#like most things I think getting a design down would help that's usually the main barrier with a lot of the underdeveloped kids

[pkmnomegaverse]

indulge my curiosity bc i just remembered leena exists… if the family dynamic is still the same as uhhhhhhhhhh 4?? years ago??? and rue gets along great with marshal, is she ever aware that she shares a different parent than her siblings? are leena and colvin ever told rue is their half sibling or is it a non issue that they never learn about?

also, if you have any ideas at this point (if you need another 4yrs to marinade i understand) how do the three get along? six years isn't a significant difference but in the pkmn world when you leave to go travel at ten at the earliest (solo at least) that would make leena and colvin 4/3 when (potentially!) rue isn't around as much, so i wonder how that affects their dynamic. maybe she comes home with cool stories for them and is another influence on the two becoming competitive trainers aside from their parents.

idek if rue's friend group has been established either?? you don't ahve to elaborate on that one i'm just pondering here. if she's 15/16 when leena is 10, do you think they would travel together while leena is just starting out? or, would leena and colvin have such a relationship where they start their journey together when colvin is of age? (thinking if they're close that it would be sweet for leena to hang around an extra year, still be a trainer but just close to home, has gotten the hang of managing pkmn by the time it's time for colvin to get his license.)

this got long hhhhh pls don't feel obligated to answer it all!!

Poor Leena, the kid I've thought about the least in that trio. I def need to change up some things with this family as a whole, since I've retconned stuff with Colvin to spare him from drama. But that also means I need to figure out what they're all doing. The overall family dynamic is still roughly going to be the same, but will tweak some things at some point.

Anyway! To answer your questions as best I can. Yes Rue is aware Marshal is her step-dad and Leena/Colvin are her half siblings, mostly since she looks nothing like any of them. I always figured it was kind of a given there was no real reason to lie to her about that, since would be obvious that she only takes after Grimsley looks wise once she’s older. Plus she’s kinda sorta just barely old enough to remember a time pre-Marshal (Leena is basically a pretty quick accident baby once Marshal and Grimsley get re-involved since Grimsley making poor life choices/having bad luck is the running theme. And while Marshal is pulling the "I'll take responsibility let's get married card" right away, Grimsley isn't as gung-ho about jumping straight to that). So while they're figuring that out, Rue is calling her potential future step-dad "Mr. Marshal" and such, eventually moving to "Dad" once Grimsley and Marshal get married. So since Rue knows he's not her bio dad, Leena and Colvin know too, although I don’t think a big deal is made about it. Overall is a non-issue.

Again, I'm pretty vague on the siblings dynamic in gen but I've always pictured that they all get along pretty well. A family of eccentrics. Rue is the genki goth-leaning girl, Leena is the equally genki martial arts girl, and Colvin is kind of soft-spoken and shy (but still goth), letting his sisters have the limelight while he kind of hides behind them. But there's an eccentric performer in him lurking. Just needs to be awakened. I do think Leena waits a year so she and Colvin can travel together. Gotta look out for her little bro and all.

Rue I've apparently completely retconned in my own head over time without realizing it because I just checked and past me said her and Brenin (Hugh/Nate's foster son) travel together and are love interests. But in my heart, it's been Sorrel (Cress' son with Ghetsis) for a while who fills this role. So maybe I'll flip it back since perhaps past me had a good reason it was Brenin over Sorrel, but here's the vibe I got for Sorrel/Rue. Since Sorrel is raised by Anthea and Concordia for the early years of his life, he still visits Unova a lot since there's kind of a shared custody situation going on there. Seemed cruel to let them be his moms until he's like 3-5 and then just snatch him away forever. So he does end up living at the Hilbert/N Poke Sanctuary "x" months out of the year with his Foster Moms. Which is why he ends up deciding to start his Pokemon in Unova over Kalos, which is where he meets Rue and the two become friends. Them traveling together is kind of a carryover plot of when Colvin had abduction drama since both are the oldest sibling with a missing little brother. But even with that dropped plotline for Colvin, I still like the idea of those two traveling together. They do still have the shared connection of a mom who makes questionable choices in terms of romantic partners. Also a bio villain dad who isn't around since while Rue's bio dad is always a mystery in universe, in my heart, he's a mob boss.

Honestly Brenin is likely there too. Since I know I had Brenin and Sorrel marked as being friends. So in gen, the potential people Rue is connected to and traveling with are Sorrel and Brenin.

And your right about Rue calling home/sharing stories about her own travels, which likely inspires her siblings to be competitive trainers. Past just their parents influencing them all.

So TLDR the siblings get along pretty well but I def need to workshop this family more, since overall, they're kind of underdeveloped.

[froggybogwitch]

Well then. Buckle up, folks, I went down a design rabbit hole. Somewhat inspired by the eternal question of "How do illyrian's wear shirts?" Which, honestly, has a much easier answer that what I came up with. Like a couple extra buttons would have done the trick, but where's the fun in that? I decided to add some flair on it, and by that, i mean a good chunk of a cultural fashion system. Everybody say thank you to Cassian for modelling.

So, starting off with the base layers and underwear, we've got a loincloth and a contraption that I've been calling the under harness, which was my answer to their funky double shoulders. Most other things I could think of ran into the problem that wind is a little thieving bastard and bc of the shape of their wings, form fitting garments like flying leathers can't easily pass under them, so they needed additional attachment points, hence the harness. Basically every single upper body garment I've created connects to this harness, keeping everything completely secure during flight. The only other thing to really note here are the two piercings around the wing's main knuckle. This shouldn't actually impede flying, according to the damage that real bats can fly with. These are both achor points for light weight armor, and also decoration. In the next image, we got the basic fabric base layer. Not much to say about the pants, they're pants. The shirt is more interesting. So it comes in two pieces, the front and back are entirely seperate pieces of fabric, both suspended from the under harness. The edges of the front piece are stiffened with steel boning or hardened leather, to help the garment keep it's form fitted shape. The back piece is a long strip of red fabric which I imagined to hold some sort of meaning as a highly stylized "bloodline." They could have been highly embroided with sigils, or family trees or something. Cassian's is blank for obvious reasons.

Next up, flying leathers and armor. I don't honestly have much to say about these, they're pretty well described in the books and the only thing i had to add was the armor around the knuckle claw. It seems crazy to me that these people wouldn't have figured out how to use their wings as deadly weapons so, a bit of hardened leather, some metal spikes if ur feeing extra spicy, and there, two extra striking weapons.

And now my favorite part, warmer clothes. I think this is where we'd really get to see illyrian fibercraft shine. Ombre dying, tassles, lace netting, embroidery, all of that. This is where they get to peacock about and be all bright and colourful. The cloak is made up of five long sections of fabric, two fall down the chest, two behind the shoulders but in front of the wings, and on wide one down the back. It can be worn loose or with the front most pieces of fabring tied underneath the wings for extra security during flight.

The mantle is the last bit I've developped, and it's just as decorated and fancy as the cloak, and sometimes even more so. It's a short cloak like garment that's worn over the shoulder and has open sleeves for both arms and wings. It's often fur linned and could be quilted for exra warmth. It could be worn with or without a cloak but usually they're worn together.

anyway, I have so many thoughts about the illyrian culture, bc what Sarah gave us ... doesn't really make much sense, and also makes me feel extremely icky. I'd much rather close my eyes and imagine a world where they aren't treated as a one dimentional culture that has done nothing but make it's members lives miserable.

[ihavetoomanyocsdealwithit]

Stone Heart AU: Scar pt I

As much as Yuu tried, she still ended up in trouble in trouble sometimes. Be it with Ace and Deuce, or just running late from acting as Crowley’s unofficial gopher, it was something. The punishments usually weren't that bad though, sometimes even relaxing.  

Like right now, it was a little bit of a trip down memory lane as she scrubbed the statues down on Main Street. It was odd, having the dreams that she did that painted the Great 7 in shadows instead of light, but it felt...right. Balanced.  

A story about a maid who would be going to a ball was the current dream cycle, though she didn’t get the feeling this one was going to relate to any upcoming overblots. While they didn’t happen as often, she occasionally just dreamt of things like this. While there was a lot to ruminate over, like the stepmother and Professor Trien, right now it was just a catchy little song sung by the fairy stuck in her head.  

“Put it together-” The King of Beasts statue wasn’t in bad shape at least, “and what do you got-” Just had to get the moss out of his eye, “Bippity Boppity Boo!” 

The eye blazed green, cracking open with a clap of thunder!  

Yuu fell, catching herself with her hands. Shit! Did she break it? Damnit, she couldn’t afford- 

Wait. It looked fine. Just a wet statue.  

“Maybe I just need to finish this up.” She muttered. “Lack of sleep must be getting to me.”  

The atmosphere had changed, the tension of a storm about to break open. As she finished the King of Beasts, she clocked her progress and ran, feeling like eyes followed her until she turned the corner.  

Malleus must be in a mood, she thinks, watching the dark clouds forming and the green smoke that seems to be spilling out the fence of Ramshackle. It isn’t the right shade of green though, more muted and not as...saturated? The gate creeks ominously and it doesn’t take her long to notice the figure sitting on the porch of Ramshackle.  

He is hunched over, a shawl tossed over his head that was once bright with color and design, now faded to grays, browns and darker reds like blood. His left eye is as green as the Diasomnia mage crystals, clear and unclouded, and the right faded as the green smoke around him. A gnarled staff is gripped in his hands, a gourd tied to the top with a handful of what might be rib bones along with some sort of dried fruit she thinks.  

This isn’t a harmless man, her instincts can say that much, but...he doesn’t feel like a threat. He could be. He’s choosing not to.  

“How can I help you?” Yuu asks, getting a bit closer. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Are you a teacher here?”  

He chuckles, making the pointed beard shake, but it’s not cruel. “I suppose that depends on you. I think you are in need of a teacher. And I am in need of a place to stay.” 

“What do I need to learn?”  

“Magic.”  

“Ha!” Yuu can’t help it, barking a laugh. “You are mistaken. I have no magic of my own.” 

“No, cub, you have magic, just not Wonderland magic. You have the Old magic, older even than General Lilia, the same as I. These teachers cannot help you, but I can.”  

He removes the shawl’s hood from his face, revealing a pair of brown lion ears and a mane that puts Yuu’s hair to shame. Even braided in parts to keep it out of his face, the long black hair stretches all the way down to his curved spine. A tail thumps against the dusty steps,  

“Afterall, you freed me, didn’t you?”  

It takes some explaining, a quick meal shared on her dining room table that feels even more rundown than usual with actual royalty sitting down. Thank the Seven that Grim was asleep beforehand, his new Spelldrive practices tiring him out in the evenings.  

“So, are the others...the same? Petrified?”  

“Yes, though you aren’t ready to free us all just yet. I was an accident, correct?” 

She flinches, nodding. “I mean, I guess? Sometimes I have dreams. Alternate tellings of the stories around here it feels like, or added details? Most of the time they follow an Overblot, but this one just felt like a non-threatening one. I don’t have these as often.”  

“Precognition is a dangerous magic, especially with no guiding tools.” 

“I dont know if-” 

“You dreamt of mine, did you not? Leona Kingscholar? The Phantom still was a part of me, drawn from my form and magic.”  

Yuu blinked, shrugging. “I mean, it didn’t stop it.” 

“No, but you were more prepared. You were willing and ready to accept Leona’s trauma and show compassion because you witnessed me make the exact follies and look at how that ended.” he huffed, taking a sip from his water. 

She hadn’t considered that really. It just felt natural, to show them kindness after all of it. But they were alike. Really alike. And the actions Leona had taken paralleled his perfectly.  

“Do you think if somebody had done so with you, you would have listened?” 

“Oh cub!” He laughed, and this one felt harsher. “I would not have. I was far too hardened. But Leona...he will be better.”  

“Well, I better try and at least get a bed ready for you.” She said, taking both of their dishes. “What do I call you though? King of Beasts is a bit of a mouthful.”  

He tilts his head, as if considering. She gets the dishes loaded and leftovers put away before he finally answers.  

“Taka. My Mother’s Son.” he says. “That’s who I wish to be now.”  

Yuu smiles, sticking out her hand.  

“Nice to meet you, Professor Taka! I look forward to learning from you.”  

For just a moment, he sees Simba, and Nuka and Kovu and Vitani. He sees Shenzi, Banzai and Ed. He sees naive and friendly and believes in him, for as little he has to offer, and still finds him worthy.  

He shakes her hand and hangs his stone heart to air out.  

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

As per usual, info under the cut <3

IM BACK BITCHES!!!

Alright, here's the design stuff:

I wanted to go for kind of a Lois Lane vibe, including the way she gets all the way up in business she should not be up in. At the same time I wanted to bring the super cutesy gothic lolita style in at least a little. So I ended up going with a poofy short jumpsuit with bows and teddy bears. I would love to make a specific thank you to @themooncallsyou for suggesting I look at the Moschino 2022 spring line for inspiration, it ended up having a very heavy impact on the final design.

I tried to lean into the investigative part of investigative reporter, so that's what the heavy coat is about. I thought adding that classic detective silhouette would be a nice final touch. Plus, I think Blondie likes the drama of the coat flying behind her as she's chasing down a lead. It makes her feel very cool.

Alright, so her original pet is a bear cub named Grizz but I have. Several problems with that. The main one is that it's not clear what the difference between Grizz and the actual sentient bears and her story is. There is never any differentiation between them. It's a Goofy-Pluto situation. Like it doesn't need to be explained, but the minute you start thinking about it too hard it gets weird real fast.

Anyways say hello to Honey the magpie!! Magpies are great mimics and lovers of shiny things, so I thought one would be a perfect fit for Blondie. She repeats bits of gossip and steals little trinkets and clues to help Blondie with whatever case she's on. Honey is where Blondie gets her infinite supply of bobby pins. Her scale is a little off, I don't think magpies are actually that big, but I still think she's cute so I'm not changing it now lol.

Now for character stuff:

Honestly I'm not really changing anything as much as I am exploring what's already there. I think Blondie has the potential to be really interesting, because she's unique within the class system of the school. She's kind of the inverse of Raven status-wise. Raven was born to royalty, but because her mom is the Evil Queen she's actually considered a commoner by society. Blondie was born to a wealthy commoner family, but her fear of rejection leads her to exaggerate the prestige of her lineage. Everyone sort of knows that she's not a Princess but she's so desperate to keep up the image of royalty that no one knows where she actually lands. Most of the royals assume her parents are Lord and Lady or Duke and Duchess or something. In reality they don't have any noble title, and Blondie is very insecure about that.

Blondie isn't so much ashamed of her family as she is terrified of exclusion and rejection. Her standing in society is the one major thing that makes her different from all the other royals, but she has major anxieties that she's always on thin ice. In her mind she's permanently one wrong step from total ostracization.

On a happier note, she does have a genuine passion for journalism! She considers her news blog/podcast practice for her future career. She starts out discussing school drama and gossip, but tries to stay a neutral third party. That's why her hair is so big. It's full of secrets. As the story goes on she starts reporting on more political and social topics beyond the boundaries of the school (and therefore becomes one of Milton Grimms worst nightmares). She is really, really, really good at getting into shit people do not want her to get into. She's got her eyes on prize and good luck stopping her

[ganondoodle]

one of the things in my totk rewrite that im most confident about is removing the building gimmick (to put it in another game truly build around it, its such a waste here imo) to add the hookshot instead

everyone loves the hookshot, i have never heard anyone say they didnt like it

in a world like botw it would be a perfect fit- it adds a unique and different movement option while-

it does not destroy the world design (like the building aspect does, though the towers also need a different function, letting you fly anywhere and skip everything everywhere all the time, including puzzles in both shrines and dungeons, something like that in a world thats build around climbing and gliding WILL end up destructive to the world design without really careful changes and balances .. that absolutely werent done in the game)

opens up a whole new way to think and do puzzles in a way that wasnt there in botw

preserves the feeling of dread when high up or in the sky, since falling is still a danger even with the parasail ( bc removing almost all warp points up there makes the danger being loss of progress rather than the fall itself- removing the parasail as a whole for the entire game is not an option and it will always be a security to not die by fall damage, so there should be a different danger even if im usually not a fan of loss of progress pressure, the bird mechanic i mentioned in other post would also help you not lose everything even if you make a mistake)

it makes climbing easier WITHOUT making it obsolete or skippable, especially with adding the main way to get up to sky islands as islands to climb up via the hookshot, its just adds another way to interact with the terrain instead of .. not interactign with it at all, the range is still limited and you still have to cling to the wall and get down to shoot it again

it being built into links prosthetic shiekah arm makes it more unique both in looks and mechanic/narrative aspects so i dont think it would be boring to have an old 'item' reused in a new way, especially together with the rest of the abilities- like it being not an instant 'pulls you to the thing' but a reactivatable one instead (so you can grab things to move them if lightweight enough similar to ultrahand)

bosses can benefit from it too, imo one of the coolest things in twilight princess was grabbing onto a boss to pull yourself to and onto them, being able to do that even to smaller ones shadow of the colossus style would be so neat

grabbing onto something moving and not pulling yourself immediately to it opens up not just fun but also funny scenarios aka you being flung around by whatever you grabbed (grab on a dragon ...weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee- on a lynel ...'ragdoll chaos')

(with the removal of building and thus the majority of all the puzzles being fly thing from point A to point B not being a thing it also makes way for cool kinds of ways to get to the next sky island for example- a thought i had was making the reason they fly and are practically invisible from most angles being that they are swimming in a special kind of cloud that hides them due to breaking of light in certain ways withing them- thus hiding it from below most of the time, eliminating the problem of 'sky too full' which was apprently a reason why they removed alot of them too, and it would be incredibly fun to be able to poof into little clouds (they look a certain way so you know which ones you can swim in) also! lil cloud bridges between islands! a boat to surf on them high up in the sky! mario galaxy vibes!

probably more im forgetting

anytime i think about the hookshot mechanic i get so sad bc i just keep imagining how much you could have done with in totk and desperately want to play that :U

[venomous-qwille]

hi qwille!!! I got questions for u! you have lots of characters planned out, and that’s super cool! but how do u usually go about that process? like all your characters are very unique, and I wonder about the design process, as well as how you make their personality distinct! how do you make character dynamics/relationships? because all the scenes I’ve read so far make the characters feel really organic, and mesh really well together! (sorry for all the questions! I’m super curious ^w^)

Hiya! Here is an answer I wrote for this question on discord recently ^^

I will try answer this as thoroughly as possible!

There was a LOT of kill your darlings involved in making characters for gitm. Originally I had a very long list of character ideas that I cut down and down based on the kind of things and themes they would give me the opportunity to write about. I love long ensemble cast stories, thinking back to ones I particularly enjoyed and the ways those characters gelled together helped me a lot. The most important thing when selecting characters was making sure they would give me something interesting to write about! I was also very keen on ones that let me explore the fics main theme of Family from a different angle. I'm not sure how helpful this all is! But yeah, I try to be pretty strict with myself about what I include. The only reason I would include two characters who were very very similar would be to emphasize a difference/divergence between them later on. Characters have to justify themselves by bringing something unique to the table, even if that thing is just a 'very different outlook on life' to the rest of the cast. Over time a lot of those character ideas became more fleshed out in my brain, and characters that were cut from the original shortlist made their way back in. They still have to be able to narratively justify themselves in order to earn a channel in the discord though!

For the gitm guys, while I dont have a literal sheet I fill out I do make sure to answer a couple of basic character work questions: What lie do they believe about themselves/the world? How does it impact the way they interact with others? What central theme do they embody most? What do they want more than anything else? How do they feel about humans? Who are they at their best and who are they at their worst? I found that by answering these sort of questions it helped me discover more about them, which creates more questions- rinse and repeat. The more questions I answered the further away they would get from each other in terms of similarities. The thing that really helped with the gitm boys, especially because their origins are so similar, was leaning in to how different their experiences were post-fazco. They are different people because the world has made them that way. Messing around with foils has been useful too! Characters are no fun in a vacuum, it's how they interact with others that makes them interesting. I like to create ones that will bring out the best and the worst in each other. I think about opposites a lot and I really like narrative symmetry- what lessons can the characters learn from each other? I find that stuff super exciting to read so I really wanted to include it. Some examples of character foils in gitm: Fool & Noon, Sombra & Sunspot, Misuta & Sol

When it comes to finding character voice, I do a lot of test drabbles (a couple of them are on this server), which I use to just fuck around until I find something that feels right. For instance- Sol was very very easy to find the voice of, where as Misuta took weeks of rewrites. Sometimes things take time. Spending this time figuring out their voices at the start really helps fic consistence in the long run, I think. Because of all that prep, I don't really have to do anything to 'get into character' when writing their dialogue (it's fairly second nature now).

In regards to coming up with a character's arc, I look at them and their themes and ask 'what the fuck happened to you, dude?' and then 'how has that entrenched a faulty world view on you?' 'what could you be driven to do because of that world view/misunderstanding?' 'what would it take to fix this world view/misunderstanding?' (the last question is the most important one!). Then voila, you have a very loose framework of a (hopepunk) character arc.

In regards to the actual planning of the fic/character arcs, I have a very big miro board (pic attached) that I use for all this! Most of the major character beats are marked out separately to plot beats etc etc. There are still a bunch of bits that only reside in my brain, but I do try to add them to my plan as soon as they become any kind of concrete. All of the characters also have a background chapter (or rather, a series of chapters that form a short story) attached to their arc, that will recontextualise everything you have learned about them so far! I am so deeply looking forward to dropping these (I already have quite a lot written).

I would say that- for your question on character relationships- the answer does come down to being really specific about what you include. Make sure characters are meaningfully different from eachother, give them goals and experiences that clash and then force them to live/work together in the same space. If you have put time into building your characters before that, then you just need to create opportunities for them to get into conflict and bring out the best/worst in eachother. I really do believe that characters are quite boring in a vacuum- which is why I put so much emphasis on including narrative foils ^^ Tyvm for the ask <3

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

I wouldn't really agree that boys are just arm candy in magical girl shows and only there to look cute. Yeah, sure the girls' friendships are the focus, but the boys are usually very much involved in the plot and most shows do explore their feelings about the odd things that happen due to magical shenanigans even if they aren't in the know (It's why ML baffles me even more with how they screwed up Adren's arc when he's the deuteragonist, when all these boys are supporting cast and get well rounded arcs)

I'm not much of a winx fan, but the specialists were very much not arm candy. Did the girls talk about them being cute? Yes, it's what teenage girls do. Did the narrative suggest they were good looking? Yes, but that's standard for most love interests in any genre. But we still got scenes with them talking amongst themselves about how they themselves feel and they got a fair share of badass fight scenes even if they wield no magic. A large amount of episodes actually included the boys and girls working as a team solving a mystery or fighting a villain. The girls might deal the finishing blow but the boys were still integral to the plot.

I hope this doesn't come across as hate, it definitely wasn't my intention. I'm just a bit too passionate about the magical girl genre.

I do think you have a good point with ML having a problem choosing a genre or blending two genres successfully.

For the CCS fans, I will add though that Cardcaptor Sakura had both Tomoyo and Syaoran serve as sources of motivation for Sakura. And both Sakura and Syaoran collecting cards even if Sakura is the only one who could seal them and yet never made you question whether Syaoran was even necessary for the job the way ml does with Chat.

I wasn't trying to say that boys have no part to play in magical girl team shows or that they're always treated as having no lives beyond the girls, that's why I mentioned that the Winx Club boys - aka, the Specialists - have their own (mostly off screen) lives and occasionally show up help the girls:

the boys are usually off doing their own thing and only occasionally show up for a date or to give the girls a ride on their cool bikes or magical spaceship

Even then, this is certainly a simplification of the roles that they play in the story, but I kind of had to simplify their roles down to their base components for the original post's discussion as I was talking in broad strokes of how these stories are written.

In terms of those broad strokes, the Specialists are absolutely only there for shipping fodder. That's why each one is assigned to a girl from the start and why their main role in the narrative is supporting their assigned love interest or causing relationship-based drama for their assigned love interest. If it weren't for shipping, then the Specialists would not exist.

While the Specialists do have fleshed out characters and may even effect the plot, the execution of those elements is designed around the girls. A really obvious example of this is the character Timmy, who has character development as the boy's tech guy. Why is he into technology? Because he's the designated love interest for the fairy of Technology and we have to show why they're a good match. Along similar lines, the boys don't really get plots that are removed from the girls because this is the girl's show. Every episode features one or more of the Winx, but the boys are optional and often don't appear.

This is because, narratively speaking, the boys are just love interests and that brings us back to Miraculous' big problem. You can't have a show where Adrien is written like a Specialist while also being part of the Winx Club and where Alya is written like she's part of the Winx Club while technically being more of a Specialist in terms of power set and actual narrative role.

I'm was thinking back to my memories of various Winx Club plots to find one that really highlighted what I mean here and I remembered that one of the big dramas in season one was the reveal that Bloom's love interest - Sky - was in an arranged marriage and had just never told her. As it turns out, that's a great example of what I'm talking about re Adrien!

Is that plot line technically based around Sky and letting his life effect the plot? Sure, but the fallout of that reveal revolves around Bloom, not Sky. The story doesn't really care how Sky's feeling as the conflict progresses. Instead, it focuses on how it affects Bloom and her friends because of course it does! She's the main character. It would be really weird if that plot suddenly focused on her side character love interest and his friends during one of her darkest hours/biggest moments.

Think of that and then consider how the ending of season five is written. Notice any similarities? Sure, this is Adrien's family drama, but because he's just a Specialist, the focus isn't on him. It's on Winx Club member Marinette and Adrien only shows up at the end for a kiss. That is the problem. That is what I'm talking about when I say that Miraculous will randomly write him as if we're watching a magical girl team show where Adrien is just the love interest.

In fact, let's really dig into this example because it's a good one.

You can have a look at the transcript for the finale episode of Miraculous season five here and see for yourself that Adrien doesn't even show up on screen until the final scenes when the big drama is over. The Winx Club wiki also has episode transcripts, so I took a look to see what happened in Winx land during the arranged marriage reveal plot (I love that this is a thing. It's so useful for fact checking myself!) This is the script for the episode after Bloom learns the truth. Sky does not appear even though his lies and family drama are the fuel for this episode's events, which are a major part of the season's arc. Note how perfectly that matches Adrien's writing?

Similarly, Sky's dialogue in the reveal episode is all about Bloom. He's worried about her learning the truth and thinking less of him. To match that, here's Adrien's only real dialogue in the penultimate episode of season five (full transcript):

Adrien:(Covers his ears.) I cannot transform... (Looks at his ring and tries taking it off.) Plagg: What are you doing?! Adrien: I'm not in my right mind. I'm too angry — at myself for falling short of Marinette's love, at my father for sending me here in London, at this stupid app and these rings that use my image... it makes me sick! This nightmare is giving me the horrible feeling that, if I transform, I'll get akumatized and destroy everything with my Cataclysm — Marinette, Ladybug... (Takes off the ring and hands it to Plagg.)

Switching back to Winx. After Bloom learns the truth about Sky, bad things happen because she's depressed. This results in her and the Winx going off on a journey to learn the truth of who Bloom is. After the girls share this big plot moment and Bloom gets her mojo back, the boys show up to be their ride home and to give Bloom her romance moment where Sky wins her back by declaring that he broke off the arranged married because he loves her.

Sky notably doesn't get an arc about choosing between his arranged marriage and his true love. We don't even know that the marriage is broken off until he tells Bloom because that was never really a conflict as far as the narrative was concerned. Of course he's going to pick Bloom! He's her designated side character love interest! He only exists to be with her. We don't need to treat this as a serious thing for him. The arranged marriage plot was never about him anyway. It was about giving Bloom a reason to have a darkest hour moment that moves the plot forward. Similarly, Sky calling off the marriage is nowhere near as important as him telling Bloom that he's called off the marriage to be with her in a grand romantic gesture.

This perfectly mirrors Miraculous' season five ending where Adrien doesn't appear until after Marinette is done fighting her big girl power fight against his father. As far as the writing is concerned, that fight isn't about him. His connection to the villain only really matters in terms of how it affects Marinette's actions during the final battle. Then, when the battle is over, Adrien shows up to give Marinette her big romance moment because, while the plot may be driven by Adrien's family, he is not a Winx club member. He's just a Specialist. Or, in the words of the head writer:

[image text: She's Barbie, he's Ken. You don't like it. I get it. It won't change. Anything else?] (The full, even more damning context of this tweet can be found here.)

What else can I say other than, "I rest my case."

Oh, and also that I didn't take this as an attack. I just thought it was a good opportunity to really dig into the nuances of this and what I was talking about in that original post as I never know how obvious this stuff is if you don't closely study story telling. As this case study hopefully shows, if a show is about a group of girl friends using the power of friendship, then their love interests may have important roles, but the boys are never going to be more important than the girls and most of the boy's screen time will be focused on romance and how their existence effects the girls because it's ultimately the girls' world. Without them, the show wouldn't exist. Without the boys? Well, then we just wouldn't have a romance plot.

[aphidclan-clangen]

Do you have any tips on how to design a sparklecat, Like any inspiration or ideas for it.

Oh man, hm. I usually just freestyle it so let me think

The thing is, AphidClan designs are like. My least professional designs that I have lol, so I can’t really give you classic Actual Professional Character Design Technique Advice because if you followed the professional advice, you would probably not be producing anything that looks like Aphidclan designs lmao, you’d be making much better shit. But you guys want Aphidclan specifically, you guys want how I do it! So I’m gonna try to give you guys,,,whatever advice I can scrounge up from the shit that I do specifically! And like break down what my thought process is into tips?? Anyway

My biggest tip has gotta be Pick An Aesthetic. You don’t have to do this, but it’ll help narrow things down significantly. An aesthetic, a theme, etc. All my best designs for the comic that I get the most compliments on have specific theming, and all the character designs of mine I personally grew to…strongly dislike, were characters WITHOUT any theming, like Gravel’s old design for example. It was all just purple and more dark purple but slightly desaturated, and there wasn’t any direction to it at all, because that’s what happens sometimes when you make shit up on the spot and go with your first draft lmao. Blisswhistle’s theme is rainbow, Pearlstar had a sort of cotton candy unicorncore vibe, Gravel’s new look has a punk aesthetic, Shadebreak and Goldshine are famously emo, etc. Pick a theme! It’ll help!

Right now I’m trying to create Toyhouse profiles for everyone in Aphidclan, and it is a bit of a nightmare trying to figure out what to do for the members of the cast that don’t have a theme. I really really need to give Firebeetle a theme and redesign him with it in mind to give him a design that actually looks good because it’s driving me BATSHIT how directionless he is rn it’s really pissing me off. I’m thinking vaporwave neon cyberpunk shit…

DETOUR TIP FOR GENERAL COMIC-MAKING: Don’t always stick with just your first draft before jumping into comic production! A character may look real nice, but you don’t know what it’s gonna be like to have to draw that same design over and over and over and over and over and over and over again forever! A good way to test this is to take a sketch sheet and, as quickly as you can, draw that character as many times as you can! Draw them like 20 times, 30 times, just 5 or 10 can be pretty dang enlightening on its own. You’ll find yourself dropping certain details, agonizing over the more complicated markings, wishing to get rid of certain accessories, adding new features that come more naturally to you, and more! Take note of those natural changes and make edits accordingly 👍 ((psst: have you noticed that Gravel’s concept art shows her depicted with golden earrings? when was the last time I drew those motherfuckers. it happens🤷‍♂️))

Narrowing down your aesthetic will also help with picking accessories or pivotal details that are related to the theme you chose. If your character has a strawberry theme, you now can give them like a strawberry marking on their chest, or narrow it down to be based on Strawberry Shortcake specifically for nostalgia points, so you can give them the strawberry hat and green-and-white striped leg markings, or leggings. If they’re scenecore, you can give them scenemo hair, or kandi bracelets—have you noticed that Shadebreak has markings that look like fishnet gloves? This is because I wore those bad bitches all the time throughout my emo era in highschool. It’ll make it easier to decide what your markings will be, basically

~~ peruse my collection of my best designs below ((none of these are Aphidclan characters though sadly)) ~~

(Virus, the third one, is directly based on the You Are An Idiot computer virus!)

I may not be a professional over here, but I still believe one of the main things that’s always super important about character design is intention. Intention makes the best character designs. Ideally, you want to be completely clear about what exactly you want to convey to the audience about a character. The audience should know exactly what to expect from your character at first glance. Their base personality, whether or not you want them to think they’re a villain, or a good guy, or a background character, or somewhere morally gray and conflicted. Their style, their themes, their age, their goal, their hobbies and passions, what they do for a living, what they’ve been through, why they’re here, their culture, the time period they live in, their status in society, anything and everything that is relevant to their character. Are they tough and rugged and been through some real shit? Are they dainty and flowery and feminine? Are they a princess, or are they a peasant? Are they a thief, a rogue, or an enforcer of the law? Could a stranger tell any of this just by looking at them?

Warrior cats isn’t a series where a lot of intention can be utilized, since we’re only working with cats. I have seen some warriors artists really master visual storytelling in their warriors designs alone, but usually you have to get really fuckin cool with dynamic shape language in order to do that, and I’m nowhere near that level yet with my own shape language lol. Instead, I try to utilize intention in other ways.

Berrykit has very round fur tufts. This is to show that she’s soft, she’s approachable, she’s cute and harmless (presently. …mostly.) But Nimblekit’s fur is jagged and sharp, he’s COVERED in sharp angles all the time, to communicate that he’s edgy!! He’s snippy and snarky and reckless and chaotic!! He’ll getcha!! ((Berrykit’s curly fur is also to make her look more similar to Blisswhistle as her half-sister!)) I also use these fur tufts to make heart shapes in her fur, like her heart-shaped ear tufts, to further drive home her lovecore theming! Stormwhisper has round fur tufts to look more like a cloud, Icesheep has sharp tufts to make him look more like an icicle, etc etc list goes on

Virus has devilish horns and tail to communicate he’s impish and gonna get ya, Lemon Wash has scale markings to communicate the sharky oceanic theming, be intentional!! That’s the fun of sparklecats, there’s more room to play with! You can give your strawberry shortcake cat strawberry markings ! You can give your care bear based sparklecat a funny symbol on their big squishy belly! You can still tell a purpose with their markings and accessories! Intention intention intention, drill it in!!

uhh that’s all I have today. tired now. Good luck! and have fun and all that

[sonicjustbecause]

Shadow incarnations

My three favourites

Maekawa's (especially SA2)

Original Shadow, unlike the others, was just cool. He didn't try. He was aware of this but he didn't try to be cool. Being cool came natural from him. Probably the only incarnation who was able to lie (I don't remember him lying outside SA2), despite this, the most genuine Shadow of all, because he just acted the way he felt like at the moment, like the kid he was, and just like Sonic does. Sulking? Having fun? Sending death treat? Celebrate his victories? Fist bumping? He just did all.

Is also true that his fleshed out personality was all compressed in a tiny space of 9 hours, because he was meant to die, so you had to slowly know him, and is beautiful how it gets unfolded. First you judged him wrongly (through hero story), then play with him, learning about his past and getting to love him (This Shadow is shown to be friendly in the latest part of the game when he finally opens up and actually not much an introvert. In all games written by Maekawa, he is always hanging on with somebody, usually Rouge but also Knuckles and Blaze in Sonic and the Black Knight, and Maria in Sonic Adventure 2. He is just quiet and reserved), then, when happiness is finally handy, he dies. Is tragic.

If Sonic is like the wind, Shadow is like water. In Italy, subtle personality like his are compared to water. Water is calming and serene on surface, but it hides dangers in the depths, is dark and it can suddenly become dangerous. That's Shadow. He is subdued and never gets angry, the dangers are always below the surface. He is dangerous because he is insane due to his traumatic past, his loneliness, his intense sadness and his suicidal tendencies. Unfortunately he doesn't want to die alone, he wants to bring the whole world with him. All of this can be spiced up by his stubborn and melancholy nature that makes the whole thing more explosive. He's very dark and scary (In current -edgelord - characterization, where he is presented as always angry, he is less intimidating. Simply because too much is too much, for the same reason Sonic's glares are way more effective than Shadow's because unusual).

Original Shadow is calm, intelligent, he might be a bit of a science fanatic. In his description of the Eclipse cannon, he resemble the most classic of the mad scientist villain, including some Mr.Burns postures with his hands, his voice was lively.

He's not an actual villain. Before the tragedies of his past he had a gentle and caring nature. But then his family was destroyed and he survived, he was feared, betrayed, brainwashed, captured, sealed. He became mistrustful, cynical, apparently cold, showing his qualities only to his closest friends.

And an interesting detail there, he never opened up to Rouge in SA2. He opened up to Sonic and Amy.

Unlike many future incarnation, the original Shadow was not particularly violent. He greatly favored brain power, leaving brute force for emergencies. Thinking about the games of that period, he virtually spared all his foes, or at least the very same foes Sonic would have spared and took down foes that Sonic also would have take down.

He is soft spoken and quiet. I especially love his VA of that time, David Humphrey, smoother juvenile and engaging, even cute voice. He shows a large range of emotions and attitude on Shadow. Jason was not bad either.

Archie (Universe)

The most expressive Shadow. (I should talk about the problems in Sonic's expressions and where I think they come from) more gruff compared to the original Shadow, aloof and more violent, but also very soft with his friends. I think is based on Adventure Shadow.

Enemies such as Eclipse and Metal Sonic help to reveal many aspect of his personality that Shadow himself might not be fully aware about.

Eclipse, bad design yet compelling and great personality, is his main foe. He shows how dangerous and ruthless Shadow can be when he gets serious/focused. Despite being a villain Eclipse cares sincerely for his friends and family and tries the diplomatic way with Shadow, similar to what an hero would do, with no success.

Metal Sonic instead helped to show Shadow's lack of free will. Yes, Shadow can still be compared with water there too. Unlike the wind that is boundless (and Sonic with his total freedom), water is always contained in some way (dams, bottles etc), controlled and follows a fixed path. When not following the path it can get destructive. If Shadow is not contained, he can cause mass destruction (everything about him is controlled, his path, the rings he wears to control his power, even his will). He is like an organic android, made in flesh instead of metal, his intelligence is AI, programmed twice by a human. But he has a heart, for this he suffers. A lot.

I think Shadow's peculiar speech pattern also shows his artificial nature.

Prime

Is one of the less gloomy versions of Shadow. I would say in Sonic Prime, Shadow is healing. He is mentally strong and more self confident. He still doesn't trust people but he is hopeful for the future. His strenght also helps Sonic to not sink (metaphorically).

Like Sonic, he has a lot of flaws and he is well aware of them. Unlike Sonic, he has a better attention span and has a better control on himself (he sighs a lot when upset or uneasy and this helps him to calm down).

He is outspoken with Sonic as well as he is awkward and shy toward strangers and extremely introverted. He is also so elusive at the point of feeling like some sort of mystical creature. Half of the times is not his fault.

He can be playful, mischievous and knows how to have fun.

The VA is Ian Hanlin. His voice is deeper than David's but is still youthful and soft.

[cripplecharacters]

Hello! I'm working on a story that is, fundamentally, a revenge story. A young woman loses her beloved older sister in a car accident, and becomes obsessed with hunting down everyone she perceives as responsible for or complicit in her sister's death.

This girl was also in the car when the accident happened, and while she survived, she did lose her leg (below the knee).

My question is, is it okay to have a disabled character seeking revenge for the event that disabled them if the disability isn't the driving force behind that revenge? My protagonist did lose her leg in that accident, but the thing she's bitter and vengeful about is the death of her sister, and she makes that very clear throughout the story. Is that enough to detach her from the trope of "character wants vengeance for becoming disabled," or is it still too close for comfort?

Also, I'm planning to make this girl fat; we need more badass fat characters in the world. Will that affect her experience with having a prosthetic? Especially considering it's a leg, so it'll be bearing her weight. Very few of the medical resources out there account for fat people, unfortunately.

Hi!

Standard disclaimer that we don't have amputee mods, please keep this in mind.

I think that this is a cool alternative to the usual "revenge for making someone disabled" plot line. Her being incredibly emotional because she lost a loved one is a natural reaction, and the desire for revenge is well, natural for the genre. It's just nice to see a disabled character being involved without disability being the main factor. In my view it's realistic too, I feel like most people would care about the death of a beloved sibling more than a new disability (not to imply that they wouldn't at all, of course). Disability is better than death, even if it makes life harder. I believe the concept for the story is fine.

For the second part of the ask, I 100% agree that we need more badass fat characters, especially women. These are some factors that could affect her as an amputee, and they are things that fat amputees deal with more often - but obviously no group is a monolith, so I doubt every single one will apply to her specifically. Skinny amputees can deal with these issues as well. Not an exhaustive list of course.

Prosthetic weight limit. These are different for different models, but they do exist. The most ranges I've seen go up to 136kg, so the process of getting one might be more costly and/or time-consuming if she's above it. The higher the weight the higher the risk of needing custom-made parts. That's expensive.

Actually being able to put it on. If she can't reach the end of her residual limb, she might either need another person's help or get an assistive device to help her both take care of the stump and put her prosthesis on.

Prosthetic fit. This one can already be difficult if the person is skinny, but it's a more time-consuming experience for people with more fat and skin on their residual limb. This is partially due to shrinkage and tissue remodeling, which is a progressive process, and more tissue means that there is more to remodel. She might have to go through a lot of refitting before landing on one that will be appropriate for the long-term. Keep in mind that basically everyone gains weight after becoming an amputee, so this is a process that can go on for a long time just for this reason, not even including the other reasons like the wear and tear.

Sockets. Like most things, they were designed with skinny people in mind, and it kinda shows. A socket gives stability through hugging firm tissue, so the more soft tissue is present in between them, the less stability and control it offers. Mobility aids can help with this - whether that'd be crutches, a rollator/walker, or a cane, depends on her personal preference and needs.

Fatigue levels. Using a prosthetic is really tiring already, but it gets more tiring if you are physically heavier, same for more pain due to the increase in pressure between the skin and the prosthetic. Again, a mobility aid can be helpful - she'd probably own a wheelchair, even if that's not the aid she'd use most often. She could opt to use a wheelchair at home to preserve energy, and walk outside with prosthetic and crutches.

As you can see, a lot of this has to do with increased costs, so you have to take in your character's financial situation in mind. And of course she's not gonna just put on a prosthetic the day after the accident. It's a process that takes a long time, physical therapy, and patience, even if she starts using a preparatory prosthetic early (before getting a permanent one) it still takes time to relearn how to first stand, then walk, then run... It's a process.

I hope this helps!

mod Sasza

[aioliravioli-69]

Detective Noir AU

Alright, this au has been sitting around, waiting for me to finish it but chances are, I never will :((

So instead, I'll just post what I have so far

This was inspired by that one comment on the au post the author made(at this point you could consider me a stalker for the amount of hours I've scrolled through her feed💀)

First things first, none other than our main character himself, Detective Hollow!

I made him the detective in this one mainly because I was basing it off of the theory that if there was no heroine the keyholder would simply become the hero instead(don't remember where I read this but I'm guessing it was the webtoon comment section).

I also my have just really wanted to draw him in an overcoat

gonna be honest, I did little to no research going into this AU, the thing I most tried to learn about was the femme fatale so I could get a good view on how to design Buddy

Speaking of the femme fatale:

Seems like someone got caught in the spotlight!

And before you ask, yes, those are pants. Weird ones, but pants nonetheless. I swear, I hate lighting when it's from the front. Frontal lighting can go fuck itself. Please ignore the little help lines I put in

Honestly, Buddy's outfit was probably the hardest part of this one. I wanted him to look slutty, but I didn't want to make it TOO slutty, but I feel like I may have added WAYY too many folds in his pantsuit and I kinda messed up on the overcoat lol. The diamond on his chest was inspired by the diamond on the villainess key more than anything and I tried to incorporate that into his gloves too.

Anyway, have some potential outfit sketches I made:

the two I thought might come off as too slutty and

the ultimate winner of the outfit ideas

As you can see the diamond chest window and fur coat were a mut in this outfit and I'm pretty happy with the end result

Y'all know how the femme fatale usually has to seduce the main character a.k.a. the detective?

Well, y'all know me so have an extra just for you <33

But I'm not done just yet!

Remember how I said that I made Chase the hero because of the lack of a heroine in the story? Well...

I did some more surface level research(and I mean very surface level) and decided to adapt the trope of the girl-next-door archetype for him!!

Don't think it suits him, since they usually just sit pretty and wait for the detective to notice them, but they do have badass roles once in a while and I live for those!!!

The one Chase has taken on doesn't though sadly :')

I decided to go with Charlie Hollow for this one because it sounded more like something the timid and 'pure'(yuck I know, but sadly film noir movies often prop up comparisons between the femme fatale and the girl-next-door, this being one of them) girl next door would have

Overall I tried to make this one as cutesy as possible because, why not lol

Lastly(I apologise, I made this in a rush because I was running out of motivation)

The distance between Buddy and the detective sure did close QUICK-

Originally I was planning on adding Deacon as a police officer and now that I think about it I could technically fit Prunella in here as well, but I just don't have any willpower left to keep this thing alive

My art blocks been acting up recently and I can't even pick up the pencil without immediately wanting to put it down :((

I wish I could have continued this and maybe I will someday, but until then this'll just stay in my drafts

[gftimelordstwin]

Hey there!

Name’s Stanley Pines, though you can just call me Stan. Figured it’s about time I give this Internet thing a shot— after all, everyone’s on it these days, right?

Now, I’m not the brains of the operation, that’s my brother Ford. He’s the one with all the fancy titles nowadays, but I’m the guy who gets things done. We travel through dimensions pretty regularly. Y’know, fighting off whatever weird alien or monster decides to show its ugly face. Nothing we can’t handle, of course!

PINES! PINES! PINES!

Anyway, I’m not one for long speeches. Just thought I’d introduce myself. Stick around, who knows what might happen next.

See ya around! - Stanley Pines

OOC: OH WOW THIS BLOG WAS LONG OVERDUE- anyway here's the companion blog for Stanley to my other blog @gftimelord because I actually couldn't help myself HAHAHA! My main blog is @matrixbearer2024! Lee is mostly still same old same old, he's just a hidden genius and dubbed 'carer' to Doc. In terms of the Doctor Who franchise, he's similar to any timelord's companion(e.g. Bill, Clara, Donna, etc.) I'll mostly have him set post-weirdmageddon but I'm open to shifting whichever point in time for questions or RPs, have fun everyone! P.S. Down below are insights to his character and inventory for anyone interested or planning to interact with him!

Lee's inventory:

Multitool:

Lock Picking: Designed to pick locks of all kinds, from standard doors to more advanced mechanisms.

Electronic Fiddling: Can be used to tinker with small electronics and gadgets, though Lee prefers more practical solutions over technology when he can.

Simple Mechanical Fixes: Handy for quick mechanical repairs, Lee uses this when brute force isn’t the best option.

The Doctor(AU Stanford)’s Old Blaster:

Energy Weapon: A basic blaster for ranged combat, though Lee doesn’t often use it unless necessary. He prefers the physical satisfaction of a fistfight but keeps it for emergencies.

Adjustable Power: The blaster has multiple settings for stunning, damaging, or disabling targets, though Lee usually keeps it simple.

Brass Knuckles:

Close-Combat Weapon: Lee’s weapon of choice in most situations. He’s skilled at hand-to-hand combat and uses these to pack an extra punch in a fight.

Durability: Built to withstand multiple hits and heavy use, these knuckles are well-worn and reliable.

Zygon Forcefield:

Personal Shield: A protective barrier which protects him from the worst injuries in dangerous situations. Lee often uses this out of caution which makes him ridiculously hard to kill and all the more dangerous in close-combat situations.

Camouflage: For a temporary time, the advanced zygon technology refracts and manipulates light to turn Lee invisible to the naked eye. This can be activated and disabled manually.

Energy Absorption: The shield absorbs incoming energy-based attacks but has a limited capacity before needing to recharge.

Repair Box:

Immortality: A set of nanobots that constantly repairs and heals injuries on Lee’s body, making him functionally immortal. Age and illness won’t kill him, but fatal injuries still pose a threat.

Healing Factor: Non-fatal wounds heal rapidly, allowing Lee to recover quickly from injuries that would incapacitate others.

Autonomy: Lee made Ford promise never to bring him back once he chooses to end it, granting him control over his immortality.

Watch/Log Recorder:

Travel Logs: Keeps track of multiverse coordinates and records short, practical notes on their journeys.

Dimensional Awareness: Helps Lee keep track of which dimension he's in, providing useful information about their location and any notable anomalies.

Communicator: Think like how a smart-watch can send and recieve calls and messages, his watch functions the same way with it's other added functions.

Coin:

Fidget Tool: Lee keeps this coin as a simple distraction, flipping it when he’s thinking or waiting. It’s a grounding tool for him during tense moments.

Memory Keepsake: While he never talks about it, the coin holds sentimental value for Lee(Soos gave it to him).

Stack of Cards:

Games: Used to pass the time or engage in games of skill, these cards are always on hand. Lee’s excellent at card games and has a natural sleight of hand.

Distraction: In tight spots, Lee’s been known to use the cards to distract or mislead enemies.

Satchel (Hidden Under His Blazer):

Storage for Small Gadgets: This satchel contains his coin, cards, and other small items. Lee keeps it concealed under his blazer for easy access.

Minimalist: True to Lee’s practical nature, he carries only what he needs, keeping the satchel lightweight and easy to hide.

Bigger On The Inside: The bag functions like a small bag of holding without the weight restraint, Lee can fit a surprising amount of items in it thanks to how it functions.

Lee's Appearance:

Lee wears a dark brown blazer mostly to keep himself warm, also having more layers on adventures when clothes are prone to tearing is generally a bonus!

He also sports a red beanie with his signature icon(the oyster) on it since it reminds him of home, also because Mabel gave it to him.

Started wearing gloves to protect his hands more since his knuckles and palms constantly get scratched up from all his roughousing(and fighting).

His sachel is always tucked under his blazer out of precaution(to avoid being pickpocketed or it being stolen off him), his pockets are more for his hands than anything.

Wears boots under his trousers since he thinks they're just more practical.

Key Quotes About Lee:

"If it's stupid but it works, it ain't stupid."

"Work hard, play hard."

"Rule number one: The Doctor lies."

"Good men don’t need rules."

"Never be cruel, never be cowardly. Hate? That’s just dumb. Love’s a whole lot wiser. Be kind, even when it’s hard."

"I do what I do ‘cause it’s right. It’s decent. And above all, it’s kind. If I run today, good people are gonna die. But if I stand and fight, some might make it. Maybe not all, maybe not long, but that’s good enough for me."

"Brains and cruelty don’t mix, never have, never will."

"Sure, a straight line’s faster, but c’mon, where’s the fun in that?"

"Don’t go flexin’ muscle for no reason. You’ll just embarrass yourself. But if you’re mad? Yeah, go ahead, throw a punch."

"You know when folks tell you everything’s gonna be fine, but you don’t buy it? Well, I’m telling you— everything’s gonna be fine."

"This is me, right here, right now. What matters is who I am, not who I used to be."

"In all my time across the multiverse, I ain’t met a single person who wasn’t important. Not once."

"There’s no point in bein' grown up if you can’t be a kid sometimes."

"You don’t just quit. You don’t let stuff happen. You stand up and say, 'No!' You do what’s right, even when everyone else runs for the hills."

"I’m not runnin’ away from anything, I’m runnin’ to it. Before it fades out forever."

"Great men are made in fire. Sometimes, it’s the ones who light the match that never get the credit."

"My back’s killin’ me. Guess it’s ‘cause I’m stuck carryin' the weight of all these deadbeats who crush everyone else’s dreams."

"Call me by my full name again, and I’ll remove your organs in alphabetical order. Got it?"

"There’s better stuff to do today. Dying? That can wait."

"Letting things get to you? That’s called bein' alive. Best part of it, really. If you’re alive right now, you’re doin' fine."

"I’m always gonna be the optimist. The guy hopin' for the impossible, dreamin’ about what comes next."

"We’re all stories, y’know? So let’s make this one a good one."

"Everything’s gotta end at some point. If it didn’t, nothin’ would ever start."

"Life’s a mix of good and bad. The bad doesn’t ruin the good, and the good doesn’t fix the bad. It’s all just... there."

"The more we learn about each other, the more we learn about ourselves."

"Yellin’ at the world ain’t gonna make it better."

"Somethin’ doesn’t add up? Well, let’s go poke it with a stick!"

"We all change, all the time. That’s how it is. And it’s okay. Just remember who you used to be, and keep movin'."

"Funny thing about stories… feels like you don’t make ‘em up. More like you stumble across ‘em. You keep diggin’ and writin’, knowin’ that somewhere out there, there’s that one perfect ending that you never saw comin’, but was always meant to be. It’s like you’ve been headed for that spot the whole time, without even knowin’ it."

"Y’know, for some people, it ain’t the big moments that matter. It’s the small, beautiful ones. That’s what life’s really about—those little sparks that make it worth all the trouble."

"We’re all capable of changin’ in ways we never imagined. But here’s the thing—ya don’t gotta lose who you are to do it. We grow, we evolve, and we still hold on to the parts of us that matter most. You get to choose who you wanna be next, and still respect who you’ve been."

[purpdrawsthings]

What’s up with those static eyes? And what jobs do each of you do for the most part?

Also, to Mr. Puzzles, why have them work like this instead of as brainwashed actors?

WARNING : THIS IS NOT FINISHED! This is merely a wip I posted on accident. So some stuff may come off as weird.

My apologies ^^'

SMG4 : We uh...

SMG3 : We don't really know.

SMG4 : It just appeared right after we signed the contract I think?... Maybe it's a side effect? A mark? Who knows...

SMG4 : Now about that job part, I usually take lead in script writing cuz... I'm just the lead script writer. Other than that, my other main job is just being an actor. Other than those, I help 3 in taking care of the pets, I'm basically the mascot of the studio [ besides Mr. Puzzles ] and just an assistant.

SMG3 : looks off to him, still concerned on why tf he still has that many jobs Uuuuuuh, anyways, I help 4 with the scripts, I'm basically the person who mostly takes care of the pets, I'm also the cameraman and... Just an actor. But mostly the taking care of the pets thing and cameraman.

SMG4 : I think Meggy is a choreography teacher or something... Tari is a bug finder because of her abilities... Boopkins is is just a postman guy... Bob just guards the weapons room. Mario... Doesn't even do anything, besides acting.

SMG3 : Makes sense.

Mr. Puzzles : Why? Well... Why should I tell you folks that? Just because you all get to ask me questions doesn't mean you can sometimes pry into some secretive and personal stuff. So don't bother asking!

[ ok, time for context part!

Yeah so, everytime an ask gets answered, I'll leave a context part if necessary for those who don't understand or need more info.

So for the first one, the eyes were just some design choice at first but I decided to add some stuff about it. These static like eyes were some sign that "hey, these guys are owned =D". Maybe some sort of trademark, well, that's the thought I had to mind. Tho, other characters besides 4 and 3 have different ways of showing this. Tari from example, hides her left eye cuz it was dripping a lot and also, she just didn't really like showing it. Other than that, it was a coolio design choice.

For the second one, I'll just put it in some format here. Oh and btw, I'm not afraid to change these if necessary.

SMG4 : Puzzles assistant/Lead Script Writer/Main mascot/Part time-pet caretaker/actor

SMG3 : Assistant script writer/Lead pet caretaker/cameraman/actor

Meggy : Choreography teacher/law assistant [ incase of legal action ofc ]/Prop setup helper/actor

Tari : Bug finder/Assistant for visuals/actor

Boopkins : Prop setup helper/sender [ aka postman or something ]/Guard assistant/actor

Bob : Lead guard for the weapons room [ yes that exists lmao ]/Part time cameraman/Actor

Mario : Actor

Mario doesn't even get to do much considering with Puzzles giving him some freedom over his actions, he can do some random ass shit. Mario just spends his time in his room, memorizing scripts and probably just eating spaghetti so that he would calm down. [ this is subjected to change... ]

Puzzles just felt a lil lonely. Imagine you control everyone but all of them are just mindless and emotionless people? Yeah, that's gonna be boring sooner or later.

Fun fact : Puzzles actually has some empathy for them after a few months of working with them. But to maintain his image, he never told anyone about this. ]

[crguang]

hamel is so cute and a must protect but she probably looks cute and pathetic while crying so i rly just wanna ruin her (I NEED TO GET THIS OUTTA ME) i hope you love hamel so i can be well fed <3

do i love hamel… mmmm….

perhaps. i havent even finished carnival yet but she’s been my pfp and on the main page since i got her two days after starting to play LMFAOOO her design really appealed to me shes stunning… and her voice is so soothing shes my baby fr. i got a little carried away with this…

hamel doesn’t like to be touched by anyone but chief so she’s probably super sensitive, and it wouldn’t take a lot for her to turn into putty in your hands. don’t be rough, softly brush your palms over her skin and she just melts. she seems like such a pillow princess to me; she stares up at you with stars in her eyes, lips parted, while you hover over her with a hand cupping her cheek. your warmth seeps into her and a faint flush settles on her face. foreplay is literally just you touching her— your fingertips trail down her throat to her collarbone, over her chest and across the plane of her stomach. Your hands memorize the shape of her, the feel of her cool skin as they run up her forearms to her shoulders; she becomes clay under your gentle touch and when you finally press your lips to hers, her mouth chases yours with a desperation neither of you knew she possessed. you lead her into a languid, intimate little dance and she follows every swirl of your tongue with her own. her hands take hold of you anywhere she can access: your shirt, your hair, your back, your cheeks— it’s a wonderful feeling to have her touch you this way when she’s so usually averse to it and instead of pushing you away, she only pulls you closer. she makes the cutest little sounds against your mouth, soft sighs and breathy half-moans that spur you on but never alter your pace. she deserves the most devout form of worship.

i really do think she’s a sensitive girl; your hand cupping her breast gets a quiet gasp out of her, your thumb over her perky nipple has her shifting under you, thighs squeezing together, and when you pinch it just right, she can never bite back a weak whimper. trail your free hand down her stomach, across her hips and waist, and hamel thinks she would let you do anything to her. you handle her so delicately, so gently, she just can’t help wanting to please you. her skin bruises easily so be nice when kissing her neck and collarbone, though she enjoys a few hickeys here and there (makes her feel all warm when she traces their outline the next day). your mouth on her chest really gets her needy. with your lips around her nipple, sucking it into your mouth, she gets ridiculously wet and it embarrasses her a little but she can’t dwell on it when you’re fondling her breast and suckling her sensitive bud like this, slender fingers curl around your nape in a tight grip and quiet moans slip out of her with every flick of your tongue. she’s one of those girls who don’t say much— can’t, too overwhelmed by the pleasure— and who whimper a lot. it’s very breathy, like she can never catch her breath, and her voice gets a touch higher the more worked up she gets. she shifts quite often, mostly rubs her legs together and arches further into you. once you give her breasts some reprieve and move to kiss down her belly, it gets worse. she just can’t keep still :( it’s not on purpose, our girl’s just overwhelmed by the sensations and the growing need between her legs. dig your hands into her supple thighs and keep them spread for you, she’ll bite her lip as a blush paints her cheeks because it’s only then that she realizes how squirmy she is. her panties are always drenched when you finally get to them, arousal clings thickly to the thin material and the sight makes your mouth water.

hamel’s favourite thing would be receiving oral (i just wanna eat her out) and her clitoral orgasms get so intense, tears prick at the corner of her closed eyes after each one. you lick broad stripes up her puffy slit and she has to grip your hair or the sheets to stop herself from bucking into your mouth. her thighs flex and twitch in your hold. she has such a pretty pussy, all puffy and pink, glistening in the light with the tip of her clit peeking out— how can you not lick her silly? your hands are busy keeping her thighs apart but that’s okay, your mouth is more than enough to have her carelessly balancing on the edge. just give her aching clit some special attention, swirl your tongue around it, tease its sensitive tip with little flicks and gently suck it into your mouth and she’s a goner. those adorable sounds escape her, “mmnh…” and “hah…”, she’s just such a cutie. her hips desperately follow the pace you set and her eyes are squeezed shut, brows twisting in pleasure. her mind can’t wander, not with your tongue between her warm folds, she’s grounded to reality by the feeling of your mouth on her needy cunt, and it doesn’t take her long to gush on your tongue. her orgasm builds stronger with each stroke up her wet slit, each suck on her twitching clit, and she can never hold it back from crashing over her in intense little waves. she shivers all over, a silent gasp keeps her lips parted, and you’re rewarded with her tangy cum in your mouth. even if you were to tell her not to come, to wait or ask for permission, she couldn’t. it’s just so good, so consuming, don’t be mad at her for coming early, okay? she’ll take the consequences like a good girl but she just can’t keep it in. </3 and with the sight of her body shuddering with the aftershocks of her orgasm, tears rolling down her flushed cheeks from the intensity of the pleasure you’re giving her, can you really be upset with her?

[heaven-s-black-box]

YIt's time to throw poison, what do you think of Miyuki? Sometimes when I see him I feel love/hate. It's like the guy is not very careful. I feel like beating him up, but with that cute little face I have to keep quiet.

I personally really like him, he's one of my favorite Daiya characters and he's only my second favorite catcher because of Chris (and my love of Chris is heavily influenced by his design, so without considering looks I'd say they're tied).

Tldr; He's bad at socializing, and if he wasn't he would be OP, but he grows and that's why he's not difficult to watch. Also, he doesn't get away with being a little shit when someone gets hurt, and we see him through so many characters eyes that you see all his best and worst facets.

Miyuki, like all of the Daiya characters, is a character with a lot of room to grow and a lot of growth. It's the subtle things, like him slowly winning over Tanba and inviting people into his room instead of being forced to socialize, and it's the big things like learning to be Captain. The show also does well at proving why characters acknowledge him, sure sometimes they tell us first but they always back it up so that we get to see what makes him so great. He's also called out for his short comings a lot, Zono calling him out on his handling of Nabe wanting to quite and the coaching staff dragging him for mouthing off in his first year.

But also, Miyuki is never intentionally an ass for the sake of being an ass. The best example is when Nabe and them consider quitting. I agree with his stance, making Nabe stay wouldn't have helped anyone, but I also agree with Zono that he was too harsh. But it makes sense because Miyuki has never had to handle this kind of situation before, he's not the most sociable person and he lives off snark and sarcasm so when he needs to be serious he's straight to the point.

Which ties into my next point; if he was nice and say, had a personality like Chris, he would be way too over powered. But, he's not nerfed the same way Mei is. Mei looks down on everyone, even if it's by putting himself above them. Miyuki's just unlikable because he's not used needing to be liked, he lets his skill do the talking most of the time, so outside of relationships like his and Kuramochi's his personality is more hurtful. He really doesn't get why his approach to Nabe wasn't the best, but even better is that not only does he get called out on it but he apologizes. This prevents him from becoming unlikable by being an ass, even unintentionally, and getting away with it because he's so good.

One thing Daiya does well is realism; a character like Miyuki, who's very lonely and never really had friends before Seidou, isn't going to be good at socializing like Sawmura or Kuramochi. And becoming the starting catcher in his first year, like Zono said, alienates him from his peers who really had to work to get there but the circumstances of gaining that position prevent him from getting a big head. Not that i think that would have happened anyways, Miyuki is a very grounded character where as character's like Sawamura and Mei have an outside grounder.

There's never a moment in this series where I would say I dislike Miyuki, I don't like the whole "Second years almost quitting" arc, but only because the tension in the team kills me. It's a wonderful and important arc both for Miyuki as a character and the team as a whole.

He's got some of the most amusing moments in the series, especially with Okumura and Sawamura (two characters who, i would like to add, are big parts of his growth acting as a reflection of his younger self and a goal to keep working towards respectively).

However, I can understand why people dislike Miyuki. Like I said before, he can accidentally be pretty hurtful and he can definitely be a little full of himself.

Anyways, I think that's all my main points. I've never really considered why I like him, because this is a show where I usually think of characters in relation to each other and the story and Miyuki is both integral to the story and has overall positive relationships that make it easy to see him from other characters perspectives. I don't think there's a single character in Daiya that truly hates Miyuki, yes even Shirakawa, and so it gives you a lot of positive and negative outlooks on him.

[20dollarlolita]

A little guide on how to use Lolibrary to research for handmade lolita fashion:

We've talked about EGL coord mood boards, where you collect a bunch of images that you think will help you communicate your ideas and surround you with inspiration. When you're asking for help with lolita ideas, presenting a mood board immediately lets everyone know a lot about what you're trying to make and the route you're trying to take to get there.

I also use the technique for researching as well, but you have to approach the process of what exactly you put on the board slightly differently.

For example, today I wanted to make a skirt for a friend. I know that this friend wears a lot of sweet lolita, and a lot of Angelic Pretty. I also knew what fabric I had. So, off we go to Lolibrary. If you're new and you've never been there, it's your new favorite website. It documents lolita fashion history and it's such a powerful resource that I don't think any other fashion out there has.

Lolibrary has a very elaborate search system. When I'm looking for advice on how to construct something, I like to put in search parameters so that I have a like 15-30 pages to look through. You want it specific enough that you're looking for the thing you're looking for, but not so specific that there's only four results.

In this case, I knew I wanted something inspired by Angelic Pretty, and I knew it was going to be a skirt. So, that's our search terms, and we get about 30 pages of results. If you don't have 15+ pages of results, you're probably going to want to widen your search a little. You can specify multiple categories like "Skirt, JSK, OP, or Salopette" which will find you results that are any of the four in there. You can search Angelic Pretty but also Baby the Stars Shine Bright and MAM. You are researching, so you need to have enough results to research.

Right now, we're differing from a mood board in that we are not collecting things that we want. We are looking at what exists.

So here I have a whole page of skirts. We now need to narrow it down into skirts that sort of look like skirts made with the fabric like the fabric we have. Wow, that's a sentence.

So now, in a background tab, I open every single result that looks like it was made with fabric with a similar fabric to mine. In my case, it was all-over prints of a certain size. And I just keep going. I'm not even looking at the skirts yet. I'm just opening tabs.

Once I have like 60+ tabs open and Firefox is questioning its life, I start copying the main picture off each listing and slapping them all onto a board. I like to make a big canvas (like 1500x1500) in GIMP and then just dropping the pictures on there. The whole idea here is just to be able to see all the results at once. However, I usually will sort of start lining them up a little bit.

For example, on this one, I started sort of putting more complex designs in the top right, and simpler designs in the bottom left. If I saw that something was constructed very similarly to how another skirt was constructed, I would sort of try to put them next to each other. However, I really don't get too caught up in the "it has to be right" process here. The entire purpose of this is so that I can then close those 75+ firefox tabs and save my browser.

And now that everything is on one page, we can start looking for patterns. What things do I see a lot on this page? I see a lot of 3-flounce skirts. I see a lot of skirts with a lot of tiers and lace and detailing. And I see a lot of skirts with a ruffle on the bottom and a little bow on the waistband. From this, I can look at how much fabric I have, how long I have to make this, and how much work I want to put into this garment today.

And now that I have these skirts, most of which have similar construction in some aspect (don't look at the very top or very bottom ones. They don't know what they're doing here), I have multiple options to look at for the fine details of what proportions I should be looking for in both "how wide should this ruffle be" and "how big should this waist bow be". Prior to this search, yeah, I know a lot about how a lolita skirt could be constructed, but this taught me a lot of nuance of how Angelic Pretty constructs their skirts that have a relatively large all-over print.

Someone told me that my print I had felt very Emily Temple Cute, and while I love that brand a lot, it's not my friend's style. So making sure I was referencing Angelic Pretty skirts and not Emily Temple Cute skirts can help me confirm that I'm making something my friend will wear more than something I would wear.

So anyway, there you go. The secret is all in finding that initial search, specific enough that you don't have 100 pages to go through, but open enough that you do have like 15-30 pages to go through.