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himikochan · 26 days ago

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Heyyo friends I wanted to share my recently finished object! I try to do at least 1 sweater a year that challenges my knitting and crafting skills. This year I picked steeking- a technique where a knitted object is sewn and cut into- and this one also delightfully used up a bunch of yarn that I had purchased in 2020 for a different project (I tried to make a pattern for a Feather and Fan dolman sleeved cardigan and there's a reason no one has done that, at least in the colorway I did, it was hideous-- that being said, I did chart out how to do an in pattern feather and fan increase so I have that tucked away).

I've recently de-stashed a lot of yarn: there's no shame in admitting that what makes you feel creative and comfortable has changed! And you should be okay with letting half-finished projects go if you don't want to finish them! My grandma has moved into a community for seniors on fixed incomes, who are often on the hunt for cheap/free crafting supplies, and the folx in her building were absolutely delighted to accept the skeins that I didn't love anymore!

I have been thinking a lot about how I want the space I live in to look; especially because I'm privileged to have been gifted so many crafting/art supplies over the years, purchased some and had my interests change, I've been on and off struggling with my mental health, and I've been really prioritizing making my space easier to keep tidy and "sparking joy" so to speak. So now my yarn stash and tools largely fits into 1 bin! I don't necessarily have projects in mind for them, but they more closely align with the colors I like to wear now, textures I like to knit with, and it's a manageable amount for me to paw through when I'm ready to cast on a new project.

All of the yarn for the abandoned dolman cardigan was saved from being re-homed and I was committed to using at least some of it because I had a good amount of it! I had purchased 5 cakes of Palette in Cosmopolitan (a fuschia fingering weight), 4 of Aloft in Cosmopolitan (a fuschia lace mohair), and 4 of Wool of the Andes Sport in Ash (a grey sport weight) from Knitpicks. I knew I wanted to make a cozy sweater out of it but the fuschia and grey color palette was a little too stark for the designs I've been into lately.

On Local Yarn Store day this year, I had picked up a skein of ColourLab DK by West Yorkshire Spinners in Tutti Frutti from Firefly Fiber Arts Studio (a self striping DK weight yarn in yellow/purple/pink/magenta/orange) because I thought it would look interesting with those colors! I DID NOT THINK ABOUT HOW THEY WERE ALL DIFFERENT WEIGHTS THOUGH!!! don't worry it ends up okay

I ended up picking the pattern Flower Power by Anna Johanna because it was a steeked color work sweater that used 3 different colors- it's meant to be knit entirely in a DK weight which is what my multicolor is. Sport weight, my grey, is a little lighter than DK but I knew wouldn't be too much of an issue. My fuschias were held together but a fingering weight and lace held together is still functionally much smaller than than a DK.

I struggle with gauge and my gauge changes as I knit, so swatching only helps me so much. My projects have a tendency to grow during blocking, especially length-wise. I was between sizes so I sized down and basically knit the length at 60% of what I wanted (so pre-blocked the sleeves were just past my elbows and they blocked out to my wrists). For the yoke, I followed the pattern as written but used size 6/4mm needles (I swapped to the recommended size 7/4.5mm for rows of a single color) because I knit my colorwork a little loosely. When I got to the body, my fingering weight was just too thin so I held it double and still sized up to size 10/6mm needles so I would have a nice cushy fabric.

I still ended up with a full cake and a half of Palette and Aloft, a half skein of ColorLab, and probably 2 of Wool of the Andes Sport. But I used so much of what I had and I have a cool new cardigan!!!

The pattern was well written and the design is super cute! I will say, the bottom half of the last set of flowers is a little tight but I suspect that's an issue with me sizing down and my gauge issues. I don't think that's a pattern issue, that's my bad, and really it just affects the drape when I raise my arms up which isn't really an issue. Additionally, if I had sized up I think the body of the sweater would have been too big for me. Maybe I should have used the bust dart option in the pattern but I didn't think it would be necessary (TL;DR it's probably my shoulders causing the issue but because of the way 3D patterning works with yokes, the tension can migrate to the chest even if you don't have a large chest).

While I like my cardigan very very very much, I can now see that these stripes weren't the best pick to show off the flower pattern. I can see the flowers more now than pre-blocked, but the stripes are a little too bold and detract a bit from the overall effect. IMO it looks like a technicolor cheetah print, which I like, but it's not the flowers I was thinking haha. The length of the dyed stripes is very long, which I normally like, but a shorter or smaller stripe might have softened the bold yellow line. Additionally, those colors are the same intensity as the grey: if I had replaced the grey with a white or light grey, the multicolor stripes might have shown more.....

This was my first time steeking and I loved it! I followed the prep instructions in the pattern and followed along with Katie Green's tutorial on cutting steeks. It was very very fun and NGL it was exhilarating cutting through something I had knitted!

The buttons also came from my stash, my mama gave them to me a few years ago :')

so like I'm feeling the normal PROJECT NAUGHTY and I LOVE PROJECT and in 2 weeks, when it's cold again, I will love them :3

PS I just finished writing this post and I'm a bingus and just realized this is my second sweater this year (I count the year ending on my birthday) and I never finished my post on the Soldotna sweater

PPS I tried a knitting machine at the library and I loved the experience! I think that's my new thing to learn and tinker with and, because I love the feeling of fingering weight and struggle with gauge for fingering weight, I bid on one and GOT one at a steal! It'll be here next week, thinking of names to give them :)

#knitting #himikochan knits #my knitting #flower power cardigan #steeking #handknitting

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keicordelle · 5 months ago

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Yuki and Performativity: the autistic mask

(aka the analysis I've been trying to figure out how to format for like 3 weeks)

Okay, so now that Yuki's autism has been ~established~ (here, but I'm just going to pretend everyone was following along), I'm really really interested in the subtle ways that that presents itself in his characterization.

Because Re:member does a really great job of making it obvious, because it's written in Yuki's perspective (at least in vol 2) and so heavily flavored with his own though process. But It's equally present in his characterization in the anime (and I assume the game, but I'm not caught up so we're just going based on the anime here). And a lot of that time, that characterization is so delightfully subtle that I didn't even pick up on it the first time through. But now I'm obsessed and I'm Noticing Things and y'all must suffer with me. so.

I think it's fair to say that Yuki's blunt and cold nature are features of his autism. Also probably the fact that he is extremely awkward when it comes to emotions and, notably for this discussion, expressing them. (oh to be a fire extinguisher)

But he's also really good at acting. And I'm making some assumptions here based on my own experiences, but I figure this comes in large part from the amount of effort he puts into trying to read others. He picks apart other people's interactions to figure out why they're reacting certain ways because he doesn't Get It.

And so he uses that in his every day life. Like, you wouldn't really figure someone so extremely autistic and introverted would make for a very good idol, what with the whole "having to interact with people all day every day" thing -- and he didn't want to be an idol! He just wanted to make his music and have people appreciate it! In fact, he looked down on idols at first, which probably had more to do with him undervaluing their artistic integrity (or at least I imagine that's how he would frame it), but he is very explicit about how he doesn't like how people fawn over him (read: idols) because of their looks rather than on the merits of the music.

Anyway. One of the key features of his characterization is that he's always acting. Always. There are a handful of moments we see him in the anime where he's not playing a role, even and particularly when he's off stage.

I've talked before (here) about Re:vale's introduction and how from the very first moment we see them, they're On. Not just in their initial prank on i7 where they pretend to be serious and scary, but also in the bubbly happy personas they present afterwards. They drop one mask for another, and at no point are they ever not wearing their idol stage personas. This is relevant to i7 for reasons but for this discussion rant it's relevant because this is how Yuki engages with the world. There are only a handful of times where we ever see him truly drop his guard -- usually only when he's alone with Momo, and occasionally around Yamato, which will be relevant in a bit. (And one other very notable time towards the end of season 3, but we'll get there.)

Anyway. He's only ever comfortable when he's playing a role. Which is never explicitly established, and I love it all the more for that, because they're totally content to just let you pick up on that without shoving it in your face. But they introduce it in ways that are subtler than I even thought at first. Because at first I was like, "okay, well he's got his stage ikemen persona, and he's got his sillier tsukkomi routine, and he's got his darker prankster who genuinely seems to be enjoying your discomfort persona (which is probably the one among them that's closest to his reality, because he really does seem to enjoy teasing and making people uncomfortable even when he's not On)

But literally any time he has to engage with someone, he falls back on a performance. A myriad of them, in as many different faces as he needs. And even when he tries to be genuine, he'll fall back on that performative role as soon as someone offers him an out. He will become whatever other people need or want him to be, so long as it doesn't involve being himself.

We see this particularly clearly while Yamato's struggling with his role in Mission and Yuki comes to him in a genuine effort to help

You can see the transformation in Yuki's face : Yamato has offered him a role, and he is now going to take that and run with it.

He steps into that role as easily as that, and from there on out, everything he says, while still true to his own beliefs, is very heavily shaded by his new performance as a criminal psychologist. It makes it easier for him to express himself, because he's no longer Yukito Orikasa, fumbling his way through emotions that he's been told time and again that he doesn't express properly, he's Yuki, criminal psychologist, and that's something he can figure out how to be.

You can even see it in his gestures; from then on, they get extremely dramatic, very much what you'd expect in a stage play (moreso even than in a movie). Which works well considering this is an anime and dramatic gestures suit the medium, and that's probably part of why I didn't really notice that at first. Even his tone becomes more dramatic. You can hear it flowing up and down the scale of emotion, rather than his usual low, teasing edge. Really great direction all around tbh

We see this same sort of transformation in the next episode, while Yamato's staying with him, and honestly this scene makes it a whole lot clearer. Yuki does actually start off more himself in this episode because he's in his own home. He doesn't really want to go out of his way for Yamato, he's mostly helping him out of obligation, so the mask slips a bit.

He flits in and out of a couple different personas fairly rapidly at the start of their interaction. Even Yamato remarks on this, which I actually didn't realize until just now when I was skimming through to find the shot I wanted to reference. He's never fully seen Yuki with his metaphorical hair down before, and the change is remarkable

He offers Yamato some advice, rather against his own will. His countdown here is his "speak now if you want me to listen to your problems or else I'm leaving" ultimatum, and he fully intended to when he gets to zero. But he doesn't (which I think surprises them both), and when Yamato calls out to him, he stops and actually offers genuine advice, no persona there to filter it. And it's harsh, like he usually is when he's unfiltered, because he's Autistic As Fuck and doesn't really know how to be anything else no matter how hard he tries (as is very explicitly laid out in Re:member : he has tried, hard, and he just can't figure it out)

And then he immediately falls into another role, when it's clear he's going to be trapped in this conversation that he doesn't really want to be having. Which is equal parts to soothe himself and to piss of Yamato, I think. Maybe heavier on the piss-off-Yamato side of things, because for all that he's helping him, they really really don't like each other, and Yuki's really kind of an asshole at heart

And from here on out he fully embraces the mocking asshole persona he's chosen to adopt. The same thing happens: he becomes more expressive both in voice and gesture, and it both softens the blow of the harsh things he says and makes it worse.

And you can then see the exact moment Yuki realizes that he's Fucked Up this conversation and pushed things much much further than he expected or intended to

(a shot which is on the screen for like less than half a second and that I had to clip and go frame by frame through to get because my own autism is now Activated)

The next scene is, I think, rather intentionally ambiguous (at least at the start) as to how genuine Yuki's responses are. It's fairly well established that, despite his aichmophobia, Yuki doesn't really have a ton of self-preservation instinct when it comes to fights, so it's seems entirely reasonable that his continued efforts to poke at the already enraged bear are just, what he'd do and not a persona he's putting on

However, it becomes clearer further into the scene that this is indeed another performance for him. First here, somewhat subtly, where in the actual line of dialogue, he calls Yamato "Yamato-bocchan", which, while appropriately mocking, also places him very firmly in a role other than his natural disposition.

From here on out, it becomes fairly clear to me that he's reverted back to his role from Mission. Yukito Orikasa is shed once more (if he was ever truly present here), and Yuki the Criminal Psychologist has taken his place. Yamato's breakdown follows a similar script to his character's here, though his is genuine -- but Yuki reads the similarities and falls back into his psychologist role.

He then offers Yamato some advice that actually references Shizuo's own words, which is... a huge Dick Move in this moment but that is actually a super neat and subtle reference, especially because he genuinely thinks he's helping.

he's not.

And this part is fun because it then becomes a lot less clear if Yamato's clued in to the role he's playing and is now playing along with his part in the movie, or if he's really just genuinely doing this (it's the latter, but it teases the possibility for most of the scene)

But anyway, the point kind of got away from me. You see Yuki fall back on this acting any time he's in a situation he doesn't know how to handle -- or, well. Not just then, actually. Pretty much in any situation. He's more comfortable pretending to be someone else than he is being himself, and he'll default to that whenever he can get away with it. He maintains it even when he's alone with Momo a lot of the time (I have an headcanon about Momo knowing what it is he's doing and allowing him it, as a sort of kindness)

Of course, his dealings with Yamato are hardly the only time we see this so clearly presented. He draws any number of roles over him like a mask, and falls into whichever suits his needs -- perhaps most notably at the very end of season 3, where he dons the caricature persona of a thug in order to try to protect Momo. Which is, uh. Maybe not the best idea he's ever had but hey, it works, kind of, so more power to you, Yuki.

He (arguably) adopts this same sort of thuggy image earlier in the season, for much the same reasons, when he waits outside Ryo's apartment with a baseball bat (that he definitely does not know how to use).

However! Of particular interest is the scene where he confronts Touma, where he's actually not assuming some sort of role. This scene is pure, unadulterated Yuki, and that frightens Touma and Torao exactly the same way as it puzzled Yamato above.

This scene itself is more a commentary on his relationship with Momo than it is Yuki's performative nature, really, because it highlights very well the fact that he's willing to do anything for the sake of his partner. It's pretty clear to me that when he walks into the dressing room and when he first confronts Touma, he's not Yuki the Badass, he's Yukito Orikasa, desperately trying to track down his partner.

Like, this is very much Yuki's real personality, not one of his endless roles

And that is precisely what gives him the edge here. Touma and Torao are really not expecting him to be so cruel and careless. They're used to Idol Yuki, handsome and flippant and appeasing. Not Yukito, entirely willing to stomp all over the law if it means saving Momo from danger

This is one of the only times that Yuki lets his true colors shine so obviously true. Usually Momo or Rinto is there to remind him to be aware of his station and to keep himself in check, but Momo is in danger and Yuki Does Not Care about the consequences, because at the end of the day, he's cold and calculating and absolutely nothing like the friendly persona he puts on, and he's only really doing this because he's passionate about music, not because he loves being an idol

Anyway. I guess all that sums up into: Yuki, first among the Autists, hides behind different masks so often that everyone around him is startled when he drops them, including himself a lot of the time. And that the show (and presumably the game) does a really incredible job of presenting this incredibly subtly

#there's a part 2 to this rant but this took like. several hours. so I will post that another time #idolish7 #i7 #yukito orikasa #I should start tagging my analyses they're getting hard to find #textual analysis #~k

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wfagamerants · 19 days ago

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As is well documented by now, I really love Mario Party, even beyond the realm of Mario it’s one of my favorite series ever. It’s also been said plenty by now that my relationship with the Switch games has been rocky.

I know, me being so nice to ND Cube’s output, only to have problems with the Switch games is for many an off-beat opinion, it’s just how I feel.

When Jamboree was announced it seemed to be the MP I had been waiting for right out of the gate and I can happily say it delivered. While we are still in the honeymoon phase with the game, I feel confident even calling it one of the best Mario Party games, a sentiment I never agreed on when brought up with Superstars, which I only find solid.

I’ll go by the same structure I went with for my essay on the Switch games, since that is what I am most comfortable with, so we’ll start with the roster.

While the selection was very not for me, I do give a lot of credit to Super for really beefing up the character numbers and after a really sad showing in Superstars, Jamboree returns to that, with a 22 characters large selection, one I am a much bigger fan of.

The character/mook ratio is closer to what I prefer, the Toads are back, Pauline and Ninji are wonderful newcomers and my issues with playable Bowser have been addressed with the introduction of Imposter Bowser. At least in terms of what can be expected, the roster is just one Diddy short of being perfect for me.

The game in general prides itself on the sheer amount of content it packs and that shows with the boards too.

7 boards, 5 new and 2 returning. I got some nitpicks, particularly how we are still sticking to only N64 boards coming back, but on the whole I do like the idea of Mario Party going Mario Kart by bringing back old boards. They genuinely are really well remade.

Mario’s Rainbow Castle was always going to be more strategic and involved thanks to the inclusion of items, but Western Land was the big surprise. I always loved the board, but the greater control you have over Steamer, the train here, being able to drive two stations ahead or even get him to come to whatever station you’re at, thanks to the new Steamer Ticket item, really alters the game. It’s a far bigger part of the game plan to knock opponents back to start, but the wealth of movement based items also means you have the means to rush where you need to, it’s well balanced that way.

The 5 new boards are an extremely good selection. Superstars is the basis for the board play, so in many regards it’s a bit hard to go into heavy detail without stating the obvious. It’s classic Mario Party and still clearly based on 1-4, with things like Boo being on every board, but it’s in the details and a couple key aspects where the game leaves its own mark of quality.

Despite the Super moniker, the boards are thankfully nothing like in that game. They are all a good size and full of mechanics of their own and obstacles. In fact, what impresses me most is how distinct they all feel.

Whether you rack up an insane amount of coins and visit specific shops for items or collect stamps in Rainbow Galleria, brave the delightfully evil Bowser Byway in King Bowser’s Keep or make a mad dash across the track in Roll ‘em Raceway, every board feels distinct and has a very strong identity. I do miss the more varied star collecting methods from 6-8 and DS, with only Roll ‘em Raceway feeling similar to that, but they are still the most distinct bunch of boards to not go for that formula and that is a genuinely huge compliment.

Of course, good boards are one thing, but the finer mechanics need to check out too and luckily Jamboree doesn’t disappoint and that’s where three major points about the board play I love come into play.

First are the Lucky Spaces. I am on and off with how I feel about them, but thanks to the much greater amount of hazards threatening your coin count and ways to spend them, their bonuses end up feeling like a more natural part of the game’s economy.

They can still feel a little overtuned at times, but unlike Superstars the game is designed in ways to make their instant perks a bit more justified. There even is an Unlucky Space counterpart, even if the penalties there are milder than the benefits of its good counterpart, but it does contribute to keeping things in check.

Secondly there are the items. While there is still a heavy emphasis on movement based items, I think the variety has seen a good upgrade. I’m particularly fond of the returning Bowser Phone, as well as the traps, which are just hexes from MPDS and can turn portions of a board into a hilarious coin and star steal minefield.

What really pushes it to another level though is an idea 6 toyed with in Snowflake Lake and what 7 made a much bigger deal of: board specific items. Superstars did have that in the sense it makes no sense to have a Skeleton Key available on the MP1 boards, but Jamboree is different.

These board specific items are all made to interact with the gimmick of the board. Use the Tide Shell on Goomba Lagoon to control the tide, put a hole into everyone’s deep pockets with the Markup Sticker in Rainbow Galleria and I already mentioned the Steamer Ticket on Western Land and how that alters how you play the game.

Items have always been meant to be the more strategic part of MP, something to give the player agency in a kind of game ruled by the dice and items like this really allow you to make power plays and plan ahead in a way the orbs in 6 and 7, still the best item system to me, excelled at.

The way they are distributed is also good. Multiple shop types like in 3, item minigames are still here as a potential outcome on an Item Space and while Lucky Spaces can still give out items, it feels a bit more restrained or at least the game is better designed around it. Horror Land in Superstars when I play it often devolves into a long series of Chomp Calls, since it’s so easy for everyone to get an arsenal of those. Nothing like that ever really happened for me here.

The third big aspect for me is the Jamboree Buddies.

For all its flaws, being basically just lifted from Star Rush, I did find the allies to be one of the genuinely interesting parts of Super, but it needed a lot of retooling and Jamboree did just that in a variety of ways.

Jamboree Buddies will eventually appear on the board, but only one is around at a time and you need to reach them first. If you aren’t fast enough they just leave and you need to wait a couple turns for the next one to show up.

Even if you do reach them, you need to win a Showdown Minigame first, each centered around that character and only through winning it, will you get them.

While their perks such as their own abilities or doubling the effects of positive spaces OR being able to use Boo twice in one turn or buy two stars at once, are very powerful, they also double negative effects. If you land on say, a Bowser Space, you take double the punishment and on King Bowser’s Keep, that even makes for situations where there are so many Bowser Spaces that passing up on a Buddy may even be the smarter move,

While their perks are potentially game changing, you only get them for a few turns and someone passing by you can steal your Buddy from you, so making the most of their perks in the limited time you have can be a genuine challenge.

All that combined makes the Jamboree Buddies a significantly more balanced take on allies. Very exciting when around, but the game doesn’t centralize around them and it is possible to even suffer more bad effects than good ones, if you get one in a bad spot.

Those are some of the big factors that help Jamboree really push the board play up further in quality for me beyond ‘’boards good’’. In the end it’s Mario Party as you know it, but it has some really good refinements and new ideas.

Another such good idea is a voting system for minigames now being an option, along with the Bonus Star options returning from Superstars. It’s just neat to see Mario Party inch towards a more customizable experience.

In fact to add to this, Jamboree introduces an entirely new ruleset called Pro Mode. This mode offers a bunch of changes, including, but not limited to:

The turn count is a set 12 turns.

Chance Time and Hidden Blocks are not a thing.

Everyone can choose one item to start the game with.

Items in item shops are limited in supply.

The voting system for minigames is the default and only option, no roulette.

There is only one bonus star and you know which one it is from the start, so you can play specifically for it.

Lucky Spaces let you choose between 10 Coins or a Double Dice item.

Bowser on a Bowser Space will automatically steal a star if you have one.

Boo always steals 15 coins, no mashing mechanic to be found.

Among other things.

Overall it’s a really fun alternative way to play the game that changes your approach to many situations. I wouldn’t call it a definitive competitive minded experience, since it is at the end of the day, still a board game, but as a different way to play the boards, it’s a lot of fun.

Of course the board is just half of the MP experience, so how are the minigames?

In my opinion, really good!

I touched on this in my write-up on revisiting the previous Switch entries, but something about how many minigames in Superstars controlled always felt off to me. It’s hard to explain and really weird since I didn’t feel that way about Top 100 or any other MP, but it is a contributor to why I was never fully on Team Superstars.

Luckily Jamboree feels just fine to me and the overall selection of minigames is solid, packing a lot of action based games, mixed with more puzzly or reaction and mashing based ones. The variety is here and there isn’t much in the way of stinkers.

I was a bit iffy seeing returning minigames initially, since two of the three last games were all returning minigames, but Jamboree handles it gracefully and in a way that, like returning boards, would even be totally cool as a new norm for me. There are only a couple, the selection is good and several are even heavily recontextualized, like Leaf Leap, Bumper Balls and Shy Guy Says now being a three-part marathon challenge in Mario’s Showdown game or Platform Peril now being a coin minigame.

I am happy to say the game cools it with Coin minigames. They are still there and that’s fine, but the game isn’t blatantly rigged for them to pop up often like Superstars was and I appreciate that.

Duel minigames are once again oddly snubbed, only five once more, but at least the selection is really good. Slappy-Go-Round in particular is easily one of the most brilliant concepts for a duel minigame in the whole series.

Showdown Minigames for Jamboree Buddies are totally new. They revolve around the character you play for and are far longer than the average mini-game. This is gonna be more subjective but I think they mostly pull it off, with Waluigi, Wario, Mario, Daisy, Jr, Rosalina and Yoshi all having really good ones. Luigi’s is pretty good, but can be an autowin for players who reach him and get an advantage. Peach and DK are the only duds for me. Peach’s has an awkward first part and a luck based second part, while DK’s doesn’t do a great job filling its length and ends up being the one game of the bunch to really feel long for me.

Jamboree also brings back boss minigames from 9, 10 and Star Rush. Once unlocked in Party Planner Trek they can appear as options on the VS Space, making them effectively a return of dedicated Battle Minigames, if mixed with regular minigames in the rotation.

The minigames themselves are decent, Imposter Bowser’s is a bit lame to me and none are quite as good as the ones in previous games, but they aren’t bad by any means and I am happy to see them experiment with bringing that idea over into the classic formula.

Lastly for Party Mode minigames there are the motion control ones and that is a bit of an awkward one. Like in Super, I actually think the controls for them work really well and I like the minigames themselves, but being required to play with the one Joycon method to play them isn’t my favorite thing in the world and it’s a shame that they didn’t find a more graceful solution than to just lock those minigames away when playing with a more comfortable controller.

Also a bit of a shame there are no Bowser Minigames this time, though at least they have a good substitute in another mode.

Despite a slightly more mixed tone by the end, I consider Party Mode a big success, so let’s discuss the other modes.

First there is Party Planner Trek, our first dedicated singleplayer, somewhat story mode, in a long time.

In a lot of ways it’s basically a mix of Advance and the Minigame Island-type modes. You can walk freely across the board and do tasks for NPCs, along with playing all the minigames to collect Mini-Stars. Collect enough and you face the boss of the board, defeat them and you can move on to the next one.

It’s a simple concept, but nicely executed. The best way to describe it is cozy. It’s a nice laidback excuse to run around the boards and play through all the minigames that I can see myself revisiting when in the mood for it. The framing of this being how all the boards are made ready for the big event is also just really charming.

The only bad thing about the mode was getting first place in Gate Key-pers due to its luck based nature. I’d even call it the worst part of the game, but it is just one tedious minigame, hardly something that ruins anything and it can be skipped if you don’t care for 100%.

Then we got the Minigame Bay, with its modes and it’s….okay. The Boss Rush and Showdown Minigames based modes are welcome inclusions and the presentation is great across the board. Still, I miss the minigame modes of days past, especially Decathlon and would love to see some of them again.

We got two more flavors of extra modes and to me the stronger one is easily the two Bowser modes.

First up is Koopathlon, which is very much just Coinathlon from Star Rush, but now with 20 players and online functionality. You still collect coins in minigames specific to this mode, to move across a linear board and race to clear a certain amount of laps first. Even the items are taken straight from Star Rush, apart from Lava Bubble being replaced by Imposter Bowser and even that amounts to the same effect, all that changes is what burns your butt.

None of this is a negative though, since Coinathlon was easily one of the best side modes in the series and Jamboree is a very positive case of more of the same. I’d even say I like it a bit more thanks to the Survivathon Bowser minigames.

These were already a thing in Coinathlon, you try to survive a Bowser minigame and if you don’t you get moved back a certain amount of spaces as punishment. Jamboree edges out as better for me for not only having more and really good Bowser minigames, but also being far more challenging to survive, making them much more intense.

Koopathlon’s just great, taking an already amazing side-mode and making it just a tad better, easily my most played mode aside from Party Mode.

The other Bowser Mode is Bowser Kaboom Squad, one that caused a lot of intrigue pre-release for how little was known about it.

An 8 player team goes up against Imposter Bowser in a city and attempts to dodge him and other obstacles to collect bombs to attack him, as well as balance that with collecting coins for a Bonus Round where all bombs do more damage.

The team needs to defeat Imposter Bowser in 5 rounds and at the end of every round is a team minigame, where you will net items to help you in various ways, with what items you get being determined by what Rank you archived in the minigame.

In some ways this mode feels like an extension of your typical Bowser final boss minigame from the Hudson days and I really like it for that. It’s frantic, offers fun opportunities for teamwork and Imposter Bowser, especially on Hard, is genuinely imposing to go up against.

It’s a simple mode, but I really enjoy it. Not quite on the same level as Coinathlon, but a really welcome addition. I have played quite a bit already.

Lastly is the Motion based modes. Those were always going to be more novelty driven, but I do think the end result is a positive one.

The best is easily Rhythm Kitchen, a sequel to its equivalent in Super, my favorite part of that game. Unlike in that game the minigames are cooperative, making it more of a ‘’go with the vibe’’ experience and luckily it succeeds there.

The games are simple, but easy to understand, the music catchy and you even get to play a Rhythm Heaven-style Remix mode, set to the SMB1 overworld theme.

It’s a fun, cozy mode. Doesn’t take long until you have seen everything it has, but as basically a glorified minigame mode, it does it’s job well and is a nice every once in a while option.

I feel similarly about Toad’s Item Factory. The goal is to get orbs to a goal, using motion gimmicks to guide them. The controls are intuitive, the gimmicks varied, that’s really all there can be said. Fun mode, but very simple and not something to go back to regularly, but a good time when you play it.

The last mode is Paratroopa’s Flight School and yeah, that is the lowlight of the game, not bad though.

I do love the idea and the free flight mode in particular is actually pretty cool for what it is, with two extra modes as an extra on top. It works well, never had a problem with the controls and it is a cute idea, it’s just also very much a gimmick and not one that lends itself to going back to it a lot. The idea of it just wears thin and also requires more set-up to properly play.

It’s also weird how the mode locks you into playing as Mario or Luigi as the second player. Not a huge deal, modes where not everyone is playable isn’t new to the series, but being stuck with just one set character feels alien for Mario Party.

That’s all the modes and there is one constant across most of them: online. Jamboree emphasizes that aspect more than any other part of the series and I am happy to say that at least from my experience, it’s very good. It plays as well as the game does offline and I didn’t experience more than one small lag spike and no connection errors, which sometimes plagued Superstars for me.

Another big area where the game shines is presentation. The NDCube games have always been very good at this, but Jamboree takes this to another level. There are so many things to say that I may as well do it in a list format, because there is a lot there, in many different places too.

First off, a lot of old animations got small touch-ups, tiny details in how say, Mario, Luigi and Wario’s hats now obey gravity when they go back down after hitting a dice. Similarly, the characters during high rolls will not only speed up, but even transition into a new sprinting animation once fast enough.

There are several new situation specific animations, such as the panic run animations in the Granite Getaway remake, which you don’t see anywhere else.

The camera on the boards is way more dynamic and loves showing very appealing shots, such as Imposter Bowser looming over the characters in King Bowser’s Keep.

Mario’s Rainbow Castle turns dark and threatening if Imposter Bowser is in front of the castle, you can even see Bullet Bills pass by in the background.

They went through the work to tweak some animations for certain boards. Chance Time always catapults the characters in the air for instance, but in Rainbow Galleria this comes with a crashing sound and a visual effect showing the characters crashed through the ceiling.

Roll ‘em Raceway in general bothered with a unique, if simple, animation set of everyone in cars, to make the board concept possible.

Really, long story short, the game looks great and is full of life and personality. It also retains the zany, cartoony vibe that I love the series for, Super mostly lacked and Superstars didn’t always retain either.

Goomba Lagoon is in part my favorite board for representing this so well. It’s the perfect showcase for the dynamic camera and things like Lava Bubble spaces making everyone bounce across spaces with their butts on fire or the characters being forced on zipline rides they visibly don’t want to get on and even lose their grip by the end, are that toony fun energy that always gave the series a distinct personality for me.

The game also strikes a good balance of modern Mario visuals and original stuff. There is plenty of NSMBU and 3D World inspired content in there, but then you get say, the cities from the Bowser’s Kaboom Squad mode, which feel like cities you could see in Hudson era minigames. It’s nicely diverse.

While Mario Party has always been good with cool references to other Mario things, I’d argue Jamboree may be the best one yet.

The Showdown minigames are an obvious example, with say, Wario’s taking from both Ware and Land, Waluigi’s being a Waluigi Pinball reference or Donkey Kong basically making you play Donkey Konga being some big examples.

Even beyond that though you got things like Imposter Bowser being a shout-out to the SMB1 Fake Bowsers or Plessie making his first appearance in a spin-off. There is a lot to discover and it always made me smile. Mario spin-offs aren’t really like say, Dissidia or Theatrhythm are for Final Fantasy, where they feel like a true crossover and celebration of the whole series history, so any time one does include a lot of nods and elements from other games, it’s a treat.

The music ended up being a surprising highlight too, being full of catchy and varied tunes, not to mention just a lot of music in general. This is a hopelessly subjective topic, but there are several tracks I have already listened to a bunch outside the game. Imposter Bowser’s rocking themes and the bouncy, motivating Level 2 theme for Koopathlon being my highlights.

There is a lot of good detail work in here too, such as Imposter Bowser getting his own version of the Mario’s Rainbow Castle theme when he is out or all 22 characters getting their own little turn start jingles, because this game loves effort and I in turn love it for it.

We also got a fresher set of voice clips for a bunch of the cast, some new and some from Wonder and I won’t lie, Superstars with how much it makes the characters shout their canned old clips really tested my patience with the same clips they have used game after game, not just in this one sub-series, for over a decade and being rid of them feels like sweet release.

It helps that I genuinely think Kevin does a good job with his roles and while Deanna Mustard was really good, I utterly adore Giselle Fernandez as Daisy.

Been doing a ton of gushing and well, that’s because this game’s damn good and a showcase they learned all the right lessons. It’s not perfect, I have laid out things I thought could be better or are missing, but none of it comes even close to souring the experience for me.

I’d still put 6 and 7 at the very top for me, but Jamboree is really competitive with 3 as a solid third place for me and I don’t think that’s just the honeymoon phase speaking. Jamboree is a true return to form that makes me extremely optimistic for the future of the series.

That and I am curious if we will see DLC this time. The game is already more than packed enough to not need it, but if a MP ever were to see that kind post-launch support, I’d want it to be one as robust as Jamboree.

Because Jamboree really is just that good and I am so happy I can say that.

#Mario Party

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vintagerpg · 2 years ago

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Escape the Dark Castle (2017) is so goooooood. After one play, it immediately joined our regular rotation of board games. It essentially takes the idea of an adventure gamebook like Fighting Fantasy, but tears the spine off and randomizes the story. You and your friends (it’s co-op) escape the dungeon and proceed, card by card, through fifteen rooms in hope of finding a way out. In those rooms are all manner of monsters, traps, mysterious strangers and other challenges to overcome, mostly through rolling special dice. Should everyone get through the regular rooms in one piece, all that remains between the players and egress is a terrifying boss monster. Should any character die, the game is lost. Shuffle the cards, pick fifteen new ones and try again.

Items give small advantages and healing. Expansions add wrinkles (like the curses and plagues, which make things harder, or flaws, which, despite the name, are beneficial, single-use special powers). There’s even a moody dungeonsynth soundtrack on vinyl and cassette. All of that stuff enhances a game that is already great. It is exciting to play, fast paced and keeps player’s attention even when all seems lost — like Return to Dark Tower, fortunes can turn rapidly. Escape the Dark Castle is harder though — we’ve only won two times out of probably close to 30 plays [edit: our average has improved since writing this, but not by a large margin].

A huge amount of the game’s appeal rests on the shoulders of the art of Alex Crispin that decorates all the cards. He captures something of the vibe of the early 80s UK RPG scene — the art is black and white and scratchy, its subjects a mix of gross, brutish, gloomy and silly — but also feels modern and un-nostalgic (as much as the art reminds me of Fighting Fantasy, it also reminds me of Marc Rude’s art for Earth A.D. and the pointy illustrations that cover black metal records). The result is an excess of delightfully grim atmosphere. Who’d have thought dying would be so much fun?

#RPG #TTRPG #Tabletop RPG #roleplaying game #D&D #Dungeons & Dragons #Board Game #Escape the Dark Castle #Themeborne

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chrisrin · 2 years ago

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hi soljade fucks tell me abt them

YES!

OK, SO! The main idea with SolJade, in my head, is that it works in combination with The MultiShip Of All Time.

That being, this abomination:

Essentially, Sollux and Jade are moirails who both share two boyfriends (Dave and Karkat) and two girlfriends (Aradia and Feferi).

(meaning the individual pairings are: AraSolFef, AraJadeFef, DaveSolKat, DaveJadeKat, and JadeSol, as far as quadrants I imagine they're all over the place with, outside of JadeSol which is firmly pale)

This is the dynamic of all time to me and it exists purely for my pleasure, and SolJade can be enjoyed outside of this BUT I think important context is needed here for the following explanation:

Now, I know there's more to love than hobbies (or apparently, my maybe-aro ass doesn't know much better) BUT let's look at the hobbies that some of these pairings share. Specifically, hobbies of Sollux's, specifically, video games.

Sollux is, to me, a big mega-cringe Gamer. However, everyone in this pairing isn't necessarily also a big capital G Gamer to me (outside of one exception, oooh foreshadowing it's obvious who, we're literally talking about it).

Dave isn't a gamer, he plays games to break the shit out of them. He runs around on a Minecraft server griefing and building giant dick towers. His sole enjoyment with the one game we know he's played is to find glitches and fuck with it until it's broken.

Karkat isn't a gamer, Karkat will enjoy the occasional casual single-player game but he'd much rather put his time into books or movies.

Aradia and Feferi also aren't gamers, they're both more athletically-inclined people in my mind and engage in different activities/hobbies with both Jade and Sollux.

This leaves Jade, who grew up on a solitary island with only access to the internet for the large majority of her childhood. Jade, is a Gamer.

Sollux and Jade mostly connect over video games. Games that Sollux would've initially put off are things that he and Jade end up connecting over. Jade introduces him to Stardew Valley, and while he thought it was a "game for normies", 300 hours later and he's trying to perfectly optimize his keg house to get the maximum amount of cashback a day. Sollux introduces Jade to some online games and is delightfully surprised at watching her get toxic during a League of Legends game (they both have fun shitting on the other team). They play puzzle games together, both of them incredibly smart and working through mysteries together. Outer Wilds is a game they hugely connect over, and I think they'd have a blast playing something like Ace Attorney.

This is the main draw for me with the pairing. This connection that they'd have over this hobby they don't really share with anyone else. There's also an interesting emotional dynamic when tied together with the giant multiship. The two of them are moirails but also share partners, so they get to discuss all levels of their relationships comfortably with each other and the roles they play in them. It's fun, they're happy to hang out for hours quietly in Animal Crossing, or work on their collective Minecraft server (Sollux is the redstoner, Jade is the builder).

In conclusion: Huge nerds, huge gamers, huge diamonds. <>

#chris talks #homestuck #hs #soljade #jadesol #arafefsoljadedavekat #<- what an abomination #anyways feel free to ask me about them any time ever i always have so much to say

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gallifreyianrosearkytiorsusan · 6 months ago

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Hunting Practice

Future

Warnings: Hunting Fish, let me know if I need to add more.

Author's Note: Su'cona's debute in Mermay!

Summary: Su'cona has been tasked with herding a bunch of Scouts on a hunt. Things go well.

Tagged: @barn-anon, @bleedingichorhearts, @c-u-c-koo-4-40k, @kit-williams, @sleepyfan-blog

Just in case Tagged: @kit-williams, @whorety-k

He's been on Ancient Terra for several months, and he's watching over a pod of Scout-aged Salamanders, mostly monitoring how they are doing with hunting after several large tuna, they'd been going after the fish, and a couple of his bolder little brothers managed to spear one of the fish, causing the rest of them to scatter, so long as they brought back at least three or four of the massive fish, they'd be find. He going to do an active part of the hunt if they have trouble getting the amount required of them. Some of the large fish are heavy with eggs, which pleases Su'cona, as the fish eggs are a delight to eat, they pop and have delightfully salty flavor that dancing merrily on one's tongue.

Well, unless they were picky eaters, which, as an Astartes, who can feasibly eat nearly everything, but whether they should or not is another matter entirely. They do have ways to make nutri-paste and that is what they usually eat, but occasionally having fresh, real food, is a treat, it doesn't do much, not unless its in insanely high amounts, but having it as an occasional treat as they are taught hunting skills or maintain such skills so as to not get rusty. A couple of his scouts swim over to him their chest puffed up with pride as they show the massive fish that they managed to catch and he nods smiles down at them.

"Well done, Scouts," He says proudly as he gently pats their shoulders.

They perk up, the smallest bits of praise seem to have the biggest impact, as adorable as it is, it also breaks his hearts as he notices that the Mechanicus has treated the poor younger brothers... poorly when he's been able to gently get them to tell them what they went through. Salamander training is long, and at times difficult, but they nurture each of their little brothers, helping them grow and be the best version of themself that they could be, and to continue to strive to be a better, stronger person as a whole.

He hadn't heard of Primaris Marines, until a little while ago, and they are good boys, larger, stronger, and faster in some ways, but still Scouts all of them. Which means they need training and learning their own strength and how to use it, as well as how to be gentle. They are good boys, a little too obedient at times, but seeing their little mischiefs is good, and as much as it occasionally exasperates him, he's glad that they are starting to, carefully, push their boundaries without going too far, usually, or without someone or someone’s doing something spectacularly stupid or foolish. Usually.

He'd heard of a pod of Primaris Lamenters hunting down a ship for stealing away their Sargent. They'd manage to win the day, a rare occurrence for the terminally, and often lethally, unlucky Sons of Sanguinius. While luck is a force in this galaxy that can be for, neutral and against others, at least, his luck has never been as poor as the Lamenters. He starts to herd the youngsters back to where the main pod of Salamanders in this area are schooling at the moment, it takes several days and they are all happy as they let out chirruping calls and croons to each other, happy to have the young hunters return and have had a successfully retrieved enough large fish so that they may all have a taste of the flesh and scales for it to be a delightful treat. He is glad that nothing untoward had happen before, during and after the hunt. Excitement could happen later, after they are fed and had some more rest.

#warhammer 40k #space marine husbandry sentience #space marine husbandry #warhammer #adeptus astartes #oc: Su'Cona #Salamanders #OC Salamanders #mermay #mermay au #mermay 40k au #Poor Unfortunate Souls character #poor unfortunate souls au

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rom-e-o · 1 year ago

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More modern Ebenezer/Constance!

These two are so delightfully awkward. <3

“Here you are, Mr. Scrooge,” she said politely. “One flat white. Oh, and here.”

She also handed him a small box, which she said was filled with pastries. It felt heavy and quite dense, requiring him to splay his fingers beneath the weight of the box to hold it.

“You work in an office, right?” Constance asked. “Please accept this. I hope you and the others enjoy them. Consider it a ‘thank you’ for your kind words.”

Without even looking inside to see what she was giving him, he could tell by the sweet, cinnamon-speckled aroma that the contents of the box likely came from the café’s bakery. “Oh, I couldn’t …”

“You must!” she insisted, her kind smile never faltering. “I’m sure there are some people in your office who skipped breakfast. It’s better to eat a pastry than nothing at all, I think.”

Seeing that he wasn’t going to deter the woman, and because he knew his coworkers would likely appreciate the baked goods in lieu of their coffee machine being broken, he surrendered with a thankful smile. “Well, that is exceptionally kind of you. I see the stereotype of American generosity is alive and well.”

It was her turn to stammer, and he watched in intrigue as she tucked a spiral of red hair behind one of her ears.

“Well, it was inspired by your kindness, sir,” Constance said. She bowed to him, her strawberry-blonde curls dropping over her shoulders as she did so. “Thank you again for being so sweet to me.”

With his hands now full, the woman followed Ebenezer to the door to hold it for him and make sure he got out safely. As he began his walk back down the sidewalk and toward his practice’s building, he glanced back over his shoulder and saw Constance standing in the doorway and waving to him.

The chilly, concrete streets of London’s financial district were a backdrop that only served to make everything about her form stand out more. From her coppery hair to her red corseted top to her, and even down to the glow of her tanned skin and smattering of freckles, everything about her radiated warmth. The juxtaposition was stark, like seeing a star glittering against a night sky.

He walked back to his office in a daze, barely noticing when he was thanked by the building’s other inhabitants for putting the pastries in one of the large communal kitchens.

When he made it back to his desk, coffee still in hand, Bob cast him a curious look from his station as he passed.

“You’re back!” he enthused. “Ah, looks like your trip was a success. The coffee smells good.”

“Hm?” Scrooge said, then broke out of his daydream with a laugh. “Oh! Yes, quite. It’s lovely.”

“Lovely?” the man asked, a brow lofting in amusement at the peculiar choice in adjective to describe a beverage. “Well, that’s quite a positive review!”

“Yes,” he parroted again. “It was certainly worth the trip out. Thank you for the recommendation.”

Taking a sip, the quality of the coffee was … quite good. It was a nicely brewed medium roast coffee with the proper amount of milk added. There was a touch of sweetness as well, which was far from unwelcome for a man who preferred to take his black tea with at least one lump of the granulated stuff. It was certainly better quality than what he would have gotten from the automated machine down in the lobby, and that was what mattered most, he supposed. Plus, he’d supported a local business, an initiative that had become much more near and dear to his heart in the past year.

Yet, as he sank into his seat and took another warm sip, he found it harder to descend back into the rhythm of work. Even as calls came in or meetings called him away, his caffeine-fueled brain kept drifting back to the brick coffee house a few blocks away.

The thoughts posed such an effective distraction that he never stopped to think why that could be.

For the next few weeks, Ebenezer found himself visiting New Grounds Coffee Co. every day on his morning walk into the office.

The first experience had been so pleasant after all that he felt obliged to support the business. Also, there was the small matter of thanking Constance for her kindness.

That next morning, he walked into the coffeehouse not knowing what to expect. Would she even be working? He hadn’t paid it much thought, but when he saw her smile and wave at him from behind the counter, the suddenly found himself with a spring in his step.

“Good morning, Mr. Scrooge!” she greeted positively, her voice as chipper as ever. He nodded in mutual greeting, unable to resist returning a matching smile.

He saw some of the other customers and workers wince at her loud American cadence, but he hardly minded. She was happy to see him, after all.

“I’m quite impressed,” Ebenezer said as he stepped up to the counter, his gloved hands coming together to rest at his waist, “You remembered my name.”

She nodded; a gesture more confident than boastful.

“Well, I don’t often forget a face. Especially one of someone who was such a hero to me.”

Her sweet words inspired a rush of awe, but his brow furrowed in concern. “Now, surely what I did was nothing heroic. That man from yesterday was being shrill, and someone would have put him in his place eventually.”

A noncommittal hum answered his speculation. He noticed she didn’t look convinced, and suddenly felt self-conscious about not simply accepting the kind comment she’d given him. However, before he could reply, she added, “Well, you were the one who actually stopped him, so you were my hero for the rest of the day.”

For the first time in many years, a woman had made him blush. Although he was only 50 years of age, it had been a while since another person had complimented him well enough to make him go red in the face. Whether it was her sincerity, her cheerfulness, or her bright smile … he wasn’t sure, but the effect on his heart spoke for itself loudly against his ribcage.

“I-I’m happy to see you, Miss Constance,” he clumsily segued, hoping to distract from his embarrassment and carry on their conversation. “I wanted to thank you for yesterday.”

She cocked her head. “Thank me?”

“My coworkers did appreciate the pastries. I heard a lot of positive feedback, so hopefully you’ll have some more clients coming your way soon.”

“Oh, wonderful! I’m so glad to hear that!” she enthused. He heard the heels of her tall shoes click as she bounced behind the counter. Goodness, the woman was more excitable than some puppies he’d met.

It was ... cute.

#scrooge 2022 #scrooge netflix #scrooge x oc #oc constance dogoode

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icedragonlizard · 1 year ago

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Marx headcanons

My "series" of tumblr posts going over general headcanons for singular Kirby characters is finally making a return! I already covered the trio of the third wave of dream friends, and so now the fourth entry is another character that's an ex-villain just like they are: Marx!

Like the third wave dream friends, I also have a whole looooot of headcanons for good 'ol silly clowny guy Marx here. Alongside with the third wave dream friends, this clown is another favorite of mine. With all of that in mind, why don't we go ahead and get this started?

As usual for these posts, I will put a 'Keep reading' tag because it's gonna be a long one. And as usual under these 'Keep reading' tags, everything from this point forward is purely my own headcanons.

Marx, by some miracle, didn't die when Kirby blasted him onto Galactic Nova at the ending of Milky Way Wishes. He himself couldn't believe it! He thought he was a goner when he saw himself flying towards that comet, but after the dust settled, he managed to register the fact that he somehow survived that enormous impact.

When he processed that the impact didn't kill him, it made him shocked beyond belief. But that shock didn't last long when he realized that he couldn't move freely on his own, since his injuries were excruciating enough to render him pretty much completely helpless as he floated around in space. With absolutely nobody to hear it, Marx cursed out Kirby in his seemingly final moments of life until he would eventually bleed out from his hugely agonizing injuries.

However, something occurred that saved Marx's life. Somebody was just quick enough to show up at the scene before it could be too late.

Someone piloting a big blue ship arrived at Galactic Nova's crash site and discovered Marx helplessly floating around. The person that piloted this big blue ship was none other than Magolor! The ship that he was piloting was, of course, none other than the Lor Starcutter.

Magolor saved Marx from death and took him in as he helped recover his injuries. The two became friends as they started pranking people together when Marx started to be in a good enough condition to do so.

Marx has been to Halcandra before, since Magolor showed him that's the place where he found the Lor Starcutter. The two of them caused mischief together, and Marx has seen Landia in person before.

It was after Marx recovered from his injuries is when he found out that he still has all the powers that Nova had granted him from his wish. He found it delightfully devious that he still has those powers!

The large golden wings now act as his forelimbs, as he can unfold or retract them any time, and those claw-like appendages are essentially his fingers. He also has the ability to alternate his eyes' looks to either have his pupils and irises be either round-shaped or slit-shaped, although round-shaped is the default/normal version.

He also has another power that he didn't even know he had before: he is has the ability to spit out an infinite amount of beach balls out of his mouth! This is an attack that he can perform in Star Allies. I headcanon that Nova gave him that capability, although he didn't use that attack during his boss fight in Milky Way Wishes. He didn't even know he had that skill until later in time.

A while after recovering from his injuries, Marx then eventually found an opportunity to disclose vital information to Magolor that would essentially serve as the catalyst for a large chain of events later on.

Marx is, more or less, the reason why Magolor comes to know about Kirby and eventually all the others in the first place, and this is what led to Return to Dreamland's events to happen. Marx told Magolor about his incident with Kirby that left him in the condition he found him in. This inspired Magolor to plot his own betrayal against Kirby, which was of course the events of RTDL, and Marx pleaded him to succeed when he set off his plan. Traitors beget traitors, right? Haha.

Ever since getting his ass kicked at the end of Milky Way Wishes, Marx has been holding a serious grudge against Kirby. He wanted to get back at that pink puffball so bad. He would've wanted to get revenge himself, but Magolor assured that he'd attempt his own betrayal against Kirby, and so Marx was able to relax at his courtesy. He really, really wanted Kirby to finally get wrecked, which was why he was pleading for Magolor to succeed with his grand betrayal plan.

To avoid making Magolor a conflict of interest that could easily cause his plans to flop before he could succeed in his betrayal, Marx completely stayed out of RTDL's events. Magolor did say "I even know somebody who knows you quite well!" to Kirby at one point during RTDL, and that somebody is of course Marx, but that's the closest Magolor has gone to letting the cover be even remotely blown. Aside from that, Magolor kept it hidden that Marx was the one who told him about Kirby to prevent his grand plan from flopping.

Marx was just going to numerous other planets to prank random people while Magolor was doing his grand plan in RTDL. Some of the planets that Marx caused mischief in at this time are some of the planets that were in Kirby 64, such as Rock Star, Aqua Star and Neo Star. He also caused mischief in Halcandra when Magolor showed him the place, until Magolor used the Lor Starcutter to open up a rift to let Marx leave Another Dimension before RTDL's events began.

Even though Marx has been having a really sore grudge against Kirby ever since losing, he was also very delighted about keeping all the powers that Nova gave him, and so he used his powers to have great efficiency at pulling pranks on people in numerous planets as his method of coping with his severe grudge against the pink puffball while trying to wait on Magolor carrying out his betrayal plan.

In essence, that's what Marx has been doing until Magolor finally returns to him to reveal that his betrayal plan failed. This disappointed Marx, and it disappointed him even more when Magolor expressed regret and how he wanted to reconcile with Kirby.

At that moment, Marx's grudge against Kirby was still really strong, and so he initially refused to cooperate when Magolor asked him to join in apologizing to Kirby. Magolor didn't like his response, so he tried to keep insist that he get over it and join him, but Marx even went so far as to suggest to try to betray Kirby again. That caused the two to have strife with each other, and so Magolor chose to temporarily leave Marx and make his apology on his own by himself.

During that brief period, Marx just continued his mischievous shenanigans on other planets while Magolor made up with Kirby. This goes on for a few years until something makes the jester change tune.

Eventually, something clicks with Marx and he finally snaps out of it. At some point, he comes to realize that it really would be for his own good to stop having such a ridiculous grudge against Kirby and just make up with him, and so he went ahead to return to Popstar and reconcile with Kirby years after Magolor made his reconciliation.

After reconciling with Kirby, Marx then came back together with Magolor to regrow their friendship after the brief strife that they had. When he did this, it put some weight off his non-existent shoulders, since life really is better and more relaxing without holding a grudge.

Marx's reconciliation with Kirby happens several months before Star Allies, meaning that Daroach, Magolor, Taranza and Susie all made their reconciliations with Kirby before Marx did. Before he made his reconciliation, he literally hasn't been to Popstar since the fight in Milky Way Wishes, since the grudge he had against Kirby was so strong that it made him really not want be anywhere near Popstar at the time. That of course changed when his grudge finally faded away.

And so after finally reconciling with Kirby, Marx became an addition to Kirby's large and constantly increasing group of friends. At this point, he sticks around and gets to know the rest of the notable cast.

Who are Marx's friends in my headcanon universe, might you wonder? Marx's friends are the following: Magolor, Kirby, Gooey, the animal friends, Daroach and the mage sisters.

I already have tumblr posts going over Marx's dynamic with Magolor, as well as his dynamics with Gooey and the animal friends, so I won't elaborate on that too deeply in here. However, I will mention in here that Magolor and the animal friends are essentially Marx's 'supervisors' in trying to get him to be a better person over time, even though they're more than glad to join him in tomfoolery sometimes.

Marx and Kirby have been friends ever since shortly before Star Allies. Kirby actually thought that Marx was dead until he finally came back, and it made him really glad to see that Marx was okay! Marx sometimes attempts to make Kirby laugh, although it doesn't always work since some of his jokes can end up flying over Kirby's head.

There are times where Marx might go too far on things that would make Kirby sad or give him a disapproving look. That doesn't stop Kirby from still really liking Marx as a friend, however. He's aware that the jester isn't always nice, but he does truly believe in him.

Daroach is chill, laid-back and mischief-minded, and so Marx is on his good side as a result! The two are friends as they both have a knack for trolling. Marx and Daroach sometimes cause mischief together, and it's not uncommon for them to be joined by Magolor to form a trio of tomfoolery-doers. Marx thinks Daroach is sly and cool as heck, and may sometimes even assist him into doing robberies!

The mage sisters are people that Marx has a really great time messing around with. They're pretty chaotic and willing to do some crazy stuff that many others aren't as willing to do, and that delights the jester. He can cause chaos with them together! They don't even care when he pokes fun at their trauma, since laughing is their most common go-to trauma response. They really enjoy Marx's company.

Out of the three mage sisters, Francisca is the one that Marx is closest buddies with. Francisca is generally the most notorious of the mage sisters due to her frozen trophy collection as well as being more psychotic than her sisters, and that's exactly like Marx likes her the most out of them. He literally hypes up Francisca's trophy collection! She's easily amused by it and thinks that Marx is the funniest person in existence. These two make a duo of unhinged freaks that do things that would make Magolor afraid to join them.

Flamberge fully approves of Marx due to how much Francisca enjoys him. She herself may also join the jester into starting some chaos sometimes. That being said, Flamberge is generally not as twisted and psychotic as Francisca, so whatever shenanigans Marx might do with Flamberge is not quite as insane as what he does with the ice general. Marx does however very much enjoy the hyper energy and bombastic-ness of the fire general, and loves causing booms with her.

Out of the three mages, Zan Partizanne is the one that is most distant from Marx, but even she still likes him. There are times where Zan actually becomes unhappy with Marx, since she's a bit more sensitive about her trauma being mocked compared to the other two mages, but she can still stand him for the most part, considering that she herself still really likes to playfully bicker and cause some chaos.

Now that we're covered all the people I mentioned being Marx's friends... everyone else in the notable cast aren't really his friends. In fact, some of the others don't get along with him. Marx is pretty chaotic as far as some of his mischief is concerned, and while some people don't mind it too much, there are others who don't take well to it and thus do not like him as a result. He's a bit on the infamous side.

King Dedede isn't really a fan of Marx. Even though he himself has a bigger-than-normal sense of humor, there's been many times where Marx has invited himself to Dedede's castle and caused some chaotic mischief that was too far for the monarch to accept. Marx has caused Dedede to snap in anger to the point of whacking him with his hammer a few times. Dedede tries to put up with the jester sometimes, but overall he really just doesn't like him much.

Meta Knight dislikes Marx and considers him to be a nuisance. He hates it when the jester asks what's behind that mask, and it forces him to use willpower to not skewer him when that happens. He tries to hold restraint in terms of reaction when getting pranked by Marx, but locking these two in the same room would be a terrible idea because Meta Knight absolutely will snap and it will result in a fight.

Adeleine and Ribbon find Marx to be pretty creepy and unnerving, although they're not really adamant on either liking or disliking him.

Elfilin is absolutely terrified of Marx. He wants nothing to do with the jester. Elfilin will immediately hide behind someone else the moment he sees Marx. He's seen all of Marx's powers and it deeply scares him.

There are some dream friends that despise Marx. Out of all the other dream friends, the ones that hate Marx the most are the following: Bandana Waddle Dee, Taranza, Susie and Dark Meta Knight.

Bandee has disdain for most of the ex-villain dream friends like I mentioned in a previous post, and Marx is one of the worst cases as far as this concerned. Even though Bandee had only heard about the Milky Way Wishes events secondhand, Marx loves the negative attention that Bandee gives him. He deliberately provokes and messes with him, which eventually causes Bandee to hate Marx even more than he hates most of the other ex-villain dream friends.

Taranza and Susie both despise Marx because he's literally made fun of their dead loved ones a couple of times. He's caused Taranza to cry and he's caused Susie to beat the shit out of him. He's irritated them in some other ways, but both of them drew the line big-time when he dared to mock their trauma, and thus they've held a grudge against him ever since. They once together ganged up on him in revenge.

Which is also to say that I'm sorry, but I don't headcanon Marx forming a quartet with Wave 3. Magolor likes him, but Taranza and Susie hate him and don't want anything to do with him. Even though Magolor considers Marx to be his buddy, he did not at all condone Marx making Taranza and Susie really upset a few times. He's taken it upon himself to help his fellow wave 3 pals stay away from the jester.

Making fun of Taranza's and Susie's losses is the most infamous thing Marx has done post-MWW. He received a lot of harsh backlash over it, and that's why he only did it a couple of times for each. The mage sisters have a higher tolerance and don't care when Marx pokes fun at their trauma, but Taranza and Susie absolutely do not tolerate it at all, and both would be grateful if they didn't have to see Marx again.

Dark Meta Knight also hates Marx. The reason is why is because Marx considers DMK's existence to be pretty laughable. He does things like making all sorts of emo jokes and edgy jokes at DMK, as well as mocking him for being a more unhinged version of Meta Knight. As one could easily imagine, this really pisses DMK off and he's even tried to kill Marx as a result. These two have had fights with each other as soon as during the events of Star Allies, causing the other dream friends to break them up and separate these two.

And... I'd say that wraps up how Marx interacts with the notable cast. Overall, pretty mixed results. While Kirby and some of the dream friends like him, there are others that do not like him and in fact can't stand him. Marx has had a bad habit of overstepping people's boundaries with his mischief, which doesn't really earn him a lot of brownie points with some people. In fact... he's actually the second most disliked/controversial dream friend after Dark Meta Knight.

Marx loves getting dramatic reactions out of people. He thinks it's hysterical to get people to snap or lash out, and he's willing to go to large lengths to get entertainment. He just has an unrestrained sense of humor that doesn't really sit well with some people. Like stated earlier above in the post, Magolor and the animal friends have had to act as Marx's 'supervisors' in trying to prevent him from starting chaos or going too far with his mischief. Sometimes, it's difficult to get him to listen, but he does actually care enough about his supervisors to where there are times that he does indeed listen to them.

A lot of the cruel and chaotic stuff that Marx has done is stuff he actually wouldn't mind if it happened to him. He loves being pranked, made fun of, and scared! Adrenaline rushes are very fun for him! That's what makes him quick to declare people boring or sensitive when they don't take well to being messed with by him. Unfortunately, this viewpoint of his is not shared by others, and thus his supervisors still work on trying to get him to stop upsetting others.

Marx's favorite food is pizza. He'll eat entire pizzas by himself. His favorite kind of pizza is the all-meat combo type, but he'll gladly eat any pizza, including the pizzas that have pineapples on them.

He likes a lot of food in general, and he can eat a lot in one sitting like Kirby does. There's also times where he tried to eat things that looked like food... such as when he attempted to eat a gem apple one time, until Magolor stopped him and told him that gem apples aren't edible.

His laughter can be fairly contagious to his friends. Sometimes, when he's not really into causing mischief and just wants to say funny things, his laughter can get his friends all hyped up and want to mimic it. He loves it when that happens. Laughter can sometimes be the best medicine, like someone said in a different video game series.

There are times where Marx decides to not cause mischief, and instead just puts up silly little shows to try to make people laugh. This includes things like making a ton of funny faces, or creating a big pile of beach balls by spitting them all out. Sometimes, this works and it makes some people laugh! He remembers doing this somewhere in Dream Land, it got laughs out of some of the random residents. There was a time where a Bonkers gave Marx a playful slap on the shoulder and called him a funny guy... he very much appreciated that!

He doesn't have an actual job, occupation or anything along those lines. The closest thing he has to some sort of 'job' is mischief, considering that's pretty much his spiritual hobby, and basically what he's been doing all his life. He doesn't really intend to change that.

Marx also doesn't really have a home, and thus is effectively homeless. He basically just sleeps wherever, and rarely does he sleep in the same place two nights in a row. He has a range of where he picks out places to sleep, and including throughout Popstar and a few other planets like the ones that were in Milky Way Wishes.

Nearby the Lor Starcutter is a common place for Marx to sleep at, though, considering that Magolor will sometimes allow him to do it.

There are however places where he is forbidden to sleep at... such as Dedede's castle, since the waddle dees don't really want him there.

He's a bit of a nomad. He spends perhaps most of his time in Popstar, but he sometimes goes around to visit planets nearby Popstar. He has a pretty large horizon, which helps in that he's more than glad to go to the Jambastion fortress to visit the three mage sisters.

Marx has been able to visit the Forgotten Land a couple of times, with the help of Magolor using the Lor Starcutter to take him there. The times that Marx was there, Magolor was with him to supervise him, and luckily he got Marx to cooperate and not cause a notable amount of trouble in the Forgotten Land as they adventured the place.

During his visits to the Forgotten Land, Marx loved it! He likes hanging around in Wondaria, since he considers it to be a fun place, and he also enjoyed fighting in the colosseum in Waddle Dee Town.

Marx has spread his knowledge about clockwork stars to some people in Popstar. Gooey and the animal friends didn't even know about clockwork stars until Marx told them about it! Not that they ever intend to go to outer space to try to grant a wish to one, but they thought it was cool to learn about those comets regardless!

When Marx visited Merry Magoland for the first time, he was incredibly ecstatic over the 'Marx Soul' mask. He loves that mask! He was also informed by Magolor to please behave during his time in Magoland. Magolor may be buddies with Marx, but he doesn't want chaos in his park, and thankfully Marx does actually listen to him when it comes to this. I also headcanon that the design of 'Marx Soul' for the mask was completely invented by Magolor, since the Marx Soul stuff from Super Star Ultra's True Arena did not happen at all in my headcanons. So when Marx saw the mask, he asked where it came from, Magolor said it was purely his own invention.

As far as Marx's birthdays are concerned, he had a few of his birthdays celebrated by Magolor before RTDL's events. He went a few birthdays without being celebrated after RTDL, as the next time they were celebrated was when Marx made up with Kirby and started gaining some more friends to be able to celebrate his birthdays.

Marx doesn't actually do much on Popstar for his birthdays. When it's special day, he wants to have a bunch of fun, and that means causing a bunch of mischief. He'll of course swoop by Dream Land to hear Kirby and others wish him a happy birthday, but he'll go by other planets to start some crazy mischief. Magolor joins him in these birthday pranking sprees to make the mischief even more fun, although Magolor may also take him on a Lor ride to some far-away planets to cause mischief on, and return when they're done.

Also, I headcanon that Marx is a young adult. I know that some people headcanon him being a kid or teenager, but for me he's a young adult that's just a little bit younger than the wave 3 dream friends. So in my headcanon universe, he is perhaps the universe's silliest adult.

I think that just about wraps up the headcanons that I have for Marx! What a chaotic and silly guy, isn't he? I've always really liked this freak of nature. I know my interpretation of Marx is pretty wild as he likes to get dramatic reactions out of people with his mischief, but it's just the way I like it! To me, it's fun when he's not always very repentant and willing to start crap with others! Silly chaotic clown guy.

Marx is the fourth Kirby character I've done a post like this for. Last month, I did these general headcanon posts for Magolor, Taranza and Susie, so feel free to also give those a read any time if you've yet to.

I think Gooey is going to be the next Kirby character that I'll write a giant post like this for. I love Gooey a lot, too, and I also have lots of thoughts for that googly-eyed dark matter defect! Stay tuned for that.

Thank you very much if you've read all of this. See you later!

#kirby #marx #marx kirby #kirby super star #kirby super star ultra #milky way wishes #galactic nova #nova kirby #kirby star allies #kirby's return to dreamland deluxe #magolor

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sleepingdeath-light · 1 year ago

Text

how to bake the perfect cake ; frank frankly

requested by ; an ao3 user

word count ; 1298

content ; fluff, making a mess, queerplatonic frank x reader, non binary reader, feminine reader

fandom ; welcome home

pairing ; queerplatonic frank frankly x non binary reader

read also on ; my ao3 one shot collection “where the heart is”

note ; you can stop reading after frank says ‘it’s too perfect not to share’ as after that it’s just a brief nod to the horror origins of welcome home

note 2 ; as this is my first time portraying frank in a longer format i can’t say that i’m too confident in my characterisation so apologies if he seems a bit off here

Days like these were your favourites (aside from every other day, of course): the air was delightfully cool and crisp, with a breeze just light enough to flutter your skirt and ruffle the leaves on the nearby trees; the sun was low but bright, just high enough to peek through your drawn kitchen curtains and fill the room with a warm glow; the trees were filled with the most beautiful shades of orange and red, their leaves well turned and starting to fall — creating both a beautiful canopy overhead and a sheet on the ground that made the most wonderful crackling sound when stepped on. Not quite butterfly catching weather, as your spouse preferred, but you always found a way to make the most out of whatever mother nature threw at you.

Today that meant baking a lovely sponge cake to share with your neighbours — and it was going about as well as you could have hoped.

————

'Are you sure we need this many eggs?' Frank called out to you, head buried in your fridge. 'Ten just seems like too many...'

You held up the recipe book you were working off of and tapped the individual sections twice with your index finger, reading them out to him.

'Ingredients: eight large eggs, separated. Frosting: two large eggs,' you paused for a beat and then just shrugged and tossed the book to one side, 'I'm not about to argue with the professional — this thing's cost us a small fortune in ingredients and I really don't want it to go to waste...'

'Ten eggs it is,' Frank responded solemnly, retrieving the freshly bought carton and kicking the fridge shut with his heel as he returned to your side. 'This had better be the best cake we've ever had,'

You guffawed and pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek.

'With all of this prep? It's going to be amazing!'

'Or a massive waste of time and money,'

'Frank!' You lightly slapped him on the chest, his expression forming the closest thing he could get to a smile as he laughed along with you. 'Would a bit of optimism kill you?'

'Better safe than sorry,'

————

You'd just about managed to make it long enough to get the batter into the oven before disaster struck; you tripped up over the edge of your skirt and sent a colossal amount of flour flying everywhere. Managing somehow to only cover your face and chest whilst absolutely smothering your less-than-pleased partner with it — and leaving you both questioning why you were ever trusted to take the heaviest bag back to the cupboard in the first place.

'... I'm sorry?' You managed, still splayed chest-down on the floor, outstretched hands still clinging to the sides of the now only half full flour container. When he didn't give any response, you continued. 'It was an accident?'

Then he sighed and let his shoulders drop as he knelt down to offer you a hand, which you gladly took — only to be met with deception when he threw another handful of flour at you. This time managing to cover what remained of your face whilst you both laughed like children.

'Now we're even,' Frank managed between bouts of laughter as he helped you back onto your feet — bursting into another giggle fit when he noticed how many white handprints decorated the length of your autumn-themed skirt.

'Oh that's what that was about? Equality?' You jokingly huffed, crossing your arms and turning away from him in mock-hurt. 'You betrayed my trust for this? How very cruel, Frank,'

Almost starting to feel bad, he reached out to turn you around, only to be met with your smirking face and recognising just a moment too late what you were doing. Immediately being tackled into a hug that allowed you to cover the few small spots of his vest that were clean and had you both falling helplessly to the kitchen floor in a mass of laughter and limbs.

The only coherent word that managed to come out between all of his startled spluttering being a faux-irritated call of your name just when his back hit the tiled floor. If you weren't his best friend he might have screamed.

————

After an hour and a half of creating far more mess than should have been possible for two sensible adults to generate, your cake was finally done. Warm and delicious smelling and ready to decorate with the frosting you'd just about managed to scrape together in time — which Frank would be responsible for (which both of you agreed was fair given your track record of spilling things had so far been three for three — somehow).

And that left you where you were now: standing back a few paces with your arms crossed over your chest as you watched Frank do the last finishing touches on the decoration, a small smile on your face as you observed from over his shoulder; your dress and face and hands all caked with flour and frosting an sugar and orange zest, with your partner being in much the same state; your mouth already watering at the smell of your confection and your sensible mind (which had been thoroughly ignored up until now) convincing you to wait just a while longer. Then when Frank took a step back to admire his work, you placed an arm around his waist and leaned into him, the two of you pleased with your efforts.

'Do you think the others will like it?' You asked, watching him from the corner of your eye, 'Or, rather, do you think they'd miss it if we just ate the whole thing?'

The almost-smile that he'd had nearly all day crept onto his features again as he lightly shook his head and gently bumped your hip with his own. 'We cannot eat a whole cake,'

'You can't eat a whole cake, you mean,' you joked, 'me, on the other hand...'

'You know exactly what I meant,' he sighed, accompanying the sound with an eye roll that had you snickering, 'besides we made a promise. And what would I tell them? "Oh sorry about the cake, my partner decided that they wanted to eat it all so we've had to show up empty-handed?" How will that look?'

You grinned cheekily up at him and pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek as he frowned at you.

'I have no idea how it will look, dear friend, because I'll be busy being in a food coma — and you're more than welcome to join me, you know,' then you laughed and shoved him back. 'I'm only kidding though, we can't let something that looks that good go to waste on just us, can we?'

Frank sighed again before nodding in agreement, pulling you into an even tighter side-hug as he leaned his head on yours.

'We can't. It's too perfect not to share,'

————

The second he finished speaking you swore you could hear the sound of laughter emanating from all around you. From the floor, from the walls, from the ceiling. Inescapable, booming, shrill — children.

There were no children in your neighbourhood, there shouldn't have been anything there for you to hear. But as soon as it appeared, the sound quickly faded away and as you looked up to your friend for some sort of explanation you noticed that he was still just staring proudly at your creation.

A part of you wanted to bring it up, but you found yourself unable to speak. And, soon after that, unable to remember why you wanted to speak or what you were wanting to ask — or that you were going to ask anything at all.

Falling back into your role and holding your platonic spouse tighter because, yes, you really had made the perfect cake.

#sleepingdeath #non binary reader #fluff #platonic x reader #welcome home fluff #platonic welcome home x reader #welcome home x reader #frank frankly fluff #frank frankly x reader #platonic frank frankly x reader #queerplatonic x reader

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stuck-in-the-ghost-zone · 6 months ago

Note

preemptively sorry for how fucking long this is it is YOUR FAULTT THOUGH!!!! large bowl of seeds for u. it is almost 2am sorry.

SO. there are. two ways to assign the prime defenders powers etc. the first way is just, like, categorize their existing powersets within the prt framework, & the second is to give them entirely new abilities based on the way worm works. delightfully, all the powers they Do have work really well for the most part, so even that doesn't require a ton of shuffling.

categorizing their pre-existing powers:

wiwi-- breaker w/ a shaker subclass. neither of them rated very high, but that's already a rare and versatile enough combination!!

dakota-- brute babeeeey!!! brute/mover its so straightforward. hell yeah babey. i don't know what he'll end up looking like post-heart removal & stuff but my guess is that'll end up looking more like a mover/striker.

vyncent-- now THIS one gave me trouble. i... hm. to say this without talking about stuff that i don't think has come up much already, (hey!! you're at that clockblocker pov! directly related to what flechette says!) i'd call him a grab-bag cape, irt the greats at least. post-greats-- again, i don't know what his powerset will look like after this arc! but if he's going all in w/ the fire magic, that would for sure be some striker shit! :]]]

giving them new powers... man i'm reining myself in so hard from five more paragraphs on Why exactly i'm saying all this.

wiwi still breaker for sure, maybe breaker-master, maybe master-stranger. yknow. powers are fluid, the prt categories are pretty rigid. i... don't know. enough about his situation yet to be clearer than that vague idea yet-- i really like the idea of him just. ditching his body & using a noncorporeal form but he still has to keep an eye on his body i think that's great. the noncorporeal form would b able to change its visibility but still b limited by proximity to the body. & fluctuating energy shit powered by fluctuating amounts of recent-death in the area, maybe probably also limited in that it's only accessible in his breaker form.... also i think u will appreciate this style note from the [UNNAMED PARAHUMANS TTRPG] i'm referencing a lot here.

dakota--in this situation he probably would not. have that mechanical heart and shit. he' would still be a mover/thinker-- thinker rating is for faster mental processing + senses imminent pain for the people in his immediate vicinity. not danger, just pain; it immediately registers ambiently & can be generally traced back to whoever it is. no he can't turn it off ever, it manifests as feeling a similar level of pain, yes it works on himself. + mover-- he can fucking fly. no super strength, just very fast flight & the general "won't splat himself flying into something" capabilities, which meshes well w/ the faster processing & reflexes. i'm split on how exactly this would work mechanically but i will NOT go into that now. i am also not going into the 15k discussion in my brain on why dakota 'notoriously bad at thinking about things' cole would be a thinker but u gotta trust the process ok??

vyncent-- trump!!!! somehow this is the only straightforward one to me? he can copy powers at the full strength or ability level of the original for an unspecified amount of time that's usually 1-30 minutes by touching the cape. crucially, he doesn't have any edge on how to use these powers + can easily misuse or become extremely overwhelmed by them. he's easily the most powerful out of the three of them <33

ashe-- ashe is NOT HERE currently and also it's 1:30 am so i gotta go fucking sleep soon BUT they would be a master. easy. :o) they can make some lil guys n do stuff with them!!!!

in general these are pretty fucking cracked abilities, all of them would b oosely above a seven or so in a number rating once they're really settled in their powers-- this is mostly because i'm assuming that they would still be heirs-apparent to the prime force equivalent, which would b the triumvirate :]] anyway. good lord. this is like the cliff notes edition of what i've been thinking and scribbling in the notes app for the past several hours. sorry if it's fucking incomprehensible. gn!!! <333

AAAAAH FUCK YESSSSSS OKAY OKAY OKAY my response is probably going to be equally as long. so it's fine. oooouh buddy.

I KNOW WHAT BREAKER MEANS NOW !!! I dontttt think ive learned shaker yet. breaker is like.... breaking the laws of physics/shifting planes or whatever. PERFECT for william hell yes. for putting them actually in worm world ... ughhhh breaker/master william is REALLY cool. I havwnt learned stranger yet but i think he would develop a complex over being classified as stranger <3 (like how weld doesn't like that he's classified as a brute even though that's not exactly what it means, he just doesn't like the word) . GODDDD just thinking abt putting pd boys in worm is fucking me up haven't they been through enough. I want to see them all in a fit of despair. william ditching his body is SO good I miss when he would do that, also the powers being limited by how far away he is AND THE AMOUNT OF RECENT DEATH IN THE AREA. holy shit. that's so fucking good . im sure he would not overthink at all the fact that he is stronger when more people around him have died . I'm sure he'd do awesome in the leviathan fight for sure for sure .

DAKOTA BRUTE <3 DAKOTA BRUTE/MOVER I LOVE THIS A LOTTTTTT hellbyes. awesome. it's so perfect for him <3 worm world I'm SURPRISED u didn't stick with brute for him. eyes emoji. I trust your judgement but now i am Thinking... Hmm..... YOU BRING INTO QUESTION something I have been thinking about. and I'm going to probably get derailed a little here but stay with me. how the way powers manifest directly relate to the trigger event. because for a WHILE before we learned taylors I was like "OH i bet the powers are going to be directly related to what traumatic thing happened to them" and then we learn about taylor and grue and a couple more and I kind of lost that theory because while you can. technically draw relations between their powers and their events it seemed like too much of a stretch to do . HOWEVER now my thinking has changed AGAIN and I think the powers ARE related to specific trigger events but it's not as straightforward as "oh something scary happened to you with bugs so now you have bug powers" I think it's gonna be more complicated than that. WHICH. THE WAY THIS RELATES. BACK ON TOPIC NOW. to DAKOTA . assuming his trigger event is still he and katori falling off the building I think it's AWESOME that his powers would manifest as FLIGHT for one. and the fucking. pain sense thing. fuck me up. dakota extreme hero complex cole would be so fucked up by a power where he ambiently senses pain from the people around him at all times and cannot turn it off. I'm sure he would feel so normal about being around william chronic pain wisp 24/7. also I can SO CLEARLY imagine how this power specifically would lead to him getting super overwhelmed in chaotic situations like he does in canon. and just fucking. bolt out of there because it's too much. again. he'd have such a wonderful time in the leviathan fight

I AM AT CLOCKBLOCKER POV !!!! actually technically I'm on kid win pov now but I haven't finished his chapter yet. vyncent grab bag cape..... yeah... I think it would be EXTREMELY funny imagining the PRT in pd world trying 2 classify vyncent like. what the fuck does this kid do . what do we do with him. hes got other guys in his head that give him powers. is he a master??? no he can't fucking control them. is he a striker??? only SOMETIMES. is he a blaster?? AGAIN ONLY SOMETIMES. cannot classify him bitch!!!!!!!! giving him worm powers though.. UGH. being able to touch someone and COMPLETELY copy their powers but only for a short period of time???? I fucking love that a lot. he WOULD be the most powerful out of them!!! I can hear taylors inner analysis dialogue about him now and it's very similar to the clockblocker "DONT LET HIM.TOUCH YOU" panic. loooove imagining this playing off of the rest of pd,,, i know there was AT LEAST one time where he had william sort of transfer some of his ghost powers for a minute? I think it was during the lich fight in the theatre but i just remember vycnent floating and going intangible and NOT KNOWING how to control it or anything. loveeee that. in world dynamics I feel like vyncent would be a late addition to their team (instead of coming from another world maybe he just. had his trigger event happen way later than the other two..or something.) and not trusting them as much at first/being REALLY shaky using either of their powers but after a while being really comfortable in a fight with using either Williams or dakotas powers in a fight. Just like. imagining the fluidity of how they'd work together in a tense situation assuming they're not being complete dumbasses <3333 UGH it's really good

AAAASHE ASHE ASHE IM SOOO SO GLAD YOU INCLUDED ASHE IN THIS I miss him.so much every day. from what I know so far master involves having/making/controlling some sort of minion (cannot think of a better word than that rn) AND I THINK THATS REALLYYYY perfect for ashe. i assume he would actually work pretty closely to canon in that his limitation would be the book? or if he doesn't have the book maybe his limitation would be a) having only a few different types of things he could summon (the big hand, the water fairy, duck etc) and/or b) only being able to control them.for a short amount of time after they're summoned so he has to be quick about dismissing them. can't keep the demon hand around for too long or it might start picking things up and throwing them at random. putting teammates in danger bc he can't control it anymore etc etc. alsooooooo in clockblocker pov they VERY briefly mentioned the possibility of having secondary trigger events (?!!!!?!?!) and you know I locked onto that SO FUCKING HARD. ashe being born with powers and then his secondary trigger event being his mom's death <3 im.NOT even going to attempt to talk about how the trickster would work in worm world/if it would even exist in this setting bc i don't know enough about the types of powers and things yet..but just know. I am keeping this in the back of my mind "this is a fun surprise tool that will help us later" style

#also side note but can i say. thw whole time i was reading the leviathan fight a persistent thought in the back of my mind was #“man i really wish they had a cape here who could control water- THEY NEED TIDE... THEY NEED TIDE SO BAD”#so like..really normal about putting prime defenders SPECIFICALLY in the leviathan fight. teehee (<< most diabolical laugh youve ever heard #I HAVE A LOT MORE THOUGHTS ABOUT WILLIAM TOO BUT..HMMMMMMMMM DONT THINK I CAN SAY SOME OD THEM YET #EXTREMELY interested 2 see whether ur thoughts on specifically him and dakota #will change after both the training arc and certain other events <3 #hehehehehehehee #GOD I CANNOT STOP IMAGINING. PD IN WORM.WORLD. they would suffer so fucking badly man.#william wisp guilt complex about his powers turned up to 200 #HAVING A LOT OF THOUGHTS ABOUT ASHE ALSOOOOO . AS ALWAYS #now that i know more abt power classes i am VERY confidently going to put mark down as a tinker/striker.#with the tinker rating being SLIGHTLY higher than striker bc he uses the things he makes to amplify his naturally weaker striker powers.#tiiiiiide im thinkingggg would be. whats the elemental one.#not breaker bc thats specifically about breaking physics and i dont think that works for him.#is it shaker?????? i dknt think ive learned shaker yet.#U ARE MORE EQUIPPED AT THIS THAN ME whats tide. tide would also for sure be a case 53 right. i havent exactly learned what that means yet #but im assuming its the whole artifically giving people powers thing and. thats tide baby. idk if clones would work in worm world #so maybe its him and his regular siblings all being specifically given elemental powers #so they could work together as some super crazy powerful team. and then. that Doesnt happen <3 #(idk if u have listened to the tide oneshot yet but. its good. if you ignore dodgeboy)#ANYWAY. i should start getting ready for work now. im having so many thoughts about this norlw #hollyyyyyy shit #infected my brain with worms (pun intended)#asks #friends!!!#intertexts #wormposting #jrwi pd #<< only tagging so i can find this later when i learn more and can properly yell about it #new haven wards

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chronicallydragons · 7 months ago

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Tag Game: OC interaction

I'm finally catching up on tag games! Thanks both @tildeathiwillwrite and @illarian-rambling for the tags! I'll do both here if that's okay!

Rules: Provide a short description of your oc, then using the description given by the person who tagged you, describe how you think the two of them would interact.

@tildeathiwillwrite's oc: Hector Epsilona is Caenum's resident Watcher (which is a detective/bodyguard/mercenary-type job). He knows the law (and its loopholes) very well, and uses both extensively, and enjoys a small amount of freedom to operate outside the law if he sees fit. He is extremely protective of and attached to those he cares about, especially his apprentice, Luc. He is generally polite, if a bit stern, and is always looking for a way to turn something into a lesson. I used the Wheel again (it's a brilliant idea!) and got Sophie from my MG werewolf WIP

My OC: Sophie Beatrice Larsen is a 12 years old and is a sixth grader at Forest Hills Elementary. She's 100% in her "weird 12 year old" phase and embracing and loving every second of that. She firmly believes mythological creatures are real and will go to the ends of the earth to prove they actually exist. She's delightfully weird, incredibly passionate, and super curious. She's naturally good at tracking and investigating and looking for clues and asking questions. She's also got a large amount of sass for such a tiny human and won't just standby in the face of injustice. How I think they'd interact: Sophie would probably idolize Hector, tbh. I mean, he's a detective??? She's absolutely taking notes and copying every single thing he does so she can be a better detective too. Whether or not Hector is chill about this, I have no clue XD ---

@illarian-rambling's oc: OC: Elsind is a 20 year old changeling whose true form looks like a mannequin wrapped in raw meat with five fins ringing its face, and who can transition between a solid and liquid state. They change their disguise frequently (they can only do people, not animals) and use the pronouns of whatever face they’re wearing. As a person, Elsind is anxious, easily flustered, cries a lot, and is overall very kind-hearted, despite working as an assassin for a rebel cell. She ended up in that line of work because she wants revenge for what the nobility of her home put her through - kidnapping her at thirteen to serve as a court freak. He thinks if he can assassinate his target, he can earn his courage back and be more than another discarded toy of the ruling class, even if the idea of killing someone makes him sick. Indeed, classism is where Elsind gets very passionate, as well as talking about romance novels. They long for love, even if they think no one would accept a changeling without a disguise. I would also say she’s chronically unlucky. If anyone is going to slip in the mud in his nice new dress, it’s Elsind. All I have written down on their character notes is “eager to please, easily overwhelmed, great combo of traits,” which is pretty much Elsind’s deal. The Wheel has chosen Lizzie--also from my MG werewolf WIP. I suppose it's appropriate that the best friends get chosen together (though for what it's worth, Sophie would be FASCINATED by Elsind and would beg for them to change their face and show her what his true form is and would 100% love her true form) My OC: Elizabeth Page (Lizzie) is also a 12 year old 6th grader at Forest Hills Elementary. She has pretty debilitating POTS symptoms and is often dizzy, fatigued, and in pain. She's incredibly loyal, loving, and kind. She really sees the best in people. She's also a werewolf. Because werewolves are so often depicted as monsters and were nearly hunted to extinction in the 1500s, it's against werewolf law to let nonwerewolves know to keep them safe. Lizzie adores Sophie and wants to help with the investigations but she's not allowed to tell and she spends the first chunk of the book terrified that Sophie won't accept her if she finds out the truth. How I think they'd interact: Listen. A huge proportion of my characters are shapeshifters in someway, so it's no surprise I got a shapeshifter when I pulled a character at random. But I think the fact the wheel pulled Lizzie to meet Elsind is a really good match. Lizzie's also incredibly anxious, kindhearted, and ALSO ready to seek revenge. A big plot point is that Sophie and Lizzie find a new kid who was just recently turned into a werewolf (Lizzie was born into a werewolf family), and Lizzie's ready to square up with whoever it was that attacked a 12 year old boy. So I think Lizzie and Elsind would probably definitely get along.

I'm nervous to tag people because I'm going to try to get through the rest of the tag games and I only have like 3 or 4 people I know are okay with tags and I don't really want to spam tag anyone, so... open tag?? (if you want to be tagged, please let me know!)

#tag game #writing tag game #writblr #OC interactions #other people's OCs #my OCs #disability rep #MG Werewolf WIP

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pjulian · 7 months ago

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Lilac Patisserie - Aptly named for gay nerds

In the mood for some gay brunch and pastry, Saturday morning brought us to the ever fancy “lilac patassery,” as julian calls it.

Like many white people coffee spots in the area, I had been wanting to try it out for a while. A decently long line of people awaited as we got there.

They seem to have a large collection of cakes and tarts and things that made me want to pee myself or something. Truly tempted by the lemon cheesecake but the lemon merengue tarts captured me more. Lemon will always be seductive to me.

Anyways, a cute $80 pricetag for two mains, the tart and two lattes and we were seated.

A wonderfully gay man informed me and julian that he would “recommend that we cut the tart” after he watched us nearly break our forks trying to take bites. Tart pictured here, post destruction:

Things came out pretty quickly, lattes following soon after. I always enjoy cute latte art, although they gave me the GIRL design. Just kidding. The lattes were a decent size, julian’s was his coveted mocha, mine was a caramel latte.

Unsure if caramel meant sea salt caramel? A sip of mine tasted almost salty, however it was quickly fixed with a sugar packet. Very good afterwards.

Post-latte was only another few minutes until the food came out. I got the classic breakfast, something delightfully american. julian got his favorite french toast.

The breakfast was good. Being a bakery, they had some thick fluffy bread for toast which was its own experience. A little sugary for my taste but, good nonetheless. The potatoes were my favorite part, mostly nice and soft and well seasoned (with the exception of one half raw piece). That being said, Lilac makes an interesting decision to pair the potatoes with a sea of roasted onion and bell pepper. Honestly I didn’t even touch the onions, not wanting to deal with the monstrosity of onion breath for the rest of the year. The apple chicken sausage offered was a little bland, but good. Not an exceptional amount of flavor but I just love sausage. Overall the food was decent but not spectacular.

Most of the points for this place come from the atmosphere. Nice lavender walls and a really clean and dainty french feel. I don’t know how often i can justify a full breakfast at the price point but it’s definitely a place to return to. Campy and gay enough for me!

★ ★ ★ ★ / 5

Warm wishes,

Read julian’s thoughts on his food below ⬇️

i was most surprised by the speed of the service as pj already pointed out, everything was delivered to us pretty quickly and paced out well. the tart itself i enjoyed but im also not really one for messy food and the gay guy telling me how to cut the thing was embarrassing so i cant really give it too glowing of praise but its also a pretty personal thing, if you like creamy desserts and gay men humiliating you then its probably great. the mocha was good just a little too sweet, i prefer it a bit more bitter but again thats personal taste it was still very good. i liked the leaf on it was very sad when i drank it to the point of complete dissolution.

the french toast was served with a cup of butter, syrup, and a side of assorted fruit. pretty average presentation but strawberries with french toast is like crack to me so i cant bring myself to care too much, dont need anything too exotic to enjoy the meal with.what definitely surprised me though was that i typically hate blueberries but the ones served here were actually great with a very consistent ripeness and sweetness to the point that it may have turned me around on the fruit a little. like sorry blueberries i didnt realize you could taste like that. the toast itself was pretty decent too although i wish it was served with a little more syrup, it was like a tiny cup i need the whole gallon.

despite lilacs pattassery not entirely aligning with my autistic inclinations id say it was a pretty good dining experience overall especially if youre normal. you got to hand it to white people. but only sometimes. id give it 3.5 stars out of 5.

best regards,

julian

Lilac Patisserie: 3.75 ★

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dangermousie · 2 years ago

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The Last Princess came out of nowhere - it was in unaired limbo for literal years and then dropped with close to no warning.

And what a lovely, pleasant surprise it is. Is it a masterpiece of plotting and human nuance? No, of course not. Is it a tragic, delicious grand opus with delightfully fucked up headcases a la Too Late to Say I Love You, Siege in Fog or even City of Streamer? No (and honestly, no way Too Late or even Siege would be allowed under nowadays’ stricter censorship; even much milder Streamer imo passed by a miracle.)

But it actually feels unpretentious, unshrill, and not utterly shellacked into immobility of stupidity by a 100-ton idol gloss (I am looking at you, Fall In Love aka a drama that can drive one to homicide), and whose heroine is nowhere as rage-inducing as the heroine of Love In Flames of War (which was a fun drama except for that rather big if.)

It does not have big names or big budget, which may or may not mean less strict censorship, but certainly means less utter risk-averseness due to a large amount of money needing to be recouped and to please psycho fandoms but also less laziness because a big star’s fandom would guarantee viewing numbers regardless of quality.

Two eps in, this story of a lady from a formerly glorious family and a young marshal, who once upon a time were childhood sweethearts, features competent actors (I especially adore the FL - the actress was also FL in Colourful Bone aka Mousie’s most underrated fave cdrama) and a plot that resembles the deliciousness of short dramas and makes no bones about it.

What an unexpected delight!

#cdrama #the last princess #zhang he #rain wang

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 2 years ago

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Well This Looks Pretty Damn Cool!

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At long last... NIMONA, visually in motion! And a concrete release date, too. June 30th. Same day as DreamWorks' RUBY GILLMAN, TEENAGE KRAKEN, which will be rolling in theaters. I wish we could this very gorgeous and dynamic-looking picture on the big screen too, but... Oh well...

Anyways, not much for me to say other than it looks every bit as cool as I imagined. Another CG-but-painted-looking movie, with some very smooth work and such a cool look. It looks way more like a classic 2D animated picture, or a really painterly indie game.

Arriving now, this picture was about 3/4 done in animation before the studio it originated from, Blue Sky Studios, was shut down by The Walt Disney Company's former CEO. I'd like to think a lot of what we're seeing here was laid down in 2020/early 2021, so in a way, it was doing some neat stuff before other neat stuff came out. Namely THE MITCHELLS VS. THE MACHINES, ARCANE: LEAGUE OF LEGENDS, and PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH. The picture was in the works for a while, too, under FEAST director Patrick Osborne at first (later taken over by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane, of SPIES IN DISGUISE), and I'd assume it was always aiming for this kind of look, pre-SPIDER-VERSE even.

It's also refreshing to see a big-time animated movie with more of a, shall I say... Mischievous bent to it? Not quite moral protagonist, for starters, and that's on full display here in the trailer... if the first-look images released in the lead-up to this trailer's release didn't already spell it out for you. That smile of hers just got more and more (delightfully) devilish with each new image. That's good, we need more variety in PG-level stories. Nothing wrong with protagonists who are a little bit on the bad side. Worked okay enough for DESPICABLE ME and MEGAMIND. From the graphic novel synopsis, it seems like it's going to be a very subversive take on good and evil, if the law is actually right or not (very timely, I'd say), etc. Maybe our leads aren't so bad after all, I've got some reading to do!

I still consider this to be a Blue Sky movie, their final film - partially... A bittersweet coda to their long existence. The movie was 75% done before the plug was pulled, and reports have said that the crew did NOT start from scratch after production resumed... and I'd imagine a lot of what was finished was kept in the movie despite some things I've heard it about being significantly retooled after Annapurna and Netflix picked it up. I'd imagine there were some things the directors and writing team could get away with there that they couldn't under Disney. There were reports from former Blue Sky crew members that Disney higher ups did push back on things in the movie. Keep in mind, Disney was going to release Pixar's LIGHTYEAR without the lesbian kiss - a barely second-long scene, until they faced pressure due to the former CEO's initial support of that wet-sandwich Florida governor's draconian anti-LGBTQIA+ nonsense. STRANGE WORLD, as we all know, was straight up dumped with very muted fanfare. NIMONA's poster curiously lists Robert L. Baird and Lloyd Taylor as the writers. Years prior, the movie was being written by Marc Haimes, a writer on Shannon Tindle's meditative Laika wonder KUBO & THE TWO STRINGS. (Just so you know, that picture was largely taken away from him.) Haimes is credited as "Story by", including a curiously large amount of people including the two screenwriters and the two directors, in addition to two other people: Pamela Ribon and Keith Bunin... That's... Quite a lot of writers on this one.

Either way, I'm excited nonetheless. Forward-thinking visuals, LGBTQIA+ representation, a seemingly new kind of story for this animated feature format, something a little edgier... Might just be "the one that got away" from Disney, may even cost them their usual Oscar win come this winter. I will consider this film to be Blue Sky's swan song, I hope they get some kind of mention in the credits...

Speaking of Disney... Not cool that they're flat-out removing movies and shows from Disney+, amidst a writer's strike, and some with LGBTQIA+ themes and content... Right before Pride Month. I don't understand why removing something they made and/or own from a service, and having it not be available anywhere else, helps anybody. Them, or the market... At the very least, they can put some of these movies, such as the Howard Ashman documentary HOWARD, on physical media. Nasty side effects of what David Zaslav did to Warner Bros.' library and all the content purges happening under his leadership there. Capitalism, how you don't make any sense...

Somewhere buried in all the Cannes Film Festival news is the selling of an animated feature called THE GROWCODILE, a little romp about a young girl hiding her ever-growing pet croc from her shoe store-owning father, and the adventure she goes on with her grandfather to give the animal a new home. It's based on a book, and will be directed by Cartoon Saloon veterans Joost Van Den Bosch and Erik Verkerk.

What else? Awkwafina has been cast in KUNG FU PANDA 4... Apparently. I'm not sure how reputable "The Hollywood Handle" is, a site I've barely ever heard of... but if she's onboard, I wonder who she will be voicing. She was, after all, in DreamWorks' own THE BAD GUYS as Ms. Tarantula. The villainous Chameleon is said to be a female character, so I wouldn't be surprised if she plays the main antagonist in this. From bad guy to really bad guy.

That's pretty much all the big animation news I can think of, but... Yeah... NIMONA, finally around the corner, and we finally get to see how it actually moves and plays out...

#Youtube

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