Currently designing a bunch of designs for a Very VERY specific crossover that appeals to like 3 people including me. The storyline is practically the same as Super Paper Mario, with some changes regarding character dynamic and cause -> effect events.
I am having a LOT of fun drawing these! I'm nearly done with the rest of the main cast. Might do a masterpost or just a Big Ramble about this AU/Crossover at some point teehee
thinking i might write a fic about pony being in the hospital or maybe in his room after he got his concussion, and he keeps seeing johnny and dally (are they visions? ghosts? who knows) and he just talks with them (that was the nonsense mumbling that darry and soda kept hearing from him) and they're racing the clock against pony's death to let him know he needs to fight to keep himself alive
Thinking thoughts about Abuela being back and with this backstory about her being taken in by charlatans and Eddies whole catholic guilt thing and how the two things kind of play into one another as an exploration of faith and being taken in by something.
Abuela giving all her money to the tarot card readers etc because she was searching for something - for connection (with Abuelo) - trying to recapture what she had lost, and How Eddie has spoken about trying to re-find the magic he had with Shannon - how Eddie hasn't actually fully reconciled the Shannon of it all when it comes to relationships and how his Catholic guilt connects into that.
How Marisol as a physical representation of Catholicism is part of that narrative - how Eddie is entering a place where he has to chose his path - in order to move on from Shannon he needs to fully square the hole - catholic or non catholic. And how that needs to happen first - before he can begin his queer journey!
time somehow seems to simultaneously slow to a crawl and race beyond the speed of light. grant doesn’t remember when they’d ended up perched like lovebirds at the pinnacle of a staircase, peering out over the night-drenched landscape, but it must have been a while ago. customers have long since stopped streaming in and out of the restaurant on the street below.
he remembers in better detail the stream of their conversation–they’d shifted from food and a strangely peaceful, humorous discussion of kicking the bucket to movies, and at some point, paranormal stories came up along the way.
it’d be hard to forget talking to yunha.
there’s something curiously enrapturing about her, something that had drawn him to her when he first made eye-contact with her.
the look in her eyes, maybe. it’s piercing, like she’s baring right through your skin and into your soul, but not malicious or judgmental. it’s friendly, it’s curious, it’s playful.
the way she speaks, maybe. she’s the most engaged conversationalist he’s ever encountered. everything you say, whether she agrees or disagrees, is met with affirmations and a lot of nodding. yes, yes, of course. i see, i see. i understand. ohhh, wow! really?
she’s unraveling every shard of the puzzle that is his personality and piecing it back together in one whole picture, analyzing it. figuring it out. appreciating it.
or maybe it’s the sweetness that radiates off her. she appears unafraid to smile, instead all too happy to flash those pretty, crooked bunny teeth for the world to see.
“so, i'm going to guess you’re not accidentally good at singing.”
she seems not to mind revealing her own puzzle pieces either, and the more she says about herself, the more fascinated he is with her. with who she is. with what makes her tick.
“i hope it’s not an accident,” yunha replies, laughing, “because shit, then years worth of practice was a waste.”
“time enjoyed is never time wasted.”
the unabashed cringe of the line garners an immediate eye roll, but she still seems to find it funny.
they’ve definitely been sitting here a while. grant straightens his back, fixing his gradually slouching posture, and is is met with an immediate flash of pain, distinct from the chronic dull ache underlying every day of his life, that radiates down every vertebra.
“what got you into music, though?”
yunha’s rosy pink lips purse in thought as she dwells on the question.
“a lot of things. my parents like music. i listened to a lot of different kinds of songs my whole life, first with them, and then later with my friends. i had some time between classes and studying to spend having fun, but i couldn't spend any money, so my friends and i would go to this music store. we walked around and picked random albums to listen to on the headphones. we never bought anything.”
grant nods supportively. “what’s, like, the first album you remember really liking? or albums. you don’t have to pick one.”
“ah! i treasure so many albums. seo taiji and boys IV. i think that’s still my favorite nostalgic album ever. i also remember fondly, um, this girl’s in love with you by aretha franklin. i heard that at the music store, and i was so impressed by her talent. i still am.”
“i'm not a music expert. surprise! i know, i know, i'm sorry to tell you, i did not practice for centuries for that wonderful spice girls performance earlier. no, but seriously, i most often just listen to the same old emo stuff i liked when i was 13. so, unfortunately i don’t know the first album at all, at least not yet, but i do know the second one. you have fantastic taste, that’s a classic.”
despite his ignorance, yunha still smiles from ear to ear. “you should look up the first one! look up, like, seo taiji ‘come back home.’ that’s the most popular song on the album. i don’t wanna bias you, so listen on your own and make your own opinions.”
“wilco. and if you don’t mind me asking, how’d you turn the interest in music into a skill? you are talented, but i know it's very much a skill. it does take a lot of practice to become tangibly good at music.”
“to express myself,” yunha says plainly, “it’s easier to tell your story in art than talking about it, and singing is free. you don’t need supplies to learn it. but yes, i needed that kind of outlet, you know? i always liked singing, always did it, but i needed more than only entertainment from it over time.”
“oh yeah, art is helpful. i really should have gotten on that train earlier. i got on board about a year ago. it's much better for you than intellectualizing everything. or at least that's what i tend to do. do you perform, by the way? outside of karaoke, that is."
"sometimes. but also, not in a long time."
there falls a brief, but peaceful lull in the conversation. grant’s eyes draw to black night sky as he recalls the last haphazard art he’d created–the mushy-gushy attempt at processing the universe. seeing it hanging above him now, his thoughts are no less conflicting. light pollution washes out the shining sea of stars, but the sky still retains its beauty, its bewilderment. visible or not, an infinite chain of dimensions and celestial bodies exist in the vacuum of space, orbiting independent of him, yet factoring in the tiny fraction of his mass on the mass of the earth in their delicate ballerina dance across the fabric of spacetime.
the universe must have created me for some reason, for something other than anguish.
his own words. again. ever-present.
“i miss seeing the stars.” yunha’s buttery soft voice breaks his concentration. “you can’t see anything here.”
“polaris.” grant raises his left arm and draws his index finger across the sky until it hovers above the only star he’s seen thus far. “technically, that means we should be able to see sirius, too, but we don’t need to get all science-y and talk about magnitude and that polaris isn’t–”
“i would like it if you did.”
she was thinking of the stars, too.
synchronicity.
“aw shucks! well. i’ll say this, polaris isn’t the brightest star. we just talk about it way more frequently because it has the most cultural significance in the northern hemisphere for, you know, navigation reasons. but hey, give it about 12,000 more years, and it even won’t be the north star anymore. thank you, wobbly earth axis. but also boo, woobly earth axis, because it's a little sad to think about.”
yunha’s eyes glitter with fascination. “it’ll be something else?”
“yep! the next north star will be vega,” he explains, “come on down, you’re the next contestant!”
“maybe we’ll see it happen.”
“if my consciousness is still floating around as little dust particles, that’d be pretty sick. you know? forget fly me to the moon, fly me to vega. why not?”
“i don’t think i'll be dust,” yunha says, not missing a beat at all, even as her focus remains fixed on the faintest twinkle emanating from polaris, “it’s kind of troubling. you don’t want to be, like, stuck in the whole cycle of the universe, but if you’re still here, you can see some really beautiful things.”
“ah. reincarnation?”
“if you’re asking me, you’re not going to be dust. either you escape the suffering or you come back in some kind of physical form, human or not, and you try again.”
grant thinks about it for a moment. and then the feelings, like usual, spill out at once.
“i'm not going to lie, that idea has always given me the heebie-jeebies. i think it’s very cool as a concept, but i'm, like, man, i don’t want to do this shit again. also, look, we're doing the thing again. oh, and shit, that sounded judgmental. i just run my mouth too much."
"most people don't know they lived before. you can't really remember your other lives without a lot of study," she answers, "and no, you don't. i prefer to hear your real opinion. it's actually stupid when people tell you what they think you want to hear."
"do you ever wonder what you were up to last go-around?"
"not too much, but i always heard strange birthmarks and scars are signs from your last death. fears, too. things you avoid. so, i guess, like, a clown stabbed me in the neck with needles."
"are you afraid of storm drains, by any chance? if so, i think pennywise had it out for you."
"hahaha." yunha shakes her head. "wait, i have to ask. is it not worse thinking you can only live once? that's not uncomfortable? feeling like you have to make everything perfect in your one lifetime?"
"oh no, it's terrifying. dying and just being done with everything is eerie, too, because there are nice things to do and see here in the real world. you’re right about that. and yeah, there is a lot of pressure to get it all right. also, that's not even mentioning that there are people i love that i don’t want to be gone forever. i'd like to think they remain somehow. conscious or not. i kind of think they do, but i don’t know. am i contradicting myself? capital-P probably."
“you don’t know what to think.”
grant immediately bursts out laughing. “yeah, no, absolutely not. i do not know. i just kinda waffle around and hope some scientist throws out some numbers and whatnot that proves some explanation of everything correct. but that’s impossible. it’s literally impossible. we can’t even simulate or predict the wacky physics that were going on at the exact moment the big bang happened.”
“not to be, like, all quirky, but...” yunha reaches over, patting him on the shoulder. “maybe don’t think about it? you’re gonna go crazy. you can just not know? and it's fine. this doesn’t mean anything anyway. the answer to anything is already in you, it’s not out there.”
and then she, too, starts giggling all over again and her cheeks blush deep red from sheepish cringe.
another stereotypical line, but he doesn't mind. they sound better coming from her than him anyhow.
a second later and she checks the time on her phone. her cheesy smile erodes into a slight frown.
“ahh, i really need to leave soon. i have a schedule in the morning.”
grant checks the time as well, drawing the sleeve of his hoodie up just enough to read the minuscule roman numerals on his watch.
on the watch an ex-girlfriend gifted him. not päivi, but...
Do you ever think about the parallels between Rinne and Aira
Not only they have a shared interest in protecting Hiiro and ensuring his well-being/growth as a person, (and it's extra interesting given how Aira sort of dislikes Rinne for how he dealt with Hiiro in general—by leaving him alone at their hometown and disowning him in the summer of the MDM—, so even though they have the same interests and goals regarding Hiiro, they aren't exactly friends nor like each other — though this is mostly from Aira's part, because Rinne does like Aira and even acknowledges him as someone important to Hiiro that he must keep in his life), but Aira kinda is what Rinne used to be, before his dreams of becoming an idol we're crushed by the new rules of ES.
!! Main Story, Episode 171, "Revolution"
I've seen many people talk about how Rinne and Aira would get along because they're both idol otakus, but I believe that's a common misunderstanding of Rinne's character, because Rinne isn't an idol otaku (at least not anymore). He doesn't like the current idol system and the way Ensemble Square is running the industry. That's why he tried to change it by force in the !! Main Story by acting out. This is different from Aira, who loves the idols born from this system, and is a participant in the ES system that is going to hurt the industry in the long run (because ES is mass producing idols like a factory, stripping them from their own individuality and what makes idols especial in the first place — which is why Aira likes idols to begin with! Because they're different from ordinary people!)
!! Main Story, episode 220, "Despair"
Aira is aware that the idol industry isn't perfect, in episode 171 he even acknowledges that the mass production of idols similar to items of consumption made in a factory is wrong and it strips idols from their beauty and value, but he doesn't have the insight and first hand experience with heartbreak as Rinne had, so he doesn't have the motivation to protest or change the way ES is running the industry. They both love idols and dreamed of becoming one, but Rinne isn't an idol otaku, because he can't be a fan of idols mass produced by the current system.
What Rinne does instead, is support underground idols that would otherwise be trampled or forced to disappear by ES because they don't fit their sets of standards (and because ES has monopoly in the idol industry, they can easily do this without much repercussions or public outcry) and gives them his protection. This is explained throughout the course of the story of Night Club.
Nigh Club, Epilogue 2
Aira tries to impersonate an ideal idol persona, as the ones he watched when he was younger. He wants to embody a model idol and inspire others as idols inspired him in the past. Rinne used to be similar, but ES arbitrarily destroyed his solo career making him lose that dream, and that's why he embodies the wild and rebellious persona he portrays on stage, which is a complete opposite to how a traditional idol should act (and this is a constant point of conflict between him and other idols, such as Himeru; Himeru tends to scold Rinne for being so wild and doing whatever he wants because it goes against what is expected of an idol, but in Night Club he comes to understand that this is Rinne's soft way to protest against ES, despite having lost to them in the first part of the !! Main Story).
(Sometimes, I wonder if Rinne is happy being the wild and playful self he is with Crazy:B, or if he would prefer to be on stage as an ideal idol like he used to do years ago....)
However, despite their differences and the dislike/intimidation Aira might feel towards Rinne, he admits he understands his feelings and where he comes from, and that he can't help but to relate to him due to the fact that they both love idols. Aira scolds Rinne in episode 220 "Despair" to make him stop his pity party, but later in episode 224 "Flutter" he comforts and encourages him instead—telling him that he should not give up being an idol, because he recognizes that Rinne loves idols as much as he does, and that he still has a reason to live because he has fans of himself and of Crazy:B waiting for him among the crowd, meaning that he is still loved and accepted by someone, despite all the wreckage he had caused.
(And if I'm allowed to get personal for a moment, I just need to make emphasis in how important Aira is to the development of the Amagi brothers in the last arc of the !! main story, and this scene is a perfect example of that. Aira is the one who encourages Rinne to join the others on stage and sing, and after that it is Hiiro that pushes Rinne to give that step which finally leads them to perform on stage together 🥹)
So as we can see, Rinne and Aira have a lot of similarities, but they act in completely different ways due to their circumstances. They have similar backgrounds as idol lovers but they have different views and feelings about the industry and the profession, (however, they seem to share the same ideals as to what an idol should be, and love the same type of ideal idol inside their hearts). Adding to that their shared most beloved person, Hiiro, and how the two of them want what's best for him but they have a point of contention due to Rinne's bad actions in the !! Main Story, and their relationship becomes x10 more interesting, and I wish we talked about it more!
And we know Happyele hasn't forgotten about them, because Aira appeared in Rinne's recent relationship chart, just below Hiiro.
(also, a little unrelated, bu i think it's funny that despite having a heart to heart at the ending of the main story, their relationship is still "want to tease him" and "he's a little scary" ahdks Aira, who scolded Rinne in front of hundreds of people in the MDM, regressed to feeling intimidated and troubled by him. A couple of friends commented that it was probably because Aira had a burst of courage in the MDM because of the severity of the situation, so he had the determination to call out Rinne, a senior that he particularly feels intimidated by, publicly without second thought. It is canon that after the fact, Aira admitted that looking back on the MDM he felt embarrassed for doing such a bold thing. Idk, it's just something i find very interesting and fun about their dynamic www)
So this leads me to believe that they haven't forgotten about the history these two had in the main story, and all I can do is just wait for them to expand on their relationship and dynamic more eventually in some future event.
if i had a nickel for each otp i have that's destined not to be together because ultimately their stories are not about a happy romance but rather of coming-of-age/maturity and deep mutual affection that can't be destroyed even by the bittersweetness of the narrative and the recognition of the barriers that stop them from being together, then i'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
I’m watching one piece, and now I’m wondering do you have any hcs on the world building in the fairy tail universe ? Do you think theirs some crazy kingdom’s , advanced technology in some lands ? Love to hear your thoughts 💗
hmmmmmmmmmmm kinda a bit of a deep question tbh.
Structurally FT has good bones for its world. And that's kinda it lol
There's a fleshed out map of all the countries within the continent that fiore is found on (Ishgar, which has 16 named countries apart from fiore itself) and expanding wider than that we know that there are about 3 named continents (Ishgar to the east being a peninsula connected to the mainland that we know nothing of, Alakitasia to the west where Alavarez is and Guiltina to the north) and a fourth unnamed continent further east that exists within earthland.
But while we have all this info, nothing in particular comes into play as the series had progressed, the majority of the series' arcs all more or less take place within the same country, which for a series that has it's characters constantly travelling for missions looks particularly bad, especially when even the known locations all visually seem indistinct from each other in terms of stuff like architecture. It's a reason why I appreciate edolas in particular because it at least offered something that visually stood out and an insight into how that culture functioned. (and in Phoenix Priestess for the small montage the squad in the city of Rose Garden and showing a bit of the country Veronica)
Like it is frustrating to me whenever I think on it because the solution would be just to change the locations of where they travel to just to expand the background of the places travelled, wouldn't even have to change arc structures or anything to give some life to the named countries like:
Joya despite its small size as a country is the main manufacturers of trains and exports the majority of the transportation other countries use as well as weapons. Wizards are less found here, with treasure hunting being a more popular job choice.
Sin, despite the ironic name, is a deeply religious and faith driven country. Magics that have connection to nature and celestial bodies are particularly revered here.
Desierto mostly deals with trade, having constantly active shipping ports. Enchanted items such as brooms and carpets are popular and easy transport choices within cities and are more widely used than vehicles.
Iceberg's largely uninhabited due to the weather with most of the population sticking closer to the country's borders.
Like this is all just purely flavour text examples to just try and bring some life to these otherwise lifeless locations but you get the general gist of it.
There was clearly this effort to establish these locations by giving then names (and drawing a full on map) so it always boggled me that they were never properly used as a backdrop for the arcs within the story. (Tower of Heaven? Move that arc to Sin, Lucy's arc with Loke? Takes place in Stella, That arc with the giant village? Put it in Minstrel).
Like shifting around major arc locations would easily open up avenues to naturally expand the world as the story moves. And not even just big arcs, but smaller less grand filler arcs (which jesus christ did ft rlly need because it defs need breathing room between all the big events. It's why the story moves at such a breakneck speed without things really feeling as though they've changed in any meaningful ways) would do wonders to make earthland feel like a genuine lived in world (like how it is within the world of one piece that you cited as an inspo for this ask.)
*All the Edelgards standing around the counter in their apartment, staring at a broken kettle*
Hegie: So... Who broke it? I'm not mad - I just want to know.
*tense pause*
Christmas: I did, I broke-
Hegie: No, no you didn't. Beach?
Beach: Don't look at me! Look at Brave.
Brave: What? I didn't break it.
Beach: Huh. That's weird. How'd you even know it was broken?
Brave: Because it's sitting right in front of us, and it's broken.
Beach: Suspicious.
Brave: No, it's not.
Flame Emperor: If it matters - probably not - but Student was the last one to use it.
Student: Liar, I don't even drink that crap!
Flame Emperor: Oh really? Then what were you doing by the tea cart earlier?
Student: I use the wooden stirrers to push back my cuticles. Everyone knows I prefer teatimes with- Nevermind...
Christmas: Ok, ok! Let's not fight. I broke it. Let me pay for it, Hegie.
Hegie: No! Who broke it?
Brave, looking suspiciously at Legendary Edelgard: Hegie... Legend's been pretty quiet lately.
Legend: Really?
*fight breaks out*
Hegie, aside: I broke it. It burned my hand so I punched it. I predict ten minutes from now they'll be at each other's throats with war paint on their faces and a pig head on a stick.
*looks back at the chaos, turns around with a grin*
Hegie: Good. It was getting a little chummy around here.
i feel shy talking here when i dont have anything worth sharing but i cant help feeling like ive said things in the tags that could be brought up in court
So, I've been making my own Batkids age reversal AU, because of my incredible amounts of brainrot! However, something that's boggling me is what happens to a certain Robin. Like, in the major timelines that I know of, something happens to a Robin that affects Bruce's time as Batman. On Prime Earth, it's Jason dying. In Batman Beyond, it's Tim becoming Joker Junior. There isn't much evidence to dictate is these events are due to, "Something bad always happens to Jason", Something bad always happens to a Robin (no matter who)", or "Something bad always happens to the 2nd Robin". So, now, with batkid age reversals having over 800+ fics on AO3, I wanna see what people prefer happens to Tim Drake in these AU's!
There's a lot about discussion of hdwr that baffles me (not all discussion to be clear, because i do think there's a lot of good discussion about hdwr. But equally so are there the ones that make you wonder if you're reading the same story) and I think one that is especially annoying is the constant infantilization of miwa as this passive eternal victim. It drives me up a wall because this is quite literally an issue she's struggled with within the text of the story! She had an arc about how she dislikes how people treat her this way like towards the beginning of the story! And like even ignoring that, this story is about like nuanced and realistic portrayals of being in relationships and learning how to navigate them and so it's like what's the point if you're going to immediately reduce the characters to "the victim" and "the victimizers?" Is that even interesting? Is that a useful lens to look at interpersonal relationships?