#so they’re just always in the same thing. because they fired the outfit designer or something

[gaysforbyler]

Are they ever going to change clothes, or…

[codgod]

y’know generally i try to limit colour palettes to as few colours as possible to make things more cohesive but despite my best efforts only jay ended up being able to stick to that </3

ANYWAYS here’s the as-of-right-now fully updated designs for these dickheads. these will no doubt undergo even more tweaking as i draw them more but this is a start i guess. also pls open the pictures to look at them properly i worked so hard LOL

some random notes under the cut yaaaay

chip —

he jingles when he walks. somehow he’s still stealthy. i do not know how

kept the platinum ring that bonded him to gillion in the block! because hey he doesn’t really have a reason to take it off (and it’s a nice reminder of how much gill cares about him, and how far their friendship has come since that ice arena)

his tattoos shift and flicker like actual flames, and sometimes (harmless, purely aesthetic) sparks fly off them when he’s excited

i just think smoke coming out of his mouth when he’s angry would be cool :]

chipped teeth from biting rocks and coins all the time :/

he has scars from the red lightning, they’re just mostly contained to his back and shoulders. they’re a similar red to his coat even once they’ve healed

gillion —

the tail sleeve thing is so he can rest it on the ground without damaging his scales, he doesn’t usually wear it when he’s just on the ship because the wood is soft enough that it’s usually fine + it can hinder swimming a bit. it’s mostly meant for places where there’s cobblestone or gravel streets and such. i think his armour would probably have a version that looks similar but covers the whole tail minus the fins, maybe with some armour plating of its own. i didn’t draw it because there wasn’t any room lol

his scars from the lightning are pink mostly because red stood out too much tbh. they softly glow in the dark the same as his coral and the pink parts of his fins

also kept his ring! his hands aren’t really made for jewellery, though, because the webbing means it won’t sit very secure on his finger. so he keeps it on the same chain as the necklace he got from aslana to keep it safe

tried to make him look a bit bulkier and more his age than in my original design? i feel like i was leaning too much into the naivety and. shortness. originally lol. he also has thicker eyebrows now and i’m still trying to decide how i feel about them but i think? i like it? i don’t tend to give many character thin eyebrows so it could’ve been a unique thing for him but alas

i think i made the sword too small but like ignore that

also forgor to include pretzel </3 that’s okay though she can get her own design sheet later. she’s special like that

jay —

i believe in tall jay supremacy

blue magic! i was considering gold but that’d look a bit more like a canary than i wanted for her wings so. blue jay :]

her hair is supposed to look kinda like fire to mimic her dad ! kinda showing that even if she runs from her family and the navy they’ll always be a part of her. and also i just like drawing messy hair

i gave her sturdier gloves just because i feel like it fits her better. also changed up the shirt to more of a button up solely because i don’t like tank tops very much LOL

i did WANT to make her outfit a bit flashier to match the boys better but i couldn’t quite figure out where to Put the flash. maybe that’ll come later, the way the story’s going i might get to design some cool prosthetics for her or something

overall —

because there’s just so many fucking colours i triiied to add at least one or two colours from each of them into the others designs. jay has her necklace with each of their main colours on it, her wings are the same blue as gillions eyes, her jacket and right eye are the same dark blue as destiny’s blade, her hair is the same orange as the lighter part of chips tattoos. chip has a dark green sash under all the belts, the same as the hilt of destiny’s blade. they all use the same shades of black, gold, and brown

the only real exception is gillion doesn’t have anything from the other two because he has Such a specific colour palette and he already had so much going on as-is orz jay was obviously the easiest to do this with because she has both warm and cool colours in her palette by default lol (and i did her design last, so that helps)

[zhaliacain]

Huntikmas Day 2- The team as build a bears

Sophie:

Sophie is Pawlette obviously, always the go to model BaB use to display their more sophisticated costumes and outfit designs. In terms of clothing I've gone for Sophie's more random style, she's got a pink shirt to get the colour in and a denim skirt which is kind of similar to the one she wears in show. And the converses she gets to keep but I suppose the laces should probably be undone.

Dante:

Based on a classic, back from the dead, everybody wants him... Dante is Pumpkin Kitty! Aside from that the colour scheme also goes very well with Dante's coat and hair and although the cat and pumpkin spice vibe might not quite be right, the other factors were too funny to ignore. Outfit wise there's no way BaB could ever manage the coat and it would be a crime to even try so instead we've gone for casual. Black V-neck, beige trousers and the boots kind of cover like half his wardrobe so it's a good fit.

Lok:

Playful Pup and Lok have the same kind of energy, friendly and a bit naive but equally a very sturdy and solid choice. Obviously Lok would need the Indiana Jones costume so I just had a bit of fun with the rest of his wardrobe. He's got a wholesome shirt but a bit quirky so he's not just got inspirational quotes stuck to his chest, the jeans like the show and the Ireland hoodie to remind him of home. He's also got the rainbow shoes because he is a rainbow himself and deserves the colour.

Zhalia:

Made for the bearcave but has somehow become a favourite with a younger audience, Zhalia is the devil bear. In this comparison obviously Zhalia was made to be an assassin/spy and has somehow ended up on a team predominantly populated by children. Keeping similar to the show, she's just got some jeans boots and a green tank top but when I imagine this all together it looks slightly punky and different which I think works.

Cherit:

Cherit is the timeless bear because who knows how old he is. Not much to say here other than the robes not only give him the white colour, but he also deserves to relax after thousands of years of human nonsense and being fired as a canonball by Eathon Lambert.

Den:

Ngl the main reason for the highland cow as Den is the crazy hair, it's uncanny. I just went a bit nuts with Den because it was really hard to pull an outfit together for him. Starting with the shorts… I can see him wearing them on a beach or something, I think he’d find them funny. Meanwhile the shirt was tricky because Den makes a lot of self confident jokes about being the best but he’s not got an ego, it’s just jokes. I don’t have time to analyse his self esteem issues here but I went for the mothman shirt because it’s the right level between his humour but not over the top. I think the mothman joke distracts from it being all about him. As for the shoes he’s just got some nice simple trainers to tie off this chaotic look.

Harrison:

Zombie frog because he’s been through the wars and he’s always looking rough. I’ve gone with the stranger things T-shirt because we all know how Harrison likes being in a club. I think it also adds to the edgy and antisocial but actually just misunderstood vibe he’s got going on. Black jeans to keep with the aesthetic and the same trainers as Den so they’re matchy matchy.

Honourable mentions!:

I considered the too hot to handle one for Den but going back to the ego thing I decided it was a bit too much. Meanwhile the take you out joke dates back in the Huntik fandom between Dante and Zhalia so it came close.

[princessasmosprincess]

Kallios

Here's my OC Kallios, he was a demon. In his demon form he has two black elliptical wings and ram's horns. He almost always wears entirely black unless the occasion calls for something else. He was Lisette's husband until he died in the late 1970s.

Kallios was a marquess, a higher level demon and a member of the House of Lords. He’s around Diavolo’s age, and they grew up together as acquaintances rather than friends, but they became closer once they worked together when Kallios became the head of his family. The conservative lords think he’s naive for agreeing with Diavolo’s more progressive politics. He gets along with the Avatars of Sin and doesn't see them as a threat. He was impressed when Lisette was able to summon him, it takes a lot of magic to summon a high level demon, and he was bored which is why he agreed to make a pact with her. Soon, he became protective and fell in love with her. In the end he did want her soul, just not in the way most demons would. He died in a small rebellion at the hands of another demon around 50 years ago.

For his character design I wanted him to look the way I'd imagine a quintessential demon would look like but with hidden charm, he has dimples! He doesn't have a second look, not just because he's dead, but because he never really felt the need to change up his look that much. Lisette took on the challenge to make all sorts of outfits for him in black.

I answered the same questions for him:

1. He’s a demon so he likes demonus, he has a refined palate when it comes to Human World wines, and he loves champagne. Fizzy drinks of all kinds make him happy (rip Kallios, you would have loved kombucha).

2. Favorite flavor: spicy but he also likes sour.

3. Favorite food: Roasted roc in the Devildom, roasted chicken in the Human World. They’re not all that different.

4. Dinner is his favorite meal because it’s a time he’s guaranteed to be able to sit down with his beloved.

5. He doesn’t really like fish but he’ll eat it if it’s the only thing offered.

6. He has a high tolerance for spicy foods, having grown up in the Devildom.

7. He’s always felt a strange kinship to birds, particularly ravens.

8. He wears pajama pants with no shirt to bed.

9. He doesn’t have one particular sleeping position, and once he and Lisette began sleeping in the same bed it just depended on whatever position was easiest for him to hold her.

10. He is a night owl, in the morning he’s grumpy.

11. He is a light sleeper.

12. He’s usually busy working so the rain doesn’t make that much of a difference since he’ll be inside, but when he does have free time he likes to read by the fire.

13. He loves the smell of vanilla.

14. What does he smell like: Clean. He wears 4711.

15. He prefers showers because they are quicker and more efficient but he tries to share a bath with his wife at least once a week.

16. Like Lisette, he can follow a recipe but sometimes he gets impatient if certain steps take too long (don’t make him caramelize onions).

17. He likes the fall because the weather is just cool enough.

18. His favorite holiday is Jill’s Day because it was the day he first took Lisette to the Devildom.

19. He prefers buying gifts. He has a talent of knowing just what someone might like or need.

20. Kallios is 6’3/190.5 cm

[quibbs126]

I was wondering if you could do a Kumiho/Latte fankid, it’s my rarest pair and I’d be incredibly thankful for any content.

Here’s some content for you, this is Iced Coffee Cookie

So I was trying to find some kind of coffee that’s paired with marshmallows (I’ve never drank coffee before and know nothing of it), but the only beverage I know that could be paired with marshmallows is hot chocolate, and we already have that with Cocoa Cookie. My friend suggested Creme Brulee (another suggestion was Tiramisu until I told her that’s already a cookie), and that’s what I was going to go with, but then I wanted to go back to the coffee bit, and I chose Iced Coffee, because coffee and also Kumiho has been associated with the snow, so why not make her iced?

Iced coffee:

I think her design looks good. When starting out, I know I wanted to give her a large ponytail that looks like a fox tail, but with a brown to white gradient like Latte, though the other way. You can’t see it, but the end of Iced Coffee’s ponytail has the same design as the end of Kumiho’s tips. I added the dark streaks at the top later because I thought her hair looked too plain, and also because the ice in iced coffee makes the coffee look darker to me. For her outfit, I wanted it to look more like Kumiho. In the end it didn’t look enough like Latte like what I wanted (I wanted it to be some sort of combination but it ended up just Kumiho), but I rectified that with the colors

So on to Iced Coffee herself, so she’s a sweet lady, but she does always seem a bit mysterious. Her eyes almost never open, and if they do, that’s because you pissed her off. Also if you notice, she has the coffee dilated pupils, since she’s more coffee. I haven’t actually decided what color her eyes are, whether they’re brown, cream or red, but I suppose I can figure that out later

So Iced Coffee is a wizard, though I’m not sure whether she lives in Parfaedia, or she’s traveled somewhere else like the Dark Cacao Kingdom. But also in addition, she’s an absolute powerhouse in the magic department, having both coffee magic and Kumiho’s fox magic. I was thinking that she could summon hordes of fire, but given her name, perhaps her power should be ice based. But regardless, the last thing you want to do is get her angry, because you will regret it

I also like to think she gets along with kids

Anyways yeah, I think that’s about it for Iced Coffee Cookie. Hope you like her!

[modgirlyreposts-revamped]

OK FINALLY GONNA TALK ABOUT MY SONADOW ROCKSTAR AU.

So. Basically, Sonic is a rock musician, doubling on guitar and vocals. He has a pretty high voice, sort of like Takahiro Moriuchi or Vic Fuentes. Actually, exactly like Takahiro Moriuchi, because he’s rockstar!Sonic’s voice claim

^ Takahiro Moriuchi, lead singer of ONE OK ROCK

I actually have a design for rockstar!Sonic, but it.. the joke is that he looks the fucking same, save for a few additions to his outfit.

He lives a pretty dangerous life, using the platform of his fame to fight injustice by taking justice physically into his own hands. Ultimately, his repeated arrests, pardons and lawsuits make him even more popular as an artist, and he uses his platform to encourage others.

Tails isn’t interested in live performance, or being known widely at all. But he sticks around all the time to provide both tech support and encouragement. As one would expect, Sonic loves him, and always makes an occasion of Tails joining him onstage or in livestreams or interviews. It doesn’t matter to him that he’s the famous one, they’re a two man team and Tails is the coolest kid in the world to him. He could sit for hours watching Tails hook up his guitar to paperclips and bowls of crystallized mouthwash to see what sounds it makes.

Ideally not the paperclips, though. That fire wasn’t fun to explain to the 911 operator.

Amy was a huge fan of Sonic’s when he started, and used to hang around his shows and even sneak backstage to try to meet him. She was… annoying, but she was also a kid. He gave her a chance from the first time they met, and when she actually befriended Sonic after he saved her, his kindness and passion inspired her, and she pursued her own career similar to his. Amy does a pretty different act than Sonic, being entirely vocal with synthesized background music. Her music is a genre that doesn’t fucking exist from what I can see. Like super girly/cutesy pop. Sounds a bit like this.

She also has been known to collaborate with Sonic and combine styles to write sort of pop-rock music. Or just have Amy do one of her normal songs and Sonic absolutely fucking shred it on the guitar until Amy can’t even hear herself sing.

Yeah, they don’t do that one much.

Shadow first meets Sonic through his… legally challenging activities. He doesn’t even know he’s a fucking rockstar, literally just knows him as some reckless asshole. He sees Sonic several times and hears him talking a lot, and he never sees or hears wildly famous teenage rockstar Sonic, just some blue idiot with a uniquely good voice giving the finger to cops and rich people and endangering himself recklessly. Shadow has been involved in this shit as long as he can remember, and it ultimately cost his sister Maria her life. As they keep meeting, Shadow grows increasingly concerned about Sonic, who keeps sticking his nose into something that no one should be involved in. Shadow, of course, never had a choice.

Eventually, though, he meets Amy, who he actually recognizes as a star, when she stops him from fighting with Sonic. Amy tells Shadow he should come to her next show, and promises to reserve a spot for him. He tries to insist that he has more important things to do, like actually dealing with the shit that idiots like that damn hedgehog think they’re good enough to handle, but of course Amy isn’t hearing any of it and she reprimands Shadow for his hypocrisy, pointing out that he’s no older than sonic and asking just what sets them apart that makes Shadow fine to be a dangerous criminal risking his safety and no one else.

When Shadow can’t think of anything to say to that, he concedes. Maybe it’s because she reminds him so much of his sister that he can’t find the words or the will to argue.

It’s only when Sonic comes onstage at her show that night that he realizes who he is. Now, of course, that’s not to say he regrets it, but he’s just dramatically more confused now- why the fuck is Sonic recklessly endangering himself by getting involved in criminal issues on both personal and systemic levels (and committing crimes himself in the process) if he has a comfortable and easy life waiting for him?

The issues Sonic is meddling in are serious, and if anyone knows that, it’s Shadow- raised to perform the judge, jury and executioner, Shadow has seen a lot in his life, ranging from violent crimes committed by the people who think they have the right to the sheer corruption of the military and police and everyone who claims to help. He has no life aside from walking the line between a hero and a criminal himself, and doesn’t think he could really ever live a life beyond that. He hates the world and is convinced it hates him. Amy is too kind, Maria was too kind, and the world will see to it that she suffers for the crime of being good the way Maria did.

That doesn’t seem to happen. Shadow saw it when he entered the concert hall, crowded with people of all ages chattering excitedly. He saw it in the visible joy when Amy and Sonic entered, and he sees it in the way Sonic hesitates in surprise when he sees Shadow, then turns to Amy and grins. Sonic is kind, too. And the people they attract are good.

Shadow is drawn to Sonic’s music, and keeps showing up, keeps showing up, keeps on showing up. It keeps him out of his head, and out of the life he’s stuck in. He eventually learns of Tails, Sonic’s younger brother, and even gets the chance to just talk to Sonic normally.

That’s when Sonic asks Shadow if he’s ever considered playing an instrument of his own. He says if he’d like, he could have a place on the stage with them.

At first, Shadow wants to refuse. He doesn’t want his actions to be defined by the pity of another. But he gets to thinking about it, and realizes he doesn’t like the life he lives now. Creating his own path through music would finally allow him control he hasn’t really gotten before.

He decides he’ll make his own career before ever joining someone else. He ends up making his own name as an independent metal/industrial rock artist. Similar to KoRn. He has a pretty deep voice much more geared to his musical style. Probably closest to Jonathan Davis of anything I can think of.

Jonathan Davis ^

By the time Shadow ever steps onstage, he almost looks totally different. He has two new piercings in the lower lip, one in his nose, one in his eyebrow, two in the left ear and three in the right, spiked bracelets on each arm, and platform boots. He stands out far more than he’d allowed himself to before, and he finds himself with a lot of fans.

He and Sonic just keep meeting. Shadow has complicated feelings on him, both despising and admiring him, liking and hating him. Sonic both likes and is annoyed by him- despite it all, they butt heads often over just about anything. It’s the fuel for a sort of rivalry that gets everyone interested in their relationship. Sonic’s fans even make jokes about shipping them.

It’s basically their weird gay pining love/hate relationship but they’re both gay rock musicians.

I’ve been imagining for a little longer than I’d like to say that Sonic would write/perform this song about his relationship with Shadow

The uncensored version has some sexual shit but once you listen to it too much the clean version just sounds choppy and weird. So uhh. Sending the uncensored version but anyway the song is totally sonadow fr

I am so sorry but when imagining what Sonic would sound like onstage I immediately thought of this song, and I apologize in advance if you know the meaning of this song-

[lanternsquids]

Any akatsuki member and 14+15

Ask game here!

Ohhh boy you’re asking me the story related questions huh. I’ll use Kuro for this, I think!

14. Best storyline they’ve had?

Ohh this is a hard one I love Kuro so much it’s difficult to choose just one! I guess one thing I always come back to is his hobby of sewing coming from his mother, and the fact he really only sewed because of her? Both Shu and Kuro learned how to sew from Kuro’s mother, and after she passed away, Kuro continued sewing because it was one of the ways he could feel close to her - There’s a really good exploration of this in the Underdoctor gacha story, where he helps fix a little girl’s broken plush doll and remarks a bit about his mother. I just think it’s a really nice way for them to use the “tough guy with a soft hobby” trope, I guess? Kuro’s never shown to be ashamed of his hobby, only ever politely embarrassed if his work is praised, which is a nice breath of fresh air to me when a lot of more “manly” characters tend to feel ashamed or hide their talent? There’s also the fact he’s the one who taught Anzu to sew (The fact Anzu was sewing entire costume pieces WEEKS after Kuro taught her is crazy by the way. That girl is inhuman), and the fact he will often overwork himself for low commission prices because he knows many of the people asking him to design outfits for them aren’t well off financially and he wants them to get the same chances to wear outfits that others might get… Man. I dunno I just love Kuro a lot.

15. Worst storyline they’ve had?

This isn’t really Kuro’s fault, but I didn’t really enjoy the weird expansion on the Dragon King lore in the CROSS FIRE story. I love Madara, but to me, it felt a little odd to insert him into a story line that has been wrapped up for years? I really enjoyed the conclusion to the Dragon King B1 that happens in Basic (told through the main story and a couple gacha + event stories), it was really sweet to see how it wrapped up a lot of Kuro’s insecurities and doubts about the past while also showing how much both Keito and Tetora care about him… So it just felt odd to revisit the story line after years and insert Madara into it? Idk I don’t really like the whole kinosei vs akira debate people have because they’re a writing team and kinosei has written a lot of good stories for the game but this was a decision I just didn’t really like. I feel like they still could have told the shuffle story without making it about a storyline that had already been resolved for years. At least we got to see Madara slather himself in Vaseline.

[atinydragon]

Okay so I will ramble about a concept unprompted 

Basically, a bunch of rats (well fae) that all come from different places end up at this big manor and decide to live there. And hey since they all came in at the same time they might as well stick together for now. 

Shenanigans and found family ensue.

100% wholesome stuff. uh huh. yep no angst at all don’t worry

I’ve actually doodled some designs for some of the characters. I’ll make official like refs at some point but here’s the doodles for now

sorry about the bad quality lol. I’ll put the rest under a cut because it gets looong

Starting on the left page,

First is the “tinkering rat” 

-is the most experienced one in living in giant dwellings as his family had always lived in such places until a fire separated them

-loves to tinker. 

-becomes the unofficial leader due to being the only one with his own braincell. the others take turns with a shared one.

-stressed all the time rip

Second is the “garden fairy”

-spent most of his life living in a big and safe fairy colony. and while she’s not completely new to living on his own he’s still very inexperienced 

-but when she’s good at something she’s good 

-most notably is his gardening and general plant knowledge. But he has a few other random skills that can come in handy

Then on the bottom of the left page is the “anxiety rat”

-anxious and scared alllll the time

-is terrified of being left behind as that is how they lost their first family.

-very good at sewing and such. Despite this most of their outfits consist of squares of fabric they fold/tie in certain ways.

Onto the right page at the top we have the “trash fairy”

-most chaotic of the bunch. And causes the most trouble as she has the habit of needing to get her claws on whatever catches her fancy

-sometimes it makes sense like shiny coins or jewelry but other times it’s rocks and weird sticks or even something like mold

-hates shirts with a passion. The only things she allows on her chest are scarfs.

-her wings are slightly misshaped so she has trouble flying

-is very cagy about her past. Up until she randomly and nonchalantly brings up the most tragic thing you’ve every heard. And then she’s right back to stealing something shiny from your bag

Under her is the “amnesia rat”

-he comes in later in the story, and is rescued by the others. Either because he had been captured or had been injured.

-either way he had a spell put on him that caused him to forget who he is

-completely out of his element. He ends up mostly just following the others around. Helpful when he’s keeping tinkering rat from getting too stressed unhelpful when he goes along with trash fairy’s latest scheme 

-wears doll pajamas all the time. He gets anxious when he doesn’t have them on and he doesn’t know why.

And finally on the right is the “outdoor rat”

-spent all of her live outside, mostly by herself. She has a hard time working with a group because of that.

-she still cares for the others very much. but just has a hard time showing it sometimes 

-has the most life experience and survival skills. Namely combat, cooking, and basic medical knowledge 

-hella strong. 

-the only one that regularly wears shoes 

Now i haven’t ~super~ fleshed out the giant family. There’s not going to be a ton of focus on them (in fact most of them will never be named because the tinies never find out lol)

But the general gist is that

-There’s four main family members. The father, mother, daughter, and son. They’re humans, and more may show up (like a grandfather, uncle etc.)

-they’re currently living in old family manor that had been somewhat neglected. This is due to the family at large being in a decline. 

-They are a family of mages, and the decline is because of a lack of magic in their recent times. Less magic users being born to the family, no new discoveries or spells made, etc.

-due to this and the fact that their family name sounds like rat (not sure what it is exactly yet) the father is very unhappy at the idea of even a single rat in his house. And is just generally stressed about how others perceive him and his family 

-I should clarify that the rats aren’t actual rats. They are a kind of fae that look like rats. I don’t know what their actual name will be. Maybe Meece? seems silly tho lol

-anyway, regardless they are often treated like rats. Mostly because they tend to live like regular rats so people often never find out they weren’t.

There are also a few staff members that live in the house.

-Right now there’s three or four. Two maids, a mage, and maybe a butler.

-the mage is the only one i’ve actually fleshed out lol. I have a doodle of him too, mostly because he’s a “dragon”

(why is the pic soo big jeez)

-okay he’s not a dragon he’s a koblod, but he is tall for one. And technically not a mage but a potion maker. Alchemist? I’m not sure what I what him to be referred to as lol

-used to be a traveler, going around and selling potions he made. He’s very skilled at what he does, but sometimes the potions wouldn’t be the safest. Because he’d scam people lmao

-despite this he was hired by the family to basically make bulk potions for them to sell so the father is free to make magic discoveries 

-he also ends up being the one the father sends to deal with the rats most of the time. So he ends up being the main antagonist

-due to koblods being cold blooded, his cloak has magic that keeps his temp regulated. The sun warms and the moon cools, both spread through the stars all over. (oh I just realized I drew suns on both shoulders oops)

-very grumpy. In general but he doesn’t particularly like his current situation but it’s the best he’s had.

And that’s about what I have so far. Hopefully i’ll have the ability to make the official designs/refs for these guys. They are haunting my brain and I want to make them physical lol

[theveryworstthing]

So over on patreon Trevor asked for my take on the Addams Family and I grew up LOVING the Addams family movies so here we are. Instead of doing a straight up style interpretation, I decided to do a full on design challenge, using the characters as bases to make a black southern gothic Addams au. I actually drew the kids first, using the character bases of Wednesday and Pugsley to create some delightful kiddos I'm calling Sunday and Blanche. I of course then redesigned Gomez and Morticia into Carlisle and Mortesha.

The Addams have a very specific high aristocratic goth aesthetic (they've got a butler and nobody really works among other things) so in this re-imagining I wanted to go with vibes that run a little more middle class/upper middle class.  I thought it would be interesting to think about what would be considered weird and off-putting in an entirely different culture, and how being a big ol' goth is way less controversial than it used to be.

I tried to keep this short (HAHAHAHAHAHA) so I didn't spin off into an essay about villain coded families, black people in the horror genre, and normalcy as it pertains to social survival, but just...bits of that are in these designs and lore. Keep that in mind.

Also I made the kids twins because they've flip flopped in age so much in different media and also twins run in my family (i'm the daughter of one). And let's face it, I'm pulling a lot of their southern gothic traits from living as a southern goth so *shrug*.

10 thousand pounds of lore incoming loooooooooool.

The Parents

From the moment he saw her he knew that there was a 50/50 chance of him either never making it out of that swamp alive or marrying the figure that was creeping out from under the distant willow tree in a black cocktail dress. The third time she found him trussed up in one of her traps, he complimented her rope work and asked if she'd like to go out sometime after his head wound stopped bleeding.

Or while it was still bleeding.

If she was into that.

Some kids and a mysteriously burnt down Piggly Wiggly later, their love is still as strong and inescapable as a bear trap in a sink hole.

Carlisle Guillermo (now Addams through marriage but I wanted to give him two first names for a name since Gomez has two last names) makes a vaguely described living practicing ‘law’ around town. A loophole king, people come to him from miles around with contracts signed in blood, fights over chunks of hair buried in their rivals’ yard, dehydrated primate hands, memories that seemed like dreams until the evidence of their happenings became too real, and other regular Legal Items asking for counsel which he is all too happy to give. For a price. Sometimes that price is a homemade pie and sometimes it’s a million dollars, depends on who you are. Whatever you’re asked to pay it’s worth that price, and if you try to scam him out of work or he just plain doesn’t like you? Well. He knows how to twist a contract better than anything at the crossroads.

And he always gets his due.

He doesn’t just serve the local (living)humans though, there are many things that need proper legal representation in this day and age. You wouldn’t believe how many city councils try to build on sacred burial grounds even after he lets them know that his ghostly clients are totally gonna haunt the FUCK out of the ensuing shitty condos and curse their families for all eternity. At least 50% of his energy goes towards dealing with real estate bullshit.

Carl is an excitable and good natured(?) man who loves his family, cigars, dancing, and his many knife-based hobbies. People find him very charming once they get past the feeling that they’re talking to a sultry gator badly disguising itself as a human. I didn’t put a ton of deep thought into designing him, mostly I wanted to make a middle aged dude who looked like he would have been voted ‘most likely to smooch the literal devil’ in high school. Tbh he probably has, but no demonic ex’s can compare to his lovely wife~

Mortesha Addams(her name was already perfect so I just tweaked it)is a woman of many talents. A self proclaimed homemaker, she prides herself on a greenhouse full of Concerning Foliage, a beautiful wasp apiary, and a coop full of what are probably chickens that she keeps for what are probably eggs. She’s also an avid creator of the outsider art that can be seen around the estate. She has taken on the family business of selling her homemade goods in a little stall by the road just outside the swamp with her mom, and makes pretty good money doing so. A surprising amount of poison gets bought in quaint southern towns.

Speaking of poison, people who come out to the edge of the swamp to buy it are usually carrying a lot of secrets around, and Mortesha knows most of them. It’s not like she pries the truth out of people, it just so happens that many nervous hellos eventually turn into the tragic backstory power hour if she’s alone with a client for long enough. She supposes that’s just how people are. Despite the fact that the Addams are very active in the community (whether the community likes it or not) she especially, as a direct descendant of the first Addams matriarch, is seen as…Well not an outsider because the community feels A Certain Way about outsiders and despite it all the Addams are their people, but maybe something like an exception. They feel like whatever weirdness they’re hiding can’t be weirder than any given Addams, so they get a little loose with their words.

This is amusing to her, since Addams’ don’t naturally keep the kind dramatic secrets that their surface level prim and proper neighbors do. It’s much more fun to openly talk about those things.

Do they have a sadly decrepit yet terrifying grandma up in the attic? Yeah, like three. They got a tv, all the creepy porcelain dolls they could want, and they’re close to family. Where do you keep your gram-grams?

Any bodies buried on the property? Yeah some, but most are thrown to the gators.

Any creeping through the balmy summer night with ill intentions? Yeah dude, everyone loves a nice family stroll.

What about dangerous forbidden love? If an adult Addams isn’t incorporeal then they’re either queer or in a torrid romance with some person/thing mysteriously drawn to that awful swamp. Sometimes both at the same time. Most times actually.

Mortesha would know.

The current head of the Addams family is just as outgoing as her husband but a lot quieter and harder to read. She never really seems to get mad about much and always has a genteel smile for everyone whether they deserve it or not. A seven foot tall human shaped “Oh, bless your heart”. A perfectly composed Lady even when she’s, oh I dunno, burning down a Piggly Wiggly. You know. A regular southern mom. Chat her up at the hair salon for 50% off a jar of wasp honey with your next purchase of a mysterious but foreboding packet of herbs.

Designing her was pretty easy because I just drew a lankier Grace Jones and called it a day. I had some problems with her outfit simply because if we were going HARD southern gothic then she’d probably be wearing a white/cream dress with a fuller skirt but I thought keeping the silhouette and the black was more important. She’s supposed to be an anti southern gothic southern gothic character anyway. A woman who looks like she has a million secrets who is actually the most open person you could meet. For better or worse. The red hair came from a coloring error that I really ended up liking (my mom had red hair her whole childhood that only darkened up in high school so I can buy that an Addams can be naturally fire engine red) and the veil was to get more of that classic Morticia silhouette in there.

The Children

Sunday and Blanche are the twin children of Carlisle and Mortesha Addams. Some say the Addams clan got their cursed homestead when a wealthy local businessman made a deal with the devil and lost, leaving his grand mansion to his least favorite maid and cutting his losses once he realized that the swamp would do everything it could to drag the house into the water and take what was owed with its horrible curse. Others say that the family has just always squatted there and no one really cares because man, fuck that particular swamp. Have you been in there? Absolute horror show.

Anyway.

Blanche is the more outgoing sibling and quite the engineer/mad scientist in the making. He started going grey at 2 weeks old but considering he was also rocking some extra fingers, toes, and a tiny tail (he takes after his dad), his parents just put it on the 'not life threatening' pile and decided not to worry about it. He's the kind of smart that teachers find utterly infuriating, less a dog eagerly learning and obeying commands and more a hyena who keeps teaching itself how to pick locks. He has a few friends in his school's robotics club (which they honestly allowed him to make so the school could contain his... creations) but mostly hangs out with his sister exploring the swamp. They find all sorts of neat things in there! wedding rings, suspiciously lumpy garbage bags, cloaked cultists who can't read private property signs, it's an adventure every day!

Blanche is all about experimentation with his creations, his look, and his tether to this mortal coil. Is lipstick a cool thing to try? Let's find out. Can he get out of a strait jacket fast enough after being pushed into the depths of the swamp by his sister? let's find out. He's not dead yet and confused local doctors can attest to the fact that he's rarely attained more than a bad bruise so he's pretty set on continuing to kiss rattlesnakes on their cute little heads and have his sister practice her knife throwing at him until that fact changes.

Blanche is very much a country goth. Cowboy boots (customized by his mom), knife, and lighter are daily accessories. He likes to wear the crusty swamp jewelry they find (the rust adds a splash of color!) and despite appearances he does try to keep himself neat. He's just got  natural Grunge Colors and a tendency to wear clothes he likes until they fall apart. Pugsley always seemed the most modernly styled to me (which might just be because little boys clothes have been the same for a long time) so I wanted Blanche to be the most purposely fashionable Addams. Everyone else is goth by nature, but he's the only one truly familiar with goth as an alternative fashion.

I got really into designing Blanche because honestly, I find Pugsley to be the most boring member of the family. And he was hard to design! I had to mess with his vibe a lot to get him looking how I wanted. I know he's supposed to evoke an " 'evil' little boy next door who's parents never reign him in", but that's just goth Dennis The Menace.  I's 2020. We can at least go queer goth Calvin.

Sunday was much easier to design. Wednesday was my favorite as a child (of course) and I really wanted to keep the spirit of her look while adding things like billowy sleeves (it gets HOT down here), big poofy twists instead of braids, and a nice tie. She's a professional after all, been running the local pet cemetery since she was 6 and the previous groundskeeper met with an unfortunate accident after telling her that tarantulas don't have souls. Her specialty is creating beautiful naturalistic animal funerals similar to those that Maquenda (https://linktr.ee/artofmaquenda) makes, and she takes pride in creating miniature dioramas of her subjects after each burial which she uses as a kind of 3D catalog for future clients.

She really wants to try out her skills on humans one day. Well. Publicly try out her skills. Lotta random bodies float into the swamp. None of them have turned down her requests for diorama models so far. Most seem downright flattered. Plus, she usually figures out which graveyard/crime scene they floated over from and gets her parents to give them a lift back. She'll even help enact terrifying revenge from beyond the grave on whoever put them there if she's not, y'know, busy.

Besides arts, crafts, and pet based funerary arrangements, Sunday is an avid lover of archery (any ranged weapon really), books where little fantasy adventure animals die dramatic deaths, and history. She is That Kid who eagerly raises her hand when asked who Christopher Columbus was and ends up being sent out of class after 15 minutes for making 'a scene'. Her favorite party trick is just picking an item in the room and talking about how it relates to either some obscure historical figure with a buck wild life or a horrible disaster. At least one charity pancake breakfast ended with children in tears after her vivid description of the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

Social-wise, while Wednesday is the girl that people ask to smile because they think she'd, "look so pretty", Sunday is rarely asked anything at all. People just kind of assume from her quiet nature (in between horrible history facts) that she's angry all the time and that she hates everyone. This is untrue. She hates some people but she's ambivalent to most everyone else and even downright friendly if you bother to talk to her like a person instead of a terrifying cryptid. Like, she IS a terrifying cryptid but she's also a little girl.  

That’s about it for now. One day I might do the other family members but for now I’m happy with the four I’ve redesigned. Making an au! Lurch in a family that doesn’t do butlers could be interesting. Over on patreon I put forth that he could just be Motesha’s mute little brother (similar bone structure) but Amy Crook had the nice idea of quote: “ a mysterious "cousin" that "helps around the house" whose origins are both long in the past and faintly unsettling. He's good for lifting heavy things, like that tank of propane you're about to throw into the burning Piggly Wiggly... “ which i now consider canon. Who's kid is he? How old is he? Not important. Anyone willing to commit arson with you is family.

Annnnyway.  This challenge was a lot of fun! I love indulging in AU’s.

[ruinaimagines]

Can you do headcanon of Der freischütz being partner with the employee he really trust with, like being best friend?

Mist man! Unless that wispy appearance is more solid or fire-like? Either way, here you go with some hcs. Hope you enjoy, and thank you for your request!

Der Freischütz with an Employee Partner/Best Friend:

In Der Freischütz’s flavor text it does say that he doesn’t remember anything positive, but I’m going to say that doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t experience it. I think it’s more that he no longer knows the word and classifications for what he defines as positive, rather than incapability to feel it.

It’s a rare thing, few and far between, but he knows it’s not negative, he knows it’s not a bad feeling. It’s like fondness, but he doesn’t know that it’s called that, so instead it’s just sort of this vague ‘not negative’ feeling.

He may not feel as strong of emotions as before, but it’s not as though they’re all gone. I just think that they’re very stifled, and mellowed out. A big part of this contributes to his patient and calm personality.

He’s not one to underestimate or irritate, but it will take a lot to actually get him annoyed. Not that I recommend trying. It’s equally disrespectful and dangerous to attempt something like that.

I believe that he’d grow some form of ‘attachment’ to employees who frequently visit him and respect his boundaries. I put attachment in quotes, because he doesn’t really know it’s that, it just feels like he’s more inclined to listen to them and learn more about them.

He’s actually a bit stubborn. Unlike some of the other silent abnormalities, he just straight up ignores people sometimes. If he doesn’t know them enough yet, or it’s just a topic he couldn’t be bothered to care about he will just sort of check out.

It’s not like anyone’s gonna be able to tell the difference anyways. He always remains in the same still, quiet, observing pose unless he’s using his gun. Though you might get an idea on how he feels about you depending on if you get a good or bad result.

I think he’d also be particularly interested in someone who had also been the reason for why they had lost certain loved ones. It doesn’t necessarily mean the loved ones had to have died, but perhaps they got angry and left because of your own fault.

While not the same, I think he could relate and connect a bit between how his own selfishness has led to the situation he’s in at the moment. I think he’d also find it a bit interesting that you’re so openly discussing this. Many people hide behind their mistakes, not bring them up as a talking point.

Honestly even if it isn’t something to do with losing someone you cared about, just bringing up a mistake in general that you made and being upfront about how it was your fault and how you intend to improve may interest him.

You’ll know you’re doing something right when he gives you his E.G.O gift. Shortly after, management assigns you to the appropriate gear and weapon, and you’re able to come into the containment room and share your matching outfit in all its glory!

Even if he isn’t the most responsive you don’t take it as an insult, you weren’t expecting some giant reaction.

I think that he may hand out his hand and motion towards your weapon at some point. It sort of comes out of nowhere and you need to take a minute to realize he’s pointing at your gun, but when you do you hand it over.

He lifts it up to inspect it, seeming to compare it to his own weapon in both size and similarity to design. He’s careful with it, and it’s honestly quite similar to his own besides a part or two and some alterations in color choice. That, and the fact it is much shorter.

Before he hands you your weapon back I think he’d actually let you take hold of his own. Compared to you it’s extremely long, and you couldn’t really see yourself actually using it functionally on the battlefield, but it’s an honor that he’d let you hold onto it in the first place.

I think this would be one of the biggest indicators of trust he has for you. That weapon is extremely powerful to take hold of, and his prized possession, so if he’s letting you see it then he definitely has some form of favor towards you.

While he eventually swaps the weapons back, taking his own and giving you yours, I don’t think that would be the end of the surprising and almost uncharacteristic actions he has to offer.

Lobotomy Corporation surely offers some form of training before an agent is given an E.G.O weapon of varying types. It would be reckless to send someone out who doesn’t even know the potential and danger they have within their hands after all. But I still think Der Freischütz would offer his own form of ‘training’.

By this I mean that he would help you with your position and method of holding the weapon. He’d do this by holding you in place and helping raise the rifle and your limbs to the correct areas they go.

And it actually helps out! Even if you weren’t bad beforehand, taking advice from the abnormality that the E.G.O was actually sourced from helps quite a lot. It may be a bit of a gradual process, but it pays off.

I think it’s obvious to everyone at this point except himself that you’re the favorite. I mean between the offers to help that haven’t been observed with anyone else, and you in general just getting a better reaction from him than anyone else, it’s clear where his preference lies.

If ever you’re in danger from a breached abnormality and nearing a critical state, you notice that there just coincidentally happens to be a blue portal that opens up and a bullet that shoots through your enemy.

Much to the manager’s dismay his cliphoth counter seems to conveniently lower whenever you could use some help. From this, there just happens to be a luckily positioned bullet that passes through and hits whatever is harassing you at the moment.

This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if he didn’t have a general disregard for the other employees. While you are spared, he has killed clerks and agents in the process as the magic bullet passes through the hallways.

I’m assuming that because he has the ability to summon a portal exactly where you request in the game that he has some form of omnipotent overview of the facility. Enough to know vaguely what’s going on at least.

You’ll thank him for the help, but also probably bring up how he should try not to hit the other workers. He does not take note of this and continues doing it anyway.

Besides this though you’ve noticed you can actually ask him manually to help too. Maybe it’s not you in danger, but a friend of yours. He’s willing to comply as long as you give him the details with really no cost at all. There’s no energy consumed from it, it’s just something of his own volition.

I don’t know to what extent the portal-like magic he has functions, if he can use it as a means of transport himself, or if it’s something that purely serves useful for his rifle. That said, I believe Der Freischütz would be willing to show you any other ways he used it if you asked nicely.

Even if it’s not something that can be utilized or useful to you, it’s still a mythical sight with the electric blue color it lights up.

[spectral-kitkat]

Miraculous Rant.

Where the hell do I begin…

Season 1:

The show was decent in season 1. Some episodes were just mindless filler and probably weren’t needed in the grand scheme of things but they helped us get introduced to the characters, we got to know the plot and the world our characters inhabit. It was good. The love story between Adrien and Marinette was cute and off to a touching and fluffy start.

Season 2:

This season was immediately better than season 1. It had character development, it went more into detail about the lore surrounding the Miraculous and we got to learn more about our characters and their families and the villian’s motives. (HM really went from “I wanna destroy the world” to “I wanna wake my wife from the coma she’s in”).

We got to see new heroes which was fun! We got new characters like Luka and Kagami.

The season finale was epic! The Miraculous team all taking down all the previous villains in the show was awesome. At the end we even got Mari kissing Adrien on the cheek. It was great! (Even though it clearly reset itself in season 3 cause it’s never mentioned again)

I really enjoyed season 2 and it’s probably my favourite out of the 4.

Season 3:

Season 3 was kinda good and kinda bad. We had some great episodes but this is where the show took the wrong turn.

Marinette lost some of her character in season 3. This was the start of her descent into being the Queen of Mary Sues. It’s also where she was crowned the Queen of Stalkers! Her character took a fucking nose dive in this season. We had so many moments that just creeped me the fuck out.

1. The ENTIRETY of Puppeteer 2 🤢🤢🤢 I could not stand that episode. When we reached the dreaded statue scene I physically had to pause it like 10 times. That scene takes about 3 minutes to watch… it took me about 20. I cringed so fucking hard because of the secondhand embarrassment I was feeling. That was not sweet, it wasn’t romantic, it wasn’t the least bit cute… it was a train wreck! It was creepy and stalkerish and it’s a wonder Adrien even spoke to her again after that atrocity!

2. LB delivering the present in Chat Blanc. Two words: STALKER BEHAVIOUR!!! I genuinely could not believe my eyes when I saw LB run her hand across everything in his room and then actually SNIFF Adrien’s pillow. Like WTF!!! ��� I’m pretty sure whoever was responsible for that scene clearly thought it was the equivalent of when someone gets their S/O’s jumper or something and it still smells like them. But this turned it up to the nth degree and way passed the line of sanity.

Adrien was extremely under-utilised in this season. He didn’t really do anything. The only episodes we got about him didn’t really focus on him. ‘Felix’ whilst focusing on Adrien’s family didn’t really feature him. ‘Party Crasher’ while a beautiful mess was more about Mari trying to get into the party than the party itself. ‘Chat Blanc’ again focused more on Mari trying to fix her mistake.

We got even more heroes in season 3, not in the right order but they were there. It was fun seeing everyone’s transformations.

Season 3 was also the season of destroying redemptions. The big one obviously being Chloe. Season 2 was setting up this amazing redemption for her and before it could go anywhere it was wiped off the face of the earth during the finale (and don’t worry we’ll get to that dumpster fire later). Gabriel also had any remaining sympathy ripped away from him. How did the guy who stopped Gorizilla from letting Adrien die when he only thought he was CN go from that to using his son like fucking baseball in Chat Blanc when he knew his son was CN. Like I knew you were a shit father but you still cared about Adrien in some way shape or form but after that episode I can see I was clearly mistaken!

Before we get to the finale I want to talk about probably my 2 least favourite episodes from this season: Desperada and Reflekdoll

Desperada:

I fucking hated this episode! The only good thing was Luka getting to be Viperion, other than that this episode was awful!

Marinette was a selfish cringey bitch. Completely ignoring Luka to gush about Adrien to Jagged. Brushing Luka off as soon as Adrien turns up. Immediately cuddling up to Aspik and flirting with him when she needed to focus on the akuma (something which she has told CN not to do many times before)

Adrien, I love you kid but Jesus Christ you were a dumbass in this episode! Aspik’s design was terrible! Aspik himself was awful. I know Adrien tried his best but dude you were given the Black Cat miraculous for a reason! He shouldn’t have tried to be Aspik but even when he did he should’ve called it quits after like 5 resets not 25,913 times.

The only person with a brain this episode was Luka. So well done guitar boy, gold star!

Reflekdoll:

This episode was annoying! It was basically the start of the Marinette can do no wrong streak! When they have to swap miraculous I was happy cause it meant we got to see new outfits and see how they each handle the different powers. It would also serve as a way to get LB and CN to see what their partners role is first hand. Until we actually get to it…

LadyNoire is of course amazing and needs no introduction to using this new miraculous that she’s never used before. She’s cocky and confident and basically just LB in Chat’s costume with his powers.

Mister Bug on the other hand is just useless. He struggles with this new miraculous (like anyone would!) and is stupid and goofy. He has to rely on LadyNoire to solve the lucky charm. They swapped miraculous so shouldn’t that mean that Mister Bug should get the lucky vision and the creative powers that the earrings give him.

Overall Reflekdoll is awful. It was shitty writing and the start of Adrien getting the short end of the stick.

And now the season 3 finale… Just what the fuck. That is my only reaction: what the fuck!

Chloe you poor fucking child! What did they do to you!!! So much potential SQUANDERED!!!!

What was the point in bringing in all these different superheros with unique skill sets, costumes and transformations if you were just going to immediately reveal them to the main villian so they can’t be used again. That’s stupid! If you wanted the shock value that is “Oh no HM knows some of the heroes identities!” Then keep it as only some. Have like Max, Kim and Kagami outside trying to find somewhere to hide but unfortunately they get hit. Or Nino and Alya are hiding but the windows open and they get hit. Have some of the heroes hide so they’re fine! Taking away every ally of LB and CN’s was a stupid move! (Even if they wanted Alya to become a spy have her as part of the like 4 that get revealed or something, it’s not that difficult)

Season 3 was 50/50 for me

Season 4:

So I know season 4 isn’t even halfway through yet but so much is wrong with this season already that I need to vent!

So my biggest problem with this season of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybitch and Rena Rouge, I mean Rena Furtive… shit, Chat Noir! Is that CN is basically pointless! Adrien has been flung over a rainbow and is only remembered when he’s needed as

1. Marinette’s love interest

2. Someone for LB to shout at

3. A plot device

He has basically been sidelined. Partners my ASS!!!

Adrien is being blown off by pretty much EVERYONE! It’s coming to a point where this poor sweet summer child is going to crack! And it is not gonna be pretty… I definitely feel like the writers are leading up to a big fight between CN and LB which will probably end with Chat Blanc 2.0.

I REALLY HATE MARINETTE/LADYBUG!!!! In Season 3 I said it was the beginning of her descent, well in season 4 she’s done it. She’s descended, she has hit rock fucking bottom. She is so unlikable I don’t actually care about her as a person. She has entered full blown stalker territory it’s only a matter of time before she starts killing people for even looking at Adrien! Not to mention that Miss Mary Sue here can’t do anything wrong! She never has to suffer the consequences of her actions, she is always perfect no matter what she does… it pisses me off!)

She’s the Guardian now big whoop. I know what it feels like to be stressed and under pressure so I do understand why she needed to tell someone about it all. I just don’t see why that person had to Alya! Especially considering she has someone by her side every akuma attack going through pretty much the exact same thing. I know she’s worried about CB happening again but as I said before the more she leaves him out the more she is actually pushing that to become a possibility! Plus it makes sense for them to reveal their identities now since LB is now the guardian it’s probably a good idea to know who holds the cat miraculous, she knows everyone else’s identities!

Even if she didn’t want to tell CN her identity she could still explain the situation to him. If she didn’t want to tell him anything (which she doesn’t anyway) then instead of Alya she should’ve talked to Luka! Her boyfriend for all of half an episode (thanks writers…). He’s so sweet and caring and clearly loves her so much! If she wanted someone to confide in then why not choose the person you clearly wanted to date but couldn’t because of that very reason! (Yeah I know it’s kinda a moot point now since Luka knows both identities but still). He wanted to try and comfort her so it would’ve been the perfect moment for it. That way you could still date him and he’d know why you had to suddenly leave dates halfway through! But no break the boys heart instead!

Adrien and Marinette were both such fucking idiots in the first 2 episodes. Like why would you start a relationship with someone when you know your heart isn’t in it! That’s called leading someone on and is a really shitty thing to do to someone! No wonder Kagami and Luka ended up akumatized!

Another aspect of season 4 I don’t like is Rena Furtive. Yes ok having a spy for your side is a good strategy but when said spy basically tells an important member of a duo that the 2 person job doesn’t involve them… it just really ticks me off! Alya you are the sidekick to LB and CN! Chat isn’t!

Miraculous specials:

The Miraculous World specials suck! Shanghai is better than NY but still has its problems. Both specials add nothing to the overall plot/lore of the show apart from trying to set up some weird cinematic universe…

NY special:

One of the worst things I’ve ever had to sit through! The plane scene alone I paused a few times. I want to say well done to Mari for trying to move on from Adrien (especially considering I’m pretty sure she’s dating Luka at this point) but I can’t help but think it’s just to give her character some pointless development that goes nowhere and doesn’t actually develop anything!

LB can pretty much fuck off at this point! I hate her! She put all this shit on CN (like she doesn’t know exactly how that feels). It’s like why does she get to go off on holiday but CN can’t. LB should’ve stayed in Paris for 3 reasons:

1. She’s recently become the guardian meaning it would probably be best that she stayed with the Mircle Box

2. She’s the only one who can purity the akumas

3. If she’s so sure about being the boss then she should take responsibility of Paris and the citizens.

What really pisses me off about her is what she says to CN during the big fight. “I can’t trust you”… surely you could have this conversation afterwards since you’re supposed to be focusing on taking down the villian! Plus everyone bashes Adrien for giving his miraculous up in this episode but look at it from his point of view: His partner and best friend just said she couldn’t trust him which in turn caused him to cataclysm someone and essentially kill them. That’s gonna take a toll on anyone, especially a 14 year old! He probably thought in that moment. “Ladybug needs a partner she can trust and someone who won’t mess up and kill someone. She needs a better partner.” It makes sense he renounces his miraculous! I’m just upset that in doing so he loses Plagg who is pretty much his only friend who actually understands what Adrien goes through at home.

When Uncanny gets CN to come back, LB acts like it’s not her fault in the first place that he feels inadequate! She didn’t even apologise for saying what she did! He apologised for lying about not being in Paris but nope LB wasn’t in the wrong at all and didn’t have anything to apologise for 🙄… (yes the LadyNoir hug was amazing but I just wish it was under different circumstances!)

Also are we not gonna mention Gabriel Agreste almost starting WW3??? He wanted to launch a fucking missile!!!

Shanghai:

As I said before, this special is way better for several reasons.

We got MariChat! (Best side to the love square imo). This special actually had some semblance on a plot. Fei, whilst a bit op, was a cool character. It was nice to see Wang Cheng again.

However once again there were many problems.

A big one being Marinette yet again! (What a shock! 😒 I’ll come back to this). Another was that once again HM’s motivation has changed. How is getting the Prodigious gonna help bring back Emilie??

Back to Marinette… The fact that the words “Huh?! There must be some kind of mistake! I always know what's up with Adrien! … His 5 first names and every corresponding name date, his yearly schedule, even his shoe size! If there were anything to know about him, I would know it!” come out of her mouth whilst she is flipping through his schedule that she keeps in her pocketbook is a hugh red flag!!! That is not cute or adorable! That’s messed up and Adrien needs to fucking run and maybe possibly go into witness protection… Marinette is a full blown stalker! Not to mention the GPS she has (that could just be the find my friends app on iphone but still).

It also is extremely rude of her to use not only her great uncle’s birthday but also a lie about wanting to know her Chinese heritage in order to go to Shanghai to stalk her obsession, I mean crush. This could’ve been avoided if the Dupain-Chengs were going to Shanghai for the purpose of celebrating Wang Cheng’s bday and then Adrien just so happened to be in Shanghai.

Also this means LB left Paris without telling CN! I know CN did the same but again he can’t purify the akumas. Plus he has a reason he couldn’t stay in Paris, Mari just went cause her crush did. Great guardianship there Marinette.

This was also the last time CN actually did something. Even if it was for a short while before LB and her female partner took over (the beginning of a theme…)

Other things:

There are 2 other things that I wanna say but felt they needed a separate bit.

In Furious Fu, Su-Han has a rule book that he uses to tell Marinette which rules she has broken. At the end of the episode he tells her that is she breaks 1 more rule that he will take the Miraculous and the Miracle Box off her, which fair enough but wouldn’t it be helpful to leave the rule book with her?! How can she be wary of not breaking anymore rules when she doesn’t even know what the rules are??

Now the big one: Master Fu…

Where do I even start with him. He is so fucking manipulative!! He is Asian Dumbledore!

He decides to leave these extremely powerful jewels in the hands of 13 year olds! Surely leaving the miraculous to someone in their 20s would’ve been better!

He clearly favours LB over CN even though the Ladybug and Black Cat are supposed to be partners! Wouldn’t it make sense for them both to be in contact with the guardian from the start?? He randomly started introducing rules such as if LB and CN find out each other’s identities they would lose their miraculous… what kind of bullshit rule is that? It also came out of fucking nowhere!

Final Thoughts:

But to summarise all of that: Miraculous is on quite a steep decline but I’m invested at this point and I am genuinely curious as to where the fuck this will go.

Marinette needs professional fucking help before the writers even consider canonising Adrienette cause at the moment she is not what Adrien needs!

Adrien needs to stand up for himself! He needs to pull LB to the side and tell her what he feels and what he’s going through cause he is on the precipice of a breakdown!

(Small point that’s more to do with the fandom: when searching for fanfics it’s really annoying that Adrien Agreste/Chat Noir Bashing is a tag but Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Ladybug Bashing isn’t. Why does everyone think Marinette can do no wrong???)

[being-of-rain]

Some thoughts from my Classic Who watch, the second half of season 19.

I didn’t know much about The Visitation apart from the Sonic Screwdriver gets destroyed and the Doctor and co help start the Great Fire of London (which are surely two of the most referenced events in Doctor Who, if the Big Finish main range is to judge). So I was pleasantly surprised when the serial started with some solid emotional continuity and drama. The Doctor telling off Adric (”Poor Adric, always in trouble.” Not enough if you ask me), Tegan dealing with the Mara controlling her, then with preparing to leave, then with finding once again that the Tardis has failed her. Her fight with the Doctor is a great airing of grievances, and the actors are great. Oh, and there’s a decent reason given for Tegan wearing her outfit in this one too: once again she thinks that she’s going to arrive at her job. Later, Tegan and Adric work together to escape the basement (and are also hilarious when they still can’t communicate too effectively) which is nice since their relationship is the most strained and shows some great team growth. It’s just a shame Nyssa still doesn’t seem to have as interesting a connection with any of the rest of the team. In this story she spends about an episode in the Tardis working on a sonic weapon. Though when she uses it against the android, she takes a minute to feel bad about destroying the robot, showing off how she’s probably the most similar of the companions to the Doctor. I guess the Doctor’s mild-mannered repressing and introspection is a lot more interesting when he has to deal with pressing responsibilities like piloting and promises and mentorship. Adric also actually apologises for telling the baddies about the Tardis this time, which is nice. It’s hilarious that he decides to fly the Tardis into a locked house to help the Doctor, obviously just looking for a reason to take it for a spin, but it’s very impressive he pulls it off. It reminds me of how the Doctor assigned the team actual crew roles in Castrovalva, and how they’re actually a very technically competent. This Tardis team is almost the opposite to most others: extremely qualified but don’t really gel that well as people. Even after apologising at the start of this story and working together throughout, by the end they’re still snipping and irritating each other again. The Doctor seems really kind of pissed off in part 4, like repressing all his emotions is getting to him more than usual. The villains in this story have fantastic designs. The android looks cool as hell as Death (less so without his skeleton mask) and the Terileptils are neat alien designs. But special mention to the Terileptil leader! Villainising physical abnormalities sucks, but also he looks rad with his scars, plus his good voice and cape later on. HUGE rip to him at the end though, I was shocked and a bit grossed out by the effects of his face bubbling in the fire. Was that the goriest death in TV Doctor Who?? Final points: Mace was fun. I heard recently that the writer hated how he was acted, but I can’t really imagine what else he could have been picturing the character. And rip the sonic screwdriver. It’s hilarious that they destroyed it because they thought it was being overused when you compare back then to the show today. I feel like the Thirteenth Doctor used that thing instead of her eyes most of the time, though I’m sure other recent Doctors did the same. It’s a shame they couldn’t get away with destroying it again, since the Doctor has like 50 of them and the Tardis can make another one at the drop of a hat.

A 1920s manor mystery with added mistaken identity feels like a set-up designed to appeal to me, but Black Orchid didn’t really grab me. Probably it was partly because of the awkward foreign helper trope (although I guess it’s nice that Latoni seems to be more of a altruistic stranger than a devoted manservant?), and partly because at the time Sarah Sutton didn’t really feel talented enough to pull off the double role (sorry. It was nice to see Nyssa with a little bit of a sense of humour though). Random thoughts! Thank goodness the cricket game is a montage, those things are boring as heck. The Traken Union being called an Empire as interesting, and doesn’t do much for my opinion of Nyssa as the product of an entitled upper-class background. ‘The Unknown’ in the credits of part 1 is a very cool thing to be credited as. It’s extremely funny how the Doctor shows the police into his Tardis so he can get out of being arrested (It half feels like a cheat and half feels like something he should do all the time). Cutting between everyone dancing and having fun outside to the Doctor in a bathrobe stuck in the walls of the manor and back again is hilarious jlskdjflskj. And I hate to say this, but Adric is a big mood when he stays by the food table at the party.

I’m not really sure what my opinion is of Earthshock. In my head it’s like a sci-fi B-movie with lots of action, a plot that barely hangs together, and a melodramatic ending. Nothing too special. But I think I generally hear people in the fandom talk very highly of it. But maybe I’m being harsh, or it’s just not my thing. The drama works pretty well, with the Cybermen-related cliffhangers, and the Doctor attacking the Cyberleader so uncharacteristically aggresively. And the story felt extra tragic to me this time now that I’m watching the whole show. I’d remembered from previous watches that Adric and the Doctor had a fight about Adric wanting to go home, but I’d forgotten that they patched it up quite successfully by halfway through the story. It was some of the most open and expressive the Fifth Doctor has been so far, and the most agreeable and content that Adric has been. At the end of The Visitation I was convinced this Tardis team could never quite click together, but between Tegan saying she actually wants to stay at the start of Black Orchid and the Doctor and Adric actually communicating in Earthshock, it felt like the team were finally properly getting along. Which felt like such a tragedy when I knew what state they’d all be in by the end of the series. Tegan went full laser-blasting action hero against the Cybermen in this one. I’m glad there was echoes of that in The Power of the Doctor. And has anyone in the EU ever explained why the spaceship went back in time? It’s hilarious how that just has no reasonable explanation at all in the episode.

I went into Time-Flight thinking ‘I don’t remember much of this serial, is the Master’s disguise really as racist as people say?’ Oh god. It really, really is. And for what POSSIBLE reason does the Master even have for his whole set-up in the past? This whole story feels like a mess to me honestly, and I know I’m not the first to say that. I mean what aesthetic were they going for? Concords on a featureless prehistoric Earth, with a smothering of orientalism. It just doesn’t feel coherent, not even in a way that Dr Who often does when it throws together elements from contrasting parts of history just for fun. This one just doesn’t grab me gang. The Doctor does some hardcore repressing in this one after Adric dies. He tries so hard to move on so quickly. And he pretty much succeeds in convincing Nyssa and Tegan to do the same, because I don’t think Adric is mentioned the rest of the story except for when a psychic image of him appears for a minute. I’m so glad that Scott Handcock did an arc of audios about how Five does a lot of unhealthy repressing about Adric’s death, because he so needed some therapy about it. Narratively, I do love that the Tardis takes the team to Heathrow now. Not only because of the irony of Tegan having just given up getting there (Her line “I never thought I'd say this, but let's get out of here!” made me laugh a lot), but also because it should force the team to make a conscious decision about what they do next- does Adric’s death mark the end of their time together or do they think their bonds could grow stronger by getting through the grief together? If the story was made today it would be emotional and have some very interesting introspection for the characters, and you can see a hint of that near the end with Tegan looking at the flight times and making her decision to stay with the Doctor. But it’s rather undercut by the Doctor leaving her behind for no discernible reason. Once again, I have to ask what they were going for with that. We see the Doctor ask Nyssa where Tegan is, then in his next scene he and Nyssa duck into the Tardis and then it disappears. Did he forget about Tegan? Did he think she was onboard? Did he decide to make the decision for her to make it easier? Did he think she already had made her decision? Did he simply not want her back (he clearly isn’t happy about it at the end of the next story)? Did Nyssa get any say in this? Is it supposed to be ambiguous? I haven’t a clue. Looking it up on the Tardis wiki, apparently a Past Doctor Adventure novel is set right after Time-Flight. I really want to read that now, I’d be fascinated to see if it actually gives an answer to why the Doctor left, because as far as I know, no TV or audio story has attempted to address it.

So yeah, I’ve finally made up my mind on the s19 Tardis team, now I see them as a bit of a tragedy: a group who had the potential to become quite close, but didn’t get enough time for that. Maybe the drama of the season and the trauma of it ending made the Doctor jump at the chance to cut Tegan out, even if he could justify it to himself, because deep down he wanted a much simpler and ideal life: exploring the universe with the ward who’s most like him, scientifically curious and well-mannered. There’s potential for a good meaty story there, if the Doctor and his companions were forced to face that choice instead of ignoring it.

[instarlightss]

Mon Mothma’s Costume design + Imagrey

https://instarlightss.tumblr.com/post/700046041131646977/now-that-its-established-that-vel-is-mon

“I'm really glad you noticed that because it was really one of the things that really appealed to me about this project, was this idea of disguises and all the main characters really, Mon Mothma, Cassian, and Bix, they're all using their clothes to hide their true selves because they're living in a world where it's dangerous for them to reveal their true natures." -- Michael Wilkinson ; from the article on Collider.com entitled,  “How ‘Andor's Costumes Hides Its Characters’ True Nature”

The same article said that Wilkinson designed his worlds to have specifics color palettes, one of them of Chandrulian tastes of Champagne, muted metallic colors, and a range of dusty blues. I’m very curious if the blue is to denote, based on whom we have seen it on such as Ledia, Perrin, Tay Kolma etc, an upper class. Or is to denote a Heraldic color? Expanding on some of my initial thoughts about costume design, particularly now in reference to the quote and how Mon Mothma is hiding her true self. Previously, I've said how her other looks this season which feature structured and highly tailored outfits of layers of wools, against silk. Cohesively the outfits are polished and the style lines of the garments are so precise that they will match from one layer to the other. As such, she favors high rolled necklines on her outwear and the necklines underneath are equally high. It give the impression of armor. 

On formal occasions, she covered head to toe and dawns the Chandrullian crest brooch, which really adds to the imagery of armor. For example; at her introduction in 1.04, Mothma wears a light bolero, with a coat and a high collared silk down with pleated detailing and fingerless gloves. 

It is a particularly lovely detail, which feels very much a haute couture nod, to have the style lines that is the seams of the bolero match perfectly transition into the seam placement of the wool. The bolero has sleeves that are a combination of a tulip and longer flutter, where the shape of the hemline is opposite of the sleeve beneath it. It looks exquisite. She mentions on the arrival how she was on the way to the Senate, and we will see this outfit later in Senate scenes. 

She’s dressed for battle. 

Mon Mothma color palette traditionally consist of Champagnes and the faintest tints of colors. Symbolically, she stays subdued so that her carefully crafted persona as the Senator from Chandrila take center stage. For example, when she is in the Senate she dawns the dusty blue outerwear. Again, the collars stand both tall, proud and integrate in with each other. The style lines also rather stunning garment. Most of Mon Mothma’s costuming makes me really want to search for a local program where I can take a Haute Couture sewing techniques class. 

WILKINSON: “Well that's where it's really important to collaborate with the production designer. I had such an enjoyable time working with Luke Hull, our incredible production designer, and we were in each other's pockets about color palettes and what I just was talking about, the cultures, the climate, the materials that they would have at hand to build their worlds, their interiors, and their architecture, and their clothing. So we really dialed that down quite closely. And so we were always working together. I think you can see it really clearly in places like the embassy where Mon Mothma is just a beautiful sea of creams, and ivories, and oyster tones, and it came together really nicely.”

Her brightest color thus far is for her second party, the texture and color of the fabric remind me of a burnished metal.  The first party gown had very similar feeling, with a hammered Satin fabric. It seems a very apt kind of compassion, as Mothma too is being forged by fire.

In 1.09, Mon perhaps one of her most casual outfits of the season. The garment reads within a more modern fashion sensibility and context as a housecoat. It is designed to be less structured, and cut of  softer fabrics which lends to the  informality.  It’s for lounging and visiting family. ( Despite being trimmed with rhinestones.) She wears it when both Vel and Tay Kolma visit. Among these select few she is less guarded.  

Visually, I think it is an interesting that the styling and colors of Mothma compliments Vel’s outfit, and they are seated the closest. Mothma has a very physical divide between herself and her daughter. An even further one with Perrin who is nearly seated at the opposite end of the table. Although to be fair, I cannot fault anyone for wanting to sit close to Perrin. 

Her outfit in 1.10 a return to the more structured looks. Previously she expressed her disdain with having to meet this particular “banker” and just as offensive, meeting him in her apartments. Again it is a sharp look with the high collared silk gown, her coat has an East Asian influence as much of the formalwear does, and the golden accents about her middle resembles an obi. It is not necessarily as layered her outfits for the Senate but Mon has every reason to be guarded around this choice company. 

If Cassian’s costumes are visually going on a journey that parallels him becoming the equally guarded person into the Captain we know and love, Mothma’s are following the same route. She will be reshaped into the woman who wears a simple poncho and brown dress with shortly cropped hair Rogue One.

[junicai]

Aria at Award Shows

Iconic Outfits

2020 AAAs NCT Daesang Award  

Peoples’ jaws dropped when they saw Aria sidle up alongside the other 23 boys, strolling out like she owned the building. The heels gave her enough height to be nearly level with Renjun - something she wouldn’t let the boy forget - her hair dyed back to a natural black like it had been during NCT2020 promotions. It was rare that Aria didn’t look slightly apprehensive about stepping out onto a red carpet, but the confidence was rolling off her in waves. As she walked, the slit in the dress seemed to keep on going, trailing up her leg and changing the otherwise classy dress into something that left the innocent bystanders in the first row suffering from a high chance of a heart attack.

tldr; Aria’s hot and people are Noticing.

2019 Show Champion NCT 127 ‘Superhuman’ 

NCT’s second win with Superhuman left a huge divide in nctzens; a rift between those who were ot21 stans and ot22 stans (sans and plus Aria). Up until then, there had been rumors around whether Aria was to leave NCT now that there was a new girl group supposedly debuting under SM. Their management team had refrained from publishing a response - but that only lead fans to create their own speculations and theories. This outfit played perfectly into the growing rumor; with the large circular pendant on Aria’s bracelet having two chrysanthemums etched into the gold. The flower symbolized happy endings and goodbyes, with nctzens taking this as the proof that Aria was truly set to leave NCT in the coming months. 

tldr; nctzens need to learn how to Chill.

2017 M! Countdown NCT 127 ‘Cherry Bomb’

Unfortunately, this era was the cause of a lot of strife for Arizens; the stylists either hit it out of the park and Aria was drop dead stunning - or she ended up looking a little like a bratz doll a toddler had gotten their hands on. Unfortunately for Aria, their first win with ‘Cherry Bomb’ left pictures of her in a plastic, obviously dyed blue skirt and cherry pink hair to match immortalized on the internet forever. 

tldr; arizens hoped that her stylist got fired after this era. the plastic skirt wasn't the worst thing they'd done.

Other Iconic Outfits

Seating Arrangements

Depending on the venue, idols are normally sat on straight rows of chairs and benches, or at round tables. Given the choice, Aria would always prefer to sit at one of the tables, as not only does it give her a chance to not have to worry about her legs being seen while being covered by the tablecloth - if there is one - but it lets her keep everyone sitting near her in her direct line of vision. 

However, should she have to sit in one of the main rows, she’ll normally end up squished beside one of three boys - Donghyuck, Yuta and/or Renjun. Should one of those three be unaviliable, Doyoung and Jeno are usually quick enough to fill in the empty space. 

Donghyuck would always be her first choice, was it not for the boy’s incessant energy that sometimes left her nerves fried before their performance. Most days she adored the company - adored him and his efforts to get her mind off their impending songs with various games and ways to pass the time (they're not allowed play footsie anymore though, because Aria stomped on his foot with her heel once) - but other days she just needed someone to hold her hand and say nothing. That’s where Yuta and Renjun come in.

As Aria’s found out over the years, for all the man’s tactile affection and loud displays of love, Yuta’s highly perceptive to when she needs some silent comfort. Now, she’s not sure if he’s that perceptive to everyone or just her - but either way she’s not complaining. 

With Dream, Renjun is the one she’ll sit with and doodle on the white napkins that are laid out on the table for lord knows what reason. After being bored out of their minds for their first few award shows, Renjun had snuck two black ballpoint pens into the venue in the inside of his red suit jacket. The drawings had become somewhat a tradition, and the best doodle normally is uploaded to bubble shortly after the show has ended. 

All in all, Aria’s normally quite content to sit in the centre of the large group of boys - split over several rows or tables, boisterous and bubbly with energy. The only real downside to it all is the lack of blankets available to protect her modesty once she is seated. 

Most venues split the idols fairly evenly between the boy and girl groups - with blankets being allocated especially for the seating of girl groups. This meant, unfortunately, that when NCT files into their seats and sits down, there is rarely something in the close vicinity that Aria can borrow quickly without causing a fuss.

Sometimes she gets lucky - other female idols might spot her and are normally kind enough to hand over one of their cushions or blankets, content to share with their neighboring member. Occasionally though, Aria has no such luck and is left to either pull down her dress multiple times per minute to cover the prickly feeling over the tops of her legs when she felt like eyes were boring into her, or wait for some kind of break so she could go find a spare covering.

Aria supposed after the third time something like that had happened, her members were getting fed up with it all. 

At first it was their plan B: should some type of cover-up not be available in their immediate vicinity, Johnny or Lucas or Jaehyun - once, even Dejun - or another member who ran hot near-constantly would shrug off their jacket and fold it over Aria’s legs, pulling it up and then lifting her hands to place them in her lap to hold their jacket there. 

Eventually it became their plan A however, now commonplace for Aria to go looking for the member who was wearing multiple layers and who wouldn’t suffer from the loss of their outermost one.  

Iconic Moments 

Twitter: [180821] and people rly say nct doesn’t care abt aria :/

Red carpets were always something to dread, in Aria’s eyes.

The cameras flashing bright enough to blind you, and the knowledge that if she stumbled or - god forbid - fell it would be immortalized forever on Koreaboo’s newest blog post. 

However the worst bit, was always the footwear. High, stiletto heels that left her teetering around on nothing more than her tippy-toes, precariously balanced as she made her way up and down stairs, over carpet and tiled flooring alike. 

Aria was used to wearing heels, but the one’s she performed in were usually fitted with various types of ankle support and a thick heel to give her balance. Wobbling around on a heel the same width of a piece of uncooked spaghetti was not something she’d willingly choose. 

Not to mention the blisters. 

Designer shoes were gifted to the company on a regular basis - shipped over just in time for Aria to slip into the pair before stepping out of the van into the sea of bright flashes and reporters. It always seemed like designers were too pre-occupied with making a shoe look good rather than making them actually wearable. 

The first time Aria had been gifted a set of heels - early 2018 - she made the mistake of assuming that they would be in similar comfort as her performance heels. 

Two hours later and with a wad of bloody tissue stuffed into the back of them, Aria had learnt her lesson. 

From then on, it was commonplace for Aria to bandage her heels before she went out to shows - not quite as heavily as she normally would for a performance, but just enough to stop the skin splitting under the constant abrasion. 

She’d only been caught out badly once - but it was all caught on camera by a fan sitting close by, and spread over twitter like wildfire. 

Aria had limped her way back over to where NCT 127 was sitting, lips pressed together in a tight line and hands clenched in the tight material of the leather trousers she had been given to wear. The trousers stopped a few inches above her ankles, so the red mess of her heels was clearly visible as she hobbled over and sat down with a thud onto the seat. 

Donghyuck placed a hand on Aria’s shoulder, leaning in so that he could see her face behind the curtain of hair that she had let fall to hide her tear-filled eyes from him. 

“Riri?” Donghyuck whispered to her, thumb beginning to rub soothing circles into her arm. “Hey, Riri? What’s going on?” 

Aria only shook her head, gesturing to the pair of torturous heels on her feet.

Donghyuck inhaled sharply when he saw the blood trailing up her leg and soaking into the back of the heel. He turned to his side to elbow Doyoung, grabbing his attention.

“Hyung. Hyung.” He hissed, Doyoung turning around with an over-exaggerated sigh. 

“No, Hyuck, I told you I’m not going to-” Doyoung cut himself off upon seeing Aria’s pain-filled face. “Aria? What’s wrong? What’s happened?” 

Donghyuck slid off his seat onto the ground despite Aria’s protests that the floor wasn’t clean, get up, and explained what had happened to his hyung. Sliding her heel off as slowly as he could to not pull at the skin more, he muttered apologizes to Aria as she inhaled a shaky breath before exhaling it on a small, wet cry. 

“Hyung, did you bring anything for Taeyong-hyung’s shoulder that we could use?” 

“Yeah, yeah I did give me two seconds.” Doyoung bent into the small bag that he had tucked underneath the seat, pulling out a length of bandage that was stowed away in the outermost pocket. 

Donghyuck took it from Doyoung’s hands with a small ‘thank you’, moving to kneel back down in front of Aria and taking her ankle back into his lap.

“Hyuck, no I got it, c’mon the ground isn’t clean-” 

He silenced her with a look. Aria settled back into her chair - defeated - and Donghyuck wrapped the bandage around her heel as quickly but as painlessly as he could manage. 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Twitter: [190323] HSHS ARIA IS A CARAT WE’VE WON LADIES N GENTS

Maybe Aria should have been paying more attention to the camera that was slowly panning around the idols, projecting their faces up onto a large screen beside the stage, but she was too engrossed in the current group’s performance. 

“그렇다고 네 맘이 작다는 게 아냐,” Swaying gently side to side and mouthing along to the lyrics, Aria was happy enough to smile along to the song and move her hands in a small mimickery of the choreography she’d taught herself off the group’s dance practice video she’d watched only a few dozen times. 

It wasn’t until Mark poked her in the side that Aria broke out from her own little bubble, twisting her head to look back at him and then up at the screen when he pointed. 

There, her face, staring back at her from the big screen was enough to make her mouth drop open a little bit and her eyes widen. She clapped a hand to her mouth before turning to hide her face in Jaehyun’s shoulder, shaking with embarassed laughter. 

Aria could hear Taeyong’s teasing laugh in return, before a hand came and ruffled the hair on top of her head, that she swatted away.

--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Twitter: [170911] lmao same aria

Aria knew she was there. 

She knew that she was sitting right there and that she was in one of those really skimpy dresses stylists loved to put girls in because apparently female idols don’t deserve modesty and Aria knew that she had a blanket for once and she should share it but oh my god.

It was Chungha.

Aria was going to pass out. 

Taking side glances every few seconds only confirmed the fact that Chungha was pulling down her dress to cover as much of her legs as possible, tucking her ankles together and underneath the seat.

Ok.

Ok, she could do this. 

Aria took a steeling breath, before shifting on her seat to face Chungha on more of a diagonal. She lifted her hand before lowering it slighly, looking away. 

Should she- no ok she’s doing this. 

Without giving herself time to talk herself out of it, Aria moved to rest her hand on Chungha’s arm. The older woman jerked slightly - startled - and Aria was quick to apologize. 

There was no audio in the video uploaded - the original poster having been too far away to capture much - but the two women talked for a moment before Chungha pointed to the blanket and then herself.

Aria nodded emphatically, and Chungha’s face crumpled into something fond, bowing her head in thanks before they unfolded the blanket another time and Chungha scooted an inch closer to Aria so they’d both fit. 

Chungha sent Aria another grateful smile before refocusing on the performances - apparently not noticing, or perhaps choosing not to comment on the rather obvious red tinge that the younger idol’s cheeks had taken on.

[neon-junkie]

Vanity is a Sin - Chpt.1

Summary: The last person you expected to fall for is that pretentious man, Javier Escuella, but maybe you're not so different from him after all?

Pairing: f!Reader x Javier Escuella

Word Count: 2709

Rating: SFW

Tags: Enemies to lovers, Slow burn, Arguments, Bickering, Denial of feelings, Reader has a lot of self-doubts.

Notes: I’ve wanted to write a Javier multi-chapter fic for aaaages, but wanted to do something different for it. So, enemies to lovers it is, my fave trope hehe, but we don’t see much of Javiers negative side, so let’s explore that :0

Next Chapter

It's another chilly day at Horseshoe Overlook. Despite your occasional shiver and constant goosebumps, you're thankful that you're still not stuck in Colter, but that still doesn't mean you can't wish to be somewhere warmer. It seems no matter how many layers you put on, you can't quite get warm, and you question how other gang members are walking around in their summer attire, especially Arthur.

You shiver again and accidentally manage to prick your finger with the needle you're using to sew somebody's patchy pants. "Fuck sake," you mutter under your breath, looking at your finger to inspect the damage. It's nothing, and you know it's nothing, but you're in a grumpy mood, so everything feels tenfold, especially the sting to your fingertip.

You sigh, looking up at the sky, questioning why whatever being that lives up there continues to rain on your parade. It's not just you that's in a bad mood, the whole camp seems off, but Dutch continues to attempt giving his many uplifting speeches whilst he poses in his tent with a cigar in hand, not lifting a finger to do even some basic camp chores.

He's doing the same now, and your eyes gaze over him as you stop staring at the sky. There he is, the man himself, the big boss, his voice cracking every so often; that always brings a smile to your face. Your eyes follow around the rest of the camp: Hosea is the only one stood listening to him. Molly's on the other side of her tent staring into her pocket mirror because for some reason, she no longer has to pull her weight. Bill is still asleep. Mary-Beth and Tilly are beside you, still sewing away. The O'Driscoll is still tied to the tree. Strauss is... doing whatever he does. And there's Javier, gussying himself up in Arthurs mirror, no surprise there.

You'll never understand how these boys get away with doing the bare minimum, whilst yourself and the other women are the only thing keeping this camp together. Everybody knows that if the women decided to up and leave in the night, the men would end up setting the camp on fire, probably attempting to cook their own dinner... no offence to Pearson. There's a fair few, such as Arthur and Hosea, who are able to survive on their own, but you've seen Arthur attempt to do tedious jobs before and just like you, he pricks his fingers every time he sews. At least Hosea has an excuse, being in his grey years, his bones not able to move as they used to, but he makes up for it in other ways.

But Javier? What does he do? Apart from prance around the camp in his designer crocodile boots, spending an hour shaving his moustache every morning... why does he even shave his moustache like that? You asked him once, and he replied "It rubs off from all the friction." Sure, Javier, because you're obviously a very wanted man.

Unfortunately, Mary-Beth and Tilly take quite a liking to him. They've confessed what you would view as sins before, saying they both have a soft spot for the man, to which you scoffed then laughed, and ended up choking from laughing too hard.

"Why are you laughing? I don't see why you two don't get along? He's real sweet and..." Mary-Beth had begun droning on, and you eventually interrupted her with a "Where do I start?"

Needless to say, neither of them agreed with any of your opinions of Javier, apart from him not pulling his weight as much as he makes out to. But oh, he plays guitar, so that means he doesn't have to do any chores because he blares out his music all hours of the night. You've told him to quit playing so you can sleep many times, seeing as your tent is right by the campfire, to which he always glares at you and plays louder. He once even had the audacity to wake Uncle up and begin shouting Ring-A-Dang-Do.

You took your revenge by waking up early and pouring water in his boots. He knew it was you the second he put them on, sighing and glaring at you, but not being confrontational for once. At least he started putting a curfew on his music after that.

You've been manifesting in your thoughts for a while now, not realizing your name is being called out. "Huh?" you almost yelp as somebody taps your shoulder.

"Are you alright?" Tilly asks. "You've been staring into the distance again, didn't even hear us callin' your name."

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine. I was just thinking," you explain as you turn your attention to them.

"About what?" Mary-Beth questions.

"Nothing that's worth my time."

"Oh, boys?" Tilly questions, making all three of you laugh.

"Unfortunately."

"Well, Mary-Beth and I are all finished here. We're gonna make ourselves look decent and head into town, you coming?"

"Yeah. Let me finish up this, and I'll meet you by the wagon," you reply.

"Alright."

The pair excuse themselves, heading over to their tents to begin looking 'presentable', even though you would happily argue with them about that. They always look incredible, flawless yet effortless, whereas you constantly feel like a drowned rat...

You watch as they wander off, saying hello to Javier, who's still stood in front of Arthurs mirror. He's not even having a shave, he's just been stood there checking himself out for the last ten minutes, or however long it's been. Your brows furrow and you force yourself to tilt your head down, focusing on your final stretch of sewing, eventually finishing up, so you can put them back on the laundry pile and begin getting ready for your day out.

Going into town with your girl friends is always relaxing, something to get you out of camp, when you're not trailing in and out on your own accord. Yes, you know damn-well how to shoot a gun, along with all your other basic survival skills like hunting and fishing. Dutch was reluctant to take you on heists at first, calling you "another Karen, a woman who wants to get her hands dirty when she's needed here."

Dutch wasn't expecting you to put your money where your mouth is, trailing back into camp a few days later with more than enough cash to keep the camp happy. Only that was somewhat of a waste of time now you look back on it, your share being lost somewhere in Blackwater, along with the rest of the camps hard work and progress. Back to square one, yet again...

The sound of a thud startles you, looking over your shoulder to see that the final crate has been loaded into the wagon. The shop helper gives you a wave, and you beckon him over to tip him; he pours out his thanks before going back inside.

"Back to camp?" you question as you turn your focus to Mary-Beth and Tilly, who nod in agreement.

With a flick of the reigns, the three of you begin leaving Valentine, only popping into town to grab a few camp supplies and treats for yourselves. You've fancied a new outfit for a while, and you're excited to try it on later, maybe make yourself look nice so you can... sit by the campfire...

What else is there to enjoy in camp?

The path you're following leads you straight back to Horseshoe Overlook, and you warn the girls of the bump before crossing over the train tracks. A familiar figure can be seen in the distance, and as they approach, you realize it's Arthur on his new mount. He pulls up beside you as you stop the wagon, tipping his hat to the three of you.

"Where are you going?" you question.

"Just headin' into town. I didn't know you girls had just been there," Arthur explains.

"We only went to pick up supplies. What are you going for?" Tilly questions.

"Javier and Charles wanted to meet me at the Saloon, said I'd drop by this afternoon. They must already be there."

"You should get going then, you know what Javier is like," you complain, the words slipping from your mouth.

Arthur laughs at your statement. "You're right," he agrees. "But you two will learn to get along one day, you've gotta if you're gonna be in the same camp together."

"Arthur, there are plenty of camp members that don't get along. You and Micah, for instance?"

"...Yeah, you're right," Arthur hums in frustration. "Forget I said that then... Well, I best be going."

"See you later," the three of you reply.

Arthur gives another little nod and taps his spurs, heading into town, whilst you whip your reigns again and begin your return to camp. 

 By the time you arrive, it's almost sundown, and your evening is spent unloading the wagon and scoffing down your dinner. The night is free to do as you please, so just like you told yourself earlier, you get changed into your new clothes and make yourself look presentable, taking a seat at the campfire with the others and joining in on their story telling.

The evening is going well, relaxing and peaceful for once, even with Uncles banjo playing. All until the sound of heavy hooves come thudding back into camp; you turn to see a handful of the gang members returning from their night in town, only they don't seem too happy. They're huffing and grumbling, nursing what appear to be wounds, and it's easy to piece everything together and realize that they been in a bar fight.

A few of your fellow camp members get up from their seats at the campfire to go and check on them, and as much as you do care, you don't want to overcrowd them. You get up and make your way over to Pearson's wagon, picking out another bottle to drink. You're spoilt for choice, a nice selection of whiskeys and gins at your service, something different from cheap, warm beer.

You pick up a bottle and begin reading the label, checking the alcohol percentage and debating how drunk you want to get tonight. You don't overhear the sound of footsteps approaching, your mind paying no attention to sounds like that as you hear them all the time, but the sound of somebody speaking directly behind you makes you jump.

"That for me?" they ask. You peer over your shoulder to see Javier standing there, his hand rubbing his chin where a bruise is beginning to form.

"Why would this be for you?" you scoff, turning your body to face him, the bottle in your hands.

"Your poor camp member has just been in a fight, yet you won't help nurse them?" Javier questions with a laugh.

"That's your own fault, plus I ain't your mother."

You begin to walk off, but the comment Javier makes forces you to stop in your tracks. "Mary-Beth and Tilly would."

"Go and ask them then," you roll your eyes, turning to face Javier again. Who does he think you are? He begins to softly laugh and the sound makes you gag, so artificial, just like the rest of him.

"But what if I want you to help me? Surely you don't dislike me that much."

"I do, so I'd suggest you ask them."

You try and walk away yet again, and Javier mutters something under his breath. "You'll learn to like me eventually." Another scoffing sound escapes your lips as you frown at him, leaning against Pearson's table and crossing your arms, your bottle in hand.

"You know, I've never seen you wear purple before. It suits you," you smirk.

"Oh, very funny," Javier says as he raises his eyebrows. He approaches you, his strides small and slow, stopping right before you. His hand moves away from his bruise, his skin turning a deeper purple as every second passes, but your eyes are drawn to his; They're dark and blown, his eyebrows slightly furrowed, staring into yours. He's too close for your liking, you can smell the tobacco in his system with every exhale, his breathing deep, still clearly worn out from the fight.

"What's your issue with me?" Javier asks. "I mean, I've never done anything to upset you, not that I know of, but you've always had something against me."

"I've told you before," you begin as you uncross your arms, placing your bottle down on the table and resting your hands on your hips. "You don't do shit around this camp. You'll drag a sloppy score in here and there, but your vanity distracts you from doing some proper work, chores and what-not."

"Vanity?" Javier repeats the word with a laugh. "There's no harm in looking good, at least you're putting some effort in tonight. Did you buy this today?" Javier asks as he goes to tough the fabric of your blouse, but you swat his hand away.

"You're as bad as Micah," you spit at him.

"Mhmm, we both know that's a lie. For starters, I do a lot more than him around here, and you know it-"

"Please, will the pair of you quit it already?" Dutch calls out as he approaches. He must have noticed the way you two were stood so close, squaring up to each other, both too egotistical to let the other talk them down.

Dutch puts his arm out between your bodies, lightly pushing both of you away, forcing you to take a few small steps back. "I've said before that you don't have to get along, but these pathetic arguments happen far too often. Either you both drop this, or I'll have to find a way to make you get along," Dutch threatens, and you know he'll stay true to his word.

You don't bother saying anything, glaring at Javier once more before turning heel and walking away. "You forgot your drink," Javier calls out to you.

"Seems I've lost my appetite," you call back, and you overhear Dutch sigh at your comment.

Part of you feels sick, and you're unsure if that's from the adrenaline pumping in your veins, or the nerves Javier has shaken into you. Why was he stood so close? Your noses were almost touching, and you wouldn't be surprised if he kissed you just to wind you up even more. You try to keep your mind clear as you enter your enclosed tent, taking off your makeup and getting ready for bed, but you can still feel Javier's hot breaths on your skin.

You debate having a towel bath, wanting to wipe away the sin of being so close to that irritating man, but you're already in bed with no motivation to move. As you roll over, the sound of his guitar grows outside, forcing you to place your head under the pillow in an attempt to drown the music out. He's a good musician, and you're happy to admit that, but why does everything about him have to be so... him?

The perfectly coordinated outfits, the way his steel toe boots are always shining, the effortless yet pristine ponytail he always wears, the confidence and vanity in everything he says. He's like one of those flawless characters you've found in awfully written books, no weaknesses or downfalls, no ugly days, everybody loves him, yet his artificialness makes you sick.

And he knows it makes you sick, and he loves to play on it. Tonight isn't the first time he's got up close and personal with you. You know he studies your every move, watching your body language, checking to see if blush grows on your cheeks, searching for your insecurities. The comment he made earlier is still on repeat in your mind... "at least you're putting some effort in tonight." What a smug bastard. He knows how low your self-esteem is, yet you weren't expecting him to pull a Micah and make a comment like that.

But this is what he wants. He wants it to settle in your brain, to weigh you down and make you feel even worse. You just have to not let that happen, but that's easier said than done...

[itcamefromthetoybox]

The Mysterious King

Pro Wrestling: the world’s most violent soap opera. I love watching wrestling, but unfortunately haven’t gotten to in forever. However, that’s what toys are for! If I can’t watch matches, I’ll make my own, with Batman, Transformers, Skeletor, and my fiancee’s plush collection when she isn’t looking! As a kid, I watched wrestling with my parents, and in college, I watched with my friends. It’s something I am never not up for watching. One of my personal favorites, and a guy about to get his own Cartoon Network series, is the masked wrestler Rey Mysterio, a name my spellcheck keeps trying to screw up. So because he’s getting his own show soon (“Rey Mysterio vs. La Oscuridad,” which translates to “Rey Mysterio vs The Darkness”), I wanna take today to talk about “WWE Elite Collection Rey Mysterio!”

Rey Mysterio is probably the most well-known masked wrestler in America, since he’s part of America’s most well-known wrestling organization, the WWE. He’s also a huge deal in Mexico, he’s a highly talented performer, he trained his son to wrestle, he was trained by his famous luchador uncle, and he’s always friendly with kids. He’s one of the few wrestlers to never seriously go villain, and the one time he tried is best left forgotten, brief as it was. Mysterio’s most well-known trait, though, and the thing people first think of when they think of him, is his mask. He has a whole bunch of masks and both has fun wearing and is fun to watch wearing different costumes. Frankly, he’s just delightful, so let’s hope this toy of him lives up to that.

Rey Mysterio’s had a lot of toys over the years. I mean, A LOT. Honestly, you could easily build an entire collection of just Mysterio toys without any challenge or empty space, and the main reason for that is his many different costumes. He likes to switch up his outfits, unlike most men and me, who will wear literally the same thing for a week at a time. Every one of Rey’s outfits has gotten a toy, which, combined with his impressive tattoo collection, has led to some visually fantastic toys, and this figure is no exception. Rey’s black and orange costume is really visually glorious, and the red gloves and white paint on his legs, armbands, and eyes really complete the look and conjure images of fire.

My camera is a phone. There was no way in hell I was gonna be able to get a good tattoo pic with that.

 One thing on this figure I absolutely adore is his face. He just looks so happy and energetic, that looking at the toy’s face makes me feel happy and energetic! It’s such a nice change from the stoic, angry, or “murder clown” faces that so many action figures tend to have.

Look how happy he is to be here!

His tattoos can be a bit much for the eye, I have to admit, but this is a toy of an actual dude and that dude is covered in tatoos, so you gotta allow for the abundance of ink for accuracy. On some of his figures, it works, really well, but on this one, it feels really busy. What’s cool about the tattoos, though, is how detailed they are. They’re all filled in and feel very organic on the toy. You can really tell that the toy designers put a ton of work and effort into them, and even though they’re harder to see from a distance and feel too busy, they’re real works of art up close.

Rey’s also got a ton of articulation, which is what you should expect from the Elite Collection. Think of it as WWE’s answer to Hasbro’s Marvel Legends: highly detailed, lots of articulation, aimed at the collectors. He’s got articulation all over his body, with the one weak spot being his head. Unfortunately, due to the sculpting, Rey Mysterio cannot look up. Thankfully, he makes up for this with all the rest of his articulation, leading to some real dynamic poses.

I have been just LOVING playing with this dude!

His accessories are pretty great, too. Rey’s arm and wrist bands are removable, though I refuse to take them off because I would lose them so damn fast, and he comes with two alternate hands and a shirt. The hands are pretty easy to remove, but be careful to not bend or break their pegs. It’s not an issue I ran into here, but I would still advise caution. The shirt can be put on without removing Rey’s head, which is nice, but doesn’t look good on him. It honestly kinda makes me think of a sandwich board. The paint design on it is great, though.

Definitely would look better made of cloth.

“Elite Collection Rey Mysterio” goes for about $20 and is available at mass retail. He is aimed at collectors, though older kids would like him too. Definitely don’t give him to people who put things in their mouths, though. That’s how you lose a hand and wrist band. Would I recommend him? Oh yeah! He’s a great representation of the real Rey Mysterio, with a lot of articulation and detailing, and I’ve been having a lot of fun with him, so definitely give him a shot. This is JL signing off and wishing you Happy Toy Hunting!