thats a hurdle i have to get over first lol . but im gonna really try to finish this one!!!

[miraculouscontent]

(miraculous asks)

Anonymous said:

Oh My Gosh!!!! I was just thinking about Party Crasher and man I hate how they had Ladybug get captured for the men to save! It's a continuous thing you see in media: strong heroic woman gets put in peril so that the men can shine. I didn't even realize it until you said it! I get that it was probably meant to be a "role reversal" of Chat always getting kidnapped or brainwashed for Ladybug to save, but the fact that this is the "guys' episode" it read like "well damn, we can't have the guys be strong if a girl is in the way; let's have the girl get captured so the boys can prove their worth by rescuing her!".

At least in Sandboy, Ladybug was still competent and came up with the plans, but this?! It makes me sick, and it's all too easy to fall into these traps; even Kim Possible did it! In my magical girl story, the heroine does get put in a magical coma and require someone to bail her out, but it's her female friends AND her boyfriend who save her, so it's not just a girl being weakened so a boy can be powerful, especially since said boy actually does a minority of the work required to save her; the focus is on the female characters so it's her girl friends who do most of it. I still ended up scrapping that side plot anyway, and do you know why? Because regardless of who saved her, I still didn't want my female protagonist to be put in distress at all due to the unfortunate implications! Needing help in a fight? Sure. But outright being captured or kidnapped? Nah fam.

I was honestly thinking about that when the first episode came out. Like, they could’ve just had Marinette NOT SHOW UP in time so the guys take care of things, which at least gives more of a message that Paris wouldn’t go to hell just because Ladybug is a little late or something.

And yeah, the “boys squad episode so gotta toss the girl out” is... sigh.

Anonymous said:

I think the writers were trying to show Chat angsting to show his regret instead of an actual apology. Still doesn't explain why Aeon didn't bring up her death afterwards. Did Olympia delete that from her memory banks?

I guess? :|

I don’t know why Chat can’t just apologize without fishing or trying to earn sympathy. Like JUST SAY YOU’RE SORRY, DAMMIT.

Anonymous said:

If you haven't read Maribat, then you won't regret it. I am not in the DC universe but I started reading it and WOW. Literally every single time Marinette is a badass queen and gets her complete revenge and is actually happy! Even if you absolutely love Lukanette (which I have nothing against) you should totally try it.

Appreciate the comment, but I find it hard to ship other Marinette ships outside of Lukanette. Ivanette is a very loose exception and it’s not like I ship it hard or anything.

Anonymous said:

Despite not being a Lukanette shipper I love you. Why? Because you amazing, so right in literally everything and I love you <33

gkdfjgfdngjkfdg thank you

bat-anon said:

The NY Special made it so that Max is literally the only Black/Brown kid that doesn’t exist to make Love Square happen and that just makes me hate it even more.

I wish you didn’t make me have this realization because I hate it.

At least Delmar existed in the New York special???? I guess???? I dunno, I’m trying here, I don’t recall him doing anything love square centric.

Anonymous said:

I honestly don't mind Alix's outfit as Bunnix! I feel like it fits her, plus she's an adult so its not much of a problem, not saying it can't be improved however. I DO have issues with the designs for the underage girls outfits however....those are very sus

Yeah, the problem I take with Bunnyx’s is that it’s a bodysuit. If there was just more definition, like having actual boots, I wouldn’t complain as much.

Anonymous said:

I actually just really like the idea of the new bee being a genuinely nice person who becomes friends with Marinette. Not exactly close friends (since I like the idea of friendly working relationships without actual personal stakes in them). I also enjoy the idea of the new bee having some small animosity for Chat Noir- just because their personalities aren't the greatest mix. I also think that it would make sense for the miraculous of subjection to be at odds with the miraculous of destruction

Full agreement but we know how much the writers are resistant to have characters go against Chat.

Anonymous said:

Not gonna lie the scene where the girl squad gets akumatized almost makes it seem like they got akumatized on purpose, similar to Manon in Puppeteer 2(although she was a little kid who was probably just imagining she could enact revenge). And why can't they have a uniformed design, like they're a team but wear different colors, similar to the Sailor Senshi(like, Alya's the leader and wears orange, Rose wears pink, Alix wears green, Juleka wears purple, and Mylene wears yellow). It's so boring.

Mood.

Not to mention that WE ARE SO TIRED OF THEM GETTING AKUMATIZED INTO THE SAME AKUMA.

AT LEAST PALETTE SWAP THEM.

Anonymous said:

Relating to the Didn't Need Burrows and Treatment of Marinette bingo cards, have you considered making one for whenever the show fails at girl power? It could say things like "sexualized frames of teenage girls" "boy tells girl what to do" "girls don't get to keep Miraculouses", and "girls are forced to apologize whenever a situation goes wrong". And in the center, it could say "Don't show this to your daughter!"! Lol! What do you think?

lol I feel like I have enough cards, otherwise I would.

Anonymous said:

I saw another post that talked about Miraculous New York, and they theorized that it was rewritten to focus more on Marinette and Adrien in order to get viewers invested in the Love Square again after more people started to lose faith in the ship. Do you think that's a possibility?

I think so. The whole special comes off as trying to reassure love square shippers because of how hard it goes for him. I cut out Marinette’s crushing and it cuts like 18% from the episode, meaning it’s even worse than Season 3 (15%).

Anonymous said:

Maybe the point of the [break-up episodes] is meant to discourage people from shipping Lukanette and Adrigami too?

Spoiler alert: didn’t work.

Anonymous said:

Are we not gonna talk about how in one ask, somebody legit said "(long dreamy sigh) Viperion"? Like same.

RIGHT????

Same.

Anonymous said:

Ml fandom: I hate how Ladybug keeps secrets from Chat Noir! He sacrifices himself for her all the time and she never appreciates him for it! He has EVERY right to get mad at her!!

ML Fandom when Chat Noir does the same thing in the special: ....Wow Ladybug was way to harsh on Chat Noir!! She doesn’t appreciate him at all!! Shes so mean to him!

:|

i hate it

Anonymous said:

Idk if it's just me, but a majority of the fandom is split in two; it's never one or the other "MARINETTE SUCKS AND IS A HORRIBLE PERSON GUARDIAN MARY SUE WHO SEXUALLY HARRASSES" or "ADRIEN SUCKS HE WAS NEVER ON MARINETTES SIDE" but im personally on the latter, but not to that extreme. i hate videos bashing marinette and then never acknowledge adriens faults

Yeah, the fandom gets more divided as time goes on because of the writers trying to increase the drama/tension.

Anonymous said:

I am PERSONALLY offended they gave Luka the snake miraculous. Snakes have such a negative connotation. A lot of people insult Lila by calling her a SNAKE. And now those ML writers DARE insult the best character in ML?! HOW DARE THEY!?????

I adore Viperion but I agree that I first heard he was getting snake and was like, “BUT MY BOI???”

It gets awkward too because other animals like the pig have negative connotations, like how Daizzi basically means “idiot/stupid” and they’re giving it to the freaking blond character, really???

Anonymous said:

I think that Ivanette would be even better if Marinette was plus-sized character.

I see why you’d think that. I just disagree because then it turns the ship into “let’s pair the heavyset characters together because they heavyset.”

Anonymous asked:

On the topic of romance failures and general series salt, my main issue right now is how the series puts so much focus on romantic relationships while failing to consider other levels of relationship or what they affect.

On the L² front I can completely buy Marinette being in love with Adrien. Most of the time she genuinely wants him to be happy and is ready to take a step back for him, however much it hurts. But in terms of romantic love? It. Is. A. Crush! But if we step back from the formula, what is there left between them? Their civilian relationship is held together by a “comedy” of errors and without that there is surprisingly little left. Well, besides two “best friends” desperately trying to make it happen because somehow they lost their individual characters and instead of being friends became matchmakers?

I too like Luka and Marinette together. Their relationship is pretty nice to see and all. But sometimes it feels like it happens in a dimension of its own, like the writers want to make the endgame clear in that the “sideships” can be easily cut out of the big “how they got together”-recaps. I especially miss reactions from and interactions with Juleka. She is Luka’s sister, Marinette’s friend, and IIRC someone aware of if not even a bit player in the great shipping game. She is in a prime position to step up and bring progress on all fronts: She can talk with Luka. She can either give Marinette helpful pointers or go “All in or nothing”, i.e. trying to make Marinette get her Adrien-feelings in order as she does not want her brother to get less than Marinette’s full heart. Similarly, she can counteract “friendly acts” and stop humiliating situations from escalating, or she herself can escalate them in the “All or Nothing”-scenario. Yet she remains basically a background character who gets little attention from the camera and almost no “non-focus identity”

As for Kagami, I may be too biased. *Any* positive Kagami/Marinette relationship is to me what Lukanette is to you. So naturally I have lots of opinions when it comes to her role ;) But can I just say that Adrien/Kagami is the weirdest ship for me? They have a few cute scenes and I think if they’d spend a lot more time together, they’d do each other good but I don’t know how they work. “No Hesitation” Kagami would lob Adrien’s head straight off with all his…everything. If we are meant to take Adrien’s love for LB seriously (and I guess we have to because how in the name of sanity is any form of the stated endgame gonna work otherwise???), how does Kagami fit into that picture as a girl who can hardly express emotions while Adrien is the definition of a  guy who can not stop flirting or goes for all kinds of romantic gestures? Sometimes it feels more like a “social fit” and “Mommy/Daddy approves” kind of deal which is quite the shame! Normally I like these kind of relationships in fictions but they need a solid underlining or good development. One they haven’t and one the series has not been giving to anyone so far.

Yeah, the whole thing with the love square versus side ships ends up feeling extremely forced. Keeping Luka away and forcing Adrien into Lukanette episode are the biggest giveaways, basically a big fat sign that says, “We know Marinette would forget that Adrien exists if she hung around Luka for more than five minutes.”

AND YEAH, KAGAMI WOULDN’T PUT UP WITH ADRIEN’S GARBAGE. I liked Adrimi but it’s definitely more flawed than Lukanette.

Anonymous said:

Watched your opinion on the New York special and I agree with you. It was mediocre at best. It could have been something nice, like if they added Kagami and Luka, for example, so that we can get a bit of development from the new couples on season 4, so that it doesn’t feel rushed when they start dating on season 4. It could also be a good opportunity to see the other temporary heroes one last time, since Marinette technically has the miracle box.

They could have had an epic fight with the American Superheroes, maybe even giving the bee miraculous temporally to Aeon or Jess so that we didn’t need to see their awful and uncreative superheroes designs. It would have been nice if they made something more useful other than being characters that believe that Adrien and Marinette are “Meant to be”, like, we already got a ton of these already, couldn’t we get someone who didn’t feel something about this ship? It has so much wasted potential that I don’t even know how to start. Do you agree with anything I said?

I agree, yes. They could’ve easily thrown Luka/Kagami into the mix (or had Marinette/Adrien stay behind while flipping perspectives or something; flawed but they could make it work).

Anonymous said:

I'm rereading ladybugout and wow... the moment of silence after "chat deserves that kiss" gets me every time. Everyone stopping and just staring because wow he really just said that

Me whenever Chat Noir opens his mouth in the show.

Anonymous said:

I saw the Backwarder post you just talked about and yes, it is so totally ridiculous. They forgot another thing, though. Miraculous isn't just about comedy, action, and romance, it's about embarrassing Marinette. And the fact that almost everyone in the comments was acting like the medicine scene at the end was funny was just stupid and saddening to hear or read about, because it shows how people have been conditioned to hate and rally against Marinette without even realizing it. Granted, there was one lady who said it reminded her of her husband, so I guess that's okay(but all it means is that Adrien will be Marinette's--aka "his lady's"--husband like eeerrrgh!). And there was one person who said they liked that Juleka's advice because "If you're friend isn't willing to commit crimes for your happiness, is she even your friend?". But everyone else liked the ending. And I don't get the person who said we got "Subtle progression with Adrien and Marinette". We're right where we started.

Weeeeell, I understand the “comedy, action, romance” comment because all of those basically boil down to embarrassing Marinette or invalidating her. Comedy and romance goes without saying while action involves her dealing with Chat “Nice Guy” Noir.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me, or does Snow White's "Red Shoes" form look a lot like Marinette. I know, I know, Marinette is Chinese and Red Shoes is Korean, but they still look strikingly similar. They're bodies are really similar, too, but that might just be because animation tends to use eerily similar body types for its female characters on a whole. It's sad and it makes me think of how cute Marinette would be if she was fat. I also think Snow White was cuter than Red Shoes but that's kind of the point.

I think it’s the body type thing but that’s just a guess since I didn’t immediately make the connection.

I agree that Snow White is cuter.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one who's never liked "destined to fail" characters? Basically this is when characters aren't allowed to be good at/succeed at something or else the whole universe will somehow fall apart. Think of how in The Amazing World of Gumball, if Richard gets a job, the world will be in complete and utter chaos. So he's better off as a lazy, bumbling dad. In Phineas and Ferb, Candace is always trying to rat out her younger brothers but if she gives up or succeeds something bad will happen.

TV Tropes put it the best: "Not only is she not allowed to succeed, but she's also not allowed to stop trying!"(conveniently under the Cosmic Plaything trope). I just don't like it because it shows that the writers just want to lead them on with the promise of success then snatch it away at the last minute. And now we're back at Miraculous Ladybug, where Marinette is humiliated every time she doesn't sign a gift that's for Adrien, and yet when she does, everyone in Paris DIES. Except for...HIM.

you: *mentions Candace*

me: [a million awful flashbacks]

Also, yeah, it’s so hard to watch, especially in “Chat Blanc” because it’s like, “Oh, you want to give a gift to a boy and you dArEd to use your powers for it? Congrats, but everyone else is DEAD and you can hang out with him as much as you want! You’re welcome!”

Anonymous said:

I think it’d become a “faintest idea blackout card”rather than a bingo.

(referring to my “Faintest Idea” card)

We’re getting there.

darkmoonravewolf said:

I hate that everything on that list could happen and very likely will

(referring to “Didn’t Need Burrow”)

Yeah, and it makes me sad :’)

Anonymous said:

That’s be real here. Miraculous ladybug is not a show about Marinette; Miraculous Ladybug is a show about Adrien. Adrien is the real main character.

Notice that when they focused on Adrien in “Lies,” they only cut back to Marinette (IN A SCENE THAT CAN’T EXIST) to have her fawn over him.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me or are Lady Noire's eyes huge? Maybe it's just the green but they seem way bigger than Marinette's

I’m not sure, but considering Rena’s facial structure being different from Alya’s, it wouldn’t surprise me.

asexual-individual said:

With what you've said about Adrien lacking a reason to exist outside of development for Marinette and Gabriel, I have to wonder how different the show would be if Chat Noir's identity was also kept from the audience. Adrien would still be there as himself, but he only gets as much focus as Alya, and Chat Noir's identity is treated as a mystery (a Tuxedo Mask type mystery, but a mystery all the same).

I see what you mean but it might cause Adrien+Chat’s screentime to feel excessive once the reveal happens, because suddenly their screentime gets combined and it’s like, “oh wow so the combined screentime is his then.”

Anonymous said:

I know that the kwami's really only exist so we can hear our protagonists' thoughts outloud (like what the Coraline movie did with adding Wybie to the story). But honestly, what's the point in having magical gods in the jewelry if you're not going to do anything with them?

Marketing with “cute” side characters.

guisendisguise said:

It's funny, originally, I had shipped Marichat in the sense that Chat and Mari start hanging out and both fall in love with the other's supposedly less perfect, more real selves. Then Luka was introduced and I ended up putting both lukanette and marichat at the same level. Then S3 hit and killed any love I had for Marichat. The writers themselves killed the Love Square for me. At this point, it's very clear they are living in a delusion where the Love Square could ever work narratively without Deus ex Machina or Deus Lo Vult (God wills it). Basically, they've gone past scraping the bottom of the writing skills barrel and are now shoulder deep in the hole they dug thru the bottom of said barrel. I'd like to point out that the bottom of the barrel is writing poop and now they're digging thru the useless plastic landfill the barrel was sitting on top of

Uggggh, yeah. Any appreciation I could’ve had for Marichat died in “Weredad.” I already didn’t like Adrien/Chat and then “Weredad” just showed his complete lack of... well, ANYTHING.

cosmostellar said:

Honestly feels like MLBs writers are going based off the "JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE" instead of, yknow, fleshing them out while developing them also in the context of their cultures and giving them these little things that the audiences who belong to the same minority can identify with. I don't mean "have Marinette walk in qipao 24/7" bcs thats just... bad on its own but man, /some/ casual acknowledgments of her culture would be nice.

Reading the sentence “JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE” physically hurts me.

Anonymous said:

Ok, I've always thought that Chloe was robbed of redemption (they held it in front of us, but then jerked it away while Astruc says, "She's irredeemable! We thought she was redeemable, but she wasn't :)!" What are your thoughts! Also, I just recently found your blog and I really like it :)

Thank you!

But I have no sympathy for bully characters, so I didn’t want Chloe redeemed. Maybe I’m still bitter about my own bullying experience, but I just wasn’t here for Marinette being forced to forgive Chloe, which is basically what they did until they backpedaled.

The time spent on her was wasted though and that I can agree on.

Anonymous said:

Me: Writes a 1k rant about how the tweet makes no sense as the "mistake" is about motivation and not the critical plot. Also me: Remembers that in MLB the plot always comes back to the romance. Finally me: Wonders why he got involved with the series post-S3 when all the red flags were already everywhere.

Mistakes were made.

Anonymous said:

I'm semi-catching up on miraculous, and- is it my impression, or does Kagami rebel against her mother more in few episodes she's in (even though her mother's influences on her seem to be stronger in general), than Adrien in the entire show? I /know/ that I don't want to see Adrien free himself from his father w/ the desperation I want to see Kagami free herself from her mother and realize that the standards she's held up to are unhealthy and too strong.

Yeah, I’m way more invested in Kagami than Adrien.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one confused about whether the staff stopped caring and half-asses the series or cares too much and over-produces the hell out of it?

Nah. It really feels like they secretly hate the love square so they have to keep forcing it.

Anonymous said:

ngl I haven't watched any new episodes since Chameleon and I've been getting all that Miraculous News via tumblr to avoid that Marinette Brand Second Hand Embarrassment™

Understandable.

Anonymous said:

If they aired the 6th one first WHAT WHAT HAPPENED TO LEAD UP TO THIS???? WE ARE ON SEASON FOUR WITH TWO SPEICALS, GETTING A THIRD, AND ANY DEVELOPMENT WE HAD HAS GONE BACKWARDS, SUCKED, OR STATUS QUO YO-ED AWAY!!!!! HOW THE HECK DO WE GET ADRIENETTE FROM FOUR SEASONS OF NOTHING?????? I USED TO FANGIRL AT THIS NOW I AM TERRIFIED.

Answer: We don’t get Adrienette. We get forced love square and rushed/fake “development” of it while being constantly confused as episodes air out of order.

Anonymous said:

im sorry But adrienette has been suck in this limbo of one sidedness for 3 seasons. neither of them have become closer, neither of them have confided in one another, but somehow people still ship it? at least luka was able to make a move on marinette lol adrien still repeats the same boring “shes just a friend” line. adrienette is a really boring ship.

lol don’t apologize, you’re absolutely right.

nahte123456 said:

Very minor bit of salt to throw to the pile, but can this show just decide on how strong Miraculous holders are? Yes it's a cartoon and not the focus but in the Furious Fu episode we literally get Ladybug dodging lighting and then Su who seems mostly human and is at least slower then Fu was outspeeding her. It's distracting trying to figure out what is and isn't a serious threat in this show.

The deciding factor in the strength of the miraculous holders is “whatever works for the plot.”

Anonymous said:

At this point the only thing I'm excited for concerning Miraculous Ladybug is when it gets a reboot in like, a decade with actually competent writers

Best case scenario is that Zag goes bankrupt and Disney/Netflix picks up the series and gives it to competent people.

Problem is that the love square has been ruined so badly for me that even a “good” version of it wouldn’t be something I’d be into, but still.

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the problem with having all of Marinette's mistakes result in huge disasters (ex. Feast), is that is gives off the impression that teenagers aren't allowed to make mistakes. This show clearly doesn't like giving second chances to the protagonist, so why would life give one to you? Am I right, kids?

Exactly.

Marinette makes mistakes and suddenly the world is ending.

Anonymous said:

If your gonna watch the show, at least pirate the episodes so the writers dont get your support

Don’t worry, I have no interest in financially supporting the show.

Anonymous said:

ml in a nutshell: wasted potential, then giving themselves more potential, only to turn the rest of it into a dumpster fire

Yup, that’s it.

Anonymous said:

u know, when My Little Pony, Sofia The First, and fanfiction carries out character development, respect, romance, and the main plot better than the original show, especially when the shows mentioned above are aimed more at little girls and the original show is aimed at slightly older audiences... somethings wrong

*sigh*

And then it’s like--people will excuse the show because “it’s a kids’ show” and then I’m just “okay then, why are there actually good kids’ show?”

If shows get a pass for being for children then all childrens’ shows should just not try and be garbage since the standard is so low.

Anonymous said:

ive seen some cool fic ideas/concepts/reviews that made me think: ml could use so much more looking into how a character thinks in some situations. one fic i read had alya in chameleon (i know its been forever since the ep came out but hey) not question lila cus she thought: "hey, lb wouldnt befriend a bad person" w and added a plot line of lila making her think lb was cobsidering replacing rena rougue. like, just a few lines to make them seem better pls?

YES. Like, show us characters’ perspectives and why they’re rolling with the facts that they’re rolling with, otherwise they just end up looking like jerks.

We sort of got it in “Ikari Gozen” with Kagami but of course it was just to make Marinette look bad.

Anonymous said:

You know I’m honestly considering making reviews of this show and if I do I could create hour long rants about the show just from that mans twitter.

Yeaaaaaah, once you had in the Twitter stuff, it just becomes, “okay so this is going to add another hour or two then.”

Anonymous said:

Okay one thing that bothers me is how plain marinette's suits are despite being a DESIGNER. Her multimouse suit it just blocks of color and her ladynoir suit is just grey with green lines. I think the lines are supposed to represent actually clothes. Like the limes on the calves are supposed to make it look like boots but why not actually GIVE her boots. (Right, because she has to have a skintight suit unlike the boys who get some layers.)

THE SHEER DISRESPECT OF HAVING THE FASHION DESIGNER WEAR SUCH A PLAIN SUIT.

It also goes to show who really designs here, like oh, interesting, the girls get skin-tight simplistic bodysuits and the boys gets all the cool stuff--

Anonymous said:

I heard some people in my class saying they watched Miraculous Ladybug for the first time, and they were saying how good it was, and I was like: 'Oh you poor fools. You have NO idea what it's truly like.'

You know what they say: ignorance is bliss.

bat-anon said:

Isn’t it INTERESTING how in Frozer, Luka understands that Marinette is torn between her crushes and continues to support her even though he knows she probably won’t chose him, and in the exact same episode Chat Noir refuses to help save the city because Ladybug told him AGAIN that she wasn’t romantically interested in him? HMMM 🤔😑

dbfgjbdfjkgf

I’M REMINDED OF “FELIX” WHERE IT’S LIKE--THEY WERE CLEARLY TRYING TO SHOW HOW MUCH “BETTER” CHAT NOIR IS THAN FELIX, BUT LUKA WAS THE RESPECTFUL ONE.

Anonymous said:

You know what I want to see? An evil kwami, like they just want to commit crimes. No moral high grounds, just chaotic evil.

That’d be amazing just because I wouldn’t be able to take them seriously.

Anonymous said:

Watching S1 and S3 episodes back to back, it feels like reading salt fics at times, especially in regards to the L². Like, Marinette was happy about weird plans, she both needed and wanted the final push, and most of the time there was at least something coming out of it. Nowadays it just makes her sad, Alya and the girls act *against* her, and we get shipping for shipping's sake.

That’s a good point. The shift from Seasons 1 to 2 to 3 is rather noticeable.

Anonymous said:

I hate how Adrien's busy schedule seems to only matter when it's used to make Marinette feel bad, but the second Marinette has a bit more to do, it somehow has a negative effect on not only her, but also everyone/everything she cares about, like, what's up with that??

I’m reminded of “Lies” here and I hate it. :|

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the way the show treats teenage girls is horse ass. The show treats the teenage girls of this show as if they're stupid, naive, emotional, clumsy, and need a boy to tell them what opinions to have. Marinette is always treated like the show's punching bag and blamed for everything that goes wrong because she's "emotional" or "obsessed with Adrien", Chloe could've been redeemed but the writers would rather keep her a brain-dead Alpha Bitch Valley Girl(even though Gabriel and Felix, the latter of whom is a teenage boy introduced in one episode, get to be treated as redeemable, despite the things they do being far, far worse), and Lila is a conniving, self-absorbed fox.

And even though Kagami seems better, she's still roped into the "girls catfight over an oblivious guy" cliche and so far, all of her akumatizations have been because of Adrien. Whenever Marinette tries to move on from Adrien the other characters tell her what's good for her and steer her in the "right" direction because she apparently can't think for herself, and the writers LOVE to use the girl squad to tell us who Marinette should be with, because they apparently know better than she does.

Plus the show loves to treat all the girls as the same, making them all either fight over Adrien or be obsessed with shipping, as if teenage girls are all one assimilating, homogenized group(also when they treat Marinette as if she's "just as bad as Chloe", rinse and repeat for the other ladies.). Honestly, the show feels like it was written by those types of people who think "teenage girls are the worst" so they make them all mood-swingy, obsessive, showoffs, emotional, and downright clingy.

Plus the way Thomas Astruc talks about the female characters on Twitter is even worse, and only serves to make this more evident: he claims Marinette "has poor control over her emotions"(all the while calling Adrien "perfect"), that Chloe was racist in Kung Food "because she's stupid"(so rather than having that scene serve as a lesson on respecting other's cultures, he just did it to pick on Chloe and make her look "stupid"), that she's incapable of being redeemed, that Lila's unlikable but Gabriel and Felix aren't(even though he claimed Felix was a terrible character and a "cliche", that's not what the show says my guy), and other such nonsense.

Other Twitter users have also called out Miraculous Ladybug and its stereotypical treatment of teenage girls. The only shows I've ever seen do this worse are those pretentious "darker" Magical Girl "deconstructions" aimed at grown men such as Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna, as well as most shonen/seinen shows such as Naruto and Death Note, which says a lot. Honestly, whenever I feel like watching a show with empowering and respectful depictions of teenage girls that treats them as bright and intelligent and actually unique from one another, I just watch Equestria Girls, Liv and Maddie, LoliRock, ANT Farm, Moesha, PreCure, or Sailor Moon. Because the way the show acts towards them is deplorable, absolutely deplorable.

Yes to all of the above. Almost all of the girls are involved in love affairs in some way, the two teenage girls are irredeemable while Felix got a sympathetic backstory right away (Chloe took forever to get hers which is a failure), and Marinette is flawed because she’s “too emotional” (a misogynistic stereotype).

Anonymous said:

Hi, I'm the anon who got upset at the lady who made the "Miraculous Ladybug is a Mess" rant, and yes, thank you zodiacspirit17 for liking and agreeing with my rant! I'm glad someone else saw that video! And ugh, Marinette learning to love Chat Noir? Really? I don't remember that line but I also don't want to go back and revisit it to make sure so I'll take your word for it. Ew. That was actually one of the things I hated about the Glaciator scene. Chat was supposedly comforting Marinette by taking her to the rooftop where he planned Ladybug's date, and yet only Marinette finds out about Chat's crush on Ladybug and comforts him on that(while rethinking her feelings), while all Chat knows is that Marinette's heart was also broken. He never asks who it is, or tries to help her get over her crush even if he doesn't know it's coincidentally him.

I know it's because of the "love square" but it's unfair that only Chat's love problems are directly addressed. Come to think of it, the reason Chat took Marinette to the rooftop...I know he was doing it in-universe to help her instead of intruding on her personal feelings(which might have also been why he didn't ask her who her crush was, he was probably thinking along the lines of "we don't have to talk about it right now, we can just have fun!"), but meta-wise, since we know she's Ladybug, the writers were probably trying to tell her "See? This is what you could've been doing, but you missed it. Shame on you!" That's a huge issue I have with the show: characters will do things in-universe to help Marinette, but the show has a different motive in mind. Compare to how Tikki gave actual advice to Marinette in Puppeteer 2, but the writers intended that for the statue scene so they could embarrass her in front of Adrien and the thousands of eyes watching the show(except we're not laughing.). Even if characters do support her, the writer is using them as props for her ritualized humiliation. And yet Luka is the problem somehow.

If Marinette needs to learn how to love Chat Noir, then it should at least be balanced out by Adrien learning to Marinette. I'm sick of this double standard that "girls need to learn to accept boys who like them but guys can do what they want". Another thing she said was that "Marinette needs to learn to define herself outside of who she's crushing on." NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. You see, unlike Adrien, Marinette HAS a life outside of who she's crushing on: she has school, she has Kitty Section, she has her "girl squad", she has her parents, she has her outside family, she babysits Alya's and Nino's siblings, and she has OH YEAH HER FASHION DESIGNING! I didn't even count being a superhero since Adrien does that, too. She has so many things to do outside of Adrien, and yet the fact that she makes gifts for Adrien or dreams about Adrien or wants to have kids with Adrien somehow makes her nothing but an "Adrien fangirl"?

First of all, she's the bloody protagonist?! That's such a "Real Women Don't Wear Dresses" argument, that she can't have her own life AND be in love at the same time! And somehow her crushing on Luka also means her life revolves around him, too! But Adrien's life doesn't revolve around Ladybug even though he doesn't really have anything going for him in his ordinary life? Outside of being rich, hot, white, and male, that is? What are his interests and hobbies, besides what Gabriel lets him do to pass the time? He doesn't even like modeling! And the Agreste plot is more about Gabriel, Emilie, and Nathalie than it is about him.

And what about his friendship with Nino? He didn't even care that Nino was getting strung along by Lila with the others! What about his friendship with Chloe that also waxes and wanes? Granted, Chloe's not a GOOD person, which that lady acknowledged, but she at least tried to change and has more development than him, the writers just won't let her change. I hate when people come for Marinette for doing literally anything when the show won't let her have agency and progress. It's so unfair of her and I wish they could see that. These double standards are driving me insane and they're sexist(maybe even a little bit racist, too), and it hurts even more when a woman's doing those things.

(I had to cut off some of this ask because I didn’t get all of it, so I cut it off at the point where it still seemed like a full ask.)

I FEEL THE “GLACIATOR” THING SO BAD. It hurts even worse when you realize that “Frozer” has to take place after “Glaciator,” so Chat Noir heard that Marinette has love problems and then ignored it to ask her for advice about his own love problems later on. The total lack of insensitivity???

Also, the idea that Marinette’s life would revolve around her crush on Luka is stupid. It’s the exact opposite, in fact.

Meanwhile, Adrien has so little going for him and the “interesting” parts of him involve who he’s connected to or what his father has forced him into.

[dapperrokyuu]

Ayyy~!

Oh, yeah, 1000%! Different tastes for different plates, no need to change anyone’s mind regarding this, haha. Sorry if I gave that impression at all, thats my bad. Its just fun to dive deeper into other people’s takes!

Poison’s shoes are veryyy amusing. Extra wrapped to be safe??? Or to protect the floor from the substances on her shoes, LOL, dalnfdakljn- The way the shoes squish down…theyre very intriguing. The colors are very fitting and I definitely prefer when a concept oversells than undersells! Interestingly, I think my favorite factor that contributes to it is her jacket, its a very modern design while also giving the bubbling vibes of chemicals. Thought it was very clever! The hair is really goopy, which I think is part of what pushes me away, but gotta give credit for its contribution too! Reminds me of oobleck, lol.

The goggles and mask looks really cool, ahhh! Im a sucker for gas masks myself, haha. And mad scientists can be very fun~! I can see why she appeals to you tons! Despite my major gripes with SWSH, I think the region’s Pokedex was really good, actually.

Oohhh, I get what you mean. Psychic arguably has a lot more going on with it in terms of accessories and colors, so I feel that! We’ve talked about how Psychic’s is perfectly cute, so its boringness doesnt come from aesthetic/design, just from a lack of conceptual embodiment/potential, I guess, haha. I could see how Sirfetch’d themself also limited the design by not just necessitating a swordfighter design but also one that has to be regal, so you can say the Miku got tamed down too much! I do like the leek hair as well, I think its probably Fighting’s most clever aspect, hehe-

I think your feeling towards Fighting actually is similar to my feelings towards Grass, like, it works, a cheerleader and a marching band pair, but I think the palette is flat so its kind of boring to me. Smack some green everywhere, put some leaves, totally Grass type, right?! I like the idea, but I think they got stuck on it and couldnt think of anything more interesting beyond it- I digress tho, haha. Im always easily forgiving when I cant think of a better execution and I dont hate the design, so it passes at the end of the day… Now that I think of it tho, they couldve had her as one of those baton twirlers/color guarders to better match the marching band theme and done something interesting with that…..but I guess being a cheerleader is more in line with Miku’s vocal role, so oh well!

As for Flying, its okay, youre always gonna have a hater- /J, LOL- And a lover as well tho, hehe~! 1000% respect, sometimes something’s just not your thing! Thank you for sharing your takes and thoughts with me, its very fun!!! c:

My pokémiku tier list. @dapperrokyuu we are very different people.

[pwnyta]

Genshin Impact character opinions (alphabetical)-

0/10 Albedo is my least favorite design... He looks so fuckin goofy and from what I know about his character the fact he looks so goofy is not great.... The shorts look so dumb and the blue of his shirt looks weird...

Just wanted to visualize my issues with his goofy outfit... wont be ‘fixing’ anyone elses.

10/10 So fucking cute. The colors are beautiful and well spread through the design, Zettai ryōiki. bunny theme...terrific. Ambers just perfect. Look at that fucking adorable face as well... look at her big ol smile and tell me she aint a 10/10. She’d get a 10 if all I ever saw was that big ol smile.

9/10 Barbara is adorable. Her costume is gorgeous. I love the white with blue and the gold accents. Very pretty my only gripe is the lighter blue on her bow...

10/10 Beidou is just gorgeous.... I love that shade of pinkish-red with the off-black and purple with the gold trim. Shes just so hot... also her English voice is also top tier which is irrelevant to my ranking... maybe but--

1/10 Bennetts not as bad as Albedo but god hes annoying to look at... and listen to....  he looks like hes a Kingdom Hearts knock off, the colors are weird, and he has the personality of s1 Ash Ketchum.... Im sure hes a swell lad... but

6/10 Chongyun I mean I love the color pallet and over all its fine. I think the onesie with the cropped jacket and the weird half robe is weird but it looks fine if I dont think about too much.

7/10 Diluc is pretty but not as fun to look at as some others. I do really like those red palm gloves. My biggest gripe is his shirt.... with the belt? WHAT? Sir do you know what a belt is for.....

8/10 Diona... so cute. I kinda just wish her hair wasnt pink. I dont like the pink in her design at all but other than that... super cute. I just noticed her gloves had little peets on them.... THATS SO CUTE.

4/10 Fischls color pallet (other than her hair) is gorgeous but other than that... hate the overall design... Im not opposed to sexiness... but come on....

7/10 Ganyu is very cute but idk whats going on with her outfit at all.... its a very confusing piece.... but I dont hate it...

7/10 Whoops forgot the new girl... Her designs cute... but it is a bit dampened by the fact I think about toilet boy Hanako.... but other than that very cute!

9/10 Jeans a hottie. Love her tight pants... is it too much to ask for more hot girls in tight pants? IS THAT SO WRONG?! I dont really like the weird open top bit or the red bits but I dont hate it either.

10/10 Kaeyas design is one of my favs. His color pallet is gorgeous, the design is cool, tasteful tiddie window... its great. Good for him. I’ll even excuse the spiked fingerless gloves which no other character could possibly pull off.

10/10 Keqing is gorgeous too. Again with the beautiful colors, a really charming outfit design combined with those little cat-ear buns. I do often see up her skirt when flying and climbing however and it makes me feel like a bad person LMAO IM SORRY KEQING!! I DONT MEAN IT. She seems like the type thatd be really embarrassed about it!!

10/10 Klee is so fucking cute. I kinda wish her eyes were green like her charm but the red is good too. That red and white with the warm brown is really nice, and you cant go wrong with a poofy hat! Shes so cute.

10/10 Lisa was designed to be a smoke show but she pulls it off better than Fischl. Love the roses throughout her design, the color pallet is on point, her hair matching the dull gold of the accents is really nice, a peak of Zettai ryōiki and her green eyes just POP. Shes beautiful.... I love her.

3/10 My issue with Mona is mostly her bottom half... I get that her tights design looks cool but with the rest of her vibe having her main clothing piece be like... a bathing suit? ITS A CHOICE and it ruins her design for me. Also I hate the baubles on the ends of her hair.... but her color pallet is real nice. I also like her bigger eyebrows...

10/10 Ningguang... also a total smokin hottie. Her colors are beautiful and really feel RICH. That brassy color and gold on white with the ginkgo designs... the bitch is just poppin. She looks fantastic.

8/10 Noelle is so cute... I like when I add her to my party and she gets all excited and eager to help... very cute. Her design is an endearing mix of badass knight and dutiful maid.... my only issue is her skirt.... looks kinda weird. Wish she had some petticoats to fill it out more. Also dont like that her roses pop out the way they do... reminds me of Shreks ears....

10/10 Qiqi is adorable I love Jiangshi, love the colors, wish she wasnt wearin horni thigh highs(I only ever see thigh highs squeeze thighs like that in l00d art dont come for me... I didnt design her.) but lolis gonna lol. But again her design is top tier. Shes so cute.

5/10 Razor... is kind of a mess but its largely the colors.... its a lot of weird colors. Also his design makes me think of the male MC... I literally thought he was like an AU version of the MC....

10/10 Sucrose is so cute. Again that white blue and gold look great... I like her frilly shorts and thigh highs.... her boots are cute... her hair color is a little weird but I dont dislike it. Kinda wish her eyes were a different color tho.

4/10 Childe is fine... but after seeing all the other Fatui designs and his own monster form I look at him like this and go.... REALLY? Thats what were goin with... alright... Also his whole design screams ‘fire’ to me not just colors either the shape of his mask and the pattern on his scarf thing.... its weird that hes Hydro.

10/10 I love the female MCs design... I chose the male MC because his colors popped more and im a dumb animal and was like ‘ooh shiny‘ but I think her design is a bit better over all...

9/10 Male MC is still good... its very cute. I like how she looks more suited to the Anemo and he looks more Geo... Thats pretty cool. I really like his colors... the browns/gold/white... its a striking look.

6/10 Ventis pretty cute... I dont get the weird... corset thing hes wearing, dont like his shoes,,, but other than that its pretty cute but nothing special imo.

10/10 Xiangling is so fucking cute. everything in her design makes me clutch my heart at how endearing she is. Love her. Weird color palette... its even weirder that it fully works.

7/10 Look I love Xiao hes a good lad so I cant be too harsh... but all the colors on his design look a bit weird which really brings his over all design down... which I think is cool over all.

9/10 Really cute design for Xingqiu! The colors are beautiful... I love blue and white and gold obviously and he even does it with more of an emphasis on the blue and its a greenish blue and it looks great. the top is just gorgeous, those frilly sleeves are super cute... not a huge fan of the shorts but I hear theyre comfy and easy to wear.

10/10 Xinyan just looks terrific. Cool and punky, great fiery color pallet, cool theme, cheeky personality without it being obnoxious....  Shes great! Weird voice tho... lmao

11/10 You cant tell me what to do! Zhongli is the only male smoke show in the playable cast for that he gets an 11 ok? I love a dumb old man. I do think the coat over his longer coat is a bit weird but I aint mad at it. Love the colors, very earthy, the subtle gold design on his pant legs are cool and really hes got a lot of cool bits on his coat, his face/hair are lovely. Hes a total babe.

A SUGABABE

[jidai]

now I'm curious who are your favourite graphic makers and why?

long post ahead. 

i’m not the most eloquent individual so i apologize for my descriptions. it’s not a definitive list but:

@nathanprescutt if you look through benn’s portfolio, you can see that he experiments a lot with style, typography, composition, and colors. he doesn’t limit himself to a specific style or “genre” so when you click pg 1 vs pg 6, his edits are quite different from each other. i’m a huge advocate for artists to be experimental and go out of their “box” so i really respect his decision to branch out and try different things. benn also creates some elements/parts of his gfx himself, like creating a burnt photo effect (that looked really realistic btw wow).

@tomura where do i start with fran, hmm. i think i can speak for most when i say that fran’s graphics are so gorgeous and out of this world.  i really don’t think even my words can do her work’s justice. you have people like me to experiments with textures, colors, typography in photoshop and then you have fran just hard flexing on us with illustrator, after effects, and photoshop. fran’s works are extremely clean, official, and experimental. she’s very dedicated to her craft and you see it very well in the number of details in her work, even if they are minimalist. i really look up to her--like, her works are legit and i would pay for them. fran if you see this, please sign my baseball cap. 

@gray​ jei’s work is a pot full of magic, wonders, and talent. one of the most experimental gfx creator i’ve seen. i really appreciate the fact that they actually use the subject as a part of their work (i.e cutting oikawa’s head open and inserting a snake plant into it). have you seen someone cut a character’s body parts up like that and make it into gfx? i also really love that they experiment with various color palettes that i wouldn’t think of and voila it’s mona lisa 2.0. their works are so complex and interpretive. if anything, i truly respect their dedication to details.

@biscuitwalk i like to describe their work as “fun and whimsical” lol. i’m personally a huge fan of using halftones/noise/patterns in my work and biscuit’s works are prime examples of how gorgeous it can be if it’s utilized properly. their works are really colorful and their composition is so refreshing. their portfolio is so impressive, like these are works that i would see in pros or behanced. they take a very bold approach in their work and i respect them a lot for it.

@rokuseis sei’s work is really cute and fun! i really like how she game-ifies... games.... lol she basically takes a pre-existing game and spins them into something fun like turning kingdom hearts into a casino, god bless her soul. her tarot card series is really pretty, too! you really don’t see a lot of content creators doing something like sei so she provides a nice outlet for that.

@klavoir​ you know those 3-in-1 deal you see on ads? if i may be so bold, selma is the embodiment of that. she’s so talented. selma’s really good at keep you on your toes because you seriously don’t know what heck she’s gonna make next. a nice gifset? oh no it’s actually a gfx set with complex typography that uses only primary colors. i have no idea how she can come up with so many good compositions. even the minimalist gfx set is GOOD. she’s very known for her series of edits in a single post and the amount of creativity and effort that it takes to make sure that they all mesh together well is insane but pulls it off effortlessly. selma can beat me up for adobe creative cloud money and i’ll gladly hand it over.

@25th i only followed nonnie very recently so i don’t know her exact history with gfx but looking at her recent works, she’s starting to show her true power lol. i really want to commend her for tackling the monster that is typography. it’s a scary place but i think she’s doing a great job. she’s experimenting with a lot of aspects of designs in her latest works, too. i’ve said this to her a few times before but she has so much potential and i love seeing her improve from one gfx to the next. i’m waiting for her to just one day snap and create a masterpiece.

@noxdivina lin’s typography is no joke, seriously. i’m always blown away at how creative he is while maintaining a specific aesthetic/color palette. truly a master of his art. i also want to note that lin likes astronomy and whenever i look at his works, i always feel like i’m looking at the sky and seeing dots of stars here and there. his works are gorgeous, full of angst (totally my taste). his works triggers these like... solemn and nostalgic feelings and i love it so so much.

[nighttimepixels]

Heyhey Night! I have a buncha questions after seeing all your animations and they're just so cool so! I hope this is ok!! Can u animate normally too, or only pixel? Not that that's bad, just wondering! What's ur preferred kinda animation? Do u prefer lipflaps or lipsyncs? What's the hardest part of the animation process?? What's ur favorite?? Any part u don't like? What's a thing people don't see that u put a lotta time into? Do u have a fave animation u've done? Thank u btw for all ur art!!

Oh stars, okay, yeah- I’m happy to answer all these!! I’ll break them up so it’s easier to read X) And awww geez thank you so much for your support, sweet anon! It really makes my day when people say they like anything I’ve made, and stars knows it’s all the more true with the sweet sweet time sink that is animation   (´•̥̥̥\\ヮ\\•̥̥̥` )

I’ll also put this under a cut since it gets a bit long :)

Can u animate normally too, or only pixel?

This one cracks me up a little, don’t worry about it XD I totally can! In fact I enjoy it a lot - and... gods, animation software is a nightmare and a half, to be honest. That’s the biggest hurdle.

I do just straight up love pixel art and the aesthetic I can achieve with it, but I do at times miss ‘normal’ (non pixel?) animation, heh. Especially sound-syncing! I do all my pixel art in Asesprite which imo is the best pixel art program, not to mention made by an actual pixel artist - buuuut it doesn’t have a sound file option. Which makes sense! Er, frankly, most pixel artists wouldn’t... use it to animate like I do? More for games, or for looping gifs? So I can’t complain much, it makes a lot of sense that it’s a low dev priority.

Now, when it comes to other animation programs... I’ve tried a lot. Unfortunately, the ones that are preferable for the feel I like are either way out of budget (stares at TVPaint in the distance) or... well, have too high a learning curve for my single-person workflow, really. (OpenToonz, sigh...) And a lot of the free programs are good for getting a start in animation, but once you get to a certain point you really feel the limitations (whether it’s workflow, sound import, exports, trying to make something more finished than a rough...).

Then... there’s animation programs I just don’t like, and a lot of those are angled towards bone-style animations (nothing wrong with those, they just don’t fit my style? and are too much time investment for a single artist to output more quickly...), or are, well, freakin’ Adobe Animate.

I... gods, I do not like Animate (formerly Flash). And I made a whole 2 minute+ animation in it a couple years ago! (It’s very rough and bad and doesn’t make sense, pfff, not gonna link it XD) It’s... clunky, and vector oriented, and freaking lines don’t go where I want them too, and it tries to predict too much?? It’s hard to put to words, gah. For me, my animation style would be much more... raster oriented. Flow, hand drawn inbetweens, yaddayadda. Animate’s great for... plenty of things, but not for that kind of animation. There are far better animators than I who make it work with freakin’ aplomb though! So really, it’s just my taste, haha.

.... Er, that got long! I’ll cut off more rambling about animation software and tl;dr boil it down to “I love animating period, but turnaround is something I have to keep in mind as a freelancer, as well as budget, and my current focus is pixel animations for a number of reasons.” X)

What's ur preferred kinda animation?

I’m not exactly sure what this one means! Between pixel and non-pixel? Er, they both have their pros and cons, so I couldn’t say! But if I have to break down my current animations into categories, I’d say I have cutscenes, loop environments, and the broad game-like animations...

The first would be something like this animation feat. teasing Edge, the second would be something like this one with skesgo’s Starlan and Cinnamon, and the third is... everything else! From headsprite loops to ‘small’ characters running and so on.

Honestly, they’re all a lot of fun for different reasons! Cutscenes are generally the most challenging, but they give me the chance to push my limits and try and pull off something cool, whether I’m having to conserve frames (to keep the cost of a commission down) or whether I’m going more all out (which is a pricey commission, or a fun personal project, lol).

Loop environments are their own challenge - it may not look like it, but I put a lot of thought into how to make them look as natural as possible! From timing of talking characters, to where to place a blink, to exactly how many frames it’ll take to ‘soften’ a motion (so people aren’t just snapping between major poses) and so on - it takes... a lot of time to animate even simple scenes well, so I do a lot of mental math on how I can keep things affordable when someone approaches me for a commission. And frankly, I totally undercharge;; but I do my best!

Game-like animations are just fun. They range, they’re silly, to intense (I’ve animated fight animations before for game concepts), to indulgent, and beyond! Headsprites are always a delight, especially if I get to push the expression X) and I love tiny things (I mean... I am a pixel artist...) so getting to make lil tiny babs even just walking can be fun - and also, a lot more time consuming than you might thing, esp if you wanna make it smooth, like this lil Frisk I did last month or so:

Do u prefer lipflaps or lipsyncs?

oTL

B... both??

Okay, lipsyncing basically is very time consuming. AND, I freakin’ love it. I love puzzles, and when it boils down to it, that’s what super fun & expressive lip syncing is (some Ghibli animations are the heckin’ best for this)...

and, I’m a pixel artist, without sound-syncing capabilities in her main art program oTL Yeah, I can export frames and line them up and check but... gods, it’s so time consuming. I’ve tried it out of desperation - but for even five seconds of sound (sayyyyy a lil Vine...) that’s hours upon hours of transferring back and forth just to check.

So even though I love lipsyncs, they’re too time-consuming (and ergo, if I’m being commissioned, often too expensive) to do often! Someday I’d like to get back to doing them more often, but for now, practically I stick to/’prefer’, in the loosest terms, to do lipflaps. For the layman, this is that ‘two frame’ (maybe three) open-closed style of animating mouths- however, I’m working on ways to keep that style, but make it more expressive! It depends on the project - and in commissions, I’ll pretty much always prioritize giving the client a little more body animation than mouth animation, unless it’d really fit what they’ve requested.

What's the hardest part of the animation process??

.... damn, this is a tough one! Sometimes I’d say it’s the initial concept work - but it depends on what I have to work with. Sometimes that parts a breeze - and honestly freeing, bc I can take the time to try and push what I’ll do with it!

Roughing is one of my favorite parts, tbh. It can be tricky, sure, but getting to go from keyframes to in-betweens & smears to adding the flairs of secondary motion (think hair swishing, or coats flaring, etc) is so exciting and satisfying.

From there it’s all refining, and tweaking...

Hm. Honestly, the hardest is probably the initial cleanup and lining. It’s cool to see it come together, but it feels so much slower, and it can drag - and then you find bits that actually don’t translate well from the rough stage, so you have to go back and rework, and oof it can just drag in this phase, heh. Plus, I’m always tempted to add more frames, but it’s not always realistic - I’m a perfectionist, to say the least, so I’m constantly having to leash myself back so I don’t turn a project into a half-a-year undertaking, pff.

What's ur favorite??

Probably gave myself away talking about the roughing stage X) It’s just loose and fun and free! But seeing it all come together is also damn satisfying too, so that’s not to say I don’t like the refining portions either...

Outside of that, I also really like the beginning of the color stage! .... Before having to translate shadows/highlights to each and every frame *shudders*. That gets tedious, but it’s so critical! Anyways, though, I heckin’ love colors. I always have a rough palette in mind at the start of the process, but I go ham and play with it as a little break and a true test when I get to actual slap together a full frame with full color, highlights/shadows included! It’s exciting, like a preview of the finished product, basically :D

Any part u don't like?

Heh, by the time I get to shadows/highlights, I tend to be getting impatient, I suppose. It’s not that I don’t like it - I definitely highly value it, and if it was the only thing I was working on in an animation that’d be different, but as a one-woman team I’m just raring to be done at that point; it’s very nearly the last thing I do, after all, so it’s a struggle to focus. X)

I suppose one that always gets me is more complicated backgrounds. It’s a work in progress, as I’m getting better and finding the fun in them for sure! But I’m still not where I want to be in translating ‘background concept’ to ‘finished background’ - it feels more stiff than my animations, I guess. So it’s a frustrating part... but hey, it’s part of it! And learning to embrace the challenge is a big help.

... I just always have to make sure I have a big cup of coffee and a good jam playlist going when I sit down to do ‘em, in the meantime.(=▿= ||||)

What's a thing people don't see that u put a lotta time into?

Definitely the coloring. This goes for both backgrounds and the animated characters themselves. It’s... never as simple as it looks? It’s time consuming, and while some parts of frames can be copy-pasted, I also put subtle work into the animations that mean that some pixels are off so it ends up being marginally faster to just recolor, but then there’s shadows, and working in pixels means that if I miss one then there’s a flickering pixel mid-animation, and sometimes there’s an unconnected line and then you bucket fill the whole damn thing, and gods know I’ve got colored lines so I have to be exacting with keeping the same ratios highlighted vs darker in shifting frames...

*deep breath*

... Yeah, basically the coloring is super time consuming. And balancing bg coloring with animated elements in the image itself is a whole extra challenge on top of that. For 99% of my animations, I can damn near guarantee I’ve spent at least twice as much time coloring it as I have animating it.

Do u have a fave animation u've done?

*looks at my goblin hoard of animations in horror like I’ve been asked to choose a favorite child*

... Stars above, I can’t choose! I love them all, and at this point a good portion of them are commissions- it wouldn’t feel right to choose!

*...carefully covers the hoard’s metaphorical ears*

... also, that said, I can admit a soft spot for any of them that involve humor. I tend to get to do extremely expressive faces and action there, even if I have to ration the frames, so it turns out really fun X)

And though rough and I’ve definitely done stuff I’m more proud of, I still crack up at this one I did a while back of the nonsense ‘ass’ joke between Red & Stretch... their faces were too much fun XD I’ve gotten waybetter since then though, Big Oof, I see so many things I can fix; might go back and redo it someday.

Honestly, though, I just freakin’ love animating! They all have their ups and downs andI always put a lot of love into them and find a way to have fun with it and try to push any emotion/theme (when applicable). I like to think it shows, but idk, that’s something I have to leave up to you guys X)

[collective-laugh]

If the main six had pokemon as familiars, what would they be?

Okay so I wasn't going to answer any requests today, but this one literally just came in and I had to

Asra - I was going to say Snivy, but I think Serperior is a better fit because it reminds me so much of Faust lol. It is a Grass type, which I think could fit Asra well, but I wanted to go with a magic one, but fuck it. I like Serperior because it's superior (slow clap)

Nadia - I decided on Espeon almost right away because it was one of my favorite Pokemon when I was into it. It isn't a bird Pokemon (like Chandra), but it is a psychic type, which I think plays into Nadia's ability of precognition well (and color palette lol)

Julian - I struggled with this one because I didn't know, exactly what to go for. I almost went for a rock type, and then looked up 'pirate themed pokemon' because...Julian, and then I decided on and Audino because hello! He's a doctor! And can you imagine that pink, lovely healing cloud next to edgy doctor boy?

Muriel - I was looking forward to Muriel because I knew I was going to say Turtwig the moment I saw this ask because smol Grass type plus Muriel equals yes. Also, I know Muriel treats it as his equal, and a Turtwig would be a good companion for him to evolve and to evolve with, because growth

Portia - I almost said that fucking cat that used to hang around Team Rocket and figured that was too expected. You guys want me to say that little annoying thing that haunts my childhood, but I know better, so I'm gonna say an Aipom because ya girl could use a long tailed normal Pokemon to help out with her work (and height deficiency)

Lucio - So I will buy into the stereotype this time and say that Lucio would have a Furfrou, because I'm in love with the aesthetic, and the idea of Lucio going wild over all the different trims. It is a normal type, but it's a dog. Of course.

Also, this ask made me think of this. I went and saw the Pokemon movie in theaters twice because I loved it so much, once in New York City, and the second time with a bunch of children that are not mine, and both times I had an absolute blast, and have watched it once since then, not in theaters. It wasn't a masterpiece, but it definitely knew what it was. If you haven't seen it yet, it's the murder mystery we all deserve, and you should totally check it out.

[vrainsrewatch]

episode 8 thoughts

i was gonna watch later, since i’ve got other things to do, but i burnt the shit out of my hands making hot chocolate like an idiot so i watched an episode first LOL. 

this episode starts out with that really strong fairy tale scenery i absolutely adore, with yusaku and ai trying their hardest to get blue angel to wake up.

i seriously could talk about the imagery in this scene for days lmao. i love the sleeping beauty aesthetic, but i also really love the colors. LV goes through so many different color palettes through the series, but i love the purples and blues of this area here. i’m not sure if the intention was to make blue angel seem like she was meant to be there, while in contrast playmaker stands out due to his hair, but i seriously replayed this section twice because it looked so nice. 

i have a lot to say about this episode, and it will also be my most screenshot heavy post so far lol, so once again, buckle up! 

this episode starts to really build up yusaku as a character - his sense of justice, his core values, etc etc. on top of that, it takes its time to flesh out akira, and to show his worse qualities, which we’ll get into in a minute.

first, though, is one of my favorite awkward exchanges in the series lmao:

i’m surprised he even caught onto what akira was getting at, tbh with y’all. vrains started out ship teasing yusaku/aoi really hard these episodes, but drop it almost completely up until the minimal tease we get in s3, which i find really funny. i was always really invested in them becoming friends, though, so while i’m happy we had that happen in s3, i would’ve really liked to see it happen earlier. not this early, though - yusaku’s nowhere near ready for that.

I HAD TOTALLY FORGOTTEN VYRA WAS HERE. yugioh hair makes it known that she’s going to be an important character, but i had really completely forgotten she was working as one of aoi’s doctors during this part lmao. i love this so much, actually.

moving onto everyone talking shit about blue angel on forums and stuff. this kinda shit:

would be really awful to deal with. it’s very real, though - cancel culture, anyone? but seriously, this is so brutal. on top of that, does this imply that she’s never really lost before? she is the number 2 charisma duelist in LV, so i wouldn’t be terribly surprised if that meant that she hadn’t really lost since starting to make it big as an idol. once again showing off how good of a duelist aoi actually is, even if the show makes her lose a lot. tbf, her loss/win ratio isn’t that bad looking at the other main girls - 5 wins, 5 losses on screen, and considering the kind of opponents she faced (soulburner, bohman, ai), that’s seriously not bad.

next up we get the chess pieces again, and boy howdy, does this conversation make me seethe.

i understand it’s partially a cultural difference thing, but i can’t help but get angry about it LOL. 

i didn’t remember how often the chess pieces were actually utilized in these first few episodes, either. i guess i can understand why people were irritated they were just dropped, but i don’t really see them as a plot point, more like... just a kind of weird way to run a company? just show your faces and have normal meetings like everyone else, y’all don’t have to be so extra.

the akira/emma meeting is nice because it shows you more of emma’s character, but it also gives you more of akira’s stupider (and ruthless) side.

you don’t see him like this very often, but honestly, when you think about all the unsavory jobs he was doing to keep him and aoi afloat way back when, it kind of makes sense. even if he was originally a gentle person, you don’t last doing... any of the jobs he’s done, being that way. even a higher up in a company like SOL tech would have to be a bit harsher to get to that point imo. i don’t see a lot of people talk about this side of akira’s character tbh which makes me kind of sad.

also, seriously, he’s an idiot. how did he arrive at this conclusion? when he saw that it was aoi who was baiting him into the duel? no matter what direction i approach this from, i can’t understand how he ended up on that conclusion lol.

also, the worst father ever award goes to....

seriously! i hate that man so much lmao. to say that directly to your own child, on top of everything else...

it’s a nice look into revolver, too, though you wouldn’t know it at first glance. his reply says everything, though. he fully accepts his role in his father’s life and has an incredibly toxic attachment to him, and wants his approval more than anything. we never see him get physically abused by kogami or anything of the sort, but you can’t deny the mental anguish he must’ve been going through in order to keep on his father’s good side. 

i know a lot of people like to say that revolver is kind of not a great guy, seeing the tower of hanoi arc, and how he probably should’ve went to jail etc etc but really, he was manipulated hard core. and extremely suicidal. i could really talk a lot about this all day, but i’ll cut myself off and instead say how much i love how vrains sets up revolver as a character. this, combined with “i’ll fulfill your wishes, father” from episode 3 gives you his motivations nice and clearly, but this specific scene also gives a bit of a hint as to where his character arc goes and what he has to work through. just thinking about this makes me so excited to get to 116 again lmao.

anyways, though. another excellent exchange comes up. seriously, lmao, ai being like “waaaah that’s illegal !!!!” and kusanagi’s just very casual 

makes me laugh every time i see it. they are criminals, even if what they’re doing is for the greater good. they’re not exactly innocent here lmao.

then there’s the talk about the virus infecting her, and it’s a nice way to bring up how that works before the another arc comes up in.. a couple of episodes, right? tbh it’s the arc i remember the least about, so i’m looking forward to rewatching it.

actually though, the idea of viruses in LV being able to infect someone’s body is so, so interesting. i really, really wish they had done more with the whole LV/rl merge idea, but guess i’ll just have to write more fanfic instead lol.

i mentioned at the beginning of this post we get into yusaku as a character more here, and this is one of the lines that really made him interesting to me originally:

he has such a strong sense of justice, but what sets him apart from other ygo protags is that he is not defined by it. he’s not the classic, stereotypical do-gooder who gets caught up in something and has to make it right, his justice is more so that he is not okay with seeing other people hurt because of what happened to him. his justice is driven by his trauma, almost entirely.

revolver even brings it up this episode:

where he talks about how some rando wouldn’t have done them any good because it wouldn’t have been public enough. yusaku doesn’t really care about the little people, not in the same way, say, yugi would. it’s not that he wants them to be hurt or see them get hurt or anything, it’s just that unless it effects him directly, it’s not on his radar. but once he gets involved, he feels fully responsible.

while he didn’t plant the hanoi virus into her, he probably knows it was to intentionally draw him out thanks to ai (and the fact that he beats them up all the time). he feels fully responsible for what happened to her, and he’s prepared to do what is needed to make it right again.

i really like yusaku for this. i find those kinds of characters really interesting, and yusaku is no exception. 

we get the whole emma/blue angel/yusaku scene, which is pretty sick tbh looking at it again - just shoot a church straight up from the ground for dramatic effect! - and i’ll bring up more of akira’s ruthlessness here.

seriously, this is not a line from someone who is just angry about his sister. and it’s also him being fuckin DUMB. playmaker willingly lets himself get caught into your trap, and he tells akira straight up what he has to do to save his sister - no sugar coating it, no trying to make it cryptic or difficult despite being caught in that hand and in that trap. he’s incredibly honest, and akira still does this lmao.

then it’s probably the wildest turn of events in all of vrains:

where’s that post that’s like, “remember when playmaker gets caught in a gothic looking church while he’s getting tormented by a giant demon hand controlled by his classmate’s brother and then his rival who he hasn’t met yet shows up in a lightning bolt to save him”? bc really LMAO what the fuck. it was so hype watching it the first time, and it’s still awesome watching it back.

and why is this never really??? brought up again later???? and when he leaves in that datastorm to go prepare to fight playmaker LMAO i know it’s supposed to look cool but the animation is so dorky, i love it. 

more on yusaku, though. before playmaker goes to fight revolver, who he’s been gearing towards for awhile now, we get this exchange:

to which playmaker responds with “i don’t hate you. i only hate the knights of hanoi”. which is another really good moment for his early characterization and very, very consistent with his backstory that we find out in about 12 episodes.

everyone who wasn’t involved in the LI in any way just... exists to him. they’re completely neutral. if something happens to them because of him, he feels directly responsible, because he feels like he got them tangled up in a mess that nobody should be in. i mentioned that briefly earlier, but this really drives that point home.

he doesn’t even hate akira for torturing him mere minutes ago. because he’s been through worse. because akira was doing what he thought was right by his sister, no matter how stupid he was being.

and even more so than that, he’s not seeing this as fighting for akira. he feels responsible for blue angel, but also, here’s his chance to fight revolver. it’s a two birds one stone situation here for him. 

anyways, i’m gonna stop myself there lol this is really long OOPS. gotta take care of a few things, and then onto the first rev vs playmaker duel!

[comicteaparty]

March 9th-March 15th, 2020 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from March 9th, 2020 to March 15th, 2020.  The chat focused on HoverGirls by Geneva Bowers.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on HoverGirls by Geneva Bowers~! (https://hovergirls.com/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace until March 15th, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Discussions are freeform, but we do offer discussion prompts in the pins for those who’d like to have them. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic! Whether you finish the comic or can only read a few pages, everyone is welcome to join and chat with us!

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 1

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic?

2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)?

3. Who is your favorite character?

4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most?

5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it!

6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores?

7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content?

8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

It's so eye catching!

The bold color scheme immediately creates a strong identity for the comic

The contrast between the two MCs is

I'll comment more when I've read past literally just the first page lol

eli [a winged tale]

Wow I love the art! Very beautiful palette and interesting characters right off the bat (pun intended!). Great dynamics between our two mains and love the magic so far!

mcapriglione (Falconhyrste)

yall I heard you were talking about hover girls and I came running

I just caught up like yesterday because I'm sick so I've spent the whole day reading comics, also I picked up a physical copy from geneva at c2e2 and that's what got me started on the series!

What stands out to me so much is the characters, jalissa and kim are total opposites, and it's really interesting to see them interact with each other. also the little things in the background that tell more about the characters, like jalissa's love for soap operas and kim's references ahaha

RebelVampire

So time for me to jump into the chat. What I like about the beginning is that it starts you off with this sort of beautiful artwork and magical feel, only to drop the mundane on you with the coffee shop and the obsession with ranking on social media. Something about how this starts really gives me this sort of more modern day magical girl feel that usually isn't quite there. Like it's a bit gritty feeling cause life is gritty, and I like that. As for favorite moment in the comic so far, I'm partial to when the girls discovered their powers. I like how it just sort of happened, and the different reactions they had to it. It was both magical and funny. Also for the reasons below. My favorite character is Jalissa, no content. Jalissa is basically my spirit animal. Doesn't want fame, just wants to catch up on the soaps, but somehow winds up with more energetic people. All of Jalissa's reactions to everything are great and I love it. For characters interacting, really it has to go to Jalissa and Kim. They're such polar opposites I think you'd have to try to NOT enjoy it. But either way, that opposites thing really just makes their interactions endearing and interesting since going in you know they'll disagree and yet somehow wind up doing the same thing together anyway. So I really enjoy that about their relationship.

As for the art, I really just love the color design combined with the style. It has a very whimsical feel that works for the abundant blue schemes and I really just adore every bit of the atmosphere it creates. For themes, I like that the comic explores ego. Like that moment where Kim asked if she was getting too full of herself really hit home. And I like that the comic kind of explores that even if you know that you might get egotistical and all high and mighty, its not the easiest thing in the world to stop either. For the story's overall content, I'm just gonna point to what I liked about the beginning. I like that its a bit more mature, modernized magical girl story where the magical girls are adults. That's probably just bias in that I'm an adult so I relate more to adults.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 2

9. What do you think Jalissa’s backstory and relationship with her family is? How do you think Jalissa will continue to change as the story progresses, and what will Kim’s role be in it? Further, how will Kim change?

10. Why do you think Kim was suddenly possessed, and how dangerous are they? Can Kim be saved from it? Additionally, why was the person who possessed Kim surprised Jalissa also had powers?

11. Do you think Jalissa and Kim will succeed as magical girls and become popular? Why or why not? Additionally, how might this change the future plans each has decided upon for their career?

12. What do you think this comic teaches us about pursuing our dreams and responsibility? What has been your favorite moment in the comic so far that deals with these themes? Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

gee

Hello CTP! This is the creator of HoverGirls c: I want to thank you all for taking the time to read and discuss this comic! I bet you're all pros at what makes a good story, so it's really humbling to know that it's liked so far. I'll be happy to answer any q's about story, chars, etc. And it was super nice to finally meet you @mcapriglione (Falconhyrste) and hope you feel better!

mcapriglione (Falconhyrste)

Aaaaa hey welcome to the chat @gee !

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Ok I just finished reading the entire comic start to finish. I have to say I'm not only impressed by the wonderful art and refreshing color scheme that makes me think of wild summer, but amazed that I find myself invested in this story! Usually it's not my cup of tea at all, but Hover Girls are going to clearly be the exception. I'm adding this to my comic bookmarks The first thing I have to give my kudos for is the sheer character design and characterization. I had sincere, and in Kim's case, almost visceral reactions to both girls, and the Korean guy (his name sounds Korean). While Jalissa intrigued me from the start, Kim got under my skin to the point I found her insufferable! It is only in the last few pages with her backstory flashback that I somewhat feel sympathy for her. I love the interaction between these two, and also how the story is paced so that we get to gradually become aware of more layers and nuance in the relationship they have. Jalissa's love and concern for Kim was clear to me from the start, while Kim's not so much. She (Kim) came across to me as immature, self-centered and inconsiderate. Later, when we see more of their history, I got to see the concern and love from Kim's side too. That's excellent writing to go with the excellent art. I also really like the premise with the alien creatures! I am intrigued and want to know more. Finally, I want to talk about the humour in the dialogue and the art in general. I love how there's a streak of black humour throughout the comic. My favourite character is (in case you didn't infer it yet) Jalissa, but I like the entire cast. They need each other to organically bounce off each other and develop. And lastly, I have to mention the really fun brand names and soap titles. Always makes me grin. Wonderful work @gee !(edited)

RebelVampire

I get the impression that Jalissa was a typical delinquent and that her parents werent around much - hence the delinquency. And so I imagine it's a bit strained at the best of it. I think Jalissa moving is her attempt to turn things around, and I think that is what will happen. Jalissa will become more responsible, take more of a sense of duty, etc. Which is what I think will happen with Kim, along with a healthy dose of gaining some humility. As for why Kim was suddenly possessed, maybe the weather? Regardless, 100% I'm sure Kim can be saved. Only bad villains monologue so Kim got taken over by a bad villain. As for why Jalissa's powers are a surprise, probably a lack of communication due to alien bureaucracy. Jalissa and Kim will definitely succeed as magical girls if you tone down expectations to be heroes who fight crime as opposed to what we see in every anime where they fight and just are completely fine and sparkly. As for becoming popular, maybe for a bit, but honestly, probably not. The internet is fickle so sure they might get a viral video....but then everyone will move on. I think it will mostly only change Jalissa's plans as she's finds there are more important things in the world than soaps. As for what the comic teaches about pursuing our dreams is that it's hard. My favorite moment is actually Kim checking if anyone liked the pic and it was just Jalissa. The world is saturated with talent, and even if you have the drive, the skills, etc., getting noticed is kind of a slog. But I think Kim shows us at least might as well keep trying.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I had the opposite reaction as @Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight) ! Jalissa irritated me at first, while I liked Kim. But then, when I saw Jalissa's genuine kindness, I liked her more, and when Kim started showing her flaws- how she's kind of self-centered and naive, I started to like her less. That's not to say I think this comic has bad writing, though! I like how the author has given everyone such realistic flaws. I went through a lot of cycles of liking and disliking the characters, and I think that reflects how it feels as you get to know some people irl. These characters are complex!

Seeing stoic Jalissa get truly angry at Kim was powerful.

I like the detail of Jalissa keeping her bat in her backpack's water bottle holder

"Only bad villains monologue so Kim got taken over by a bad villain. "

Rebel, that made me laugh

I think it's true too(edited)

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

+ü´´´´´´b n#ä+ß

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

@Eightfish (Puppeteer) it's exactly that we get different and real reactions to these characters that is the proof of excellent writing. We react differently, but we react as if they were real people and that's an absolute win!

mathtans

Woo, my schedule's eased a bit and this looked interesting. For the discussion prompts...

1. The beginning set things up well in terms of a quickie fight and then the characters and city situation. There was humour in that too. Good tone.

2. Fave moment, as far as plot was probably Jalissa interacting with blonde boy (sorry, forget the name) in particular because it seemed to be foreshadowing. Fave moment for relatability was the phone message with "Get to the point" because I SO relate to that.

3. Tough call on character. Both mains have good qualities and I don't feel I know the others well enough yet. I suppose Jalissa for her straightforward nature and sticking to her guns (like about dresses).

4. I liked Jalissa and Blonde Boy interacting, funny enough, as I said earlier. The cousin banter is good but the former stood out somehow.

5. The art's a neat blend of emphasis in some places and less in others; also interesting how the hair is done. Not sure why that sticks out.

6. I'm very bad at noticing themes. It's neat showing what "magical girls" do in their off hours. Also the troubles with getting noticed.

7. Story's clever, and I felt suspicious of Blonde Boy from him being around during the powers acquisition, which seems to be paying off. Nice to see ladies of colour too.

mathtans

8. Comic's got a bit of everything. Magic, mystery, slice-of-life... a reader can probably gravitate to something.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 3

13. What are you most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic?

14. Any final words of encouragement for the comic? Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

mathtans

9. Jalissa seems to be someone who grew up in a difficult situation and needs to blow off steam sometimes. I'm reminded of the time she punched the wall - but then within a day went to get the materials needed to fix it. I feel like she had an unhappy home life with no real outlet or people to talk to about it. Maybe the fighting evil will help, or at least give her a sense of accomplishment. Kim needs to be a bit more grounded in reality, and I suspect will, although at the same time you kind of hate to see it happen, like the death of innocence or something.

10. I wondered if possession was always part of the plan against Kim (once it happened), and that's why the water beings were around, like they're trying to get access to the powers... though it's seeming like it was always something inside her, she was simply able to suppress the feeling for a time. Until she was at a low point emotionally.

Actually, I always thought BlondeBoy had something to do with the attacks, and in the scene between him and Jalissa (the earlier one in the alley) you saw hint of blue in the art, and one wonders whether he was acting normally. I wasn't sure if it was a subconscious thing or a conscious thing. Now I wonder if Kim wasn't manifesting the items herself on some subconscious level, wanting something to defeat. Though maybe he still had a hand in it too.

Of course, maybe the weather has something to do with it too, as Rebel remarked on.

mathtans

11. I feel like their power as magical girls is possibly tied to the presence (or at least strength) of the enemy, otherwise why wouldn't it make the news more? (Granted, could be obliviousness by the populace, but this seems to be reinforced by the current plot elements.) As such, their magical days seem numbered... unless they could fight against regular mundane foes? I dunno. The world doesn't seem to care much about supernatural either.

mathtans

Maybe they should change their name? Hovering doesn't sound too aggressive, and I don't think they do it that much anyway. Granted, DampGirls isn't catchy, and H2OGirls is a bit clinical. ^.^

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I love this comic! The two main characters play incredibly off each other, and there's lots of great comedic moments. My fav is Jalissa.

I wonder if it is the weather that's causing these possessions? Because, like, the flying fish attacks in general are tied to the rain. Maybe particularly rough rainstorms cause possessions? I feel like the thing that possessed Kim and the boy was what brought about the powers in the first place - the energy that came down from the sky on the beach. It's odd how the blonde dude didn't seem to use powers but got possessed first, while Kim uses her powers the most and got possessed second... maybe Jalissa has an easier time resisting because she has the strongest will?

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights) I don't think Jalissa can get possessed- Bob said that his soul was split in two, and Jalissa got the powers while Korean guy got the mind

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

ah yes, that's true

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@mathtans I like "Hovergirls"! It's cute and catchy

gee

The title I still don't 100% like, TBH. I legitimately thought on it for a week before starting on this comic and still couldn't think of anything better XD

RebelVampire

What I'm most looking forward to in the comic is probably just more Jalissa in general and finding out why Jalissa is the way Jalissa is. Overall though, this is a beautiful comic with a great combination between modernization and magical girls with just the right hint of maturity that makes it more appealing for an adult. Definitely would recommend to adult fans of magical girl stories!

mathtans

To be clear, I had no issue with the title of the comic... with some comics there's only an offhand reference too. I guess I was more picturing the ladies arguing, were Jalissa to get more into it.

As to the rest of the questions, I think the comic can show that reality is somewhere between the two of them (though they do play off each other very well) as far as dreams and responsibility go. I'm vaguely curious to know whether the alien might be having a positive (or negative?) influence on BlondeBoy, who seemed a bit of a jerk from the lens of the others.

The world building is well done too, like I could even see spinoffs... these aliens apparently just sent a couple emissaries to Earth, maybe there's some sort of space force out there fighting too. Maybe they see Kim's videos and want to recruit her. Or hire her for public relations. idk.

Anyway, looks great, definitely an interesting read and nice showcasing of things you don't see other places, best with it!

gee

Huge thank you all CTP group for giving HoverGirls a read! I cannot thank you enough for giving your time and thoughts on this story and it’s been incredibly helpful and encouraging!!

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

It was a great read, gee!

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about HoverGirls this week! Please also give a special thank you to Geneva Bowers for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked HoverGirls, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: https://hovergirls.com/

Geneva’s Store: https://gdbee.store/

Geneva’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/gdbeeart

[bookcoversalt]

2019 Debut YA Covers Megapost (part 1)

I’ve fallen off the wagon of keeping up with cover reveals even a little, and there were a whole bunch in the past few weeks, so to get back up, i’m gonna try to do quick and dirty rundowns of as many 19 debuts as have had cover reveals (that I haven’t already talked about) as I can this week! HERE WE GO (these are in no particular order):

1) BLOODLEAF by Crystal Smith

Oh Bloodleaf, you expensive little TOG rehash. What have you brought us. This is another Billelis creation, and I actually like the type! The hypercondensed slight serif feels appropriate but fresh for YA fantasy and the color scheme, the central flower image, and the silver thorns are all really working. BUT I have the exact same issue that I had with the updated Dark of the West cover; the “fancy border with illustrated story-relevant elements” thing doesn’t really work for me when it’s uneven and almost-random the way this is. The crown, moon and tree up top are so symmetrical and balanced that you expect the same thing in the opposite corners, and instead you get a castle with a lot more visual weight than the others, plus a raven and a bow that are just...... hanging out? This would have been a stronger cover with the additional symbols completely removed; the flower and thorns are plenty of visual interest alone.

2) THE PIONEER by Bridget Tyler 

I am obsessed with this one. I don’t know a damn thing about the book, haven’t seen it hyped on twitter or anywhere else, but this cover is gorgeous and perfect and evocative; there’s DEPTH and DRAMATIC COLOR and it’s got BISEXUAL LIGHTING and the outlined type is INTERESTING. It’s an aesthetic cousin to the UK Edition of THE DEVOURING GRAY that i talked about here and it looks like a movie poster and I want it on my wall. 

3) ENCHANTEE by Gita Trelease

Poor Enchantee has already had a cover redesign (old on the left, new one on the right, with the face). It was for the better, although they didn’t address my biggest issue with the original, which is that tYPE. The even-width, sort of chalkish calligraphy SCREAMS “art director’s instagram” and “cloyingly cute NEVERTHELESS, SHE PERSISTED posters you can buy on Etsy”, and “chalkboard signage your high school friend pinned to her WEDDING INSPO pinterest board”, rather than. Yknow. Sexy Magic Revolutionary France, which is the book. Where is the CONTRAST. where is the impression of ACTUAL INK. (Also: I didn’t crop these weird, the type being cut off/ a tangent on the edge there is Actually Like That.)

The Lipstick-ed face DOES say Sexy Magic Revolutionary France, so I appreciate its presence and also think it looks good (it def is victim to looking a little like a tumblr graphic, a phenomenon i have mentioned before, but that’s pretty harmless here); and the gold paint splotches and red-blue starry textures are pretty! They could have done a less halfassed job getting the vivid blue cropped around her chin, but. C'est la vie. I like it and I’m actually super hype for the book itself.

4) THE FEVER KING by Victoria Lee

This is......... a weird one. I love the colors! the blue and purple (veins?) lightning is really striking (LOL) and the texture is super visually interesting. I’m very curious to see the print choices eventually; I think matte vs glossy vs texture vs foil could make a big difference in how this one feels overall. I sort of wish SOMETHING was different, just to make this a little less symmetrical or abstract, whether that’s a different text layout or an additional focal point in the imagery or whatever, but I do think it fundamentally works as-is.

5) FOUR DEAD QUEENS by Astrid Scholte

Thanks, I hate it! this shares a lot of problems with the Burning Glass cover and everything I dislike about lazy object covers generally: the imagery is unclear at first glance (what a waste of all that detailed rendering) and not evocative of anything in particular in terms of mood, setting, or themes, and the type’s layout COULD NOT BE MORE BORING + is an ineffective use of the space and has a totally unnecessary glowy effect. The “spotlight” effect could generously be considered to be a visual signifier of the ~ murder mystery element but. oof. is a 90s crime drama aesthetic really what you want your secondary visual to be on what seems to be a pretty serious YA fantasy book?

(Okay, it could be worse, at least the hierarchy is clear and sensible. but that DNA crown, lmfao.)

6) AGAIN, BUT BETTER by Christine Riccio

I got a couple requests for this one, and I really like it!!! i think the illustration style is SO cute and the whole layout is simple but effective. The little touches like the birds in the corner and the placement of “a novel” are all perfectly balanced; it’s a more successful version of the illustration on WHAT IF IT’S US (and a few others, like HOT DOG GIRL by Jennifer Dugan; that general style + palette is a trend right now) and the concept of the line across and the girl coming into full color is a clever little representation of the coming-of-age story elements.

7) HOUSE OF SALT AND SORROWS by Erin Craig

I really! WANT! To like this cover! I think the layout and rendering of the text and the various nautical effects are sophisticated and pretty! HOWEVER COMMA! It’s just so low-contrast. This entire cover has the same single gray-green color and [lack of] depth; it’s like an intricately detailed dining room table. Nothing, not even the text, stands out immediately, so your eye wanders looking for a focal point; the title is readable, but not.... amazingly so. Kind of an unfortunate misfire despite having some of the most thoughtfully designed ~ fantasy ~ text I’ve seen in a while.

8) WE RULE THE NIGHT by Claire Eliza Bartlett

This is, quite obviously, another Billelis creation, so we’re back to talking about the various foibles and failings of art directors trying to integrate type with his illustrations. And this one. uH. IT’S ROUGH, although the bigger question here is why that gorgeous, intricately rendered phoenix (?) isn’t centered on the damn cover. (neither is the.... fortress? on the bottom.) It’s so symmetrical that it’s clearly meant to be! Perfect centering and a tighter crop would have done a lot towards offsetting...... whatever is happening with the type, which feels VERY awkward. I do think the sort of ~random placement of words could work with a little more thought but into it, but as it is. Woof. It’s cohesive enough that I still feel okay about it as a cover overall, but some sTRANGE choices happened there.

Also, having looked this up, it’s actually dieselpunk? IE vaguely fantasy WWII? And as with our last vaguely fantasy WWII book (RIP Dark of the West’s OG cover) that is..... not being expressed. Here, I would say that a different typeface, one that feels more militaristic/ modern as opposed to ~ high fantasy ~ might have been the play.

MORE 2 COME

[snarky-sims-witch]

Ask Pileup

It’s finally here! The asks that have been collecting dust in my inbox! Doing them in one post just because it would be hella spammy if I did them all individually.

Don’t see your question here? It’s probably because it’s a 100BC ask that I’ve either answered before or is already clarified in the rules.

@simvanglade:  I love your sims medieval posts! I've never put that much effort into it before but you make me want to!

Aw thank you! I assume you mean the ones I was posting in the Sims Community Facebook group? I don’t think I’ve posted a lot of Sims Medieval to my tumblr, but I’m super happy you love them so much! I’ve wanted to do a Sims Medieval story for a long time on this simblr. Remind me when I finish one of my current stories. ;)

@consultingpolymath:  I have a question about the 100 baby challenge!! When my matriarch is an elder and ready to move out, is it ok at that point to make her immortal, or is it still against the rules? Even if she's not in the house anymore, I wish she could live to see some of her grandchildren, instead of just dying of old age after a week.

So I don’t typically answer a lot of 100BC questions anymore but this is kind of an interesting question that I don’t actually think I ever thought to address??? Yeah, it’s fine. You can basically do whatever you want with moved out kids and elderly matriarchs as long as it doesn’t break any rules that would in any way affect your active household. Moved out kids and matriarchs aren’t technically part of the challenge anymore.

@darkgrungemusic:  Hiya I just saw your answer to the ask of your text color on your blog and I wanted to let you know on Mod the Sims there's a mod to change the load screen and the main menu so its like normal, and there's one that lets you pick the colors instead. Just letting you know in case you didn't. Love you and your blog! Have an amazing day!

Thank you so much! I’m so happy you love my blog! I knew about the mod but since I knew a darker load screen was coming soon, anyway, I didn’t really want to bother with another mod that I’d just end up uninstalling again in a couple weeks, anyway. I appreciate the help, though!

@hotcocomash:  [i swear this isnt a 100baby ask] I found you from the buzzfeed 100 baby videos and got hooked on your not so berry story! ive kinda been reading it backwards cause of how mobile works but im still loving it. when i have time im gonna sit down and read everything chronologically. thank you for making so much interesting and fun content!

Lol I don’t actually mind answering 100BC asks. I just don’t like repeating myself. I’m so happy you found me through Buzzfeed (which is kind of surreal, wow) and I’m even happier you like my Not So Berry Challenge so much! I hope to get back to the Sweet family soon! They’re lots of fun.

@tekimimotaku: So I've only just found you. By looking up the only challenge I knew: the 100 Baby Challenge. But I'm looking through your blog and I'm captivated by the other challenges so far. Some aren't to my taste, but I can still appreciate the thought put into them and that others will enjoy them. Had I not already made my matriarch, I'd say F it and do a different challenge of yours. I can't wait til I'm done with this one so that I can start on the others! I wish I could think things through like that!

Aw thanks so much! I hope you’re having fun with the 100BC and it’s totally fine that not all my challenges appeal to you. :) I try to create different challenges that appeal to a wide variety of players so for most people, some of my challenges won’t be all that fun for them, but there could be others that they love so much, they just want to play over and over. That’s always sort of my intention when making a new challenge; trying to engage a different group of Simmers.

@mmfinch: I know that you're completely tired of the 100 baby challenge questions. I went back and read your Midford series as an apology of sorts and thoroughly enjoyed it. Your creativity in storytelling is amazing. I read through all the Q&A but this hasn't been asked. Is show hidden objects allowed to get a birth certificate for non hospital births? The have baby option was clicked by accident and couldn't be cancelled. Show hidden objects is a cheat, but the object is decoration only.

I’m so happy you love The Midford Legacy! As for your 100BC question, there are definitely a LOT of objects in the debug menu that I would consider cheating and not allowed, but the decorative birth certificate isn’t one of those things. Go ahead and buy it if you like. :)

@bipolarrrbearrr: Hey! I know you’re not super into this page right now, but I’ve been keeping up with your not so berry story and I love it. I haven’t been able to go past peppermint because I’m on safari and can’t get the app right now. I wish you could have streamed or recorded it because that would have made the story so much better! You’re awesome 😎

I have kind of a personal loathing for the YouTube/Twitch scene for... many, many reasons, some of them valid and some of them petty, lol, so I don’t think I’ll ever take up YouTubing again. I like the written word too much and the freedom of being able to stage my shots, but I appreciate the sentiment! I hope you get to read the rest of the challenge soon!

@sim-sizzlin: I did originally follow you cause you are the 100 baby (and many other cool challenges) OP writer, but it's really cool to see an active simblr making sims medieval posts it makes me want to reinstall my old copy it was YEARS AND YEARS ago ty

Aw, thank you! Yeah my Sims Medieval content is surprisingly popular. I think I need to make one of my next storytelling projects a Sims Medieval one. Thanks so much for the feedback!

@yennibelle: Hello there, I have an inquire about your unnatural genetics for children and toddlers in the sims 4. I just re-downloaded it, due to this months patch and was wondering if you have added Island Living hairs? Or did I miss them? And if you have not, will you? Either way, I appreciate your mod/CC :)

Hi there! I’m so sorry, but I haven’t updated the hair for Island Living, yet! All my files and palettes I used for those hairs is on my old laptop and I haven’t gotten around to transferring everything I need onto my new one, yet, but thank you for reminding me that’s something I need to do. :) In the meantime, all the hair should still work fine in your game. You just won’t have funky varieties of the IL hair (yet). I’ll be sure to post when I take this on but it may not be for a while, yet.

[bigskydreaming]

Blech. I’ve pretty much officially finished writing, editing and revising this standalone epic fantasy novel I started years and years ago and only just recently got around to finishing. Which is good, for sure, but also....blech. LOL. Because now I have no more excuses for putting off making a decision about the cover.

Like I always intended to self-pub this particular novel for personal reasons, and I can make my own covers just fine. I’ve done epic fantasy covers before for other clients that turned out well, even working with stock art and photomanipulation, its totally possible to make something that hits all the genre expectations and sells the right tone and feel to readers who come across it. BUT I’ve always loved the illustrated covers of a lot of fantasy novels I grew up with, and always kinda wanted something similar for this particular work, even though I have other fantasy projects I wouldn’t care as much about that one way or the other.

And so years ago when I first started the book and was only about a third of the way in, but still had a solid sense of the world and story and where it was all going, I happened to stumble across a fantasy artist whose work was like...exactly the right tone and aesthetic I’d always been picturing for that novel’s setting and vibe. And he was a freelancer, and open to commissions at the time, and you never know with freelancers if they’ll still be taking commissions a year or two down the line or if they’ve gone to work for like, a video game company or studio or something like that by that point, so even though the book was nowhere near done I hopped on that and commissioned an illustration from him to be used for the cover at some future point when I was ready for it. I just needed the illustration, I was fine doing typography and all that myself when the time came.

And I mean, I’ve literally been on the other side of the author/artist interaction tons of times, lol, so like, I know from my own experiences where its helpful to give an artist or a designer room to breathe and exercise their own creativity, make use of their own particular skillset and interpret the story elements you tell them are most important to see conveyed in the final cover, in like...their own way, like what feels best to them, what they’re most inspired to do with the foundational info you give them to build off of. 

Like I mean, visual design is its own skillset, and often completely separate from the kind of visualization most authors do of their own work while writing it....and with self-pubbed authors especially, as artists or designers you often run into authors who get really hung up on relatively minor details that they feel really need to be on the cover in some capacity and in really specific ways. Which is often to the detriment of the cover in the long run because like....what looks right in your head as a writer, totally familiar with your own world and story and its every minutiae and the implications and context of every single element....is not always going to come across the same way to readers who happen across your cover while browsing. Because they literally have ZERO context for what they’re looking at, and thus it really needs to stand on its own two feet and sell itself, not....loop back around to some hidden significance that will really only resonate with readers who end up buying the book and only once they reach this one scene in chapter 27 or whatever, you know?

So I really didn’t want to do that with this artist. I was only commissioning him because I loved what I’d seen of his work and the style he seemed to default to naturally was the perfect fit for what I wanted, IMO, so I was more than willing to let him take the broader strokes of the setting/themes/storyline in whatever direction inspired him most, as long as he hit within the general framework I provided him.

BUT, that said, for all that I tried to give him as much creative freedom to work with as possible, there are of course always a FEW things that as the commissioning party, are really important to see in the final product, and so yeah, I did have a couple of areas/elements that I did stress were really important to strike the right tone with, or it could make or break the whole illustration.

Specifically, I was concerned that he hit the right feel with the main character. My protag for this novel is a woman, and the one area his portfolio samples didn’t have a ton of variety with and thus had me slightly worried about what visual tropes he might default to...was female characters. He had tons of gorgeous settings, fantasy creatures, architecture, knights and sorcerers and monsters, but not a ton of women in the samples I saw. He did have some, for sure, and like there was nothing super concerning about the way he’d drawn/painted them....there were some priestesses, sorceresses, that kinda thing, and their anatomy and wardrobes weren’t like....glaringly cheesecake-y or anything like a lot of fantasy artists’ portfolios....so I knew he COULD get the character right, the way I hoped he would, I just wasn’t SURE. Like, I wasn’t concerned about specific details, beyond like....not outrageously contradicting the character description and scenes I gave him to work off of, I wasn’t worried about nitpicking minutiae. But my protag is a warrior-magic user archetype, and warrior women is like, the one female archetype he didn’t have any samples of, and I was more concerned about him defaulting to like....the old fantasy standby’s of ridiculously impossible and unnatural poses for warrior women, not to mention totally impractical armor, that sort of thing. 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this was the ONE thing I stressed, lol. I didn’t really care about the finer details of her armor like in terms of decoration or filigree or even color schemes, I honestly could just adjust my own descriptions in the book to match what he came up with if need be. Stuff like that, so not a big deal to me. ALL I was concerned about was like....she not fall into those trope traps that ensnare so many women on fantasy covers, like....just make her look like she’s a fucking warrior who knows what the hell she’s doing, and I’ll be fine with everything else, you know? I even sent him some covers of published fantasy novels to use as comparison comps, like ‘this is the kind of feel or vibe I’d ideally like to see her capture, something like these women in these covers here’ as well as ‘this is what I really really DON”T want to see, like, I shouldn’t have a better sense of how good a contortionist she is than whether or not I believe she can swing a sword.’

Soooooo.....what happened?

Did he prioritize as I’d really really hoped he would and strongly expressed my desire for him to, and take care to at least avoid the more obvious problems, even if the end result was’t 100% what I was hoping for? Nooooooope. She might as well be mid-yoga pose. Sigh. Like, the guy has a damn near perfect grasp of anatomy and proportions on every other human figure I saw in the many samples I looked through before commissioning him, but somehow, despite this being of utmost importance to me and the ONLY thing about the entire project I stressed about and made sure to emphasize, lol, he ended up painting her in this weird bent at the waist position that throws her lower body proportions off entirely and like, her hip is angled or arched in this weird way that’s incredibly distracting and off, and like also, of course her armor is....pointless, in all the specific ways that happened to be the ONLY details about her armor I was concerned with. Y’know. Like. Its effectiveness. As armor.

And the absolutely obnoxious thing about it all, is that everything else about the illustration? Absolutely gorgeous. Everything I’d hoped for, even as I deliberately tried not to build up too specific an image in my mind ahead of time. Hell, BETTER than anything I’d have come up with on my own, and totally validating my impulse to have someone with different skillsets than my own do this instead of just making a cover out of stock art the way I usually do with my other projects. He absolutely captured the specific MOOD I was aiming for with the setting and general atmosphere, like, the very reason I’d been drawn to his style in the first place, he totally nailed that. Couldn’t have asked for a better fit to the general ambiance of the piece. The colors were just the right shade of otherworldly, a great mix of light and darkness that sold the gloom of the surrounding environs without drowning in dark palettes that make it hard to pick out individual details and differentiate between figures. So on and so on.

EVERY SINGLE OTHER THING ABOUT THE DAMN ILLUSTRATION IS PERFECT LOL.

Except for the only fucking part I was worried about in the first place, lmaaaaaaaaaao whyyyyyyy.

And I mean, because his style was a combo of illustration and painting, there was never gonna be a ton of room for revisions or tweaks to the final piece, I knew and understood that going in. He showed me what he had when he was done with the initial pencilwork, before he painted over it, but with the understanding that it could still change from that point, if he needed to shift things around because of the way the colors and lighting and shadows were all coming out once painted. And the pencil work lacked the finer details that he added into his painting in the final stages, so like, I did see a rough draft before he started painting, and could ask for tweaks or adjustments at that point...except at that point, I didn’t NEED to! LOL. In the rougher sketch, her general position was just shifted enough from what it ended up being that like, it wasn’t my ideal pose for her but nothing I’d say I actually had a problem with, like her upper body was elevated just enough and at just the right angle compared to what he ended up with that at that point, there was no unnatural hip thrust or any of that stuff, and there was only a rough sense of what would come to be the final armor. So I mean, TECHNICALLY I had an opportunity to pump the brakes and be like whoa wait dude, this isn’t what we discussed, can I get you to go back to the drawing board just in this one specific area right here and maybe even just take another look at those comps I sent you, see what I mean about what I’m trying to avoid and how that’s kinda sneaking in here anyway....except, I didn’t think I had to say anything at that point lol, because it all looked on track??

I mean, its not like I think he deliberately misled me with that initial draft or anything, nothing as dramatic as that. I’m fairly certain that like most artists and designers will tell you, in the process of like, the actual drawing/painting/designing, you have to make adjustments as you go to account for the little unforseen speedbumps where you were juuuuuust off enough in your prediction of how this would look when working in your ultimate medium, that you have to like...keep nudging your initial outline little by little as you go to account for the slight shift in direction...with gradually that adding up to a fairly significant departure in the end. Ultimately, I think we ended up with what we ended up with because he was good with focusing on my specific concerns when drafting in pencil and just mapping out a general intent, but the closer he got to finishing up his piece, the less and less focused he was on the stuff I prioritized rather than his own innate prioritizations and so he just kinda figured ‘is it really gonna be THAT big a deal?’ instead of sacrificing a direction or angle that played into what he thought was a more important design element. Stuff like that. Like, you know me, I’m def not saying that makes it A-Ok in my book, lol, I just mean to say I honestly don’t think it was...a willful, conscious effort on his part to leave me with something as far removed from what I was hoping for as what I got.

So again I say blech. Its just super frustrating and obnoxious and I’ve been trying to decide what to do with it for like, months now. Because again, EVERYTHING ELSE is perfect and gorgeous and like, yes, good, this is what I wanted, what I was hoping for. Like, I literally could not come up with a design using my own go-to mediums that would come anywhere close to capturing the general feel and tone and mood of the story and its setting better than the overall vibe of his piece.

Its just the protag, front and center, is absolutely driving me fucking nuts. And I keep going back and forth endlessly because I’m like is it really THAT bad and noticeable or am I hyper-fixating because I specifically tried to avoid this end result and ended up with at least a version of it anyway? And then I’m like psst, remember how much fucking money you spent on this, like yeah thats long gone and doesn’t change your current situation one way or another so it doesn’t really matter except oh yeah its totally gonna fucking haunt you if you don’t use this lol and all that money was spent for nothing lmfao you dumbass. And then I’m like, just to weigh my options, what would I design for this cover myself, if I ended up scrapping this and making my own from scratch, do I at least have anything in mind that’s for sure not any worse than my dissatisfaction with this? Except lol I literally can not seem to come up with ANYTHING, like, total blank, because again there’s just enough that I LIKE about the piece that its like, now that I’ve seen THOSE aspects of it, I’m not gonna be content with any cover that doesn’t contain them and I just literally have no way of replicating those effects via my own design medium.

Ugh. So its really annoying, and I keep going around and around and around in circles and making no progress on what to do about it and like...ugh. I hate being so anal about shit like this, especially when I am usually pretty good about dodging the hyper-fixation tendencies on this front specifically.....but I just got whammied but good by the way all of this unfolded and came together and now I feel stuck and lmao I’m really not fond of the fact that I’m really fucking proud of this book and how it came out in terms of the writing and story but like, covers ARE actually a pretty big deal as they’re literally a reader’s first impression, and I feel like no matter which route I go, a big part of me is gonna be doomed to be like NO YOU FUCKING IDIOT THAT WAS THE WRONG CHOICE, UGH WTF DUDE, TURN AROUND, UNDO, UNDO, U’LL REGRET THIIIIIIIS.

ANYWAY! That’s my much ado about nothing. I was kinda hoping that hashing it all out in a post and working my way through it as I wrote it all down would like....magically reveal the Right Decision to me and everything would click and be so obvious by the time I got to this point in the post, but alas.

Fix-It Machine broke. This accomplished nothing. UGH. RUDE.

[elysianjeonghan]

Summer Jobs Series (svt) - retailworker!jeonghan

ok imma write about my favorite person in the entire world rn so I don’t even know if I can finish this without exploding with feels !!! i probably won’t check this after writing it so sorry for grammar and whatnot /// anyways, enjoy~

being a broke college student had its ups and downs

you’ve been to more job interviews than there are stars in the sky

and the jobs you’ve done have been absolute hell

serving rude families with crying babies at diners, being creepily hit on when you were a barista, being asked the most simple and obvious questions and having to answer them when you worked at a call center  

you’ve never had a job you truly liked ,,, you kinda just had to do them or else you would be worse off than you already were

until one day you noticed that a clothing store you pass by often had a help wanted sign

you couldn’t believe your luck

you were a fashion design major and have always dreamed about working in something even slightly related to your passion

you applied and were ecstatic when you got the job

like jumping around on the street happy after being told you got the job because !!! you don’t have to serve screaming children and low tippers anymore !!!

you came in the next day, literally skipping on your way there

you get to the clothing store, which is actually quite big for how it isn’t one of those corporate company owned stores

in fact it felt very cosy ,,, it felt like being in a really aesthetically pleasing thrift store

it offered a lot different styles of clothing, appealing to a lot of different customers /// the neutral color palette of the whole store also helped the whole feel ///

when you met the manager, she kindly welcomed you and helped you get acquainted with the store 

she then was like !!!! i forgot !!! i need to go check on the clothes being shipped in !!!! then she tells you to stay put while she finds another employee that can help train you

when she comes back she comes back with ,,, the most beautiful ,,, perfect looking guy you have ever seen ,,, he had the fluffiest and softest looking blonde hair you have ever seen, the prettiest facial structure that was enhanced by his thin rimmed glasses

he wore a simple white tee with black ripped jeans ,,,, and even if the look was incredibly normal ,,, you were just starstruck by his beauty

you had to internally scream at yourself to shut your gaping mouth and stop drooling over him 

he was smiling like crazy and was like !!!! hi!!! im jeonghan!!! you’re new yeah??!! 

you’re still in disbelief at your incredible luck as you stupidly just nod and introduce yourself ,, still in a daze he just laughs, keeping the situation light 

you both said goodbye to your manager as she runs around frantically  cause wHerE ArE mY KeYs???? 

jeonghan’s then like shall we start??? then he GRABS YOUR WRIST AND BRINGS YOU AROUND

and your hearts like !!!! while your brains like ???? why are you overreacting ??? right it’s because he’s someone you haven’t met before!!! yeah absolutely that’s exactly why your heart is pounding so loud people across the street would think a marching band is coming through the city

 and he’s just too nice ,,, he happily shows you where the inventory is and how they organize, how the cash register operates, what to do in some situations 

and you just kinda start to relax ,,, and actually start being like yourself cause you realize ,,, for someone as pretty as him he’s just like any other person

and then you start joking around with him

and that’s kinda how you guys became friends

your manager was swamped with work the rest of the week so jeonghan basically trained you

and since you pretty much got the gist of it from the first day its been pretty smooth sailing

you guys weren’t the only ones working at the store but you just always kinda ,,, gravitated towards each other and just always helped each other

it wasn’t like you guys weren’t friends with the other employees it just that it just felt really comfortable when you guys were working together

jeonghan will never admit it but having you around was like a blessing cause you never realized that you basically did like all the work while he did one thing in the past hour evil,evil angel

and even when things were hectic and all in the store you guys just always had each other’s backs

there was this one time where jeonghan was dealing with this guy who kept yelling about something no one understood and he just looked at you and mouthed help

you smirked at him and pretended you couldn’t understand what he was trying to tell you even though he knew you could

jeonghan’s pleading look got to you so you just sighed and decided to help as if you weren’t gonna sooner or later

you came over and sweetly asked what the problem was

and you just smoothed over the problem like it was no biggie and  jeonghan’s like you, you are my god

on days that were pretty slow cause the lack of customers, you guys would sneak some snacks in and eat them in the back room

you guys would play games and you were dying cause ??? he always won ?? how ?? he would just smile as sickly sweet as he could while saying that no one could beat the angel before laughing

he told you mindlessly before that he kinda nicknamed himself angel and you gave out the biggest laugh since he was far away from being angelic except from his looks wait i didn’t say that what

you guys would just play games when you were bored in the store ,,, like who could come up with the ugliest outfits and stuff

you always had a good time with each other whether there was nothing to do or when you both are literally dying because of all the work to be done 

you had just become so comfortable with each other ,,, talking about anything and everything and always enjoying each other’s company

one day on a particularly boring shift jeonghan was like y/n~ i’m so bored~~~

you laugh while you fold clothes and ask what he had in mind 

he then was like !!! we should try to make an outfit for each other !!! and whoever has the better one wins !!!

you’re like alright game on, but the loser has buy the winner ice cream after this shift

and he smirks and hes like you got yourself a deal

so you guys have 20 minutes to make an outfit for each other

you casually walk around the store ,,, pretending to be fixing stuff up at the mens area and secretly take the clothes you wanted

you took this white plain tee and paired it with a denim jacket that had a fur lined collar, then took some black ripped skinny jeans 

it was yet again another simple look but jeonghan didn’t usually wear something flashy

you thought it would suit him ,,, it was chic yet simple and very boyfriend

you met up with him at the third floor ,,, somewhere where your boss or coworkers wouldn’t find you guys goofing off even though they knew you guys would 

you both put the clothes in bags so the other wouldn’t see until you got into the dressing room 

once you both got in your separate stalls you both gasped softly

you opened the bag and saw this ///outfit///

it was a white shirt dress paired with a denim flannel 

he even got you accessories ,,,  a simple gold chained necklace with your name’s initial ,,, as well as a gorgeous charm bracelet with a charm of your favorite animal

and that really touched your heart ,, like he remembered you saying you loved that animal from a while ago

after you guys changed you came out of the stalls and looked at each other ,,, then looked at both of you in a mirror

“wow we are totally matching” jeonghan says, still gazing at the mirror

you guys started laughing as your outfits are eerily similar 

you kinda ,,, liked it ,,, liked that you were matching

“I gotta say that I won on this one though” he mentions with a confident smile 

“what! the outfit fits you wayyy more are you kidding me?”

“what?? the outfit fits you beautifully ,,, and i even got you accessories!!!!”

you had to cave in and were like ugh fine you win i’ll get you some ice cream

you guys were about to change when jeonghan grabbed your wrist to stop you from changing back

“umm ,,, you don’t have to change,,”

and you’re like ??? jeonghan that’s stealing??? i need to change back lol

and jeonghan’s suddenly shy, which is rare, and starts looking down at the floor

“i kinda bought the outfit for you already ,,,, cause i knew you would look amazing in it ,,,”

and you are ///FLUSTERED/// and you’re intensly blushing as you’re like what??? no no no you didn’t need to ??? i can’t take this

and he holds onto your wrist a bit more firmly and looks into you eyes as he’s like please just take it ,,, you look beautiful in it ,,, if you really wanna pay me back for it ,,, you could go on a date wih ,e?

and here comes the butterflies in your stomach is it bad that my hearts beating hard for this??

and you’re like you wanna go on a date with me?

and hes like yeah,,, ever since you’re and i saw you checking me out LOL

at this point you’re a blushing mess but he makes you look at him and takes both of your hands

and he’s like i seriously like you and asked if that’s a yes and you’re like !!! yes, of course !!!

his smile looked so heavenly you thought you saw a halo above your head as he was like imma go change now, don’t you dare change out of that amazing outfit brought to you by yours truly

you laugh as you think that’s probably one of the last things you would think of doing right now

after he’s done you both giddly try to get out of work early by telling your manager you both have the flu and you both try to act sick 

but your manager just becomes giddy and is like YOU GUYS ARE GOING ON A DATE AREN’T YA

and you’re like what?!?! no!!! we’re both dying from sickness that’s all!!!

your manager wasn’t even listening to you as she was running around telling the other employees that the ship has sailed !!!! jeonghan finally did it !!!

you and jeonghan are like ,,, what have we done to her ,,,

your manager then pushes you both out of the store and tell you to take the whole damn weekend off 

while you guys are walking off you can hear the whistles and cheers of your co-workers and the occasional ‘don’t forget to invite me to your wedding’

and the date was perfect 

you guys just walked around the city, taking pictures of each other, buying all the street food you could then sitting at a nearby park

and the date felt so natural ,,, just like you were hanging out

except ,,, the hand holding, hugging and ,,, kissing hdkssk

you guys wouldn’t usually show pda but you both were just so happy and giddy you couldn’t get enough of each other

and before you said good bye you bought jeonghan his ice cream ,,, and maybe had the best goodbye kiss you’ve ever had sjdkdj

all you could think about that night was even if you lost the game that day ,,, getting your job, meeting jeonghan and falling for him made you the true winner 

[todokori-kun]

(aww don’t worry, that’s totally fine!

 And oh no, I’m so sorry you had a hard time ;-; I babysit a LOT (I do it basically every day since I don’t have any studying to do right now…I go out to take a walk with my little sister and all her friends flock to me like “EVANS we’re playing tag and you gotta be it, please?” like how can you resist those eyes omg. Maybe I’m just too soft?) so I know what it’s like…

tbh my little sister is an ok kid- she’s nicer than a lot of kids I know (probably because my mom is super strict when it comes to manners and being kind/polite to others) and is super adorable at times. But, like everyone else, she has her bratty moments XD She has a bad habit of sulking sometimes over little things and then she just starts whining in a way that completely drains anyone who has to listen to her. She also refuses to compromise when she’s sulking so. Yeah. Really frustrating LOL

(is chewing with your mouth open rude in Croatia too? This might sound gross to you then but it’s totally fine in Korea so most people do it that way lol)

Anyway,I hope you’re ok now Queen *hugs*)

Yeah, I might.

My parents actually bought the books for me because they were interested in reading the series too, but idk.

I recently realized that FMA has a lot of Rising Sun Flag designs in it, and that’s considered offensive over here (probably in China too) because it’s associated with Japanese Imperialism (which was pretty ugly). Not sure why it was used in FMA because FMA seems to be all against war and violence, but I guess the artist, like most Japanese people, just doesn’t know what the Rising Sun Flag is associated with in other countries…

I talked about my mom with it and she’s fine with me reading FMA as long as I know what I’m doing, but I don’t think she’ll really want to read it herself anymore.

Ok that looks horrible for my feelings. I love it. I’ll have to find a way to watch that over here! :D

I think one of the problems is that sometimes writers are so desperate to make ‘strong’, ‘likable’ characters that they overdo it…

Yep, Killua is the cutie with the fluffy white hair! :) He’s not my favorite out of the main four (that’s either Gon or Leorio), but he’s pretty good. Killua is the youngest, most talented Zoldyck kid who’s probably going to be chosen as the heir once his parents die, but he doesn’t want to. The thing that makes Killua different from Illumi and his other siblings is that he hates his training and really doesn’t want to grow up to be an assassin, and that’s why he ran away from home at the start of the series.

(then of course his mother sent Illumi to pick him up, and Illumi’s all like “Why did you run away from home?“ then it’s basically

Kilua: “Because I didn’t want to stay and I have other stuff I want to do. Like, hopes and dreams, things I want to achieve in life, you know?”

Illumi: …

Illumi “lol what hopes and dreams you’re a murderer Killua. A bloodthirsty killer just like the rest of us. no rainbows and unicorns for you”

Killua: “That’s not true! I have friends now, friends who I actually enjoy spending time with! People who are NICE to me!”

Illumi: “*sigh* this is why we can’t have nice things, dearest brother…these ‘friends’ are the reason you won’t come back home, right? So if I just go and kill them, problem solved! :)”)

…that sounds really accurate.

(also wow are we actually making Kimblee/Evans headcanons. WHEN did this become a thing.)

the smol pokemon (I think it’s called Meowth? Also from what I remember it’s evil) would probably be Envy or Pride lol

Moblit has been put out of his suffering by Isayama though ;-;

Yep, Idk what would happen to the fandom if Armin actually kicked the bucket (gotta stop talking about that we might jinx it 0.0).

Naomi would really disown him then LOL

Ah, tysm queen <333 I do try to keep a color palette in in mind but it’s hard to stick to just one so I just look for pics with similar tones or colors that go well together (like the Tatsuo aesthetic is a bit all over the place but because they’re mostly 'cooler’ shades I don’t think it looks that bad? XD).

(the wine gave it away, right? lol)

Were the aesthetics still ok-ish, though? ;-;

IT’S AMAZING I’M SCREAMING TOO. FINALLY MORE LOKI. AND HELA. SHE LOOKS AMAZING (I love Cate Blanchett). ALSO HULK CAN APPARENTLY TALK NOW? That’s actually pretty cute…

(but more Thor with short hair, I mean the hairstyle does look good on him but I can’t stop seeing Chris Hemsworth instead of Thor ok. He feels like a different character now lol) 

((I’m watching Iron Man 2 rn. Tony: It’s not about us, it’s about Legacy.

Legacy, what is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.))

Aw, you’re so lucky with your sister! I’m the younger sis in my family, and I know I was a little shit, but I’m not anymore :))) I feel sorry for my big sis…

I can imagine Evans playing with little kids at the local heart… my heart is melting T^T Ahaha, everyone whines from time to time. Well, I guess it can be annoying if the person does it too much… 

Well, it’s considered rude, but an embarrassingly big number of people do it. I’ve always been raised not to do it, so it’s become one of my biggest pet peeves.  Oh dear… If I ever visit Korea, that’s gonna be a fun experience XD 

I’m fine now, since he’s gone back to Zagreb, I’m gonna see him again in September. Plenty of time to recover XD

Oh wow! That’s pretty interesting. My parents know my hobby, but they stay far away from it… They did watch Spririted Away with me, though, so it’s something…

I didn’t know that… I mean, I knew about the rising flag thing, but I didn’t really notice the amount of it in the manga… I usually don’t pay attention to those things, though I think I read somewhere that, in the original manga, the original Greed was crucified. I’m not sure if it was changed for the translation or before the publication. In the anime and in the manga I’ve read, he was tied around that huge stone. 

How much did she read? Is she upset by the rising sun? Well, it’s still nice that she tried to read it ^^

Is kissanime banned in Korea? Or do you just want to watch the series legally? Cause it’s definitely easier to watch it there. You’ll love Re:Zero, I wasn’t kidding when I said it’s an infinite loop of suffering. That’s the actual description oft the anime.

All this talk about HxH is making me wanna watch it, but it has more than 140 episodes and I’m really not the person for long anime (which is rich, considering I’ve watched all Fairy Tail episodes, and there’ like 277 of those. First and last time I watched something like that). I feel so sorry for Killua ;-; He seems like a cinnamon roll and cinnamon rolls never deserve treatment like that… Why can’t he be happy??

WHY IS ILLUMI SO MEAN TO HIS LITTLE BRO??? I MEAN, I GOT YOUR OTHER MESSAGE AND EVERYTHING IS EXPLAINED, BUT STILL

Tbh, it kinda makes sense to me for Illumi to be the most messed up one, since he’s the oldest and has been under their influence for the longest, not to mention parents tend to be hardest on their oldest kids, but still. Damn. Also, torturing anyone, let alone a 12yo is just. That show is seriously messed up.

It’s always fun making peoplexchatacter headcanons! I always enjoy writing them, especially if they make people happy (and aren’t necessarily matchups), and it’s even more fun for you, because you’re a cinnamon roll (90% of the time)  and it’s so much fun writing about cinnamon rolls~ 

Ah, I see! Still, Chibi envy and pride sound quite! They’d probably cause so much problems for the two of you, but it would be awesome to see. 

Right. I just remembered Moblit and the recent characters. Welp.  I found a sentence on his wiki that describes me perfectly during the school year: “Much of the time, this left him in a state of near-panic(…)” Sounds like me.

Maybe we can try to double jinx it? Armin is definitely gonna die in the next chapter! (If he does, I’m smashing something XD)

Yep, it’s not bad ^^ But it’s always a tiny bit better if the colors are as similar as possible. The Olivier one was probably the best one yet, since it mostly sticks with blue-grey! So you’re improving quickly ^^ All of them are good, though! So don’t beat yourself up over it ^^ They’re your aesthetics and you’re free to make them however you want ^^

YEEEE I AM SO EXCITED!!! Omg, but I need to tell you about my dream that I had the night after watching the trailer. So my family is having some kind of Christmas gathering and I come downstairs to greet everyone and boom! There, on the couch, sitting next to my sister and explaining the process of making a movie, is Tom Hiddleston. Apparently, he was my really distant cousin?? Which made me really confused?? And I wanted to ask him a few questions about Ragnarok, but I was too damn shy, even though my sister had right about 0 problems talking to him,  and I was quite jealous actually =3=  According to my dream, they had to climb up some mountain by themselves to film it.  It was McFreaking weird.

But still TT^TT HIS FABULOUS HAIR!! I’ll never get over it….

Iron Man 2 is on! Well, I’m not watching it anymore XD I’m not gonna see the last 30 mins, cause i’m switching the channel, since Sherlock (the TV show) begins shortly. I’ll probably watch the rest of Iron Man some other day ^^

Ah, also, I'm afraid I won't be able to answer for a week... unfortunately, I won't have access to a laptop, so =3= i could probably answer asks though ^^