#this is abt groovy candy

[yumejo]

A candy in his symbolism was tucked between your fingers as he stared at your frame from across the classroom, indolently tracing his gaze down onto your mouth—feeling his breath hitch in his throat upon what was suppose to be a casual glance.

Your lips gleamed.

The sugary gloss of the candy accentuated your soft skin as you drew the lollipop in and out from between your lips, savoring the inordinate burst of sweetness that seeped across your tongue. You were luxuriating in it, stars springing from your lashes with every taste.

And it was awfully difficult to focus on class for him now⋯

[traumxrei-archive]

Seeing Fairy Gala Ortho made me so happy like !aaaaaaaaaaaa

. ok since you mentioned fairy gala ortho first, anonnie, i'm taking this as a green light for me to go absolutely ballistic and rant about how beautiful fairy gala ortho is.

here he is. the 100 beauté himself (as rook would say) ! i'd like to preface this with the fact that the person who draws the shroud SSR cards is Absolutely Insane, they want me to d word from how pretty all the art is, even pre-groovied. (will ascending to ghostly realms stop me from rolling for these cards ? no. it will not. fg ortho and gm idia will be mine !!)

the second thing i'd like to say is. that idia is a damn good designer. all of ortho's models are designed by idia in canon. so i'd like to say thank you to him and shake his hand (although i think that'd freak him out jsdfksjkf) for making this design.

[ analysis of ortho's outfit + the symbolism behind it down below ! ]

before we start, i'll be using pictures of the card art from the wiki + pictures of his full-body sprite, courtesy of alchemivich :D tap on the images for better quality (and also bc some are cropped weird rip)

let's go from top to bottom n just talk abt how crazy idia was to design this. he has gold and iridescent butterflies along his crown + covering his eyes. and there's gold all around his face. this makes him look like a porcelain doll, which i think is kinda the theme of this ortho model. it's as if someone powdered or painted his face white to give him a more human feel.

all around his crown he also has peonies in white. apparently white peonies are meant to symbolize remorse and sorrow. so giving someone a bouquet of white peonies can be a way to ask for forgiveness and show that you understand your wrongdoings. now i have not read book 6 but maybe there are some ties to what happened there and this design choice on idia's part to give ortho a crown of flowers that symbolize remorse.

and also, his eyes are covered with the wings of butterflies. a caterpillar only gets its wings after it undergoes metamorphosis, so butterflies are often seen as a symbol of spiritual rebirth, hope, or change. and covering his eyes,,,,eyes are often seen as a window to the soul so does that imply that ortho has...no soul ? since he's a humanoid ? but there's not one set meaning ofc, so maybe it could be in a more see-no-evil sense, where idia is protecting ortho and keeping him blind from things that are inherently "evil". there's probably a lot of interesting parallels you can draw between this design and book 6, which makes me excited to see what idia's intentions really were when designing this model.

(and also we can't forget abt his teeth....he's so cute. precious baby who i will protect with all my heart and soul <33)

ok moving on ! let's look at his arms. there isn't too much symbolism that i can think of, but again, his arms do look like the arms of a doll of sorts. idia gives him joints that are akin to ball-and-socket ones that dolls often have. i do have to say, his hands remind me of violet evergarden and also of this one designer i know who makes dainty hand jewelry and corsets out of porcelain. her brand name is candy makeup artist and here's her website if you'd like to see what i'm talking about. here's one of the hand jewelry that reminds me of ortho's hands.

ah, i do have to say, the white sleeve-like thing near his shoulder reminds me of lace doilies, since they often have intricate designs woven into the edges of it. (here's a picture of a lace doily if anyone's kinda confused bc i did not know the names for these were lace doilies) one last thing, his shoulder sports a screw, and you can see the inner joint under his armpit, which, again, amps up that doll-like feeling that idia's probably trying to achieve.

for his torso, there are lines that draw the eyes towards his waist, which is sporting what looks like corset made out of porcelain. again it reminds me of candy makeup artist's works, so here's an example of a porcelain corset she made. also having all the detailing in gold is really smart bc ortho has hovering lights around him (in the form of flower buds, as expected of idia's thorough design) so the gold really stands out from the cream-white color he chose for the base of the model.

another thing i noticed is that the corset elements and the golden designs near his knees and feet combines designs probably inspired by the baroque style. baroque is a style that is known to be very intricate; serving to convey a feeling of grandeur and awe amongst those who see it. in specific i'm talking more abt the architecture-side, specifically stuccowork, since it uses similar patterns to those seen on the golden detailing on ortho's model. examples of baroque stuccowork can be seen here.

then we have the wings ! which are interestingly not reminiscent of butterfly wings, but instead they adopt the shape of dragonfly wings instead ! idia's an absolute mad man making them iridescent bc some dragonflies actually have iridescent or colored wings. i think idia chose dragonfly wings for efficiency bc these wings allow dragonflies to have greater control over their flight. so. yeah. this is idia optimizing ortho's flight patterns hehe

then we have his legs ! the joints for his legs have a rose pattern on them which is hella cool but also just. why. bc this costume really has so many details, i wonder what idia was thinking when he designed it all and made it. it must've been a labor of love indeed.

and speaking of roses, that is the other flower that idia incorporates into the design of this model. the back of ortho's hands + the detailing near his knees + the pattern of his leg joints all feature roses in some way. roses are kinda a unique case in terms of meaning bc they come in many different colors (or can be dyed too), and over time each color has a different meaning. in general, roses are symbolic of love of some sort. but more than that i think it's important to note that all the depictions of the roses on ortho's model have no thorns on them. there could be two ways to take this: it could symbolize that ortho is hiding his thorns from people, only showing a beautiful flower. or it could symbolize the fact that ortho has no thorns, that he's just a beautiful flower.

to finish it off, we have his calves + feet. his calves are made out of glass, so they're see-through (again, idia being an absolute genius) and there are criss-crossing metal strips all along each calf. as for his feet, they're pointed downward. this makes me think of a ballerina. the way his feet are designed could be alluding to a ballerina's pointe shoe bc the feet do kinda resemble someone wearing pointe shoes. the square-ness of it reminds me of a toe box + the criss-cross design reminds me of the ribbon that pointe shows have.

in conclusion: it seems the whole look is reminiscent of a porcelain doll, maybe even one of those ballerinas found in trinket boxes ? his feet are definitely modeled after a ballerina. that means that the wings could be a tutu of sorts bc of how they drape around him in the full-body sprite and how they can spread when he's floating in his card art.

and before i go, a disclaimer, bc i'm by no means a design or art student so i might've missed out on glaringly obvious things. what i'm writing is just my own interpretation of the design and just. me gushing abt how pretty it is, so if you have your own thoughts or if you saw something i missed, feel free to rb or comment them !

[dezwade]

@transaustin ty for giving me the opportunity to ramble abt my ridiculous au

so Ally is velma for obvious reasons. they're both the smart ones of the group, the one whose random knowledge helps them save the day over and over again

Fred and daphne's characterization varies wildly depending on what version of the show you watch. so versions where Fred is the actual Leader who gets stuff done while Daphne is just eye-candy with occasional plot-related skills? Trish is Fred and Austin is daphne. Versions where Fred is just a fun himbo and Daphne is the real badass mvp? Austin is Fred and Trish is daphne

Either way, Austin is just here to have a good time with his friends while Trish is here to kick a ghost's ass and accidentally unmask some corrupt real-estate agents along the way

Dez is shaggy bcus he's just here to Vibe and is also probably high as fuck. but hes also the anti-shaggy bcus through basically every version of the show, it's consistent that a) shaggy is terrified of monsters and hates hunting them and b) every single monster seems to zero in on shaggy and scooby specifically. usually it's bcus they're bait for whatever trap Fred has created, but a lot of the time they also just stumble into the monster of the week no matter what

Dez is the opposite bcus he's PUMPED to be solving mysteries and hunting ghosts. this was probably his idea in the first place. but, no matter what he does, the monster is always the opposite of where Dez is. dez is searching the attic? the monster is terrorizing Austin in the basement. Dez goes inside the house to investigate? the monster is outside stealing the mystery machine.

tbh I'm neutral on who the animal companion is. the possible candidates are:

-groovy the goat from mysteries & meddling kids just for consistency for a&a

-that dog Trish got in comebacks & crystal balls that was never seen or mentioned again. this one's in here just to keep the animal companion a dog like scooby

-clucky the chicken from what-ifs & where's austin. no explanation for this one, I'm just biased bcus I like chickens

also various other tidbits about this au:

-the mystery machine is ally's. it's a piece of crap that her dad got her because it was the cheapest thing at the used car lot

-it looks like this because Ally made the mistake of letting Dez paint it and then not giving him any guidelines

-theyre poly

you can't dangle a scooby doo episode in front of me and expect to not want to make a scooby doo au

[earthdeep]

earthdeep watches CardCaptors episode 2

tiiiime for episode 2: partners in crime. ooooh, what are we already breaking into somewhere? neat. (spoilers it’s just the shadow episode. tbf they are breaking in, but it’s never brought up in either version)

yep this is actually more unnerving with this kero doing the voice. congrats cardcaptors, u made keroberos truly a fearsome beast.

y'know, tori's actually sounding p good. like he's a regular human making regular conversation. well done tori.

[Sakura: Someone woke me up, for your information. Tori: Hm? Sakura: Uh! Uh, never mind...]

hm actually the way this little bit was scripted made me smile more than it did in the original for some reason. it felt more... natural I guess? certainly tori's inflection had the right feel to it, ach idk.

yes, this is the most natural of ways to edit a scene out. teleportation! yeah, as each episode of cardcaptors is 5 minutes shorter than ccs, there are some missing bits. that said, they aren't always obvious. for example, a bit earlier, the scene of sakura eating breakfast and spotting the biscuits was skipped (I had to check the original ep to even spot it) so she just finished up her convo with tori and gave kero some biscuits in the next scene. honestly, if the "yukito throwing sakura candy" wasn't stock footage, I wouldn't have noticed its absence either. but this transition should've been done better. btw the missing scene’s one of the ones where sakura casually rolls up outside yuki's house and watches it for a while. it won't be missed tbh.

tho between this and the no-candy-for-sakura thing, I'm guessing sakura is just straight up not trying to get with julian. she still thinks he's cute and nice, but there is a notable lack of gushing from her.

u know what? I'm not actually going to complain that much. it's weird, and sets up how characters ARE very differently, but at the end of the day, I can understand why the localisers wouldn't want to proposition a relationship between an elementary schooler and a high schooler as end game (even tho of course we learn later it was never gonna happen, and they're both gonna end up with boys their own dang age).

anyway back to the show

[Madison: I got some REALLY great shots last night.]

the level of sly sarcasm in her voice throughout this whole thing is genuinely amazing. puppetmaster tomoyo remains triumphing above all despite a language change. tho madison is less ojou-sama and more cheerleader in how she goes abt it. kinda funny, considering she's conspiciously NOT a cheerleader.

sadly kero comes in, as who I'm now being forced to dub the worst voice in this show. I'm not wild abt kero-chan either, but it's better than krusty the guardian beast over here.

checking back in with the original again...

again we see stuff missing due to the wonders of cultural differences. a short bit here, but atm it's a big indicator of how madison has changed from being tomoyo. tomoyo is unbelievably genre savvy, and nowadays I find some of her moments the funniest in the series bc of it. but sadly, it's only 00s america, and we aren't allowed to mention the magical girl genre, and also this totally isn't a magical girl show yo didn't u see the ~cool~ intro we had?

[*get in the cardcaptor equivalent of a robot sakura, etc...*]

ok last time we had no pauses in between sentences ever, no breathing allowed, but this time somehow we have the opposite problem. everyone keeps pausing weirdly, like they've forgotten their lines or smth. I think removing the yukito scene from earlier has meant they can't cut up shots this time round, and the screen writer didn't get the memo, so instead they have to speak reeeeeally slooowlyyyyy

there's nothing special abt this moment, I just wanted an excuse to remind u of the existence of the daidouji family's lesbian private army (listen I have FANFICS in my head abt this lot and u can't take them away from me, u hear? U HEAR-)

anyway madison introduces them with all the pride a baby lesbian can muster for her hot bodyguards.

[Sakura: Unreal!]

if ur reading that in the groovy far out way that caption suggests, congrats u have a perfect idea of how sakura sounds rn. man I thought the rollerblades and brick phones dated the show enough.

there's actually a change I don't like here. while in the original, sakura tries to pull the wind binding thing again and fails, in cardcaptors, she tries to break the shadows apart instead. while it has the same result, it's a different thought process from sakura that shifts her WAY too quickly into getting used to using the cards in different ways. plus, it means the audience can't learn the same thing about how cards work. binding with wind doesn't always work, even on weaker cards. but here, the audience is left wondering why she didn't just do the same thing as last time.

then sakura synthesisers her way outta there, kero expositions, madison does this little "But isn't there some other way?" in a tone so truly unnatural I'm fairly sure it wouldn't be out of place in touya's school play.

so they go turn the lights on and

[Madison: How's that for a bright idea?]

madison, ilu but... shut up.

welp, that's just abt it for episode 2! final thoughts this time... well, removingtomoyo's love for magical girls made the cardcaptors team try and find another reason for her putting sakura in cute costumes. it apparently makes the cards respect u now if u dress up for them.

did tomoyo infiltrate the backstory for this show? she's become so powerful she can exert her will from another universe so her alternate self will have a more fun time.

F E A R H E R.