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player380 · 18 hours ago

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ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ- disco pang pang

━━━ ↳ ❝ [ se-mi x f! reader ] ¡! ❞

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ in which you try out the infamous disco pang pang ride with your friends in incheon, south korea, and end up having the ride moderator attempt to set you up with the stoic, pretty woman sitting next to you┊2.1k words

contains: potential ooc se-mi (we don't really know too much about her but my hyperfixation has deluded me to believe my own headcanons that were created by the bit we saw her in s2), fluff, some minor hints of sexual content, wlw, teaser x teased, & non-canonical nonsense, au!! the games never took place & se-mi is lowkey loaded (which i may write more about in another fic idea i have oops), i also am not very sure of any korean customs (im a white american) so please please please let me know if any of the manners of this are wrong so i can correct it, also this has not been proofread yet so enjoy any spelling or grammar errors <3

After much debate with your close girl friends, that you were on a trip into the big city with, they had practically dragged you to the long line of awaiting people to try out this silly ride. Each of their hands clasped tightly around your sweaty palms, forcing your feet to shuffle into your spot at the back of the line. It was a warm spring day, the sun beating down only to be combated by a pleasant breeze. So, of course, most would find themselves spending the day at the Wolmi Theme Park in South Korea. The three of you had already spent the majority of the day entertaining yourselves with other rides, though with yourself often choosing to opt out of riding many--given rollercoasters had a habit of making you queasy. Yet, after much convincing and deliberation, you had allowed them to take you on this ride. They had claimed that it wasn't that scary, and was oftentimes quite fun. But as you got into line and saw the ever-moving ride your stomach dropped and your face paled. Laughter and screams echoed around as the current set of riders were being bounced up and down whilst the ride spun everyone in round in differing speeds. As you watched this, you couldn't help but feel the corn dogs you just had thirty-minutes prior rising their way through your innards.

While you stood there, mouth agape, your friends had busied themselves with calling their boyfriends back home in the countryside. Snapping you out of your scared daze, was a smooth laugh from beside--even smoother words following in pursuit.

"You look like you've just seen a ghost," a woman laughed from beside you, your eyes narrowing as they traveled up the body beside you in line. Taking notice of her skinny ripped black jeans, the loose tank top that had a bit of the side tucked into the waistband of her jeans, and a black leather jacket over her shoulders. Her face was adorned in few piercings: just one silver ring on her lip, the other a silver ring on her left nostril (a gem-incrusted sun on where the ring met the visible skin). Her hair was short, some strands of her black hair covering the right side of her head slightly. Her narrow features complimented her stylistic choices. And by all means: the woman was completely, and utterly gorgeous.

After a few minutes of silence, your eyes only widening upon seeing the pretty woman, she spoke up again. "Are you alright? Surely you haven't actually seen a ghost," she replied, her thin brows furrowing slightly as she stared at you--her head cocked to the side just a hair. She was concerned for your wellbeing. How cute.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine," you blinked, snapping out of your haze and returning your gaze to the still-moving ride--swallowing hard. "I just don't like rides like this," you added and nodded awkwardly. "Not really my thing."

The woman beside you nodded, letting out a quiet hum as her gaze follows yours up to the ride. "It's not that bad," she commented, letting out a quiet laugh. "Just make sure to hold on tight."

"What?" You asked, misunderstanding her words and her eyes widening slightly.

The woman laughed harder, shaking her head. "The bars, hold on tight to the bars," she corrected, tilting her head. "Or your friends."

You suddenly felt the presence of your two friends who had gotten off facetime with their partners, and were now standing beside you once more--staring at the taller woman with slightly furrowed brows. The woman just nodded once, before turning back around and facing the front of the line. Leaving you to suffer the teasing looks and questions from your friends for the remainder of the wait in line.

Eventually, after growing slightly impatient from standing still for so long, it was finally your group's turn to file onto the circular ride. The eager group of riders all excitedly piled on, sounds of annoyed groans coming from the people who were cut off and had to wait another round.

Your friends rushed to a spot, sitting on the seats and giggling excitedly. Their hands reached behind themselves to grab the plastic and metal bars--wrapping their arms around the slick material in hopes to stay (mostly) still throughout the ride.

You sat there awkwardly, trying to mimic your friend's actions but you found yourself struggling to keep yourself comfortable. You didn't realize the woman who was in front of you in line was sitting beside you until you felt her hands gently guiding your arms to wrap around the bars--her hand resting there for a moment and looking over you.

"Comfy?" She asked you, raising a brow slightly.

Your face, now red, moved up to meet her gaze--nodding awkwardly. "Yeah, thanks," you said, voice quiet, and pressing a small smile up as another bout of gratitude. Her dark eyes traveled over you for a second, smiling and giving a nod back. She moved to sit beside you, leaving the width of a person and a half between you two.

Unfortunately for your humility, the ride moderator had noticed the small interaction and so once the ride started slowly spinning--your face all but heated when you heard the moderator's loud voice call out your descriptor over the speakers. Little did you know the running internet joke that if the moderator called you out, you were done for.

"Are you two together?" The male moderator's voice called out, "you, tweed skirt and the h/c hair. And you, short black hair and the leather jacket," he described. Your heart all but dropped. Before you could reply, the woman next to you beat you to it:

"No, we aren't," she yelled, her voice loud over the mechanics of the machine and the loud sounds from around the theme park.

"Do you want to be?" The moderator called out, a hint over amusement carrying over in his voice.

You shook your head, laughing awkwardly. "No, no it's okay. I came here with my friends," you replied, brows furrowing in embarrassment--trying to ignore the giggles from your friends beside you.

"Ah, no, no, let me fix that," the moderator said, laughing, and your heart dropped from his mischievous tone.

Suddenly, the ride was tilted all the way to the left side and began bouncing slightly. Lifting you up and down from your seat, your sweaty hands barely holding onto the plastic bars as gravity tried to pull you to where the woman beside you was sitting. She seemed to keep her body planted firmly--hardly moving. The ups and downs got harsher, and before you knew it, one of your arms slipped from the bar and you fell slightly down to your left. You felt another leg wrap around yours--realizing it was the woman's, who was trying to keep you steady so you didn't fall.

You grunted as you moved to steady yourself back onto the seat, pulling your leg from hers and attempting to grab back onto the bars. Before you could succeed, another unexpected bump made your other arm slip--letting out a yelp as you stumbled off the seat and about to start rolling on the metal floor of the ride. You didn't go very far before you found your body ensnared by both the woman's legs--holding your torso tightly as to make sure you didn't fall anymore.

As the bumps continued, you felt one of her hands grab your arm and pull you up--setting you on her lap. Your face burned with embarrassment and awkwardness at the entire situation--wishing you hadn't even let your friends convince you to get on this stupid ride to begin with. Her legs entangled with yours, an arm wrapping around your waist and pressing your back tight against her front. Her fingers found purchase on your hip, pressing into the part tightly.

"Are you okay?" She asked, tilting her head so her mouth was right next to your ear, her voice quiet. God was her voice attractive.

You nodded, the consistent bumps making the two of you rise up from your seats occasionally--but your landings were cushioned by the woman's body beneath you. It was almost strangely nice. No. You shouldn't think like that. She was an entire stranger. "Yeah, I'm fine, thanks," you replied, turning your head slightly--though not realizing how close your faces would be. You quickly turned your head back around forward--your cheeks the color of a tomato.

As the ride continued on, the moderator still continued to pick on the two of you, moving you two around. Even with the woman's firm grip on your body, you had somehow ended up turned around--your legs straddling her hips. Her jacket had been moved to wrap around your waist so no one could see how your skirt rid up, allowing some form of modesty. There were some other instances of other people flailing around and landing on others, however you could hardly pay any mind to the others on this ride given your situation. This continued on throughout the ride's duration, before eventually the machine came to a stop--the moderator thanking everyone, though still finding a way to insert a tease about the two women's interactions throughout the ride.

You shakily got off of the woman--pulling your skirt down and untying the jacket around your waist, holding it back out to her. "Um, thanks for this. And for making sure I don't fall," you muttered, looking down at your feet. When she took the jacket, you quickly took off and found your friends at the exit of the ride--trying to ignore the burning throughout your body as their incessant teases fueled your embarrassment.

Before you could get far, a female voice called out and you turned around--your eyes widening as the woman before approached, slightly out of breath from the small jog. Your friends looked at each other with raised brows, both backing away to leave you two to yourselves.

"Oh-- um, hi," you said, brows furrowing slightly. "Did you need something?"

"How long are you in Incheon for? Or do you live here?" She asked, her chest still rising up and down with rapid breaths. She almost sounded hopeful, and a bubbly filling filled your stomach. As if someone had opened a cage of butterflies between your ribcages.

You blinked, looking away from her for a moment. "No, I don't live here. Just visiting with my friends... but I'm not sure. A couple more days, at least. We didn't really have an end date. Why?" You asked, licking your lips slightly--and you watched as her eyes flickered to your slightly damp, pink lips for a moment before she looked back up at your eyes.

"Let me take you sight-seeing around the city, yeah?" She asked, despite her cool demeanor, she almost seemed nervous. "You don't have to, but it'd--"

"Sure," you cut her off, flashing an almost-nervous smile of your own. "I'd like that, my friends and I aren't really super knowledgeable around anyway. I'm sure they'd like it too."

Her face flickered with some unknown expression and she shook her head. "No, not them. Just you... and I," she said, sucking in a long breath.

"Oh," you breathed, your brows raising. "Yeah, my answer is still the same. I would like that," you answered, emphasizing the 'I' in your sentence. The woman nodded, any nervousness or tension immediately lifted from her demeanor.

"Good," she said, grinning. "Let me get your number," she said--pulling out her phone from her back pocket, opening it, and shoving it in your direction with the screen showing an empty contact form to fill out. You nodded, and took the phone to begin typing in some things in each slot. "I'm Se-mi, by the way," she added, her eyes watching you intently--studying every and all aspect of your face.

Once you finished, you looked back up at Se-mi and handed her phone. "Well... just give me a message, Se-mi. I should be free, well, if I can ever escape those two for a moment," she laughed, tilting her head back to where her friends stood--watching the two of you interact with large grins.

Se-mi nodded, watching your form retreat as you handed her phone back and went back to your friends who immediately began pestering you for information on your new 'hot date', as they called it. She looked back down at her phone, studying your name on the contact--trying to burn it into her memory.

"Y/n...," she said slowly, nodding as she enjoyed the feel of it on her tongue. Knowing full well she was going to be saying that name for a long time. Or, well, at least she hoped.

Who knew your friends dragging you onto a silly ride could lead to any of this.

#squid game #squid game s2 #squid game season 2 #se mi x reader #se mi squid game #player 380 #won ji an #female reader #imagine #squid game imagine #lesbian #wlw #fxf #squid game fanfic

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sagescented · 3 days ago

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I am not shitting you when I say the second part of this post is almost exactly, how I was nearly radicalized into the Tradwife subculture.

I started really struggling with my disability when my Husband and I married in 2015. It was made worse when I went to work for my emotionally and verbally abusive mother- which culminated in a complete breakdown of both my body and mind. I had to quit my job, and my Husband and I eventually decided I wouldn't be going back to work in general because it was becoming too hard on my body; I never wanted to be a homemaker. I was forced to be one by my own body.

And while all of this is going on, I was also finally exploring my "Femininity" as someone who was a tomboy growing up, was temporarily TransMasc for a bit, never really connected to it, and finally wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Especially because, secretly, I'd started liking these things in high school but had faced significant bullying from my mother and sister the second I started trying; you can imagine how quickly I shut that interest down and doubled down on my "hatred" of all things girly.

I've also always been into Vintage, ever since I saw a photo of my late paternal Grandmother, who I was named after, sitting on a fountain in full New Look inspired dress, holding my father as a baby. So all three of these things culminated in me finding the Vintage Homemaking community- and that was fun! It made my being a Homemaker more tolerable! I could have fun with it by romanticizing it!

From there, I found Gender Essentialism. I didn't quite agree with it all. But hey, it didn't sound so bad, actually, that the sexes were made "equal but different". And the rabbit hole just kept getting deeper ... And deeper ... And deeper.

And the absolutely insidious thing about it, is that once you dip your toe in? It's very hard to actually see how wild (or dangerous) the ideologies get the deeper you fall. It's intentionally designed to very slowly lure you in; to make the ideologies bite-sized, so that they're easier to digest- that way the next one they feed you seems like a logical progression, and not a far fetched neon warning sign screaming "Danger! Keep away! There be Nazis here!".

And honestly, thank fucking God I had friends who were like "hey, hold up, wait a minute", sat me down, and gently pointed out all the NeoNazi dogwhistles (and Lord let me tell you just how much of the rhetoric comes directly from WW II Nazi homefront propaganda. I wish I were joking). Without them I don't doubt that I'd've fallen for all of it hook line and sinker. But as it stands, I was only barely radicalized for maybe a year and a half- and I've spent every year since 2016 screaming at the top of my lungs about the danger of Traditionalism on Tumblr because of it.

Radicalization of any kind (but especially radicalization into the Alt-Right) is not a joke or something to scoff at. Anyone can be radicalized- and the more you think you're immune to it, the better a target you actually are for them.

TW: This post contains explicit discussions of white supremacy and the alt-right, including mentions of racism and antisemitism.

One of my most impactful recent library reads was Sisters In Hate by Seyward Darby, and I want to take a moment to encourage other white Americans to check it out as we prepare for next years' presidential election and all the shit it's going to kick up.

Sisters In Hate is a book about the role of women in American white supremacist movements and specifically in the alt-right. Darby does a really excellent job of showing just how critical white women are to these hate movements. The book also gives us a detailed look at what radicalization looks like and how that process can be different for different genders.

The book is divided into three sections, each of which follows a real woman through her radicalization into the alt-right. I especially want to draw Tumblr's attention to the story of Ayla, a self-proclaimed "polyamorous, raw foodist-vegan, feminist, pagan" whose radicalization started in college with natural living and homebirth and ended with her running a popular tradwife blog and speaking at the Unite the Right rally.

I think a lot of leftists and liberals feel that we're too smart, or too educated, or too savvy to fall for white supremacist recruitment schemes. We are not. Intelligent, college-educated, left-leaning people are radicalized every day. Some of them are less overtly hateful, like your college friend who starts voting Republican in their 30s. Some of them are like Ayla, and their radicalization takes them all the way to the other end of the political spectrum until they're openly and genuinely calling for a white ethnostate with the same passion they once used to advocate for feminism, racial equity, and queer rights. And we need to remember that any one of us intelligent, college-educated, left-leaning white folks could be in her position, which is why it's so important to learn about radicalization tactics so we can recognize and resist them.

I'm not gonna lie -- this book is hard to read. The text contains racial slurs, white supremacist rhetoric, antisemitism, and anti-Black racism. All of this is condemned by the author, but Darby doesn't shy away from showing just how vile this movement is. I had to take a lot of breaks from this book and read it over several weeks, but I'm very glad I did because I feel like I needed this information.

White supremacist recruitment efforts are going to pick up in the next year, especially if Tr*mp is the Republican nominee for president. Stay informed and stay ready.

#Reblog #NonTrad Homemaker #Be Better

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wyvernspirit · 3 days ago

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So after watching all of Jentry Chau Vs The Underworld in the past 2 days I've quite a bit to say

This show needed to be two seasons long, I feel half my critiques would probably not exist if it got the runtime it deserved

Kit had the most interesting character arc and was done the most dirty of everyone by the lack of runtime later in the season and also the characters around him??? Can everyone stop treating Kit like shit for two seconds please??

I at multiple points went "God this feels like arcane levels of Greek tragedy" so it has that going for it

If it has ended as a season 1 on episode 9 (I think? The episode where she's out on the field and Cheng revived his daughter then the portals are opened) it could have been a really solid set up for a season 2, but unfortunately the next final episodes feel incredibly jam-packed and rushed with no room to breathe

The music and fight scenes were arguably the best part of the show, there was some really interesting "camera" work too

I didn't like how Michael basically played with 3 girls feelings for the whole show, particularly sorry to girl from the last episode who doesn't even get a name as far as I can tell

(also the way he went "and Kit did you love him too??" as some kind of snap back to Jentry like HE DIDNT LITERALLY JUST DIE MICHAEL CAN YOU STFU FOR TWO SECONDS NOT THE TIME)

Michael kinda just sucked? Like I wanted to like him but he's very meh to me and I'm sorry but the reveal of him actually being really bad at the flute just, threw me off completely especially because instruments are expensive!! He didn't buy it on a whim, the whole thing is he's supposed to have this deep passion for music but like it's not really reflected at all?? There's not even any conversations between him and Jentry about music outside band tryouts

And him having powers I guess could have been set up for a season 2 but we end this season really conclusively? All the plot threads and character arcs wrapped up. Like if anything I could see a spin off with him maybe but- like I don't want one, I just could see that happening

Actually to go back a paragraph for a second, that's something the show does a few times where it drops these very sudden interests of the characters and pretends they had them all along?? Like Jentry and baton twirling, like come on wouldn't it have made more sense if she got sought out by the school dance team or something?? Or just have her main spirit fighting weapon be a baton!! Show her having genuine interest in that aspect of spirit fighting and then have it reflect later in school? Like why did these girls see a video of Jentry dancing and go "Hey she could probably baton twirl!" that makes no sense!

The animation was really great! More than that even, I love the art style and art direction this show has, it really gave me some major inspiration! I want to draw some fanart really badly!!

Okay this a major IN MY OPINION, low-key I think the show might have been more interesting if it was just set in Seoul for the whole time, I preferred Jentrys friends there, I much preferred the environments and the colours the art direction had in the setting of Seoul

I didn't really care for Texas in the show and It made the feelings of her later questioning if she should return or not be hollow to me the viewer, because I was like OF COURSE SHE SHOULD

Stella is a character I have complicated feelings on! I really did not care for the minuet of Michael's introduction at school her getting weighed down as just "the girlfriend" character and how Jentry wasn't allowed form a meaningful connection to her until after Michael and her broke up, hell Stella basically gets forgotten by the plot until the last 4ish episodes, and IN THOSE she's a REALLY fun and strong character! I love how she started learning seals and was such a a big part of them winning that final fight at the school, which frankly I don't think she gets enough credit for

And while I find her blushing at Jentrys other friend cute it just makes me sigh because now I realize the show totally could have just done a "Fuck the boys" Jentry x Stella ship and I would have been totally down

Actually low-key I think my ideal is Kit and their Girlfriend Jentry and Jentrys Girlfriend Stella ((and I guess maybe Stella's boyfriend Michael if he got written better, but meh don't expect me to include him in the polycule if I ever write Fics/draw art for this show))

Also speaking of Kit god I would love them to be genderfluid or I guess it to be acknowledged? As queer and not just, because their a skin walker. Like you can read them that way because of them being a skin walker demon but like if it was acknowledged in the show after making Jentry's skin he experimented a little with how he looked as Kit and his sense of fashion and style!!

Idk I would have loved it, I have some strong feelings on how this show had hints of queerness but never actually acknowledged that queerness besides I guess Jentrys fake parents being like "So do you have a boyfriend?? ..or a girlfriend??" Which I mean, I guess, diversity win the cat spirits pretending to be your dead parents don't care if your gay!

I was very invested in the mysteries of the Chau family for the whole run I just wish that they had time to breathe, we went from one revelation to the next and each one hit just that little bit less because there was no down time given between them.

Okay overall though, it's going to be rotating in my mind like a microwave for the next two weeks I can tell

I don't know if it's strong enough to stick around as a major fixation but maybe a minor one where I occasionally get drawn back over the characters who had so much potential to me

I'd say a solid like 8/10

Yeah I know I just did all that whining and complaining

But I did genuinely enjoy most of the viewing experience and the ideas behind it

It was good, I think other people should give it a try, it deserves a lot more love and attention for sure

#jcvtu #jentry chau spoilers #jentry chau vs the underworld #jentry chau kit #jentry chau michael #jentry chau stella #media critique #review #media review #netflix recommendations

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iguessitsjustme · 3 days ago

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My Favorite BL of 2024:

Is it 4 days after the new year? Yes. Am I making this a tad bit late. Probably. Do I care? Nope. Doing this for me.

These are my top 10 shows that aired and finished in 2024. I did have to whittle it down from around 20 and that was hard. But this is the list. But first.

Honorable mentions:

Love in the Big City - watched on Viki.

The reason this is not in the list of top 10 BL is because I categorize this as a queer story instead of a BL. It's missing the typical BL tropes and style, but it was damn good. After I watched it, it sat with me for awhile. It's still sitting with me. It was tough to watch at times, but it was worth it for me and I enjoyed it a lot.

I Hear the Sunspot - watched on Gagaoolala.

The same reason this did not make it into the favorites. This show is not a BL to me. Yes, it features a queer love, but that is not the focus nor is it the point of the show. This is a show about communication and acceptance and growth. The romance is secondary to all of that. The romance is used as a way to show the communication and acceptance and growth for multiple different characters.

The On1y One - watched on Viki.

This show. This SHOW. So good. I am scared we will never get a second season. The reason that this show is not on the list is because we didn't quite get to the romance yet. I truly hope we get more but I don't know if my heart can take it. Oh it was such a good show though. This show was one of my liveblogs (I promise I'll finish posting them at some point).

Now, on to the list in descending order of my favorites:

10. Century of Love - watched on Gagaoolala.

Listen. This show had some issues BUT listen. I am a sucker for a reincarnated lovers story. And I have been waiting my entire life for a show to do reincarnated lovers but they came back as a different gender. I loved the twist this show pulled by making it not certain if Vee was actually the reincarnation of Wat. I love when things get left up to the interpretation of the audience. I love that it also didn't matter because what mattered is that San chose Vee. He didn't need soulmates, he needed choice and that is what the show gave him.

9. Wandee Goodday - watched on YouTube.

I can't really explain why I loved this show so much except that I really loved both Yak and Wandee. Yak was such a green flag throughout the show and Wandee was actually very good at communicating his boundaries. It was refreshing to see. I wish it had handled certain things better, but overall this show was something I looked forward to a whole lot every week.

8. At 25:00 in Akasaka - watched on Gagaoolala.

This show felt weirdly calming to me. The way that all of the characters moved throughout the world was so calming. Shirasaki and Hayama are perfectly balanced. I love how they love each other. It took them awhile to get there, but once they did, it was so wholesome and delightful.

7. Deep Night - watched on IQIYI.

POLY. This show gave us canon poly. Did we get enough of them? No. Alas they were the sides. But it made me so incredibly happy. The leads were great too. Wela and Khem had wonderful communication the entire way through the show which was super unexpected in a show like this. This show also did not hold back on the heat. But the main reason I love this show so much (other than the poly) is just how supportive everyone ends up being of everyone. It was wonderful to see. This show was one of my liveblogs.

6. Jack & Joker: U Steal My Heart - watched on IQIYI

Yes, yes I know. I was pretty vocal in my critiques of this show (well vocal for me). But despite my issues with it, I really loved this show a whole lot. I love anything involving a heist and they really went and made it gay. God bless. Joke has become one of my all time favorite characters. I liked that this show tried something new. It gave us something new and something interesting. It was intriguing and it was fun. It was an absolute joy to watch and post about and it was the show that I probably felt the most in community with other people watching. I love YinWar for giving us this show and putting so much of their hearts into it. It was obvious how much everyone involved cared.

5. We Are - watched on IQIYI

It should surprise no one that this show is on my list. First of all, TanFang. My absolute favorites. But this show was so slow and so calm. There was such little conflict it basically was nonexistent. It was exactly what I needed. The summer months are always hard for me mentally and this show was a nice break for my brain. I loved all of the couples. Some of the couples definitely had pacing issues but I still love them. It was a delightful show and sometimes I just want a show that I can trust will greet me like a friend each week.

4. My Stand-In - watched on IQIYI

I love my toxic boys. Ming you absolute disaster. This show was a RIDE. I couldn't get enough. Joe was such a good person and the whole story is bonkers and Ming was a walking talking red flag and still I was rooting for him. I also loved how much effort the creators put into this show. I don't think I've ever seen so much analysis done of character's backs in my life. It was GREAT. I want a million more shows just like this. We all deserve it.

3. Monster Next Door - watched on Gagaoolala

Just like We Are, this show greeted me like a friend each week. I could count on this show to feel like a warm hug. God and Diew are quite literally the cutest of all time. God was the biggest green flag we have had in awhile, if ever. I mean, no one truly did it like him. That man literally went out of his way to make sure Diew wouldn't even see his face until Diew was ready for it. The only sin this show ever committed was not getting Khun Shy a proper tank. I know that it wouldn't have fit with the aesthetic or whatever, but I was stressed. This is a show that I imagine I will be rewatching at least once a year if not more.

2. Unknown - watched grey first then on Viki

It was soooo hard not to put this as number 1. This show was everything to me when it was airing. I actually found a translation of the book to read online after the show finished airing because I did not want to be done. The way Yuan loved Qian was absolutely wild but my god I loved it. Watching Qian learn to reciprocate Yuan's feelings but also to let himself finally be taken care of was fantastic. I loved their whole family dynamic. I loved the friends. I loved how hard each character worked, not just at life but they all worked hard at love. All types of love. Unknown really told us that love is not always easy and sometimes it is the hardest thing to do, but it is worth the effort. And it also gave me the scene of Qian chasing down San Pang while Yuan sat back and laughed. Iconic.

Love for Love's Sake - watched on IQIYI

This is the only show that could take the #1 spot for me. It was the show this year. It aired last January and I am still thinking about it and how much I love it. Myungha is undoubtedly one of my favorite characters. Something about him just spoke to me, the way I'm sure his character spoke to a lot of people. Everything about this show from beginning to end was executed flawlessly (in my opinion) and I cannot stop thinking about how it said that even the worst most unlovable parts of yourself are worth loving and actually they aren't the worst and the aren't unlovable. It might be hard to love those parts of yourself, but it's so easy to love them in someone else. And they will love them in you too. This is a show that I would absolutely love a physical copy of so I can force everyone I know to watch it.

Sorry for how long the post is. I chose not to include screenshots mostly because I'm lazy and now I'm glad because this is already very long.

#i don't know what to tag this with so i'm just gonna tag the shows #love in the big city #i hear the sunspot #the on1y one #century of love #wandee goodday #at 25:00 in akasaka #deep night the series #jack and joker #we are the series #my stand in #monster next door #unknown the series #love for love's sake

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weirdmarioenemies · 6 hours ago

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Name: Sea Bat (again)

Debut: Donkey Kong Jungle Beat

It has been quite a long time since our old post on Sea Bat, so long that it was known as Sea Bakky back then! How long was it? Uh it was SIX YEARS? NEARLY SEVEN YEARS AGO??? My word. Well I think we've earned the right to mention this funny slug for the second time in over six years. We can indulge.

I want to talk about Sea Bat because it is so awesome! It's so cool! This is genuinely one of the coolest things ever. We just had a whole year of Shadow the Hedgehog, but sorry! He's only the SECOND coolest character. Number one is Sea Bat, babey! This thing hells yeah! (that's my new way of saying something is really cool. No one else says it but you could start if you want)

It's really a shame that DK Jungle Beat is so slept on, not only because it is genuinely a very fun game, but because Sea Bat is such an incredible design. As the name implies, it is a variant of the typical bat enemy, but as great as bats are, you cannot expect me to give a hoot about a regular ol' bat when one of them is actually a SLUG!

Not just any slug, but a clione, a sea angel, whatever you like to call them! I like to call them Fairy Slugs, but nobody else does. They are really some of the most magical creatures in the world, fluttering about in the void of the sea... and to think that such a magical creature is a SLUG! What a wonderful planet this is!

Jungle Beat dared to ask the question: what if a clione was goth? It would go hard, is what would happen! And it did, and it does. Sea Bat is not JUST a clione with bat wings, not JUST a clione with a bit of a spooky face. It's a FLATWOODS MONSTER clione! That head-and-face-shape combo is unmistakable! Representation WIN: this marine mollusc is from West Virginia!

Just... this thing is so cool. I know I've said that before but it's so cool. And it's criminal that barely anyone knows about it! This design deserves more than to be beaten up by Donkey Kong in an out-of-character spree of violence against innocent wildlife. It should... be on a skateboard, maybe? Nothing preventing anyone from painting it onto a skateboard! Hell Yeah!

And to think, they made this sea angel monster so cool and spooky, and didn't even need to include the real thing's Nightmare Face Tentacle Eruption form. Wowee! Swimming snails can rest easy tonight!

#sea bat #sea bakky #donkey kong jungle beat #donkey kong #donkey kong enemies #mario #mario enemies #mod chikako

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thieves-never-say-die · 1 day ago

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if a leverage x white collar collab happened, how do you think each character would react to each other? would peter become another one of their fbi buddies? would sophie and neal compete against each other? how, in your opinion, would that look?

I think my ideal of what would happen is pretty much what I wrote in The Neal Caffrey Job, but I do have a LOT more ideas about possible interactions between teams:

Parker and Mozzie know each other from when Parker was younger (pre-Archie) and Mozzie took her under his wing to teach her how to be a thief (I wanted to include more of them together in TNCJ but it didn't fit)

Parker and Neal both tried to steal the same item at the same time once before, and fucked up the other's plan enough that neither was able to get the item in question (or one of them came out on top, leading to a lifelong grudge which rears its head when the two teams have to work together)

I do think Jones and Hardison would geek out over tech together. That's another thing I couldn't quite make fit in TNCJ, but Jones is the tech guy of the White Collar team, and I think they'd get along

Peter is too smart to get duped by the Leverage crew for long and (unfortunately) his morals are not flexible enough to willingly work with them, though I think El would be much more sympathetic and could convince him not to pursue too aggressively. Like, the Leverage crew would kick marks in NYC Peter's way once they're done with them and have had the big reveal, allowing Peter to arrest them, but Peter would never condone what the Leverage crew does, if that makes sense

I think Neal would want to work with the Leverage crew if he heard what they were doing, but wouldn't be able to help too directly so he does his best to help by putting Peter in the right place at the right time to catch the bad guys (Neal definitely joins Leverage International post s6)

I looooove the idea of Diana recognizing Sophie from her life as the child of a diplomat (yet another thing I couldn't make fit in TNCJ). I think it would be hilarious if Diana saw Sophie and got curious and went looking up a bunch of her aliases, suddenly realizing like two dozen famous people are actually all just the same woman

I also think it would be fun if Neal saw the Leverage ot3 being together and then looked at El and Peter with a little lightbulb moment

Ok last thing to consider: Sarah moves to London at the end of s4. We know that Astrid Pickford (Sophie's step daughter) is an Interpol agent, presumably based in London. I think they would have a lot in common, and they should definitely meet up for drinks and talk about the thieves in their lives and about how they both had to put aside their morals a bit to make sure the right thing got done and then make out about it

#sappholily #ask #thanks for the ask!#m speaks #leverage #white collar #crossover #I could go on all day about the crossover potential between these two teams #can you tell #also someone please write a sara/astrid #I need it

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plaidos · 2 days ago

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prev ask anon here. please know that i am quite familiar with AI generated art and know how the process works. i was around when the novelAI model leaked and i still generate a fair amount of it both locally on my system and with online services. i am familiar with the infrastructure and technology that goes into providing large scale AI and machine learning services as well as the small scale home PC hardware. please dont assume the worst intentions or least experience of me. as for specific instances the one that comes to mind is GwrrrUwU (now deactivated). they were copying Dross's style *exactly* and got tens of thousands of twitter followers and a lot of patreon subs. you can go look up their images still on a few boorus and they just aren't good quality. you can go look up their page on archive.org and (with a bit of finagling) see they had this in their paid tiers: "I will try to post daily, 1+ or 4+ posts minimum." 4+ images per day, every day. thats a lot. and most of it was slop. another example i just found is Modeus14 (twitter handle) who is blatantly copying __Asura_ (twitter handle). check out their patreon where they supposedly have 369 paid members and have posts with 12+ images coming out multiple times per day. do you really think they are putting in the time and care to make those images come out well? i dont. and in regards to the other reply - the fun part is that you can just insert LoRAs with a specific artists style into the process with *very* little effort. the thing is that these models trained on a specific artists' style all exist already. you can check this out yourself by going to civitai.com and just searching for a specific artist. or go to the "models" section and then click on the "style" tab. not to mention that on the various paid/online imagegen services you can just say the artist name you want to copy and it will use that style. this stuff is real and there truly is a lot of slop out there made by dishonest people. at least acknowledge that slop exists. acknowledge that people are copying styles *exactly* with little effort or care for the end product.

but like you said it’s crap — which, by the way, i have actually said *dozens* of times, most AI art looks shit. but what you’re describing is the same process that leads to mcdonald’s opening outside a local burger place to drive them out of business. like yeah it’s shitty but sorry “lower quality for cheaper faster” is literally just How Capitalism Works. you have a problem with capitalism. like i don’t see how you don’t realise you’re just complaining that a bad imitation of something is more popular than the original because it’s being pumped out cheaper and faster…. that’s how everything under capitalism works. there’s not one industry that doesn’t work this way?

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0pooleart · 1 day ago

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Sonic Redesign Masterpost

One thing I've always passively thought about the Sonic franchise is that it's great, but also always felt just a bit short of perfection in a bunch of random aspects (mostly some character designs and some stories). Around like late August of 2024 I sketched out some redesigns for some of the main Sonic characters, and I quickly realized that I kinda physically had to not only redesign like, all vaguely notable characters from across the entire franchise (not just the games) but I also really wanted to rewrite a ton of stories, so I just like, did, you know? I'm basically obsessed now so here's a giant masterpost that's more about the thoughts behind my redesigns than just the images. Don't expect this to be super organized and fun to read lol

(and I can feel the hyperfixation dying down so I really should just get this out there)

Also, if you'd rather read it in the form of a Google Doc, here's the link to that: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VvXMzQ2kr7HrqmUd0Z7Aa9xCprUZ1ojm5cD8lcAEjbQ/edit?usp=sharing

First things first, for one, Mobius and Earth are two distinct planets, and Mobians are one set species. I didn't think that was a crazy idea until I actually watched a video detailing how current Sonic treats the setting but yeah, I really want them to just be completely different planets.

Origins

Anyway, the main draw for rewriting most Sonic stories was the fact that he doesn't really have a canon origin in the main series games (yet?) so I felt the need to give him one, and a more discrete timeline. However, everything starts with Eggman (and this is a heavily truncated version):

Robotnik enters Mobius via a Ring portal (similar to how the movies portray them), but he's instead a skinny, charming young man (similar again to Jim Carrey's Eggman in the movies, a drawing of him is further down). At first he pitches his little, cutesy animal inventions to the Mobian public, and they actually like them quite a lot. He's not without an ulterior motive though, and as his inventions get more and more popular, he actually hires some Mobians to help produce them. He begins building his business over the years, using the unique powers Mobians have to boost production. He even gives some of his workers their own homes built up with his technology, but he starts using this as a way to control them, since he basically can take away their whole lives if he so chooses. As he keeps building and building, he steals more and more resources from Mobius, and he builds over the Mobian city he started in (haven't really specified what it was yet), slowly making it his own over time. The only place he knows he shouldn't touch (just to stay in the good graces of Mobians) is Green Hill, a place that's sort of sacred, but more sacred in the way art is sacred, since it's a place hand built by ancient Mobians to be a wild place for them to roam free. Time passes Robotnik has been fattened up by his personal chef/baker Vanilla, and he's settled into being in control of so much of Mobius.

It's around this time when Sonic is born into the factory (of course given the canon name Ogilvie at first). He's taken away from his parents, whoever they are, immediately, and is put to work as soon as he's able to push a button. As he grows up, he's obviously too restless to do something so sterile, so he's put to work on the hamster wheels that power the Robotnik Empire. He never even thinks there's anything special out for him in the world, but eventually he, like the other workers, is given his semi-yearly vacation to the Green Hill, where they can recover their will to live. However, Ogilvie is so completely overrun with joy that he just runs off, never to return to the factory again. Eventually, of course, he changes his name to Sonic to fit his new life of just running around Green Hill.

Robotnik catches wind of there being a deserter, and decides to set out his robots, who secretly had battle functions all this time, into Green Hill to catch him. This is essentially where the first game would begin, just Sonic running around destroying Robotnik's robots as they come at him. However, Robotnik has a second in command: A young, two-tailed fox who he found outcast on the streets, who had a surprising knack for machines, something he didn't see in many other Mobians. He was named Miles Prower, and he grew up working for the one person who didn't ostracize him for his tails or his skills. He was only around 12 when Sonic, approx 16, escaped, and he was tasked with leading some of their more sophisticated creations into battle.

Robotnik came along too with his own weapons, but they were both completely outmatched by Sonic's unbridled confidence and cockiness. Robotnik tore out what hair he had in anger, and of course that's when Sonic taunted him with his new nickname Eggman. Since Miles was there too, and he felt like he was on a roll, he called Miles "Tails," but Miles' reaction was much more ashamed than he expected, so he felt a bit off about that one. After the fight, Miles was repairing the machine Sonic destroyed, but he found him and met him on more even terms, and tried to convince him that there's probably a much better life for him out with him. He wasn't totally convinced yet, and couldn't exactly just defect from Robotnik like Sonic did, so Sonic left him be for now.

This is the general part where I start writing too many fine details, so basically Miles slowly starts enjoying himself more and more fighting Sonic and meeting him after the fight. He even adopts the "Tails" nickname for himself on the card of a present he drops off for Sonic, which was his much more durable and iconic sneakers. He finally breaks away from Eggman completely during an aerial assault on Sonic, where he prepared some supplies in the plane he was set to pilot, so he could take it away with him. He even was able to use some scrap from the battle to build a workshop for himself to live and work while Sonic still mostly just roamed free. This is around the point where the second game would start, since Tails has joined the cast and they can both battle Eggman together. If this were to be a game, I'd want Tails to be in the cockpit of each boss in the first game, so it helps set up his inclusion in the second, but obviously this is just a random floating idea for now. This isn't meant to be a concrete game/comic/animation/whatever.

But, that sets up most of the future events, even though there are some major stories to come, so on to the designs themselves:

As for overall Mobian redesigns, I always thought their giant ass hands and feet sometimes got in the way of their expressiveness, if they didn't just look kinda doofy (especially with characters like Knuckles) so the generic "Mobian" template has a smaller head, feet, and hands, and has a generally longer torso. Basically they just have slightly more """realistic""" proportions even though they're still obviously cartoony, just more realistic on the spectrum compared to the canon designs. And, since they're all one species, that means they evolved over time to match some of the animals around them, like a macro-evolution version of how Chao take on animal traits. That also means that the animal parts of their names are more like tribe affiliations, since they aren't actually the animals they say they are. For example, Knuckles the Echidna isn't an echidna in the species sense, he'd just call himself that to show he's affiliated with the Echidna tribe, and more generally that his people took on traits of the local echidna-echidnas. Meanwhile, characters like Tails/Miles Prower have a more family-based last name and a nickname for reasons I'll get into later. Also aside from that, I wanted characters that are Reptiles and Insects (Espio and Charmy mainly) to seem more unique from the mammals, so they look more distinct. And even the mammals look more animalistic in general, with longer snouts, getting rid of that weirdly detached muzzle thing most Mobian characters seem to have. Characters that are like Cats and Rabbits don't end up changing much since they aren't known for having long snouts anyway.

Sonic

Sonic was obviously the first one I tried redesigning so his design went through a bunch of changes, but the first thing I dealt with with him was his stupid conjoined eye thing. Obviously in that classic CD animation everyone loves it works out because its super stylized and simple, and all the current Mania versions of him make it work too, but it's really hard to unsee now in his modern designs. It's obviously meant to be like a Garfield type of thing, where it's just a cartoony way of having two eyes close together, but nowadays it really feels more like a Lightning McQueen type of eye windshield. If every Mobian had that then I'd keep it and just call it a stylistic thing, but no, only Hedgehogs have them, so... At first I tried representing that by making him have some kind of goggles to protect his eyes from the wind as he runs, but I couldn't get that to work, so I just split his eyes up. In his goggles-form I gave him this black brim to the goggles to kind of mirror Shadow's random red eye splotch he has, and since I liked that enough I kept a small bit of it in the current design. I also gave him some kind of double-sock type thing going on with much more athletic-seeming stuff to go under his more fluffy socks and gloves, which didn't feel all that necessary until I removed them at some point, and that just made him feel extra naked somehow. I do like them though. And, of course, he's actually wearing rings.

Aside from that, I kinda inadvertently made him look a lot like his Movie version, with his extra frazzled quills and blue arms and such. I definitely feel like he benefits from being extra sharp, so I added a bunch of spikes to things like his chest and shoulders. Even though it's not really important to mention I might as well, but the weird thing I think about his arms is that his normal Game design does basically need tan arms, but I actually think overall there's no reason not to give him blue arms in a form like this. It just makes sense.

Tails

Tails is mostly unchanged, just making his face fur blend more smoothly into his face instead of just being solo hairs glued on. His chest fur is more like a ball of fluff focused more around his actual chest, instead of just being a flat pattern on his stomach. I also gave him bigger ears for a bit of fennec energy, and a red scarf so his red shoes aren't the only red on his design. Aside from that, it's all just restylization, like making his tails extra fluffy.

Eggman (and Miles)

I'm still torn on what I want Eggman to truly look like. At first I wanted him to look a bit more like his SatAM-style version, with really short legs and a big fat belly, but then after seeing more and more fanart of him I tried to give him back his weirdly scrawny legs. No matter what though, he needed to have a giant coat with a massive collar to show his impression of himself. Also, I will always want to preserve his iconic smile, where his big toothy grin is basically glued to his mustache. That's pure Eggman.

And of course there's pre-Sonic Tails there too, with his fur very organized and clean, and with a much more grim demeanor. I also thought his tails would also be a lot less fluffy, and he kind of wraps them together like how a person wrings their hands together when they feel shy or awkward, showing how he hasn't fully embraced his mutation yet.

This is a quick little sketch I did of younger, thinner, and less bald Eggman when he first enters Mobius.

After them, there are some characters that'd just be appearing around this point in the story, so here they are:

Amy… the Cat?

So for the longest time, I legitimately believed Amy was a cat, so I decided to make her a cat. It's that simple. She never really looked like a hedgehog, anyway. Plus, I do want to keep the main group as being Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy, so it'd be nice if they were all different "species." Aside from that, I just made her former quills look like much more fluffy and soft hair, and gave her long sleeves just because this drawing convinced me it was a good idea. However, I did do a quick sketch to see how she would look if I kept her a Hedgehog, and in that one I took away the long sleeves since I thought that would be annoying with her chest/shoulder quills.

As for how she meets Sonic, she's working under Eggman as a blacksmith when Eggman starts going berserk over actually losing both a devoted worker and his right-hand fox. He puts up signs everywhere asking for people to enlist into an army with the sole purpose to capture him, but Amy is instead just smitten with this rebellious hunk she's just now heard of. She joins Eggman's forces, but breaks off on her own to join him. He's super willing to let anyone join, but since Tails knew how devoted to Eggman some Mobians could be, he thinks she's a spy at first. Over time, though, she proves herself, even if she can't quite catch up to Sonic.

Cream, Cheese, and Vanilla

Cream was always perfect, but I really hated that Vanilla was basically just a taller copy of Cream, so I tried to give her her own identity. Also since they're all named after food I decided to specifically make Vanilla a baker/chef, which also meant I could turn the one tuft of hair on her head onto an ice cream-y dollop. And even though that was decided before I decided to make Eggman start off skinny, it also meant that I could make her a pretty major part of Eggman's life, being the one who makes desserts so good he just couldn't help himself. Even though Eggman definitely loves stomping on the hopes and dreams of Mobians, he's actually quite fond of Vanilla (not in that way, thank god) and tolerates Cream. As for Cheese, I had this big idea of how to redesign all Chao mechanics a while ago, and one such idea was to have Luck and Intelligence forms of Chao just like the other stats, and I decided to make Cheese a Neutral/Luck Chao just before he evolves into his main adult evolution, since he's lucky to have Cream by his side. Literally. He's only with her because Eggman was experimenting with Chao, and Cream caught him in the act, and he tried to save face by giving her Cheese as a gift, which definitely took him off her radar.

But, also, since when do rabbits only have one kid?

They're just rough ideas for now (except for Milk and Sugar for reasons) (and I also thought of there being a baby Butter as well but I can't be assed to save a new version of the sketch). Even though it doesn't make sense for each kid to be a different age, since rabbits more so have large litters, I just think this is more fun from a design perspective. Also, Vanilla having so many kids to worry about makes it more reasonable why she's so beholden to Eggman. She definitely can't just get up and leave when she has to worry about all of them.

As for how Cream meets Sonic, I literally have a whole animated short planned out in my head because, if you couldn't tell, she's easily one of my favorite Sonic characters, but the gist is that once Eggman "gifts" her Cheese, Cheese starts drawing crude drawings depicting how Eggman treated him and other Chao. Cream slowly catches on to Eggman's evil in her own oblivious little way, and eventually just… walks out. Much to Vanilla's dismay. As she leaves though, Vanilla basically snaps from her goodie-goodie persona and practically holds a knife to Eggman's throat, telling him if any robot ever harms Cream while she's out there, "so help me god…" He relents as much as he can. Meanwhile, Cream just keeps walking to Green Hill. Tails notices her as he's flying the Tornado, and picks her up. She's a little disappointed that everyone's basically just living in the wild or Tails' crude workshop, but they try to make due for her pampered little self.

After that comes the first big story since the Origin/random extra happenings.

Knuckles

Honestly I feel like Knuckles has to be one of my top redesigns. I definitely needed him to look more buff and big compared to Sonic, but not quite to the level of Boom Knuckles, and I think I really nailed it. Not only that, but making his coat and "skin" color darker just works so well. And, of course, with the dread-bands/paint of his tribe. Him just looking so much more square also just fits so well.

Knuckles starts off as usual guarding the Master Emerald all alone on Angel Island, but soon Eggman visits him without any armada, reading about the Chaos Emerald's power and finally wanting to use it to stop Sonic. He does his usual schtick of convincing Knuckles that Sonic is the real threat, and since Knuckles was so isolated he didn't even know who Eggman was, and joins him to stop Sonic.

However, Tails isn't stupid, and keeps a solid ear to what Eggman is doing, and hears about his plan to take the Chaos Emeralds, so he and the others set out on a world-sprawling journey to get the Emeralds before he does. However, they aren't the only ones looking for treasure…

Rouge

Technically I redesigned Rouge first out of everyone, but for other reasons than the franchise-wide redesign. This is basically an adaptation of that. Similar to Amy, whose design was cursed by Girl-Character-Syndrome, I also wanted to fix up Rouge by going where no anthro female character has gone before… giving her a bare crotch. Crazy. The boys can run around stark naked while the girls can't not wear full body clothing, so someone had to pick up the slack. She at least has her top covered, but that's mainly because I'm kind of a sucker for her heart-boob thing. I really can't deny it. Oh yeah and the heart motif continues into her nose, because she's a bat, of course it would. Bats literally have heart-shaped noses but they didn't bother even giving her a tiny heart-shaped nose in canon. AND she even has full body fur, because her being completely bald across her body is even more of a sin to me than forcing her to wear full body clothing. Anyway, she's got dark skin too, because obviously, and I tried making her arms her wings at some point but I also wanted her to have normal humanoid hands, and that just didn't mesh well, so she's still got back wings. Aside from all that, I gave her a long index fingernail on her glove for lockpicking purposes or whatever, it just seemed like a weirdly fitting thing for a character once called Nails.

Anyway, Sonic and co stumble upon Rouge who had the same goal as they did, but of course with a different motive, although she promises to play nice and help them find the Emeralds (until she betrays them once they have them all)

At every Emerald, each situated in a different biome, they encounter Knuckles, who uses the elemental power of each Emerald to fight Sonic, although Sonic is usually able to snatch the Emerald away from him and make away with it. After every fight, Knuckles is more and more sure that Sonic is a threat, but once Sonic and co actually have them all, and find the Master Emerald too, Eggman is the one to make the first move, and snatches them away all at once to power the giant mech he built behind the scenes just for the Emeralds. Everyone teams up to steal back the Emeralds again, and Sonic feels a strange power inside of them and the Master Emerald. He asks Knuckles what it could be, and he says the Master Emerald must have determined that he should be granted their ultimate power. Sonic seems stoked, but Knuckles is seriously worried, thinking back to the tales his people told him of what happened last time… but thankfully this time, Sonic just turns an electric yellow, beats Eggman's mech to a pulp, and turns back to normal once the deed is done. Knuckles is a bit shocked, but relieved.

With all threats neutralized, Knuckles accepts that he was wrong, and makes amends, but he stays with the Master Emerald. Rouge goes off on her own again, too.

It's at this point, while still on Mobius, some other characters probably emerge. This could happen either after or during the previous events.

Sally Acorn

Even though I don't have much personal nostalgia for Sally, she used to be such a big deal that I couldn't NOT add her to the roster. Like Amy, I also got her species wrong, since I thought she was a squirrel and they just didn't have the guts to give her a big, bushy tail, but I was remiss to hear that she was actually a chipmunk, meaning her redesign couldn't have that amazing tail… but chipmunks do have pretty iconic patterns, so I made sure to include that in her hair. Apart from that, you can see all the changes. I imagined her home town being smaller, and even though she could be the daughter of her town's mayor, she wouldn't be a princess. I never really got princess vibes from her. Oh yeah, and she's still smol, like how she was always drawn in her original era. She can make up for it with her spunk. She would also have her own Speed/Fly/Power dynamic with Ray and Mighty, who are also still smol.

Bunnie Rabbot

I basically just mish-mashed all the parts of Bunnie's various designs that I liked, but the main part of her is her new story. She basically lives in this classic Western-style town held under Eggman's boot, and she's hired as an outlaw to catch Sonic, where she was given robotic enhancements both to give her extra power but also so Eggman could more directly control her. She's also the "bawss" of Fang and Trip, other outlaws hired by Eggman. Even though she doesn't personally hate Sonic, she needs to do what Eggman says, or else she knows he'll wreak havoc on her town. No amount of speeches about friendship and being a good person could turn her.

After all those events, the next stage of the story begins, where at some point Sonic goes Super to fight Eggman, but Eggman was ready. He manages to suck the Emerald power right out of him to power his ultimate plan--- the thing he more or less planned on doing from the moment he stepped foot on Mobius. However, the damage Sonic and co did to his plans during that time caused it to go haywire, sending giant white explosions shooting across the entire planet of Mobius. Practically every Mobian was transported to Earth, Sonic X style. And not just the people, but massive chunks of the planet too had warped on to Earth, practically fusing the two planets together.

But of course that opens up too many stories so time for a rapid-fire design overview lol

Chaos & Tikal

Obviously the events of Adventure would be next, but for the most part Tikal's design is just updated to match the new Knuckles. With Chaos however, I slightly changed his story to make it so that he mutated from a Chao for when he first turned into Perfect Chaos and destroyed the Echidna clan, and obviously making it so that he used to be a Neutral Chaos Chao. I also have a whole animated short mentally planned out of that moment which I'd kill to create. After the events of Adventure though, instead of like getting dragged off to Heaven or whatever Chaos is instead gifted just a little bit of power from the Master Emerald so that he could maintain a more solid form than his 0 form so he could live alongside people (as much as a water monster can), and in this form (which I'm calling Controlled Chaos) he looks more like a Chaos Chao and of course he also has an emotion ball, which the Chao quickly recognize and accept him in with them. I also like to think he could replace the role of Gemerl from the comics, where he is the superpowered being that helps protect Cream and her family (although clearly Vanilla is a bit more hesitant)

As for the events of the Adventure story itself, it's mostly the same, except for the fact that Knuckles wasn't at the Emerald when Eggman broke it open because he was slacking off alongside Sonic, which he beats himself up about before realizing the Emerald can be repaired. Also, with their Master destroyed, the Chaos Emeralds actually turn into chaotic masses of power that greatly affect the areas around them, making them more dangerous to obtain for Sonic and co. For example, maybe Ice Cap wasn't really that icy, but the Emerald Sonic was to get from there turned whatever it was before into a frigid mess. Maybe it would also spawn some sort of boss for them to fight to protect itself.

Also, here's Big. He's mostly the same except I wanted him to look more wild and unkempt. I also made it so he actually has a giant mouth, because in all his modern forms I honestly think his really tiny mouth looks super weird.

Oh yeah and I guess one major thing I changed about all Mobians, they actually have feet and not just weird nubs. Really expanding the boundaries of design.

I also have ideas for Gamma and Omega from here, but it mostly boils down to Gamma actually having more personal interactions with the main cast, and once his story finishes and he explodes, Eggman laments that his best creation was going to waste, so he decided to rebuild him… but with less empathy. This backfires when the new Omega is disgusted by Eggman's method of just rebuilding him, and lashes out, going off to join the cause against him.

Then, for Adventure 2…

Shadow

For the most part, I just updated him to match Sonic's design, and gave him cooler gloves/shoes, but the main change is that I want him to feel more like a crazy genetic experiment. For one, you can see that he actually has gills similar to those of the Biolizard in his base form, probably just to help him take in more air/energy so he is less likely to tire, but more importantly I want his inhibitor rings to essentially be holding in the Doom powers he gets in Shadow Generations. When he takes them off, he basically becomes a darker shapeshifting mass that can barely hold himself together, instead of just becoming an objectively more powerful version of himself like in his canon form. It also makes more sense, since Gerald probably made those rings as he was ashamed that he had to resort to giving him Black Doom's DNA, and so that he could interact with Maria without hurting her.

The other big change is to Maria herself, who I wanted to be as goth as Shadow is, with her being more of the rambunctious goth type than an emo goth. I was always kind of annoyed at how generic anime-UwU precious babey Maria always was (even though she was greatly improved in Shadow Generations and Movie 3) so I thought making her have a more fun/imperfect personality would be more interesting, and would be more impactful during the Ark raid where she turns from a full-nonsense personality to someone who's actually afraid and desperate. I don't really have a solid visual design for her right now, but I've had a couple of iterations. I kind of want her to look less assured than she does here

Team Chaotix

You have NO IDEA how much I needed to change Charmy and Espio. Charmy looked like a weird cat/bear with a bee tail and Espio looked like some completely unrecognizable animal, even though you might be able to at least assume he's a chameleon if you knew his powers.

For Charmy, I just needed to give him big bulging black eyes, a jagged mouth, and another set of arms to really show that he's an insect. If nothing else, it at least makes it obvious that he can't be anything BUT an insect. As for Espio, I decided that I could give reptilian Mobians various scales on their body instead of the mammals' chest coloring or whatever. I also gave him a more unique head shape and that weird fin thing which is much more chameleon-iconic than what he had before, and even gave him that wrinkly eyelid thing they have, while still giving him a more humanized expression.

As for Vector, since he was the rare Mobian who had an actually unique body type and head design, he stayed mostly the same. He's the main reason why I know the character designers at Sonic Team aren't ALWAYS copy-pasting their body types. I did have to change his outfit, mostly just to get rid of his weird shoulder-ball things which never will make any sense. What even are they?

Now, for the biggun

Blaze

Oooohh my god Blaze. When I was first thinking about adding her to the roster, I liked her a decent amount but didn't think about her too much. I did know that I wasn't going to change much about her design since it was already pretty much perfect, I just added more gold to her and made her ponytail more like a flame than her canon design, which looked more like feathers of some sort to me. I then just updated her tail to match the style.

What really changed was when I completely rewrote her story. I always thought it was so weird that they made her so special and weird, being a fire-bending princess from another dimension, but they barely went into fine detail about her, like, AT ALL. It doesn't seem like there's anything special about the Sol Dimension, aside from the Sol Emeralds, and her actual role as a princess is never really touched on at all besides her living in a castle as depicted in the comics, AND worst of all she's just sort of… born with fire bending powers? That's crazy even for Sonic characters. I mean I'll accept it but still, I feel like there should be something there. And it's also crazy that all of this was introduced in Sonic Rush, which, let's be real, has the most non-story there could be in a Sonic game. Nothing interesting and unique really happens in it. At least Rush Adventure did something new, but still. She deserves better

So anyway I changed practically every detail and am mentally organizing the full story, but the gist of it is essentially that 06 is now her debut game, and everything regarding Soleanna now involves her instead of Elise and all takes place in the Sol Dimension. You'd think it would be a little on the nose to make Soleanna a location in the Sol Dimension, but they didn't even bother to make that a thing. Same goes for Solaris. It feels so obvious, like it was meant to be that way in a beta form. On top of that, though, since she replaces Elise you can probably guess that she actually derives her fire bending power from Iblis, which is actually a power passed down in her family ever since Iblis and Mephiles were sealed. And, since she's clearly in more of a position of power than Elise, she can actually be the third in the 06 main character group instead of Shadow, since he gets enough attention elsewhere.

As the story goes on and she realizes she has a flaming hellbeast inside of her, her sheer confidence gets broken and then regained thanks to Sonic supporting her. Maybe also includes a relationship with Amy because I can't help myself. Apart from that, there are so many details and story beats I'd love to share but really that would be a whole document all on its own. I'm surprisingly close to being able to write basically a whole movie script's worth on this thing.

But yeah every single detail I added to her story has now retroactively made her one of my all-time favorite Sonic characters, tied with Cream and Chaos. I basically freak out whenever she does literally anything, I'm kind of obsessed.

Also since the role of princess suggests there's a queen (unless you live in Equestria), here's the Queen of Soleanna

Silver

Now of course, ANOTHER peak redesign. I really think Silver specifically is the biggest upgrade out of everyone. I really needed him to look more weird and futuristic, making his whole body actually silvery instead of just kind of white, and making his clothes black to make his glowy tech bits more stark. I even turned his quills into flowing hair, just because. I like to think he's one of those characters that's unimaginably handsome without any effort, even though he doesn't realize it.

Story-wise he doesn't change much, except of course since Blaze is doing her own thing, he's completely alone fighting to protect his future, which personally really helps show his character. He's the type to fight to his dying breath even if he knows he can't win, just so he can protect as many people as he can. I also think he's still the type who would take a can out from the bottom of those can pyramids in a cartoon supermarket, only to freak out when the whole pyramid topples down. He's a devoted warrior who, in low-stakes scenarios, is still kind of a lovable loser.

Except he wasn't always alone. He's the last remaining member of the Crested Knights (or whatever I want to call them), a genetically engineered and cybernetically enhanced army of people made to quell Mephiles and Iblis as much as possible in the future. The second-to-last, his mentor Steel the Wolf, fell in battle with him, so he vows to keep fighting for him. Personally I think Silver having a deep personal attachment to someone in this way really makes him feel more loving and empathetic, which makes his goofy sides much more charming. I imagine him sharing stories of their past together over a campfire while Sonic and Blaze listen intently.

Also just because Blaze gets her own special super form because of the Sol Emeralds, I thought since the Chaos Emeralds are said to grant wishes, each individual who gets their power has a different "super" form. If we get Super Sonic and Burning Blaze, then we can also get Psychic Silver (it's still alliteration) where his psychokinetic abilities go haywire and his senses basically become perfect.

Forces

The one thing I realized I didn't like about the IDW comics is that Amy was barking out commands like she was some seasoned war hero (which she kind of was) in her cutesy old Adventure dress, so that made me think that I should give her and everyone else their own special outfits for the Forces section of the story. Also, since the story of Forces is practically the same as SatAM aside from Sonic being involved, I made the Freedom Fighters become a part of this story, which are their own little task force. That also includes Nicole, who now actually looks like a holographic projection instead of just some random Mobian, although I might eventually design a more corporeal form for her. And, since Forces is one of those games where you realize they just didn't want to include humans for some reason, I decided to give Topaz from Sonic X a spot alongside Rouge in the Resistance. She'd still start off as a cop that Rouge enjoys ""messing"" with, but then once Eggman starts taking over she joins the forces against him. And since the IDW comics are practically a part of Forces' story, Lanolin can also be here, who I made chubbier since sheep always have a chubby aura. Tangle is there too but she's completely unchanged since she's already perfect. Same would go for Whisper but I haven't drawn her yet. And really the same goes for pretty much every other IDW character, since their designs are some of the best in the series imo.

The Ancients

I really thought the Ancients needed to look more alien and weird, and I wanted to give them clothes to mimic that of their tech. I also thought that the Koco could instead be their true brains/bodies, and the gel is another part of their tech.

The main thing of their story is that I want them to be the origin of all Mobians and Chao. When they fled from The End to Mobius, after the big fight The End broke their bodies and brains, destroying the rocky shell around their true bodies, and making them back to being nearly animalistic. However, over time their malleable bodies evolved over time, some turning into the more capable and intelligent Mobians, while those that ended up in more protected areas didn't change quite as much and became the Chao, still being pretty soft and helpless. However, I also thought that the branch of them that fled to Mobius surely couldn't have been the ENTIRE species, so the other branches that fled away from The End ended up evolving into the species of the Black Arms and the Wisps. The Black Arms being a people who use more meaty, grotesque technology, and with the Wisps tending to use more abstract, colorful technology, assuming they use any at all, since they decided to live more naturalistically, even with their core bodies living outside of any other tech. This essentially makes Shadow the Hedgehog (the game) and Colors parallel stories, where they deal with the offshoots of the Ancients. If you couldn't tell, I also made them have traits of the Dark and Hero Chaos Chao, with Black Doom having the flame orbs above his head, and Mother Wisp having the halos and the head protrusions of the Hero Chaos Chao. They each also have cores similar to the Koco, with Doom's Eye essentially being his core, and the Wisps themselves each being a core, but with the Mother Wisp having a bigger body her core goes into.

Those are all the major designs, but of course that isn't even it. For example, Some other characters that exist in my redesign are Sonia and Manic (fans of Sonic who hype him up in battle with music), Bokkun (mostly unchanged), Metal Sonic (just looks cooler), Sage (who I redesigned but honestly might not keep), Cosmo and the Metarex (both made a bit more alien), the Zeti (the Deadly Six and others of the species), and a whole redesign of Secret Rings and Black Knight which features even more stories like Peter Pan and Journey to the West. I could basically go on and on about it all but I have to stop somewhere lol

Thanks for indulging me

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echantedtoon · 1 day ago

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Turbo/King Candy x Jessica Rabbit Like S/o Headcannons

This was a request a friend really wanted from me so here it is for anyone else to enjoy.

TURBO:

-You're a flag girl for a racing game similar to Outrun or Pole Position (both 80s racing games) although the big difference was that your game wasn't as popular as Turbotime so there wasn't really any reason for the guy to be jealous of the competition. At least not until Road Blasters but that's jumping the gun a little bit.

-You don't exactly meet each other until you finally decided to leave your game one day to go join others at Tapper's for the anniversary of Litwak's arcade opening or some similar celebration that many other games were celebrating. Of course your taller than the average video game women height and body type would turn some heads and the smaller racer was no exception.

-Dude literally has to strain his neck for a double take just to be sure he was seeing things from the amount of surgery root beer he's consumed by now. But once he confirms that you actually exist- MAN. IS. SMITTEN. ON. SIGHT!! I'm talking about the guy chokes on his drink as you gorgeously smile his way even if you weren't smiling at him, just his general direction, but it gives him enough confidence to make his move.

-He starts by buying you a drink, Tapper setting it right in front of you, before this tiny man gracefully struggled to climb onto the stool next to you slicking his helmet back like it was hair, and giving you a sly smile. "Hey, Baby.~ Are you a parking ticket?~ Cuz you got FINE written all over you?~"

-If it doesn't work out the first time be prepared for MANY 80s pick up lines including- "If I had to rate you from one to ten I'd give you a nine because I'm the one you need." "Hey. I'm writing a phone book. Can I have your number to put in it?" "Hey, Doll face. Wanna get physical?~" And other similar ones not considered cringey quite yet.

-He's pretty egotistical in personality so expect him to brag about everything involving him to you. His trophies, his winning streak, how his game's the most popular in the arcade, how he totally beats the Turbotime Twins in everything- Did he mention that he's also the greatest racer ever? He's trying to prove how much you should be smitten too often inviting you to come view him race.

-He secretly daydreams about you being the one that waves the checkered flag upon him crossing the finish line and plastering him in affection with him showing off to the world. Gold trophy in one hand while holding a beautiful woman in the other. Everyone knows his deep crush on you.

-Remember when Felix and Calhoun kissed and little hearts appeared? Yeah. That happens every time he thinks about you or he happens to see you in Grand Central Station or Tapper's. Other's make fun of him for that a lot and he absolutely hates it and denied it every time but everyone and their programmers know about his crush. It's super obvious by this point.

-If by some reason you do happen to date him expect him to brag about having the most beautiful girlfriend in the entire arcade. "Hey, Pac-Man. How's Mrs. Pac-Man? Guess what?! My girlfriend's hotter than that yellow beachball reject!!" You're going to have to stop him from opening his mouth before Pac-Man tries to eat him again and he was very close to Mario just goomba stomping him after he insulted Princess Peach/Toadstool. Please stop this idiot from insulting everyone's wife before someone punts him back to Turbotime.

-He's not picky about personality and would genuinely love you but he'd be very happy if you were able to knock him down a peg(he thinks it's hot his girl can kick his behind-) or two. If you pick him up he'll also fight against it and complain the entire time you hold him, but ngl he's actually very into it. He has a thing for taller women after all...Even if he hates it when you tease him or hold things out of his reach.

-However one of the downsides of you deciding to pursue the relationship with him is his jealousy. Doesn't matter who's approaching you, if Turbo's around he always gives them a death glare that can put Bowser's fire breath to shame. So some game characters might avoid you because of that temper. And if someone were to flirt with you- Overprotective guard dog with rabies he is. Don't underestimate him because of his height. More than once he's started a bar fight at Tapper's over someone getting too close or attempting to make unwanted advances especially if you had already said no.

-Don't underestimate him because of his height. More than one person has had a personal experience with Turbo turning into an angry honey badger infested with rabies as he was provoked. People have learnt quickly to not make fun of his height, and to not try any funny business around you. More than once you'd have to pry him off someone and walk away with him tucked under your arm screaming profanities like a crazy Chihuahua.

KING CANDY:

-IK he's just Turbo in disguise but his personality shift in his KC disguise is notable enough to be different from how OG Turbo would go about it. However like OG Turbo once he sees you he's absolutely smitten by you. Unlike OG Turbo however his approach to you is much more normal if by normal having a guy with Tinkerbell shoes shuffle up to you and tell you how much your eyes remind him of sparkling rock candy.

-Honestly this pairing gives more of the Jessica and Rodger Rabbit vibes. Goofy little man with a gorgeous knockout GF. His goofball charms and shyer attempts at courting you are probably what got you falling for this man in the beginning.

-Instead of eyeing your form like many others, this man instead decides to court you in the most cheesy ways possible. Bringing you chocolates and other candy from his game(it's not like there's a limited amount of it). Flowers (specifically either chocolate roses or edible flowers arrangements). Love notes, those really cheesy ones that don't even rhythm but they're so sweet you don't mind.

-Mans loves you endlessly and will spend hours just gazing at you with literal heart eyes with hearts popping around his head. Very sweet alongside being goofy. Surprisingly a romantic too. Offers to drive you around on the back of his car. Plans at least one date that has you both sharing two straws in one milkshake. If he's feeling really romantic then he gets you those Valentine's hard candies shaped like hearts or those red lollipops also shaped like hearts. He even dedicates his wins to you in an attempt to impress you.

-Speaking of- He's very much the Rodger Rabbit of your relationship. Always gazing goofily at you with a love struck grin to the point Sour Bill has caught him daydreaming of you all lovestruck with a dopey grin. He's a king so anything you want in Sugar Rush is at your disposal. Want a glass of chocolate milk? How about a front row seat to watch the races? Would you like Sour Bill as a personal servant? Sour Bill completely disagrees with that last gesture.

-You once agreed to be a flag girl for one of the Random Roster Races, ironically one HE won, and when you gave him a winner's kiss he's been begging you to wave the checkered flag at other races too.

-Very sweet and energetic. If his goofy antics aren't making you giggle or smile, he's always flirting with you with cheesy puns since he's a guy who loves a play on words. "Are you a piece of cake? Custh you're the scheetest.~" "What's sweet and curvy? A candy cane of courseth but you're better.~" "Your voice is more beautiful than golden honey.~" "Did you sit in sugar? C-Cuzth that's -...Gumdrops! Forget what I said." He tried being more bold but ended up becoming too flustered and couldn't finish that last bit.

-You're going to get lots of cute candy nicknames. Honey. Sugar. Honeypie. Gumdrop. Angel cake. Cupcake. Sweetheart. Sweet cheeks. Tootsie pop. When he's feeling more romantic or sentimental he'll call you more special names like My Dear, Darling, My Queen, etc.

-When you pick him up and kiss him he just melts in your arms. Giving a loud 'HOHO!' as you press kisses to his cheeks and forehead leaving him a bright cherry red and kiss marks all over his face. The first time that happened it left him just staring off into space blue screened but now he just blushes all over and this just might be his new favorite thing ever!

-If he ever proposes to you it's either going to be with one of those ring pops or with a gem made of the shiniest rock candy he can find.

#king candy wreck it ralph #wreckitralph #turbo wreck it ralph #wreck it ralph #wreck it ralph turbo #king candy wir #turbo wir #wir turbo #wir #turbotastic #turbotime #turbo #turbo x reader #king candy #king candy cybug #king candybug #king cybug #king candy x reader

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peachhcs · 2 days ago

Note

will spending the new years with blarie and mack and actually the couple is really good at not making will feel like a third wheel and he really appreciates it

they love will so much and will lovesss hanging out with them. i know it’s not new year’s anymore but i just finished this little blurb :)

au masterlist

“will you put this up, you’re tall,” blaire motioned the blonde over to where she was trying to hang new year’s decorations.

“hey, i’m tall,” mack argued from where he was trying to blow balloons up.

“yeah, but you’re busy. will’s not doing anything,” the dirty blonde raised he eyebrow as the the hockey player came over to help pin the tac into the wall.

“ha! take that mack. i’m tall,” will taunted making the brunette roll his eyes.

“we’re literally the same height?”

“yeah, but i’m tall according to blaire. how does that make you feel?” the blonde smirked while mack just didn’t answer. blaire laughed though.

“i see i started some friendly fire.”

“it’s not even fire because we’re the same height,” mack mumbled.

“once the balloons are done, that should be it. i’m so excited for the new year,” blaire clapped her hands together as her eyes scanned the walls of all the decorations she went crazy at hanging up.

“yeah, it hasn’t been half bad. 2025 should be fun,” mack agreed, knocking one of the balloons at will’s head. it bounced off his head and the blonde glared at his friends.

“dude.”

“that’s for thinking you’re taller than me.”

“you said there was no fire!” will exclaimed but mack just shrugged and helped hang up the balloons where blaire wanted them.

it was just the three for new year’s but blaire still wanted to make it special because she loved decorating in general. will got eklund to agree to buying them a few drinks in return for cleaning his stall out. it was a pretty worthy trade. he knew samy was in ottawa with everyone tonight and he figured it was getting close to them going out. the blonde missed being with them for new year’s, but based on blaire’s excitement and mack struggling and failing to hang up the balloons, he knew he was gonna have a good time tonight.

“what’s mrs. smith up to tonight?” mack teased and will flushed hearing “mrs. smith” knowing he picked it up from gabe and ryan a few weeks ago.

“she’s hanging out with all the guys in canada. she said they’ve been doing really well in the tournament,” will flushed.

“i’ll give you your new year’s kiss smitty, don’t worry,” mack winked making blaire giggle.

“might as well considering how close you guys are,” the girl smiled.

to pass the time, the three decided to play a game of uno, but to make it a bit more fun anytime someone got a draw 4 they had to take a shot. mack was doing the worst by far, already on his fourth shot when he got another draw 4. will and blaire snickered.

“guys i can’t take another shot. i’m already buzzing,” the boy frowned.

“wow, thought you had more in you mack,” will joked a bit but his words made the younger brunette push through and take his fifth shot before he drew four more cards.

“how about we start replacing your shots with water. i don’t want you throwing up,” blaire compromised and mack quickly agreed. she got up to get some water for her boyfriend while will just snickered.

“light weight,” he mumbled earning a punch on the arm.

“you’re not any better!”

“hey, i can hold my alcohol. you’re the one who pukes everywhere,” will shrugged and the boys stopped bickering by the time blaire came back with a large glass of water for each of them.

“thank you,” mack grinned and chugged half of it.

the three continued on, blaire and will taking a few more shots before calling it quits because they didn’t wanna get too drunk. it was 9 when will’s phone started buzzing and samy was calling him. he was guessing it was new year’s where they were, so he quickly answered.

“HAPPY NEW YEAR!” samy screamed into the phone and then there were quick flashes of everyone’s face in the frame where they yelled something incoherent.

“we’re living in 2025 already smitty! we’re in the future,” ryan mumbled, definitely drunk which made the blonde laugh. he quickly showed the camera towards mack and blaire who eagerly waved.

“we’ve got 3 more hours here. how’s ottawa?” will asked and samy’s face came back into frame.

“it’s soo good, will. i wish you were here. we miss you. we wish you all were here!” samy said to blaire and mack too.

“how drunk are you?” mack chuckled, leaning into the frame.

“i’ve had..only 2 drinks so far. i’m not that drunk. anyway, i just wanted to wish you a happy new year from canada. i love you. i miss you. i’ll see you soon hopefully,” samy kissed the camera a hundred times making a blush rise to will’s cheeks.

“i love you and i miss you too. have fun, be safe,” he said.

“of course. have fun together!” and then they hung up.

“you guys are my otp,” blaire grinned as she cleaned up the shot glasses, dumping them into mack’s sink.

“what’s otp?” will wondered.

“one true pairing,” mack and blaire said at the same time. “jinx!” they both yelled and then laughed.

“how do you know that and i don’t?” will poked his friend’s arm.

“because i’m cultured,” the younger brunette shrugged.

“wow, okay,” the blonde rolled his eyes.

“you guys are honestly the cutest ever. it’s what mack and i aspire to be,” blaire came back in and tussled her boyfriend’s hair. he scrunched his nose up, waving her hand away.

“i’m glad to hear we have fans,” will grinned.

the three took it a bit easier and played uno without taking shots. so far blaire had the lead with the most wins. somehow, she was smoking both boys with luck or skill, neither of them really knew.

will was genuinely enjoying spending time with the two. they acted like an old married couple more than anything and not that the blonde minded if they were affectionate with one another, blaire and mack refrained because they wanted will to feel included tonight knowing he wasn’t getting to spend it with his other friends on the other side of the continent.

when 11:30 hit and the boys were losing steam blaire decided they needed to have a dance break to get their energies back up. she put on some old 2010s music that the frats always played and pulled them up to jump around with her.

rihanna’s umbrella began playing. blaire tried teaching them tom holland’s lip sync battle dance, but neither will or mack were very coordinated to learn the steps, so blaire just did it for them instead.

“how the hell do you learn those steps so easily?” mack watched in amazement.

“it’s the figure skater in her,” will chuckled.

when blaire finished the boys clapped for her. she giggled, doing little bows as the next song came on. “damn, that was impressive. you’re impressive,” mack went to peck her lips.

“thank you. i’ve known since i was like 14 when it came out,” she giggled

the new year in san jose got closer. mack put on the feed happening in downtown los angeles while blaire stuck the new year’s hats on their heads. she also made sure to snap a few photos of the boys posing with one another in all of their new year’s getup.

“three minutes!” blaire exclaimed, party streamers in hand to pop everywhere.

“2025 feels so crazy to me,” will mumbled thinking about how the past year went and all of the ups and downs he faced. he was glad he was back on an up though—the mistakes he made this year definitely becoming ones he’d never make again.

“i know right. at the beginning of this year we were college students and now we’re pro athletes,” mack grinned, the noise maker hanging from his lips ready to be blown.

“it’s almost time!” blaire jumped around as the people on the tv started counting down from 60.

“10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2..1..HAPPY NEW YEAR!” blaire popped both confetti streamers. mack and will jumped around with one another in excitement before bringing the girl into their circle.

they celebrated together for a few more minutes before coming down from the excitement. “aww happy new year. so glad i got to spend it with you guys,” blaire pinched will’s cheeks and then kissed mack.

the boys smiled and will pulled his phone out to text samy. she was definitely asleep by now, but he wanted to text her anyway. he looked back up at mack twirling blaire around in the confetti now on the ground, a smile gracing his lips at his friends.

“come here, i’ll spin you around too,” mack said to the blonde making both of them laugh.

will stuffed his phone away and quickly joined the couple where he let mack spin him around next to blaire.

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benchwarming · 3 days ago

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i meant to reflect a bit before the end of 2024 about the experience of quitting my job last summer, but then my holidays were disrupted by norovirus AND conjunctivitis 🤪 so i didn't get around to it. until now!

i quit my job in august. i'd been at a startup for 6.5 years and had no plans to leave, buuuut then we were acquired in '23 by a big multinational firm. i won't get into all the ways that our new parent company eroded what had been to that point a pretty good place for me to work, but man, it fuckin sucked.

i was admittedly sensitive to it because "toxic legacy corporation led by sociopaths and staffed by mediocre assholes" was exactly the environment i was escaping when i'd joined the startup. but having to kowtow to a new c-suite of boomer-brained idiots with no sense, strategy, or discipline at a company i never wanted to work for in the first place was excruciating. especially bc i then had to turn around and try to make the best of their idiocy for a team of people* looking to me for reassurance and motivation.

i've never quit a job without having my next one lined up. it took like a month to admit to myself i was serious about the idea. then another month to be convinced by friends and fam that i was allowed to quit. then a few business days to calculate how long my finances would hold up. then another month to figure out what would have to happen for me to actually go through with it.

but of course something did happen, and i did quit. it was very scary!!! and i felt so guilty leaving my team. but i was able to kick off some freelance copywriting work right away, and a freelance consulting project came my way after that, and more things popped up after that. and while i have a lot to learn yet about how to make freelancing a sustainable long-term career, i'm extremely confident that it's worth it to try, at least for a while, bc uhhhh i am. SO much happier?!

i don't think it hit me exactly how much work i was doing, or how hard i was pushing myself to stay on top of it all, until i didn't have to do it anymore. i'm still getting used to that honestly. for the first few weeks i'd jolt awake worrying i'd forgotten something on my to-do list or automatically pull up zoom bc i felt sure i had a meeting to attend.

in comparison to that garbage, freelancing has been easy breezy. but i don't mean easy like mindless, i just mean like - i'm able to dictate the terms and scope of the work, and as a result it doesn't feel like "stuff i have to do" so much as "stuff i'm working on." that may be a distinction without a difference for a lot of people but it's turned out to be a pretty big deal for me: if i gotta work to live (and right now i do), then getting to call the shots and fully own the results makes it easier to conceptualize the work as an opportunity (fun! interesting! good use of time!) rather than an obligation (annoying! inflexible! standing between me and fun stuff!). and after years of managing a team it's such a relief to be responsible only for myself again.

of course the other thing i had at that job was a good salary. and i won't lie, i really miss the money. but i think i can get my income back up in that ballpark by the end of 2025 if i play my cards right. and even if i don't, i know now that enduring corporate agonies for that kind of money is no longer a worthwhile tradeoff for me.

since quitting there have been moments where i've felt dumb for not realizing sooner that freelance would be a better fit at this point in my professional life than a staff job. but i went into 2024 knowing i needed to take some kind of step forward in my career, and i did, and i learned stuff about myself in the process, and now i hate being alive at least 25% less per day than i used to. and that's sort of the whole point of everything, right?**

*by december, 80% of our department would be laid off, and the few left over would be desperate to leave. a really unfortunate end to an incredible marketing organization.

**of course now my therapist is like "so since 2023 was your Living Situation year, and 2024 was your Career year, does that mean 2025 is going to be your Relationship year?" and ughghghfhfhgf. like she's right, but. ugh. but she's right! but UGHHH

#v sorry for the long post but i cant figure out how to add a read more on web???#bench thoughts

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whentherewerebicycles · 3 days ago

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three baby updates:

today he was sitting up in the office playing with this new wooden sensory box toy thing I just got him, which really absorbs him (so many little doors to open! so many pieces to spin!). I was in the bedroom putting away laundry and then I came down the hallway towards him singing “what is this feeling?” from wicked and doing a little dance. and he looked up from his box and gave me the gummiest, most surprised, most delighted smile ever, like he’d totally forgotten I was still in the house and couldn’t believe we were meeting like this, in such a silly and wonderful and wholly unexpected way. sometimes I am so happy my heart could burst.

he is eating purées with such gusto that I think it’s probably time to move onto bigger chunkier food lol. he’s gone from sort of tentatively tasting the purée to polishing off an entire jar in one sitting and then looking at me expectantly like are you gonna crack open another one or—? today I also let him hold the spoon and he was able to scoop up food with both ends of it lol. I would not say that very much of that food actually made it into his mouth but we all had fun making a big mess. he has also learned how to drink from a straw (he has a little sippy cup) and he LOVES it even if he is uhh not so good at drinking from a straw yet. mostly he kind of gnaws on it and then inhales a bunch of water and coughs it all back up. but this experience thrills him.

his love affair with squish continues… this morning he sat on his mat and entertained himself for a very long time by just hollering his little morning song and whacking squish on the floor as hard as he could. later I found him sitting hunched over chewing furiously on one of squish’s little appendages with a slightly crazed look in his eyes. also lately he’s been a bit too squirmy to want to sit still in my lap and read books, but I’ve discovered if I give him squish to chew on he will sit there quite contentedly for a good 15 min at a time. possibly it’s just teething but also possibly it’s his one true love.

idk guys he’s just perfect… my perfect little guy.

#baby tag

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monayen · 14 hours ago

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Ranfren texting headcanons !!

a/n - wellll not actually the author since this post was submitted by a lovely person who wanted to share their own headcannons without it glitching out in my inbox </3 i tried to only change the formatting a bit since i think these are sooo well written and i really appreciate the effort put into this !! everyone give them a round of applause ^_^

Luther

- Doesn’t usually text. He loves using his rotary phone for making calls. It’s on a side table next to his armchair and he can sit there and chit chat over nothing for hours

- He has an emergency cellphone for when he’s away from home. It’s the most basic fliphone in existence

- Sometimes doesn’t notice he’s gotten a text/his phone is muted or dead so he unknowingly ignores messages

- His texts are stilted with accidental punctuations

- Autocorrect is his enemy. It will mix up what he was trying to write and at the same time not catch all mistakes

- Always signs off with his name

- Example:

Good morning My Dead.Remember to water the Plants I will Be home soon .?

Luther von Ivoty

* Nyen & Nyon have matching flip phones that are different colors

Nyen

- Will leave you on read. His phone is for Luther to contact him only

- He doesn’t use it aside from that. There’s nobody he wants to be in contact with

- It’s a hassle to use with his long nails, plus he has large hands that lack dexterity

- If he needs something from you he’ll just shout for you to come to him

- He has a hard time adjusting to new technology. If you showed him how to take pics and send them back and forth he’d become more interested in using his phone

- If you don’t want frequent blurry pics of him flexing shirtless and him expecting pics in return don’t teach him that though

Nyon

- has some difficulty with reading & writing English so his texts are short and to the point

- He won’t text first but he will always reply to you

- Mostly with single words or a thumbs up emoji

- Will sometimes send memes

- Texts you first when he’s high. Quite a few messages and longer too

- Expect some texts in Russian

- You never know what they mean and when you ask him the next day he will just stare at you silently as always

Sebastian

- has no phone privileges

- If Luther thinks he’s well behaved enough he might give him a toy phone or maybe one of those with lipgloss inside

- Don’t let Randal near the lipgloss. He will make a mess and torment Sebastian with his "makeup skills"

- Before becoming a pet he had a cheap smartphone with a slightly cracked screen

- Ran out of battery when he was lost and if nobody’s taken it it’s probably still at the pound

- Used to be an awkward texter

- Didn’t have a ton of people who’d talk to him so he’d get very excited if somebody sent him a message. His nervous fumbling is a result of that too

- Example: if you’d text him asking to go get ice cream he’d reply like

Okay sounds good haha ;)

Oh my god

That was an accident!!

I didn’t mean to send that wink I’m sorry!!!

I pressed the wrong button I just wanted to send a normal smiley

Like this :€

Sorry…

- And he’ll agonize over it forever

- Fun to tease if you’re up for it and over time he might even quip back. He’s a bit bolder over text than in person

- You could even get him to send a bathroom mirror selfie if you encourage him enough

Randal

- broke the emergency cellphone Luther gave him

- Now he has a phone he pilfered from the human school. It had a tiny voodoo doll as a phone charm and he didn’t think twice about taking it

- Super annoying, will double and triple text and if you don’t reply will send you messages where he’s just talking to himself

- Texts all hours of the night and it’s just weird unfiltered thoughts

- His phone looks horrible, he’s so careless with it. You can barely see the screen with how many cracks there are

- Annoying and frequent use of kaomojis

- Will attempt to start roleplays that always escalate

- Example:

HEEEYYYY ψ(｀∇´)ψ

*glomps u*

*noms ur arm*

*bites a chunk of flesh out of u and chews* mmh sho tasty (*´Д｀*) *drools on u*

Satoru

- has a ridiculous amount of charms on his phone. One is part of a friendship set and he gave Randal the matching one

- Texts in a weird mix of Japanese and English characters that makes sense in the dream (something likeトoトally)

- tasteful and sparing use of kaomojis (^_−)v

- Doesn’t send many texts because he prefers hanging out when everybody’s lucid and his phone can’t reach the real world

The Ratmen

- The only way they’d get their hands on a phone is if they stole it or you gave them one

- To avoid one of them hoarding the phone and a fight breaking out giving them a tablet would be a better solution. Plus it’s big enough to they can all look at the screen

- It’s probably best if you leave it plugged in your living room so nobody can take it for himself and it doesn’t run out of battery unexpectedly

- Stick to making voice messages and show them how to play them only. Lie about the tablet not having a microphone if you need to

- If you don’t want to be annoyed every hour of the day don’t tell them how to call you or send voice messages themselves

- Since they can barely read they mostly communicate with emojis

- Robert & 3 don’t text much

- Robert doesn’t have a lot to say over text and is self sufficient anyways. He can wait till you come home if he has something to tell you

- 3 is insecure about not being able to read/write well and would rather leave you on read than embarrass himself by sending messages you don’t understand

- Michael gets emojis mixed up. He will send a 😂 and it means he’s sad. You will only know what’s up when you’re home

- He’s not smart enough to communicate with symbols alone. Sometimes he just sends emojis he liked the looks of, no meaning. Expect to be confused when he’s the one sending a message

- He gets distracted easily looking at the food emojis too

- 4&5 are good at using emojis to form more complex messages. 5 is probably the best

-Example:

🫵🏠🍳🥓➡️🐭🍽️❓

🌙📺👩‍🍳❓

🐭🤓🍽️🧼➡️🤮

🫵🏠🧽🪣

- Don’t ask if they want something for the store or they wil send every food emoji

- They all crowd around the tablet to listen when you send a voice message

- Referring to themselves with emojis is kinda tricky. The others will use 🤓 when talking about 3 and he hates but they all think it fits him too well. Same with 🤥 for 5. He never uses it for himself and since he writes most of the messages you’ll hardly ever see it

- Don’t download games to the tablet if you value peace in your home. If they can fight over an account or their turn they will

- If bored enough the ratmen will still play around with the pre installed apps like the calculator or the compass. The camera roll is a mess too

- If you put something on for them like a movie they will be enraptured. Depending on what they’re watching they might become scared an believe it’s real. Remember the SpongeBob episode where he thinks mr krabs is a robot? Kinda like that

- And if you put on a cooking show they will pester you to cook what they’re making in the program. Also there will be marks on the screen from somebody trying to lick it

Hope you enjoy these :)

#mona.submissions #submissions #ranfren #ranfren x reader #randals friends #randal ivory

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chirpingfromthebox · 1 day ago

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The Fleet's Post-game Press Session from 1/5/2025 - BOS vs. MTL at Seattle

youtube

The Boston Fleet's post-game press session from after their Takeover Tour game against the Montréal Victoire in Seattle.

At the table were head coach Courtney Kessel, and forwards Susanna Tapani and Hannah Bilka.

A transcription is under the break.

[To keep it on par with the other side I did a marginally looser transcription on this one as well. Basically just cut out some of the stutters and filler words/phrases that you always get in these sorts of interviews as people try to phrase an idea on the spot. I usually keep them in for accuracy, even though they make the text a little muddier, but they do slow things down as they are trickier to get down properly.

Although there were definitely still some reporter bits that I couldn't quite make out.]

[Video seems to begin after a question was asked, as even though the players are still appearing to be getting situated at the desk the video begins with Courtney Kessel speaking.]

COURTNEY KESSEL:

I think just an unbelievable experience. Our players have got to do some fun things yesterday and the day before that. And it’s just really nice to come out with a win. A good hard-fought game and I think we really earned those points today.

Reporter:

Coach, what do you think the turning point of this game was? Obviously that second period was a lot of special teams play. What did you see from your group to pretty much stay with it and not get down going down a couple goals early?

COURTNEY KESSEL:

I think our ability to sustain offense from line to line to line and to continue that was a huge difference for us to continue with the momentum. And then finding ways to get pucks in was one of our biggest things too.

Reporter:

For both players, and similarly to what coach was just talking about, what were some of the conversations or things you were doing on the bench to really turn that tide in that second frame?

HNNAH BILKA:

I think just staying with it. Not getting discouraged with what the score is. I feel like we have a very calm group and kind of a steady vibe to our bench. Just that internal confidence that we know that we’re gonna come back.

Reporter:

And Susanna, for you, especially thinking about that shootout goal, is that something you know where you were going to go with it? Do you just kind of take what’s given?

SUSANNA TAPANI:

That’s actually a long time that I’ve scored that goal, but it’s something that I’ve done in the past for sure. I waited a little too long maybe, but- [chuckles] I’m glad that it went in.

Reporter:

So this game is kicking off the Takeover Tour for the PWHL and I believe that you all have 2 more games left that are going to be in these different neutral sites. How are you approaching this tour? In terms of going to different cities that don’t currently have teams, but have people that want to come see you, and those kinds of things?

COURTNEY KESSEL:

It’s an exciting time for our game and I think you see the growth just continue to grow every single day and we had an amazing audience here today. Hopefully moving forward we can continue to grow this. But if you think about where we were one year ago from today, who would have thought that we could expand so soon. Right? Just reach out to all these young girls and so I think just continue to grow it each and every day. That’s really what these players do.

Reporter:

Two questions please. First, for both of the players, can you tell me about Jessica Campbell coming into the room before the game? Whether you had a chance to talk to her individually, what her message to you before the game, what it meant to you?

SUSANNA TAPANI:

I think it was a big moment for all of us. The work she has done here and we saw on the ice how big she is in this city. Yeah, it was awesome. Awesome moment that she came into the locker room and told us that we should be proud, all of us, for what we have done here.

HANNAH BILKA:

Yeah, it was really cool. I feel like I’ve been following her for awhile and she’s just paved the way for women’s hockey. To be an assistant coach in the NHL, that’s a huge deal. So it was so cool getting to be able to hear her talk and be at the game here today.

Reporter:

And coach, can you speak a little bit about yesterday’s clinics and the autograph signings and the whole vibe? And how did what you experienced in Seattle compare to what you experience in the 6 PWHL cities?

COURTNEY KESSEL:

I think one of our core values as a team is to impact the community. And I think when you come into a place that doesn’t have a team just yet in the PWHL, it’s great to get out and to reach out to those little girls. They were at our practice cheering for us, so I think that’s a great environment for practice. And then to be able to get on the ice with a few of them, the players got out to throw the fish and kind of experience the city a little bit. So it’s really great to get out into the community and express our love for the game and give back a little bit.

Reporter:

I was wondering, before the final [???] changed the tone of things a little bit, do you think your team deserved a little better than it had going for it?

COURTNEY KESSEL:

Yeah, you know, heading down the stretch here, we’ve been on a little bit of a long road trip looking for a puck to kind of find the back of the net for us and see the light at the end of the tunnel. So it was really nice to see that go in. I think the biggest key is just to stick to our gameplan. We played a great 60 minutes. When we went into the first period- or the first intermission down two, I don’t think it was an indicator of how we were playing and I love to see us battle back.

Reporter:

Down two goals you still had some pretty stellar goalkeeping behind you. Knowing you were going to have to take some risks do some [???] what does the level of goalkeeping you have behind you allow you to do in situation like that? Knowing that you do have that kind of an anchor.

HANNAH BILKA:

I think it just gives us so much confidence as group. We know she’s gonna come up with a big save and really keep us in the game. So she’s our anchor back there. Yeah, just can’t say enough great things about how good of a goaltender she is.

Reporter:

Kind of keeping the theme here, it was a pretty marquee metric for the goaltenders in this one in general. Players, coach, can you just speak to what you saw out of [Ann-Renée] Desbiens in this one? Obviously she had a good game going on before you guys let things kind of [???].

COURTNEY KESSEL:

I think across the league we have tremendous goaltending and that’s probably why the scores of the games are always kept pretty low. But two tremendous goaltenders going head-to-head in the great city of Seattle, with a great fan base; I think we gave them a game that everyone wanted. Some physicality and brought us all the way into a shootout, so it’s exciting. But I think when you have the top 10 goaltenders in the world you’re gonna see great goaltending every single night.

Reporter:

And then I’d just like to ask, you kind of touched on it a little bit there coach, but what do you hope the fans who were at attendance today and were able to see you at practices yesterday, take away from this one? Obviously when the Jocks In Jills podcast mentioned expansion to the city it was pretty loud. It looks like that’s what people want here.

COURTNEY KESSEL:

Yeah, a very warm welcome from Seattle and I think our players enjoyed it. I want them to see our game and how amazing it is and how amazing these players are and how hard they work. And, you know, the game is fast, it’s physical, and we’re just at the beginning of where we want this league to take off to.

[End of video.]

#pwhl #boston fleet #pwhl boston #susanna tapani #hannah bilka #courtney kessel #pwhl transcriptions #Youtube

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